“For the time being. Don’t hold your breath.”
She ignored Muriel’s knowing look and seated herself at the counter with her lump of salt dough. For the next hour she concentrated on making little animals and letters—Max already knew most of his alphabet—putting thoughts of the frustrating hotel manager behind her.
“So, Em,” Muriel said, “first day at your new school tomorrow. How are you feeling about it?”
“Nervous,” Em said. “My Gaelic is really bad. What if I can’t understand anything?”
“Your Gaelic is not that bad,” Serena said. “Besides, all the teachers speak English. The students too.”
Em nodded, but the way she smashed the misshapen figure she’d been sculpting told a different story. A thread of doubt crept into Serena. Was this really the best thing? Maybe she should have homeschooled Em for the rest of the year. It was a big enough adjustment to come for the last term without the instruction being in a language in which Em wasn’t even close to fluent. She probably should have gone into the English Medium course, after all.
“You’ll be fine,” Muriel said firmly, catching Serena’s eye. “Your mum wouldn’t have put you in that class if she didn’t think you were more than capable of excelling there.” She nudged the girl with a conspiratorial look. “Besides, both your mum and I speak Gaelic, and despite his protests to the contrary, so does your uncle Jamie.”
Em perked up. “I know. He taught me loads of insults when I told him my schoolmates were being mean.”
Muriel struggled to look stern, and Serena smothered a snicker before saying, “Well, perhaps you should keep those to yourself, cupcake. These schoolmates will understand them. Though you could see if your teachers would count it as extra credit.”
Em narrowed her eyes suspiciously, then let out a giggle. “I’ll tell them it was all my mum’s idea.”
“That’s the spirit.” Serena put her arms around Em and gave her a squeeze. “You’ll do great, love. Promise. Just be patient with yourself.”
Despite her brave words, Serena didn’t sleep much that night, tossing and turning in the room she shared with Max. And for once, it had nothing to do with her son, who didn’t stir the entire night. The quiet gave her too much time to think—about the new school, about being on Skye, about how far they’d deviated from the life she thought she was supposed to give her children. For that matter, her own life didn’t much resemble her naive plans.
“Stop your whinging,” Serena whispered to herself in the dark.
She had no cause for complaint. She had a beautiful house and healthy, intelligent children. She might not have a career, but she had something to keep her occupied, at least for the time being. She’d already learned how hollow the “loving husband” part of the dream could be. Maybe the reason she’d had no luck dating since Edward’s death was simply because she couldn’t imagine ever falling in love again. And that was fine. She might not have wanted Em and Max to grow up without a father, but she’d come to realize it didn’t have to be all bad.
The next morning, despite her bleary-eyed state, Serena put on a cheerful face when Em entered the dining room. “Special first-day-of-school breakfast. Tea, scones, oatcakes, scrambled eggs, and sausage.”
“Is this all for me and Max?” Em asked, wide-eyed.
“For the four of us, yes. It’s a special day.” Serena knew she was overdoing it, but baking settled her nerves, and today they felt especially raw.
Muriel entered the dining room, already dressed, and favored her with a knowing smile. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“Thought I’d get a start on the week’s baking,” Serena said, though there was no fooling her aunt.
Once they had made a good dent in the breakfast spread, Muriel volunteered to clear away the dishes and wrap up the leftovers so Serena could supervise the process of getting Em and Max dressed. Serena managed not to break down while Em put on her new school uniform—navy trousers and a light-blue polo embroidered with the school crest—but she had to swipe at her eyes when Max wanted to wear dark jeans and his blue sweater so he could be just like his sister.
“Mum? Are you all right?” Em stared at her as if she were a complete stranger.
“Sorry, sorry.” Serena dabbed at her eyes. “I cried when I sent you to school, Em, but it’s doubly difficult now that Max is going.”
Max climbed into her lap and put his hands on either side of her face. “It’s okay, Mummy. Do you want to keep my giraffe while I’m gone?”
