“Slàinte,” I said, clinking my glass against hers.
“All right, then,” she said. “How about you go back to the beginning?”
I didn’t know how far back she wanted me to go, so I started at the actual beginning, blurting out everything and barely pausing for breath. Everything, from how I felt nothing about my father’s death because he had been completely indifferent to my existence, to my mother starving me for years, to her plans for fixing my nose and scrambling my frontal lobe, to the suicide attempt that I was supposed to foil, to discovering that Hank and Ellis had tossed a coin to see who had to marry me and now had abandoned me completely, to my belief that Ellis wasn’t color-blind after all, to realizing I was crushingly in love with Angus, to my alarming experience at the bottom of the Water Gate, to sending a telegram to the lawyer asking how to go about getting a divorce, and, finally, to wandering into a minefield because, for whatever reason, the Big House held some kind of gravitational pull I couldn’t resist.
In the dead silence that followed, I realized what I’d done.
“Oh God,” I said, clapping my hands to my face.
“If you’re talking about Angus, it’s hardly a surprise,” Meg said. “I’ve seen how you look at him.”
I turned away, panting through steepled fingers.
“And I’ve seen how he looks at you, too,” she added quietly.
My heart either skipped a beat or took an extra one.
I lowered my hands and turned back around. She was staring straight into my eyes.
“Go back a wee bit. Tell me exactly what happened at the water’s edge.”
I told her again. “And then, just as I was about to hit the water, it was like a boulder of air exploded from the surface, knocking me backward. I know how crazy it sounds, but it’s the God’s honest truth, even though I can’t explain any of it.”
Meg nodded knowingly, solemnly. “Aye. But I can. It wasn’t the monster, Maddie. If it had been, it wouldn’t have pushed you away. It would have dragged you in.”
I shook my head. “But then what—”
“It was Màiri,” Meg said. “She died three years ago today, at that very place. She entered your head and your heart to see if you’d be true to Angus, and when she saw that you would be, she pushed you to safety. Maddie, she gave you her blessing.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
In the space of one day, I’d gone from thinking that no one in the world had ever loved me to thinking that the man I was hopelessly in love with might feel the same way about me. It was more than just that, though—the ghostly intervention gave me hope that we were meant to be together. After the Caonaig, I was no longer inclined to ignore such a message.
Meg wanted to return to work that night, just to lend a hand, but Angus was having none of it. I had to agree—she’d only just had her stitches out, and I still caught her wincing when she thought no one was looking. Still, I was sorry she wasn’t going to be there, because I felt in need of moral support.
A few minutes before six, when I took my place behind the bar, Angus came up beside me and laid a hand on mine. “I heard about your father. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” I said, looking up at him. “And I, for yours.”
He nodded slowly, and that was it. He knew I knew everything.
As the evening wore on, I watched Angus’s face, hoping for a sign that Meg’s words were true. But he was understandably preoccupied, his expression unreadable.
It was clear that the local men also remembered the anniversary, for they placed their orders solemnly and with diffidence. The only chatter was at the tables of lumberjacks, some of whom had brought their fiancées.
At one point, when I was sprinting into the kitchen with a stack of empty plates, I ran straight into Angus. He caught my elbows to steady me.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, in a pathetic attempt to sound casual. “Not sure about the front of my dress though.”
He stared down at me, his eyes intense and unblinking. For the longest time, neither one of us moved.
When he finally stepped around me and returned to the front room, I dropped the stack of plates onto the table and leaned against it.
—
When the front door opened and closed for the last time, and Meg had gone to bed, I crept down the stairs as quietly as a cat.
I had prepared myself like a bride, brushing my hair until it was soft, rubbing scented lotion into my hands and elbows, and donning a long white nightgown—modest, but with lace at the neck and on the ends of the sleeves.
The fire had been smoored, and cast but the faintest glow. The flagstone floor was cold beneath my feet, and I almost lost my nerve. I stood with both hands on the bar, gathering courage.
If I turned back, it would be like nothing had ever happened. If I kept going, I would be stepping into the great unknown.
Maddie, she gave you her blessing.
I slipped into the kitchen, and felt my way along the wall until I found one of the carved wooden doors that slid shut in front of his bed. In the darkness, I couldn’t tell if they were open or closed. I let my fingers crawl along the wood until I reached the far edge.
The doors were open. I was standing right in front of him.
I found myself in a beam of blinding light, and jumped backward. When Angus saw it was me, he leaned the flashlight against the wall so it was aimed at the ceiling instead, then swung his legs around. He was wearing blue striped pajama bottoms and an undershirt, just as he had on the night of our arrival.
“What’s going on? Is everything all right?” he said, rubbing his eyes.
“Everything’s fine,” I said, blinking quickly. The flashlight’s glare had left two white spots in the center of my vision.
“Then what is it?”
I dropped my gaze and bit my lip. After the better part of a minute, when the blind spots had mostly gone away, I forced myself to look up again. He was watching me with obvious concern.
“What is it, m’eudail?” he asked gently.
I steeled myself. “Angus, there’s something I want to…no, something I need to tell you. Something important.” I swallowed loudly and looked directly into his eyes. “I know the situation is unusual and that under any other circumstances none of this would make sense, but nothing about our circumstances is normal, and I’ve come to realize that…that there are…that I have…” I clapped my hands over my mouth to stifle a cry. “Oh God! I’m so sorry! I’ve never felt so stupid in all my life!”
In a flash, he was up and I was in his arms. “Hush, m’eudail, you don’t have to say a thing. I already know.”
“But how can you know if I can’t even manage to tell you?” I sobbed.
“Because I just do,” he said. His heart went thumpity-thumpity-thump, inches from my ear.
Eventually he pulled back, keeping his hands on my shoulders. He stared into my eyes, and held my gaze until there was nothing on earth but his face. When he put his hands on my cheeks and leaned toward me, my legs almost abandoned me. I closed my eyes and let my lips part.
He kissed my forehead.
“M’eudail, you’re grieving,” he said quietly. “You’re vulnerable. This is not the time for such things.”