Her father kneeling beside her bed, rubbing at tired eyes.
“Grandma’s coming to stay for a bit, sweetheart. I’ve got to go help Mom at work.”
Help her at work.
That’s all he’d said.
She remembered hugging him goodbye.
She remembered the way he squeezed her too tightly, like he was afraid she’d slip away.
She remembered her grandmother arriving with too many groceries and too much gentleness.
And then, days later, her father walking through the front door again, face gray and hollow.
Sitting beside her on the couch.
Taking her small hands between his.
“Mommy’s been in an accident, sweetheart.”
Heather blinked hard, the memory settling—quiet, heavy, unbearably clear.
She whispered, “He went to Scotland.”
Flynn’s hand brushed her back, steady and warm. “Aye, love. Looks like he did.”
Heather pressed her fingers to her mouth, breath hitching. “I didn’t… I didn’t remember any of that until now.”
Eleanor’s expression softened. “He didna want you to carry any of it. Not the fear. Not the wait. Not the truth of whathappened at the loch. He thought sparin’ you would spare him too, I think.”
Heather let out a shaky, stunned laugh. “God. All this time I thought he didn’t care. That he just drank himself into forgetting.”
Eleanor shook her head gently. “No, lass. He drank to remember her without breaking.”
Her voice trembled—not melodramatic, just old-sorrow worn thin. “When I found out she’d gone, when they called about the loch… I phoned him. He arrived the next day. I’ve never seen a man break like that. He blamed himself. Blamed me more. Maybe he should’ve.”
Heather stilled.
Eleanor continued, voice soft as ash, “He begged me not to tell you the truth. Said you deserved to remember her as you knew her, not as the woman who couldn’t stay away from a myth.”
Her eyes lifted to Heather’s, raw. “And I agreed with him. I was wrong.”
Heather blinked hard. “He loved her that much?”
“Aye,” Eleanor whispered. “And losing her ruined him. You were the only thing that kept him tethered… until even that wasn’t enough. I used to call and check in over the years… to see how you both were holding up. I owed it to Eilidh. To you. To your Da. But once the liquor took hold of him… it was damn near impossible to get him to speak to me.”
Heather’s chest cracked at the admission.
The version of him she remembered, the hollowed one, wasn’t the whole story.
Flynn’s hand brushed her back, grounding her in the present and not the ghosts of the past.
Heather swallowed. “Why did she leave? Why didn’t she take us? Why didn’t she stay?” she whispered.
Eleanor pressed her lips together. “Because she thought she could come back with the truth. She believed the treasure belonged to Scotland… and that she was the only one who could keep it safe. But she didn’t tell him that part.”
The older woman wiped her eyes. “He thought she left them both. Husband and child. And by the time I told him otherwise… it was too late.”
