“Oh, I have enough service here to pull up a Google page.”
Nora spun in her seat and watched him tap away at his phone.
“What was your grandfather’s name?” he asked, looking up at her, his eyes reflecting the light of the phone in them.
“Dr. Donald Cameron.”
He read silently for a long while, and Nora found herself holding her breath. He went back to tapping away, and Nora stood up and began pacing the room, her heart racing faster with each passing minute. She was trying to quell her anxiety but it was threatening to overtake her with a full-blown panic attack. What if it were true, and her dad had a completely different father than he thought? She was sure he didn’t know, and the task of telling him would certainly fall on her. The idea of it made her sick. She wasn’t sure she could do that to him along with telling them about the bakery.
Nora walked over to the window to gaze out into the murky darkness. The storm had intensified, and the sound of tiny ice pellets hitting the windows echoed back into the room. Turning away from the tempest and back to her own internal turmoil, she made her way into the kitchen to search for any wine left behind by previous renters, but she came up empty.
“Got something,” Alistair finally said, walking over to one of the barstools. “I found this in an old archive from the hospital. Donald H. Cameron was stationed as a surgeon at the Craigleith Military Hospital on January 28, 1944. He was transferred to St. Thomas’ Hospital on February 8, 1944. He was stationed there until he was relieved on June 18, 1944.”
Nora stopped pacing, her face turning pale as she took in what Alistair was saying. Her grandfather had not been stationed at Craigleith Military Hospital with her grandmother. She had already left for London before he had even stepped foot in the facility.
“Can you see if his name is associated with the code breakers at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire?” Nora asked, her palms getting sweaty.
This time it only took but a minute for him to answer. “No, there was no record of him there according to the National Archives.”
“Try the name Colin MacDonald,” Nora said, beginning to pace again, knowing what came out of his mouth would solidify what she had been thinking this whole time.
“Yes, listen to this. ‘Corporal Colin MacDonald played an intricate role in helping decode a series of messages in January 1944 that contained precise information about German defenses, troop movements, and probable allied invasion targets. This information was critical in confirming the Allies’ fears about the impending invasion and shaping the strategy for Operation Overlord.’” He paused for a moment before going on.
“‘The deciphered messages, along with other intelligence sources, influenced the decision to begin the invasion from Normandy’s beaches on June 6, 1944. The success of D-Day constituted a watershed moment in the war, paving the path for WesternEurope’s liberation from German rule.’ Sounds like he was a badass,” Alistair said, setting down his phone.
Nora’s chest felt like it was being squeezed so tightly that she couldn’t take a breath, and her head was beginning to throb. It was true. All the stories had been about Colin MacDonald.
“Are you okay?” he asked as she paced for the tenth time in the past three minutes. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
Nora stopped and looked at him. Maybe she needed to talk this out. Maybe Alistair could help her make sense of the jumbled mess in her head. She walked over and sat on the couch, and her foot began incessantly tapping the floor as her nervousness continued to grow. She took in a long, slow breath before she began.
“My grandmother told me bedtime stories from the pictures in this album all through my childhood. I loved them and the way she would light up when she told them to me. But now I think all those years ago, she was trying to give me clues to a secret she had held onto her whole life,” she said, the realization dawning on her as she spoke.
“She had been telling me the true story the whole time, except it wasn’t until just now that I finally figured it out. All the stories about my grandfather were actually about Colin MacDonald, not Donald Cameron. She knew who my dad’s true father really was and kept it secret, leaving behind little breadcrumbs for me to follow all these years. That’s why she had been so desperate for me to travel to Scotland. She must have figured that those breadcrumbs would eventually lead me to the truth,” Nora said, tears filling her eyes as she realized she had been her grandmother’s sole confidant.
“I can understand trying to keep the pregnancy a secret. Children out of wedlock during those times were looked downon, but why not leave the breadcrumbs for your dad to follow?”
“I don’t know, but she must have had a reason,” she said as the tears broke free to stream down her cheeks and onto her lap, speckling her jeans.
For a moment Alistair just stood still, and it seemed he was unsure of what to do or say. Then he got up, walked to his suitcase resting next to the door, and unzipped the front pocket, pulling out a bottle of whisky.
“I realize drinking won’t solve your problems or wash them away, but I do think it helps cut the edge,” he said, uncapping the bottle and taking a swig before handing it over to Nora. She cracked a smile as the tears continued to slide down her red cheeks as she grabbed the bottle and took a sip, feeling the whisky’s warmth run down her throat and fill her belly. The sensation calmed her and dispelled the tightening in her chest that had threatened to consume her just moments before.
“That’s heavy. Are you sure your father doesn’t know?”
“I’m sure. He jokes all the time about how he got his ears from his dad, and just last month, he went in to have his carotid artery checked to make sure he didn’t have any aneurysms forming. He’s done that for years because his father had a genetic condition that had to be monitored his entire adult life. There is no way he knows.”
Just saying those words made the tightness in her chest come rushing back. Her dad was turning seventy-three years old this year. Did she really want to break the news to him at that age? Reveal that the man he thought his whole life to be his father wasn’t? She didn’t know if she could do that to him.
“I honestly don’t know what to think right now,” Nora confessed as she picked up the photo album, opening it to the picture of her grandmother and Colin MacDonald. She studied it closely, looking at every tiny detail. She saw it then: the spark they both shared in their eyes, his fingers brushing up next to hers, the affectionate way they leaned into each other. She saw what had been hidden in plain sight all those times before—the essence of love enveloping them.
Chapter Thirty
Amber Spirits
The day quickly slipped into evening as they talked, the whisky warming their bellies and loosening any semblance of tension they once had between them. The storm had faded into nothing more than a few light flurries that danced in the air outside the large windows that faced the loch as the sun dipped beyond the horizon.
“Did you grow up in Edinburgh?” Nora asked as she took another swig from the bottle before handing it back to Alistair.
