by Julia Whelan
I swallow. “It’s a plan.”
We hang up.
I stand there, my legs suddenly shaky. When I step back into the bathroom, I’m surprised to find Jamie looking at me through hooded lids, smiling slightly. “Are we watching the debate tonight?” he asks.
“If there is one,” I hedge.
He nods at my phone. “I’m dying to know what that was about.”
I drop back down at his feet, resuming our previous position. “I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
He cocks an eyebrow at me. “Why do you think I asked?”
I snort. It’s sad, it’s funny, and I’m suddenly exhausted. I drop my head. Then I feel Jamie’s fingers in my hair, his palm cupping my cheek. I lean into it, let it strengthen me for a moment. “So,” Jamie purrs. “Your birthday.”
I look up at the abrupt change of topic. His eyes twinkle like they used to. He’s feeling a bit better.
I smile, trying to rally. “Now we’re talking.”
“It’s next week.”
“Yes, it is.”
“I want to take you somewhere. Shall we go somewhere?”
Is he kidding?
Despite the promise we both made to postpone our December trip to the Easter vac, it became clear about two weeks ago that Jamie could not travel. His oncologist flat-out prohibited it. Jamie is still having a hard time accepting it. Obviously.
After my birthday next week, I have a couple of weeks off before Trinity Term starts and Charlie, Maggie, and Tom have invited me to join them when they go to Morocco at the end of the break. I could, I guess, but I feel like I’m on countdown. I want to spend every last minute with Jamie. I want to watch him get better. We’ve earned it.
I shake my head at Jamie’s suggestion. “We’re having a staycation, remember? Recovery, get your strength back, have sex, write, have sex, follow-up blood work, have more sex.”
He grins. “We’ll be sensible, I promise. Just a few days. I’ll get checked out before we go. We’ll keep close. We could go to the Lakes or Cornwall. Or Bath! How about Bath? Or I could show you around Cambridge? Choose something, anything.” I’m silent. “Anywhere you want. Anywhere you want that doesn’t involve a boat or a plane. It’s your birthday.”
An idea forms. “Anywhere?”
He nods once, decisively, happily. Sure he’s won.
I hold out my hand to shake. This is how we do deals in this relationship and I want him bound by this. “Anywhere?” I confirm.
Jamie shakes my hand and smiles. “You can’t frighten me,” he boasts. “Anywhere.”
Before I can tell him, my phone dings. I look down at it. A two-word text from Gavin:
It’s on.
Chapter 25
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
Christina Rossetti, “Song,” 1848
Italy, Greece, Croatia, New Zealand . . . these are the places you hear are beautiful. Why didn’t anyone ever tell me that Scotland is gorgeous? I mean, mouth-droppingly, eye-buggingly, slap-yo-mama stunning.
We’ve been ascending the mountain for ten minutes when Jamie finally deigns to speak. A welcome change from the grunts and sighs he’s afforded me this whole week. “My mother’s going to give you a tour of the house. Everything she tells you will be wrong.”
An overeager laugh rips out of me, like ripping open a bag of Doritos so zealously that every last chip goes flying. Jamie, unaffected, continues. “She also invents clan names. The MacGrubberlochs had the finest herd of cattle in all the land, that sort of thing.”
I risk taking his hand. He doesn’t recoil. A major victory. “She’s so excited,” I wheedle.
“As well she should be. This is the first time I’ve brought a girl home. She’s likely arranged a parade.”
Look, I get it. I tricked him. I sucker-punched him. I done did him dirty. But sometimes you have to hide the medicine in the peanut butter to get it down the dog’s throat. (And if that doesn’t work, well, grab its muzzle, pry its jaw open, and shove the pill all the way to the back of its stubborn gullet). But to his credit, he kept his word. Not once did he try to back out of his promise to take me anywhere I wanted to go.
