by Zoe Tasia
“She’s been so good, Mom,” Tate said.
“She nursed a bit at the cottage, but she seems ready to wean,” Kay said.
“I guess we’ll keep the kitten, if it’s all right with you,” I said with a laugh. Kay nodded. I gestured to the little ball of fur. “We kinda bonded on our trip in the woods.”
IT TOOK ME LONGER THAN I thought it would to feel one hundred percent. Kay wanted to call the doctor over, but since I hadn’t lost consciousness, I saw no need. Living out of the village proper and being very independent, Kay had her first aid qualifications kept up, so she reluctantly agreed. I was so out of it the first night that I didn’t even remember her waking me every two hours, though she did. Kay made a point to come over a couple of times during the day, to bring food and check on me and the girls. She spent the first three nights with us. When Tate wanted to play with two girls she met at the party, Kay walked her to the village. Tate informed me afterward that since Jody was getting a kitten, we should invite the girl and her cat over so all four could play together. In the mornings, Jessie helped Gavin with the horses. In the afternoons, the girls usually took our still-unnamed kitten to play with her siblings or accompany Kay to the village. Conall came once, bearing flowers. Thankfully, Kay told him I was sleeping. As my wounds healed, I noticed Tate looked listless again.
By Wednesday, I felt much better. Tuesday had been the first day Kay deemed me well enough to need only one visit a day. Kiera, the cat hadn’t been over since my accident, and I wondered if Kay had seen her.
Chapter 9
THERE WAS A TAP, TAPPITY, tap, that I now recognized as Kay’s knock. She had gotten where she would rap then poke her head in. I guess people on the island don’t worry about catching the homeowner in a compromising position.
“You’re already up and dressed?” Kay exclaimed when she saw me clad and nursing my second cup of tea of the morning.
While the rest was good and needed, I had been recuperating for days. Fidgety, I was eager to do something other than read and sleep. “Yes, I think I’m ready for the world.”
Kay checked my bandages. I found additional cuts and bruises from being dragged into deeper water. My head wound was well scabbed over and the worst of the ugly bruises had faded to a sickly yellow and green.
“I thought you might be ready to get up and out soon,” Kay remarked.
When I asked about Kiera, Kay reassured us that the cat was probably visiting the other neighbors. “She likes to roam,” she said when the girls questioned her.
I’d been trying to think of something to do or get for Kay and Greg. I smiled remembering how my name fell from his lips. Cut it out, Becca! They both pooh-poohed their actions, but I didn’t know what I would have done without them.
“I’d like to do something special for Greg, to thank him for his help at the pond. Do you have any idea what sort of things he would appreciate and like?”
“Best you leave him be, Becca.”
“Why?”
“He can be an abrasive man. He isn’t unkind. It isn’t that. He’s just preoccupied and gruff. He likes his privacy to the point that he rarely comes to town.”
“How is that possible? Surely he doesn’t make his own clothes and what about bread? Does he grow wheat and grind it for flour?”
“I know he hunts and forages because once in a while he’ll bring extra meat to sell to the butcher.”
“I don’t think I’ve met him.”
“Everyone goes to him, and you will too. The meat is much better than what you can get at Conall’s.”
“Just one of those things the villagers knows and the strangers have to find out?” I decided to go local when it came to meat as soon as possible. “I know Greg’s a loner, but maybe he’s just lonely.”
“Oh, Becca. You see how handsome and strong he is. Don’t you know the local girls have tried to flirt with him the rare times he’s seen in town? He roundly rejects their attention to the point that they avoid him.”
“Well, I still would like to do something for him.”
Kay smiled. “Yes, I can see your mind is set on it. I noticed you’d worked on the garden.”
“Yes, I have been.”
“One thing he might appreciate is herbs and vegetables, since I don’t think he has a garden of his own. With the money from the deer, he usually picks up potatoes or other cultivated produce he wouldn’t be able to forage from the forest.”
ONE OF MY FIRST POST-accident outings had to be grocery shopping. The girls reluctantly agreed to accompany me. It would be a rushed trip because they had plans later that morning. We bussed into town. When we got off the bus, I noticed three dead squirrels lying under a nearby tree. I shielded the view from the girls and wondered if they were diseased or had rabies. They had perished almost on top of one another. As we passed, I saw the animals had puncture wounds like the rat at the farm. There was no blood.
In the grocery store, Jessie drifted away from us exploring the aisles. Tate, oddly, tagged along with me. There was scant selection as usual, but I had expected that. One long row contained shelves of favorite regional items that I looked forward to sampling.
“Can I help you?” I heard someone stutter out. I looked up, but the blotch-faced boy was speaking to Jess. I recognized him as the young man who gave us a ride to the cottage the day we arrived.
“No Lundy, I’m good. Just looking.” She barely gave him a glance as she picked up a box from the shelf. I cringed. It was very obvious that he was trying to engage her. I tried to will Jess to be less cold.
“Well, now that—” He took the carton of biscuits from Jessie’s hands. “These are a favorite of people round here—for tea. With tea—for the adults. The little ones usually have Ribena and...well, a biscuit. To tide you over, you know? A snack?”
“Uh—yeah.” Jess gave him her back and joined me. The boy thrust the box back on the shelf so hard that two other boxes spilled off and hit the floor. Blood rushed to his face, making the blemishes there stand out even more.
“Jessie, try to be nice,” I whispered, watching him bend and retrieve the items.
She frowned at me. “What?”
“That boy was trying to talk to you.”
“I know. I answered him. What’s the big deal?”
“I think he was flirting,” I said as I added two jars of Nutella to the basket.
