‘Sweetpea, youcando this. You can leave Chicago, and you can leave me. I’ll be fine.’
‘Yeah? Then why are you sitting alone in a pub, crying?’
‘I’m not crying. I have something in my eye.’
‘Both of them?’
She manages a weak smile, all for my benefit. I’m floored with love for this girl, for the woman she has grown into. So strong, so intelligent, so kind. Willing to give up her dream just to make sure her old man is okay. I admire her selflessness, but I will not accept this sacrifice – it’s time to find some courage of my own. It’s time to stop hiding behind her, to stop hiding behind the memories of what once was, and step back into the world as it is.
‘I have a plan, though,’ I tell her, improvising. Maybe finding that card was a little nudge from fate after all. Looking at Shannon’s distress, maybe it found exactly the right person, atexactly the right time. ‘I’m not even going back to the States myself.’
She frowns at me, confused. ‘What do you mean? You’re staying here?’
‘Not Oxford, no. But in the UK, yeah. Someone bought me this book, you see?Hiking in the Highlands. And it looked so good, I decided to head up there and see for myself. I have friends in Scotland.’
‘Wait? What? You have friends?’
‘Yeah. Friends. Is that so hard to believe?’
‘No, idiot! I know you have friends… it’s just that they all live in cop bars in Chicago and never leave Illinois. You’ve never mentioned anyone in Scotland…’
She’s staring at me suspiciously, her blue eyes probing me for any weak spots. I need to bring my A-game if I’m going to pull this off.
‘Hate to break it to you, baby, but I don’t tell you everything. Besides, they’re, uh, pretty new friends.’
So new I don’t even know their names.
Her head is tilted to one side, still disbelieving. I take her hands in mine, and smile. ‘This is hard, for both of us, but it’s time, Shannon. It’s time. I really am heading up to Scotland, I promise you. I’m not just going to skulk back to Chicago and cry myself to sleep every night. I’m going to take this little vacation, see a bit of the place – seems a shame to have flown all these thousands of miles and not go to Bonnie Bay.’
‘Bonnie Bay?’ she echoes, like she’s trying it on for size. ‘That doesn’t even sound real, never mind a place where you have friends! How did you meet them anyhow?’
‘The usual way. In a pub. And guess what? They run a bookstore. I hear it’s real cosy!’
Technically, I am not lying – I did meet them in a pub – but I can see her mind isn’t yet quite at rest. I pick up my phone, showher the screen I had open earlier – the one that shows a series of images of this random place in Scotland, which is presumably full of crazy-ass people who invite strangers to visit.
She smiles as she looks at the photos, admiring the one she finds of the store, then moving on to look at the seabirds the area seems famous for. Her face breaks into a full grin.
‘Puffins, Dad! You love puffins! Is this a birding thing? That makes more sense to me than you having friends who run a bookstore!’
‘Yeah, honey. You know how I’ve got into it recently. I was invited to stay up there for a while, and thought what the heck.’
She nods and carries on browsing. ‘It looks beautiful, Dad. Real beautiful. Maybe you could come back here for a few days before you fly back to Chicago? Tell me all about it? And send pictures! Lots and lots of pictures – I want to see the puffins, and the store, and your friends. Promise?’
I had planned to simply head home without telling her, leave her thinking I was away on some magical mystery tour, or stumbling slowly through the Highlands. But she looks so excited that my plan suddenly seems lame, and also a little cruel.
It might be insane, but what if I tried it? What if I turned this fiction into fact? I really would like to see the puffins, and it would make her happy.
Damn. What the hell am I doing? This has all been too fast. I’ve barely had time to think about it, never mind figure out what kind of lunatic bookstore owners pull a stunt like this. I’m not normally a guy who makes rash decisions, but something about the hope shining in Shannon’s eyes breaks me.
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘I promise, baby.’
THREE
KATE
I stare out of the window, watching the world fly by as the train moves through the landscape – a weird mix of coastline, countryside, and the boxy buildings you always seem to see on the way in and out of towns. The weather is just as mixed, a strange day that is blending brilliant sunshine and sudden torrential showers.
This has been a long journey, and to start with I enjoyed it. Now, though, I’m itching to get off and have solid ground beneath my feet again.
