She studied me, and just when I thought she wasn’t going to talk about it, she said, “The McFees are an old family in the village. Though they no longer live here. They are dead or moved away, some farther than others.”
“Barley has more relatives in the area.”
“Not many, but you met one,” Maggie said. “You were there when I walloped him with my grocery sack. I don’t like young men running. It’s not proper, and I did my best to show him that.”
“Mick McFee?” I asked.
She nodded. “I was trying to teach him some etiquette.”
I thought I would pay attention to Maggie’s etiquette lessons too if I was knocked on the head four or five times with a grocery bag. Again, Mick had been lucky the sack was empty. If Maggie had been going the other way, it would not have been.
“Mick seemed to have been very upset with Barley. It seemed that Mick thought Barley owed him something.”
“He may have,” Maggie said. “But Mick is the type of lad who always believes someone owes him something. The family was as poor as church mice. I suppose when Barley was so successful, Mick felt that Barley should help the family.”
“Did he?”
She shrugged. “Not that I ever heard.”
Gertrude seemed to have recovered from the insult from before, and she leaned forward. “What made Barley leave Bellewick and never come back until this concert? It’s a question he received often in interviews but never seemed to answer.”
“Oh,” Maggie said. “That’s an easy answer. His band with Ian MacCallister broke up.”
A piece of cucumber got caught in my throat. One of the women, the silver-haired one, I thought, shoved a teacup into my hand. “Here. Drink!”
I did as I was ordered and sputtered as I forced the cucumber down. It felt like the inside of my throat was raw.
“Are you all right?” one of the women at the table asked.
I pressed a hand to my cheek. I was hot from embarrassment and nearly dying. It wasn’t a great combo.
Presha set a glass of water in front of me and patted my back.
I smiled at her and coughed. Then I looked back at Maggie. “Did you say that my godfather was in a band?”
“Aye, he was. He and Barley were in it together. They started the band as boys when they were in boarding school with another boy they met there.”
I folded my hands in front of me so tightly that the knuckles turned white. “Do you know the name of the other boy?”
She tapped her cheek with her index finger as she thought. “I do. He was a close friend of Ian more than Barley. I always thought there was some jealousy there between Barley and the third boy.” She snapped her fingers. “I have it. His name was Stephen. I don’t remember his last name, I’m afraid.”
I felt an instant headache between my eyes. She didn’t need to tell me the third boy’s surname because I already knew it. It was Knox, just like mine. My father had been in a band with Uncle Ian and Barley McFee? It was a little too much to process. Dad had never shown any interest in music. Even when I was engaged to Ethan, a struggling musician in Nashville, Dad had never mentioned that he had been a musician himself. What could have happened that he would keep this secret the rest of his life? What could have happened that Mom would keep the secret too? She had to have known, right? She’d met my godfather and father at university.
Presha squeezed my shoulder. Of anyone in the tea shop, she was the most astute, and would know why this information came as a great surprise.
“Why did the band break up?” Gertrude asked.
I was grateful that she asked the question. It was one I wanted an answer to too, but my mind was spinning far too much to ask.
I picked up my teacup from the table and sipped from it. The spicy chai was just what I needed to wake up my senses. I needed to focus. I felt like I was on the cusp of learning something important. The teacup was a beautiful, delicate piece with orange and purple chrysanthemums painted around the rim.
“From what I hear, it was over a girl.”
I dropped the teacup on the table. It shattered into a thousand tiny shards, and hot chai splashed across the linen tablecloth and onto my shirt.
Chapter Thirty-One
The ladies jumped back from the table. I stood up too. “I’m so sorry.” I glanced back at Presha. “I’m so sorry about the teacup. I will happily pay for it, and that tablecloth too, if it’s stained.”
Presha handed me a damp cloth. “For your shirt.”
I took the cloth and dabbed at my clothes. “I hope you ladies are all okay.”
“Everyone is fine, Fiona,” Presha said in a calming voice.
With the help of the other women, she quickly cleared the food and moved it to another table. “Here, sit here. I can clean up that mess,” Presha said.
“I can,” I said. “It’s my fault.”
She placed a hand on my shoulder. “No, Fiona, you need to talk to the ladies.”
Maggie and her friends settled at the new table. I was happy to see that none of the scones had been drenched with my tea.
“My, you gave us a start,” Gertrude said. “I nearly jumped right out of my skin.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t believe I was so clumsy,” I said, even though I knew clumsiness had nothing to do with it. It was shock, plain and simple, that had caused me to drop the teacup. I was shocked because I knew the girl Maggie mentioned had to be my mother. She was the only girl who had ever been in Uncle Ian’s and my father’s life. If the band broke up over my mother, had it in a way actually broken up over me? I didn’t know how to ask Maggie this without revealing too much about my own story, a story I didn’t really know.
“Who was the girl?” the silver-haired woman asked.
Maggie shook her head. “I don’t know. It was someone they met at university.”
Maggie’s statement was just more confirmation that it was my mother who’d broken up the band. I was relieved that Maggie didn’t seem to know my connection to her or the band, though.