Serena chuckled and kissed her son’s nose. “That is the sweetest offer I’ve ever heard, but I know for a fact that Mr. Spots would be very disappointed not to go to nursery school.” She pulled him close and gave him a hug, then tugged Em over to do the same. “You are the best kids anyone could ask for, you know that?”
Max squirmed out of her grip, but Em looked her in the eye and said seriously, “We’ll be okay, Mum. Don’t worry.”
“All right. If you say so.” She planted kisses on the tops of their heads and then straightened. “Let’s grab your rucksacks and get going. Don’t want to be late on the first day, do we?”
Maybe she should get emotional more often, Serena thought as she bundled them through the frigid air to the car. Em and Max were so determined to prove that she had no reason to be sad that they seemed to forget their own nerves. That is until they turned off the highway to Sleat’s tiny primary school.
“You know, this is where I went to school,” Serena said brightly as she found a parking spot. “And I loved it. I think it’s cool that you get to come here too.”
Em looked unconvinced, so Serena took both children by the hand and walked with them toward the entrance. Several buildings lay nestled in the gently sloping countryside, their walls whitewashed in the traditional Skye manner below steeply slanted gray roofs. Just beyond lay the pitch, struggling into green through the puddles of water from the past week’s incessant rain, and a thick swath of woods separated the schoolyard from the sound beyond. Em’s doubtful look highlighted just how far removed it was from the Victorian brownstone of Highlands Academy, with its manicured gardens.
“Relax,” Serena whispered to her outside the school doors, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “This is going to be a wonderful adventure.” And it would be. She was certain of that. But the conviction didn’t change the wobble in her stomach as she left her children in the capable hands of the primary school’s teachers and drove back to her aunt’s house. Muriel had gone to Broadford to do the grocery shopping, so Serena rattled around the house, doing laundry and dusting already-pristine surfaces. She was so desperate for a distraction that she actually considered going down to the hotel to check in with Malcolm. In the end she settled for finalizing the brochure design and creating a calendar for her social media posts.
When Muriel finally returned, Serena jumped up from the dining room table. “May I help with the groceries?”
“Serena Marie, you’re not sitting here fretting over the children, are you?”
“Of course not,” Serena said. “Stewing would be a more accurate description.” She took the bags from Muriel with a sheepish smile and carried them to the kitchen. Wasn’t it a mother’s prerogative to worry about her kids on the first day at a new school?
She needn’t have worried about Max, though. When she met him at the school doors at the end of the morning session, he ran to her, beaming.
“Did you have fun, monkey?”
“Mmm-hmm. I’m hungry.”
Serena lifted him onto her hip and gave him a tight hug. Clearly he was more than ready for school. And with any luck, she had been worrying about Em for nothing.
“I don’t want to talk about it! Why did you make me come to this dumb school?”
Em slammed the car door and raced up the drive to Muriel’s path while Serena looked on, stricken.
“I still like school, Mummy,” came Max’s voice from the backseat. Serena sighed and leaned her head back against her car’
s headrest. So much for her hopes of a smooth transition. She couldn’t even get Em to tell her what had happened, and forcing the issue had only earned another outburst. “Come on, Maxie, we better go inside.”
She retrieved her son from his car seat and deposited him on the reception room floor with a bin full of trucks, then went after Em. She knocked softly on the closed bedroom door. “Em? Can we talk?”
“I’m doing my homework,” Em’s sullen voice came back.
Serena hesitated, then turned and went back to Max. Despite all her instincts telling her to press, she couldn’t make Em talk until she was ready.
Sure enough, a few minutes later, a sniffling, swollen-eyed little girl emerged. She’d already changed out of her uniform into jeans and a pink sweater.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Serena prompted.
“I didn’t understand anything,” Em said. “The teacher just told me to follow along the best I could. And then she asked me a question and I said something stupid in Gaelic. I got my words all mixed up and everyone laughed.”
