“I did,” Stuart says, entering the kitchen. “Could we please stop wrestling and sit down like adults?”
“No,” Ross and I say at the same time. I catch him in a headlock and bear him towards the ground.
“Five quid on Angus.”
“You traitor.” Ross glares at Mason. “What kind of a twin are you?”
“The kind who wants to win five quid.”
“You should go after her.” Ross has given up fighting, and is resting limp in my arms, both of us sprawled on the kitchen floor.
I’m out of breath from the tussle, and lean my head back on the cool, wooden counter door. My heart is beating too fast. My head is whirling.
I shut my eyes. “No.”
“Why not?”
“I know you’ve got Lucy, but… It’s not the same for the rest of us, Ross. Rowan and I. We were never going to work out.”
Ross gently disentangles himself. Somehow he’s still holding the bottle of wine, and he waves it at Mason, who takes it andpops the cork. “Maybe. But you don’t know that. Everyone isn’t Ma, Angus. They don’t always leave.”
I shoot him a look. “Since when did you start spouting that shit?”
“Surprisingly emotionally well-rounded, remember? Also, Lucy wouldn’t marry me until I sorted myself out. So I saw a counsellor for a while. It… helped.”
“Huh.”
I would never have expected it would be my nightmare little brother giving me this kind of advice. Stuart or Jonathan, yes. Even Mason. But Ross? Ross has always been the joker. The trickster. The smart-mouth. Never one for the emotions.
“Go after her, don’t go after her. It’s up to you. But don’t do it because you’ve already decided the outcome. Don’t do it because you’re scared.”
“I’m not scared,” I say automatically.
“Yeah, you are. And that’s okay.” Ross gives me one of his most mischievous grins. “You know what will help with that?”
“What?”
He throws a piece of cake into my face.
* * *
We buried him at the edge of the property, on a small rise far from the road. Thick grass has grown over the mound in the last four years, and a sheet of bluebells wave their drooping heads at me as I approach. This early, mist is still thick on the moorland, and the hills are barely visible: purple shrugging shapes, like the shoulders of fallen giants.
I rose before the sun, leaving the others to sleep off their hangovers in peace.
Today, of all days, I want to be alone.
“Hi, Da.” I kneel in front of the stone and lay the small bunch of daffodils I’ve cut from the garden beside me. His favourites. He always said they reminded him of Ma.
I was there when he passed. Shrunken in the hospital bed, surrounded by machines and tubes. Her name the last thing he said. Even twenty years after she left, she was the first thing on his mind. His final breath.
I miss him. I miss him every day, even if I can’t admit it to anyone, even if I can’t say it out loud, even if I hate him, even if I wish I could scream at him for being so bloody blindly in love with a woman who didn’t want him that he couldn’t see that the people who needed him were still right there. I loathe him and I long for him and I left him, and no matter what Stuart says I can’t forgive myself for that.
Every year we walked the West Highland Way. Second week of May. Like clockwork. Until I left him. And when I came back, it was too late. He was too unwell. And the second week of May passed, and then two days later, so did he.
Four years ago today.
“I’m trying, Da. I promise I’m trying to keep it together, to keep it going, but you’re not here anymore and it’s hard.” I look at the farm buildings in the distance, softly lit by the dawn. “I don’t know what you’d make of it. What we’ve done. I like to think you’d be proud, but…”