I stood up. I had a lot to think about after this birthday party, and I had a few more questions for my parents. I wondered what other secrets they were keeping from Isla and me. I also wondered why they didn’t tell us. What was their goal? Did they even have one?
“Thank you for inviting me to join your party,” I said. “But I really must go. My sister will be wondering why it is taking me so long to deliver the flowers.” I looked to Presha. “And I am sorry about the mess.”
She waved the end of her bright scarf at me. “Forget it, my friend.”
“Happy birthday, Maggie,” I said, as I inched toward the door. I had to get out of there and go over in my head everything I had learned about Barley, my parents, and in a strange way, myself.
Maggie nodded at me. “If you want to find Mick McFee, go no farther than the harbor.”
I stopped at the front door of the tea shop with my hand on the handle. “He said he doesn’t live in Bellewick.”
She pointed her teaspoon at me. “He might not live here, but he still works here every day of the week except for Sundays, as they are the Lord’s day and no one should be working on those days.”
“He works at the harbor?” I asked.
“The shipyard,” Gertrude answered for Maggie. “That’s where my husband worked, too, until he retired. It’s hard, backbreaking work.”
I could imagine that it was.
When I stepped out of Presha’s Teas, I was torn. Did I go to Thistle House to talk to my parents? To the harbor to look for Mick McFee? Or back to the Climbing Rose, so my sister didn’t throw a fit about me being away so long?
I started walking. I really didn’t have a choice. I had to ask the questions that were most on my heart. As I hurried to Thistle House, I texted Isla that I had been caught up with something and would be back to the flower shop just as soon as I could. She texted back a string of annoyed emojis. I knew she would be fine, especially if Seth was there. But that did
n’t stop me from feeling guilty.
The Thistle House garden was quiet. An English robin sat on a limb and twittered, and a rabbit nibbled on the grass. There wasn’t a person about. I didn’t know my parents’ plans for the day, so it was very likely they were out sight-seeing again. My father had mentioned that he wanted to go to Aberdeen to walk around the old part of the city.
“You made a mistake, and like always, it’s left up to me to fix it,” an angry voice said from the front of the house.
“I’m not asking you to fix anything. I’m asking you to ignore what happened. It’s all any of us can do,” another, much calmer voice said.
I crept along the side of the stone building. I couldn’t help myself. My inner nosiness and need to know always seemed to have the upper hand with me.
However, when I came around to the front of Thistle House, no one was there. I walked back and forth in the yard. I even looked up in the large ash tree that stood in front of the guesthouse. There was no one. Whoever had been speaking appeared to have vanished into thin air.
“What are you doing back here? Are you following me?”
I pulled my eyes away from the tree and saw Kenda standing in the doorway of Thistle House with her hands on her hips.
“I—I, no, I was looking for my parents, actually.”
She leaned on the doorframe. “You mean your father, the killer.”
“He didn’t kill anyone,” I said, as calmly as possible.
“I don’t know how you are going to prove that,” she said.
I didn’t know either.
“Your mom and dad aren’t here,” she said. “I heard them tell Eugenia they were headed to the pub.”
I took a step back. The pub—great, that was just by the Climbing Rose. I would talk to them about everything there. I didn’t really want to have this conversation with my parents in a public place like the Twisted Fox, but if this was the only way I could have the conversation, I was going to do it.
I started to walk away.
“Hey,” Kenda called after me.
I turned around.
“Do you think I did it?” Her voice wavered.
I shook my head no.
“Do you think your father did it?”
Again, I shook my head no.
“Then who?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” I said, and walked away.
Back in the main part of the village, I hurried down along the cobblestones, reciting in my head over and over again the script I had rehearsed in order to convince my parents to tell me what was going on. Each time in my head, they refused to talk.
As luck would have it, as I was within a few yards of the pub’s front door, my parents walked out arm in arm. They chatted and smiled at each other. To me, they had always been in love, so much so that at times Isla and I had been left to our own devices because our parents were so concerned with each other.
It was startling, after a lifetime of believing that, to think it might not always have been the case.
Dad looked up first and saw me standing in the middle of the street. He stopped and caught my mother’s attention. She stopped as well.
My mother said something to Dad and kissed him on the cheek. He nodded and went back inside the pub, while Mom walked toward me.
“Let’s go for a walk, Fiona,” she said.
I nodded and led her down the street in the direction of St. Thomas Church. There was a bench just outside the church gate. From there I could see most of the graveyard, with its moss-covered Celtic crosses and centuries-old English oak trees. To my left, I could see the village school where Seth had worked as a janitor until his sudden change in career this past week. It was a new, modern building that stuck out in Bellewick, with lots of sharp angles and glass.
I sat, and my mother sat next to me. We sat there quietly for a few minutes. I wondered if my mother knew that Uncle Ian was buried in the graveyard beside us. I decided not to mention it.