Serena sighed. She’d known it would be an adjustment, but she’d underestimated how much her intelligent child wanted to have all the right answers. She put her arm around Em. “I know it’s hard at first to not understand what’s going on. But the more you pay attention and the more you try, the clearer things will become.”
“But, Mum—”
“No buts. I know you can do this, Em. And I know you are not a quitter. You can’t let one bad experience convince you to stop trying.”
Em looked unconvinced, but she nodded anyway.
“Isn’t there anyone who might be able to help you out?”
“Well, there is this one girl, Felicity. Her mum is Scottish, but she was born in Australia. She’s only been here two years, and she speaks Gaelic almost as well as the Scottish kids.”
Serena smoothed back Em’s dark hair. “Then maybe you just need to be humble and ask for help. What do you think?”
Em sniffled, looking slightly less morose. “I guess so.”
Serena hugged her again and offered to look over her homework—also in Gaelic—until it was time to help Muriel with dinner. But doubt still dogged her as she went through the familiar motions of making dinner rolls.
“You’re chewing on something,” Muriel said from the other side of the kitchen. “You never work dough so hard unless you’re worried.”
“I’m not worried. I’m . . . thinking.”
“Well, you just thought all the air out of that dough. You’re going to have to give it a second rise before you shape them now.”
Serena stopped what she was doing and stared down at the mangled lump before her. She was supposed to be working it lightly before dividing it into individual pieces, and instead she’d undone all the work of the first rise. She gave it a frustrated punch before looking back at Muriel.
“Did I make the right decision coming back here? Em hates school. We still don’t have a place to stay—”
“You most certainly do. I’ve told you that you can stay here as long as you like. Through the summer even.”
“We both know that will begin to wear on all of us.” Serena sighed. “Maybe I was too hasty coming here. I was running away, and I somehow believed Skye would solve all our problems.”
“Serena, dear, look at me.” Muriel stared at her until she complied. “Stop fretting. Yes, it may take some adjustment for everyone. But you need to stop second-guessing yourself and worrying about making a mistake. You are an excellent mum and an intelligent woman and more than capable of making your own decisions. I know that. Your children know that. Your family knows that. The only person who needs to believe it now is you.”
The words trod too closely to something Serena had barely admitted to herself, let alone to her aunt, and she felt an uncomfortable flush creep across her chest. “I just want things to be perfect for them. I don’t want them to look back and resent decisions I made for their own good.”
Muriel placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Serena, darling, sometimes you just have to have a little faith.”
“Faith. Right.” She swallowed and plopped the ball of dough into the oiled bowl, then covered it with cling film. Faith was an easy thing to talk about but hard to hold on to. And even harder to regain once you let it slip through your fingers.
Out in the lounge, Max and Em were huddled in the middle of the rug, surrounded by board games that Muriel had unearthed from a cupboard. “What are we playing?” Serena asked, kneeling down beside them.
“Chess,” Max said.
“I see.” It was a chessboard, all right, but instead of chess pieces, the board was set up with checkers and Candy Land figurines. “Maybe I’ll watch the first game so I can pick up the rules.”
She quickly learned there were no rules, or perhaps they changed too quickly to grasp. After a quick break to form the rolls from the rested dough and let them do their final rise on the warmth of the hob, she returned to find that her children had switched to straight checkers. Em could clearly wipe Max off the board, but she pretended not to see all the moves that would let her win until it was clear Max had an unshakable lead.
“I won!” Max crowed, holding up his fists like a prizefighter.
“Well done, Maxie.” Serena ruffled her son’s hair and gave her daughter a knowing smile. Em was a good big sister. A lovable girl in general, which made her school difficulties past and present all the more baffling.
“Let’s build a castle now!” Max swept the checkers exuberantly into a box, then dove on a bag of wooden blocks beside him, which he began to form into a wobbly tower. “This is where the dragon lives.”
“I see. Are there people in the castle?”
“No. Just dragons. And sheep. Dragons eat sheep.”