That night, after I had told him I wanted to go to Scotland, we watched the debate on my laptop in the bathroom. The vice president saved the issue of Janet’s pregnancy for the end, because—at his core—he’s a showman and a media whore. Which means that when he dug himself into the hole I’d predicted, there was no crawling out of it before the end of the debate. The debate finished with Janet looking unfazed and Hillerson refusing to shake her hand as he walked off. When someone got him on camera and asked him how he thought it went, Hillerson, flustered, exclaimed, “She just kept asking, ‘Why!’” Which became a viral meme within the hour. “She just kept asking why” is now Janet’s unofficial campaign slogan. When I got the text from Gavin that said, That was all you, kid, tip of the hat, I finally let myself have a moment of profound personal pride. Though still miffed with me about Scotland, Jamie opened one of his fancy bottles of wine (that he couldn’t drink) and toasted me with a water glass.
I bring his hand to my mouth now and kiss it, noticing the stains around his cuticles. He’s been feeling much better, almost completely back to normal, so he insisted on stripping and staining the floors on the second story of the house over the past few days. A psychologist would probably have a field day with the symbolism, but he just wanted to use the time away to let the floors cure and the odor dissipate.
I look up at him through my lashes, adopt a coquettish kitten voice that never fails to get an eye roll. “Do you hate me?”
On cue, Jamie rolls his eyes. “I’ve survived worse than a weekend with my family.”
I glance out the window. “You seriously grew up here?”
“Partly. Summers, holidays.”
“Shut up!” I screech when Jamie turns a corner and reveals a vista of craggy gray cliffs leading down to spring-green pastureland divided by low stone walls and dotted with shaggy highland cattle. I notice an old, abandoned gatehouse on our left, gates open. Before I can comment on its beauty, Jamie turns the Aston and we drive through it.
Oh my God.
The road stretches straight before us, bordered by towering oak trees, boughs arcing over us, tipping their leafy hats in a grand gesture of welcome. Jamie picks up speed, blowing down the lane.
Openmouthed, I stare at the house that’s just revealed itself through the copse of trees. I’m sorry, did I say house? I mean, estate. Castle. Compound. Ecosystem.
Jamie accelerates and we screech up to the house as if making a pit stop in the Indy 500. Gravel sprays as we skid to a stop. He pulls the parking brake, looks at me, and takes a deep, bearing-up breath. He opens the door and steps out. I can’t. Not yet. I can only gaze, in awe, at the sheer stone front of the house. This part of it looks like Blenheim (probably from the same time period), but the wing to the right looks older and castle-y, turrets and battlements.
As I get out of the car, the double front doors of the house fly open and Antonia steps out, clapping her hands. Another woman, as wide as she is tall with a crop of bushy white hair, waddles purposefully down the steps behind her. Wearing an apron and a towel thrown over her shoulder, she makes a beeline for Jamie, coming at him like a brick wall and engulfing him in a bosom-centric hug. She pulls back, looking stern.
“Let me look atcha!” she demands. Jamie stands up straight and holds out his arms like he’s at an army induction center. “Just as I s’pected. Too thin,” she declares, shaking her head. She jabs a pudgy thumb behind her. “Me broth’s in the house. Made it especial.”
Jamie glances at me with a warm, genuine smile I haven’t seen in a week. “Ella, this is Smithy, the love of my life. Smithy’s broth has curative properties.”
Smithy grunts in the affirmative. She takes a closer look
at me, sticking out her hand. I take it. “You must be the birthday girl everyone’s makin’ such a fuss about.”
Antonia slips in to hug me, announcing, “So you’ve finally rid yourself of that dreadful stuffed-shirt professor, have you? What was his name? Doesn’t matter, you’ve done quite well for yourself. You’ve brought a gorgeous boy with you.”
“I could easily get back into this car and be off,” Jamie says, not entirely joking.
Antonia huffs. “Well, if you’re going to be a priss about it.” She goes to her son and takes him full around. Jamie kisses the top of her head. No matter what happens, I’m already so happy. Just seeing them together, here, meeting Smithy, makes the last week worth it.
Jamie puts one arm around Antonia and the other around Smithy and turns toward the house. “Now, Mother, I’ve promised Ella the grand tour and she’s quite keen. You know how she loves history, and you’re the perfect person to . . .” He trails off and stops walking. I follow his gaze to the open doorway.
William looms over us. He jerks his head. “Hello.” He looks to me. “Welcome, Eleanor.”