“When your father and I decided to come to Scotland, I had thought it was to convince Isla to move back home. I had been getting the feeling that she was considering staying here permanently. I know you are both adults, but I hate the idea of both of my girls so far away.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but she went on before I could. “However,” Mom said, “I realized that we really came because I needed to have this conversation with you about Ian and your father.”
“Just tell me what happened. Please,” I whispered.
She sighed and folded her hands in her lap. “I have always loved your father, from the moment I first met him while I was spending that year studying abroad at St. Andrews. We fell in love right away, and were inseparable. You don’t know this, but your father and Ian were in a band.”
“I know,” I said. “With Barley McFee.”
“How?” She shook her head. “Never mind, you always seem to be able to get the facts.”
I almost laughed. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. I’d had no idea Ethan was cheating on me with our wedding cake decorator or that my father wasn’t my biological father, so me being able to “get the facts” was as far from the truth as possible.
“It wasn’t long before I was set to return home to Tennessee. I wanted your father to come with me, or at least move to Nashville when he finished school. He was torn. He wanted to, but the band was doing so well that they were on the brink of a record deal. If he left, that would all fall apart. I was young and a bit of a wild card—I know Isla gets that from me—and I broke up with your father. I had no interest in a long-distance relationship.”
She sighed. “I had always known that Ian also had a crush on me, but I never gave it much thought. He was a popular guy on campus, with many girlfriends. He never seemed to be in need of a date.” She shook her head. “One night I cried on his shoulder over your father.” She paused.
I held up my hand. “You don’t need to paint the picture; I can guess what happened next.”
She nodded. “We were young and stupid and made one mistake.” She shook her head. “The next day, your father came back to me. He said he’d changed his mind, that I was more important than the band and he would come to Nashville with me.” She closed her eyes. “Even though I didn’t know it yet, by that time I was pregnant with you. When the truth came to light weeks later, it was awful. As you can imagine, your father was devastated. Ian and I were horrified with what we had done. We both loved your father and didn’t want to hurt him.”
I bristled.
She took my hand, and I let her. “I never once considered not having you. I planned to go home alone and raise you on the farm myself. Even though it didn’t happen the way I would have liked, I was so happy I’d be a mother. It’s something I had always wanted.”
I nodded for her to go on.
“After many nights of arguments and tears, Stephen finally accepted our apology and took me back. He loved me, and I loved him. What had happened was undeniable proof that nothing could change that.”
“So Uncle Ian just pretended that I wasn’t his child,” I murmured.
She moved a strand of hair behind my ear, just as she had when I was a little girl. “Ian loved you. As far as I know, you were the only person he ever really loved. But at that time, he wasn’t in the place to be a dad. He was going off to the army. It was something he’d been thinking about for a long time. He’d postponed it because of the band, but since the band was breaking up anyway with Stephen moving to the U.S., he decided to go. He asked Stephen to take you as his own daughter; he begged for it. He didn’t want you to agonize over having a father at war.”
I tried to process everything she was telling me. “So you were never going to tell me.”
She shook her head. “We wanted to. We planned to. Time just got away from us.” She gripped my hand. “I know we didn’t handle our decision well with you. It’s something we should have sat down and told you many years ago. Your father and I had a plan to tell
you when you were eleven. We thought by then it would be information you could handle.” She took a breath. “But then eleven became thirteen, then eighteen, then never. It seemed the longer and longer we put it off, the harder and harder it would be to tell you. We knew you would be upset. Ian wanted to tell you as you grew older. I think he was impatient at times, but he respected our wishes. I believe he thought he had to because it was his idea to tell you that you were Stephen’s daughter in the first place.”
I didn’t know what to say. The face that came to mind was Isla’s. How was I—were they—going to tell Isla all of this? She had been lied to, too.
Mom removed a handkerchief from her pocket. My mother was a true southern farmer’s wife and always carried such a thing in her pocket, even if she was helping in the fields or milking the cows. “You have a little smudge on your cheek.”
She wiped off the smudge, and I wanted to pull away from her. I forced myself to remain still. I knew it would hurt her if I pulled back. Even though I was hurt, I didn’t want to hurt her in return. It would solve nothing and close off any way to resolution.
She dropped her hand and shook her head as if she was dissatisfied with how well she was able to clean my face. “Ian warned us that you would find out someday because of the garden and your connection to it.”
The dead garden now.
“Where does Barley McFee fit into all of this?” I asked.
“Barley never forgave the three of us for what happened. He thought the band was destined for great things, and the situation we were in ruined it. Of the three of them in the band, he was the most ambitious. He wanted it the most. He would let nothing get in his way to reach his dreams. Because Stephen went to America and Ian went into the army, the record deal the band was on the cusp of signing fell apart. Barley was furious.”
“He’s the most famous fiddler in the world,” I said. “And he was still angry about it?”
She shrugged. “Perhaps if Ian and your father had stayed in the band, Barley would have become famous much more quickly. All I know is, Ian and your father never heard from him again. He broke all contact. Of course we heard when he hit the big time, but so much time had passed that your father decided not to reach out to him. He didn’t want it to seem that he wanted to talk to Barley now simply because Barley was famous.”
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