Now the building project was making more sense. She’d let him talk her into playing one of his favorite films after school. Serena was about to make a comment about Scottish Vikings when a knock shuddered the front door.
“Serena, will you get that?” Muriel called from the kitchen.
Serena frowned and pushed herself to her feet. Who on earth would be calling on a rainy night? She opened the door cautiously, and her heart took an upward leap into her throat when she found herself face-to-face with Malcolm Blake. “What are you doing here?”
“Muriel invited us to supper.” He ran a hand through his hair to catch the raindrops that perched there and on the shoulders of his jacket. “May we come in? It’s cold.”
“We?” Serena stood aside as he moved into the reception room and then blinked as a pretty young woman followed him in. She resembled him so strongly there was no doubting the family connection. Malcolm had a daughter? And a teenage one at that?
“Serena, this is Kylee. Kylee, meet Serena Stewart, one of the hotel owners and Muriel’s niece.”
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Stewart.” Kylee shook her hand with a smile and an impressive amount of poise for a teenage girl.
“Nice to meet you too,” Serena said automatically, still stunned. “These are my children, Em and Max.”
Kylee immediately went to Em’s side, where the girl had begun to assemble a puzzle. “Oh, that’s pretty. Is it Sleeping Beauty? Can I help?”
“Here, you can do her dress.” Em shoved a few pieces in Kylee’s direction. She was obviously dazzled by the older girl if she was giving her the good pieces instead of passing off the boring blue sky.
Serena put on a smile that probably looked as fake as it felt. “Have a seat and I’ll let Aunt Muriel know you’re here.”
She practically ran to the kitchen and leaned over the counter. “Why didn’t you tell me you invited him?”
“Oh, did I forget to mention that?” Muriel said innocently. “Must have slipped my mind.”
“Of course it did. If this is your idea of making us get along—”
Muriel shot her a stern look that made the protest die on her lips. “Malcolm and Kylee often have dinner h
ere on Monday nights. I didn’t think it was hospitable to tell them they weren’t welcome just because you seem to have taken a dislike to him.”
The words made Serena feel like a selfish three-year-old, but the anxious feeling remained. Her nerves were stretched thin enough without the prospect of dealing with Malcolm tonight. “I just wish you’d given me some warning.”
“Why, dear? So you could fret over that too? It’s time to put your rolls in the oven so we can get the food on the table. Unless of course you’d like to sit and make small talk.”
“No, thank you.” Serena slid the pan into the oven beneath the chicken, which had exactly twenty minutes left on the timer. She contemplated whether she could believably plead last-minute dinner preparations as a way to hide out, but everything was done, down to the place settings on the dining table. Had she only noticed the two extra plates, she’d have known that Muriel was up to something.
Serena pulled an elastic from her wrist, fastened her hair back into a ponytail, and took a deep breath before marching into the reception room.
Malcolm was sitting on the floor building an addition to the castle with her son. “You see, if you’re going to have dragons, you have to have a runway, right? Because some of them need to have space to take off and land, like aeroplanes. Don’t you think?”
Max’s eyes lit up as if Malcolm had come up with the most brilliant plan in the history of dragon-castle building. “I forgot! Because they’re big.”
“Exactly. Really big.” Malcolm’s eyes flicked up to meet Serena’s, but they didn’t linger before he went back to paving the new runway with bright-red blocks.
Fine. So he’s good with kids. Probably because he has the mentality of a three-year-old himself.
Kylee perked up. “Hey, Uncle Mal, I think we have some old blocks like these in the attic or something. We should bring them for Max.”
“Yeah, I’ll look tonight when we go home. I put a bunch of boxes up there after Christmas.”
Serena looked between Malcolm and Kylee. “This is your niece?”
Now he finally focused on her. “Yes. My older sister’s daughter.” He put subtle emphasis on older, as if to call her out for being foolish enough to think he could have a teenager of his own. “She lives with me.”
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