“Thank you,” I reply. “I’m very happy to be here.”
He turns back to Jamie, takes him in, assessing. “Jamie.”
“Father.”
“You’re looking rather well. As it were.”
“You as well. As it were.”
In the silence, they stare at each other. Two bulls on opposite sides of a pasture.
“Boys, please,” Antonia stage-whispers, jerking her head toward Smithy. “Must you be so effusive in front of the staff?” Smithy cackles, her laugh sounding exactly like I imagined it would. I have to bite my lip to keep from joining her.
William reddens. “Yes, well. I’ll have Colin take care of the bags and such.” With that, he turns back into the house. Jamie takes a breath and we all follow him.
ANTONIA, PEEKING INTO an under-the-stairs bathroom, says with a sly grin, “The wood on these walls was nicked from Warwick Castle during the Reformation.” Then Jamie whispers to me, “Kenilworth.” Antonia continues, “Right before my great-great-great-great-grandfather was given the house and land by James the Sixth.” (Jamie whispers, “The Fifth.”) In a fifty-foot-long gallery overlooking the pond, Antonia points to a portrait and declares, “That is Jamie’s ancestor, a MacTartanish, who hid from the English during the Troubles by dressing as a woman and living in the kitchens with the servants.” (Jamie whispers, “MacTavish; stables.”) Antonia points into a rock-walled, dungeon-looking room in a turret and announces, “Elizabeth imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots in these rooms in 1437.”
Jamie: “Absurd.”
Antonia: “She escaped by rappelling down a bedsheet tied to the radiator.”
Jamie: “A medieval radiator, you see.”
Upstairs, we come to a long, wide hallway with rows of tall white doors on each side. Two across from each other are open. “This will be your room,” Antonia says, sweeping into the one on the right. I follow her and notice that my bag has appeared on a settee at the foot of a massive canopied bed, curtained with heavy antique brocade. Four huge windows overlook the vast property, all the way to the cliffs beyond. Every piece of furniture belongs in a museum.
“This is stunning.”
I’m about to gush further, but Jamie, who’s ventured farther into the room, searching for something, speaks first. “Mother, where’s my valise?”
“In the Rose Room, dear.”
Jamie’s hands find his hips. He levels a look at Antonia. “Is that so?”
She slinks for the door, coming back to me. “Your father and I thought it best. There are traditions of the house, long-standing traditions.”
“All the way back to the Eskimo invasion of 45 BC,” Jamie mutters.
Antonia leans in to me. “I’ve put slippers by your bed. The hallway floor gets rather chilly at night. Wouldn’t want you getting cold feet.” She exits to the hallway, leaving Jamie and me alone.
“What did she say?” he asks. He sounds stroppy, impatient. Jesus. Get him anywhere near William and it’s as if he filches only the most unpleasant aspects of his father’s personality.
I squeeze his arm. “We’ll be fine.”
Jamie exhales. I know why he’s upset at being separated. We haven’t had a chance to be together yet—what with his recovery, and the floors, and my, you know, sucker punching.
Jamie seems to relax. “Right. Well, then.” He looks around the room. The fleur-de-lis wallpaper, the gilded vanity and mirror, the abundance of decorative pillows. He seems reflective. It’s obviously been a while since he’s walked these rooms. When I go back to the house I grew up in, I’m always shocked at how small it is. This is clearly not that experience, but I can relate to seeing something so familiar with new eyes. “It’s rather . . . fussy,” Jamie mutters. “And cold.”
“I love it. All of it. Every corner.” I look up at him. “I love her.”
He looks down at me, finally meeting my eye. A heat sparks there, a heat I haven’t seen in months. A heat that isn’t banked or contained. A heat like “Dover Beach.” Like the Buttery. Like his dining room. A heat with potentiality. “I love her, too,” he murmurs.
I don’t know why we can both say that so freely about his mother, but haven’t yet said it to each other, about each other. Maybe he doesn’t feel it. Maybe he’s just English. Maybe he’s protecting himself.
I know which reason is mine.
I go up on tiptoe. I kiss him softly. He kisses me back. Not so softly.
“Are you two coming?” Antonia calls from the hall.
Jamie groans in the back of his throat, like a discontented bear.
Antonia leads us back downstairs, describing the frescoes and the battle they depict (which even I can see is, in fact, a hunt). We stop in front of two solid oak doors.
“Last stop.” Antonia smiles. “The library. Where Jamie once locked his brother in a suit of armor.”
“He asked me to!”
“Overnight?”
I laugh. Antonia nods toward the doors. “You do the honors.”
I happily grab hold of the round knobs and push the double doors open with purpose, as if I were presenting mother and son to the room—
Why are there balloons?
Why are there streamers?
Why is William smiling?
What are they doing here?!
“Surprise!” everyone cries.
Charlie, Maggie, and Tom (wearing some kind of hunting outfit and waders) charge over and sweep me into a group hug. Tears spring to my eyes. Over Charlie’s shoulder I see Jamie’s smile become a laugh as he and Antonia embrace. I hear him say to his mother, “Completely surprised.”
“Couldn’t have come off better,” she confirms.
I disentangle one arm and reach out for them both. Jamie laces his fingers through mine. He leans forward and finds the space to kiss my cheek, warming me to my core, a roaring fire on a winter night. He planned this. Even though he was pissed at me, even though he didn’t want to come, he did this for me.
I love this man. I love everything about him.
I promise myself that I’m going to tell him that.
AFTER A BIRTHDAY tea in the library, I open presents. I get a collection of (used) philosophy books from Tom, a leather-bound journal from Maggie, and a bottle of fine Scotch from Charlie, which manages to get William’s nod of approval. Although he keeps leaving the room to take a call, he always comes back. While we haven’t said anything to each other, we’ve exchanged a number of tight smiles and nods. Progress?
Jamie hands me one final card. “From Ce.” I look at the envelope, my name written in cursive on the front. As I slip my finger under the flap, Jamie continues, “She desperately wanted to be here, but she had an obligation from which she couldn’t extricate herself.”
Maggie, sitting across from me on a love seat next to Tom, nudges him in the ribs. “How sad for you.”
Tom seems distracted, preoccupi
ed. He’s still unable to meet Maggie’s eye. “Cecelia Knowles? Ancient history.”
Her mouth forms a confused moue, although she continues to tease him. “Oh, is that so?”
Tom nods tightly. “I’ve moved on. To more fertile ground.”
Charlie, who’s been inspecting the first editions around the room, doesn’t even have the wherewithal to turn to Tom when he groans, “Oh, good God, who now? Vegetable, mineral, or beast?”
“I’m not at liberty. To say. At present.”
Maggie faces forward again, placing her hands primly on her knees, out of things to say. Even as I extract from the envelope a gift certificate for a spa in Oxford (and silently thank Cecelia for knowing just what I need), my eyes are drawn to Maggie and Tom, who now sit next to each other like two owls sharing a stumpy tree branch, staring straight ahead. Maggie meets my eyes, brow furrowed.
But then Jamie leans over and whispers in my ear, “My gift will come later.”
I turn to him, raising an eyebrow, whispering back, “It better.”
“It’s not that.” His eyes drop to my mouth. “Well, it very well could be that.” He looks back up. “I have a present, of sorts. Rather silly and sentimental. Not for public consumption.”
Before I can reply, my phone rings. I dig it out of my pocket as the room goes quiet. “Don’t mind me!” I urge, and everyone resumes their conversations. Everyone except William, who continues to watch me. It’s like the Blenheim ball all over again. I stand and walk to a corner of the library as I answer. “Gavin.”
I’m greeted by a tinny, speakerphone rendition of “Happy Birthday.” Janet’s horribly off-key and Gavin’s deep bass drowns her out, but it’s still sweet of them. When they’re done, they applaud. For themselves. Why do people do that?
I laugh. “Very nice! Thank you. Both of you!”
“How old are you now?” Janet asks, a chuckle in her voice.
“Twenty-five.”
Gavin groans. “I have socks older than you.”
“Now, Gavin,” she reprimands. “This is actually good news. Her being twenty-five and all.”
“Why, Janet, you’re right. Very good news.”