“Seriously, Mom? If so, he sucks at it,” Jessie exclaimed.
“Jessica! I raised you to be more sensitive than that.” I looked for the boy, but thankfully he was several aisles over.
She lowered her voice to a fierce whisper. “Well, I don’t like him like that, and I don’t want to encourage him. He drove me nuts at the ceilidh.”
“You should have said something.” I knew Gavin wasn’t the only boy she danced with that night, but I hadn’t noticed any friction.
“I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. I hoped he would find someone else to annoy.”
“Well, it isn’t like he has a huge selection. This is a small village. A beautiful new girl is going to get a lot of attention.”
Jessie rolled her eyes. “Mom, I’m not beautiful.”
“You are to me—and him and Gavin.”
“I tried to be nice—I did. And then when Gavin finished getting drinks for his brother and the band members during a break and wanted to dance with me, Lundy told him I was with him.”
“Oh, no.”
“Oh yes. Can we talk about this later?”
“Okay, sweetie. Sorry.”
“Me too. I don’t want to be mean, but he just doesn’t take a hint.”
WHEN WE UNPACKED THE groceries, we found a Cadbury bar in the bottom of the bag with a Post-it note. I remembered it is your favorite. It was signed with the initial L.
“See, Mom?’ Jess waved the bar at me, vindicated. “L, as in Lundy.”
“I see what you mean.” I didn’t want to see the boy hurt, but Jess didn’t have a duty to spend time with him
if she didn’t want to—and she didn’t. She liked Gavin, and he seemed to like her. While I didn’t want to encourage any major relationship, I certainly wasn’t going to ask her to spend time with someone she didn’t like.
“And, one of the girls does like him, Mom. I got her to ask him to dance, and he flat-out turned her down. It was embarrassing for her, and I don’t know if he even noticed. If he did, he certainly didn’t care.”
A lot like his uncle. Conall doesn’t understand that I’m not romantically interested in him either, and he’s almost as persistent as Lundy. No wonder the one doesn’t have a girlfriend and the other is unmarried.
I’d asked Kay about it earlier and she had said that Conall’s mother died shortly after he was born. Conall, the youngest of twelve, was raised by his elderly father. Twelve kids—the poor mother must have died of exhaustion. When his sister-in-law, Lundy’s mom, died, he started helping his brother care for his nephew, so both Conall and Lundy had been raised without a woman in their lives. And they didn’t seem to know how to act around one. The rest of his siblings had moved off the island and were doing well, except for his brother who died when he was in his teens. They did come back for the occasional visit. Their only female relative on the island was the octogenarian aunt who was described as a bit fanciful. Oh, well.
I felt for them but I was with Jess on this. The more we tried to be nice, the more it encouraged them to have the wrong ideas. I may need to be more careful about planning my shopping so I don’t need to visit the grocer very often and try to make sure that Jess never goes there alone.
I HEARD A TAP ON THE door. “Hi, Kay. Come on in and I’ll make some tea,” I called and bustled her inside.
Both girls were at the farm. The Samms’ sheepdog had just given birth to five puppies. Hopefully, one of those won’t join our kitten.
When they left, Jess wore her riding pants, which we had thankfully remembered to pack, and a tee shirt. Tate had on jeans and a sweater.
“You’re going to be burning up in that, hon,” I commented. I usually kept my mouth shut about the girls’ dress fashions, as long as it wasn’t too crazy. I learned quickly that, with children, you had to pick your battles, and I had better things to do than argue that the pink polka dot blouse clashed with the blue tartan skirt—a pairing deemed by my daughter as proper school wear.
Tate hugged herself and shivered. “Cold, Mom.”
“Come here, honey.”
Slumping, Tate plodded over as if her shoes were lined with lead.
I took her hand. “Brrr! Your hand is so cold.” I felt her forehead for a fever, but she didn’t have one. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I feel fine. I’m just tired.”
“Are you sure you’re up to going with Jess?”
Jess, anxious to be along, called out at the door, “She’ll be fine, Mom.” She turned to Tate. “Come on, Tate, let’s go.”
“I’m fine, Mom.” Tate pulled away from me and followed her sister out, carefully closing the door behind her.
Once tea was poured and we were munching on bickies, I asked Kay, “Did you noticed anything funny about Tate when you were with her during my recovery?”
Kay set her tea down and balanced the half a cookie on the saucer. “What do you mean?”
“She’s been overly tired, in spite of getting a full night’s sleep. Pale. Her hands were like ice this morning, and I swear she looked bluish around the mouth yesterday afternoon, but she said she had accidently put a blue marker in her mouth when she was coloring.” Maybe that will break her of chewing on her pencils. “She seems to have a decent appetite,” I added. “I tried to get her to drink the herbal tea you gave me, but she doesn’t care for it.”
“You mentioned earlier that she seemed sickly.” Kay steeped her fingers together and sat back in thought. “Well, she did like to take her meals outside or to her room. I figured she was out of sorts with you being sick and didn’t insist she sit at the table. She always brought a clean plate back, though.”
A thought came to me. “You don’t think she’s anorexic, do you?” Like all girls, I had had issues with my body image, but I worked so hard not to speak negatively about myself in front of the girls—or at least I thought I had.
“She doesn’t seem the type, but if I were you, I would speak to her about it.”
“I hope she isn’t gorging and throwing up or not eating her food and hiding it.”
“You may want to visit the doctor, regardless. Just to introduce yourself. Goddess willing, you won’t need medical care while you’re here, but if you do—I don’t know about you, but I’d rather at least have a nodding acquaintance with my physician, rather than suddenly finding myself naked with a stranger.” Kay winked and waggled her eyebrows, and I had to chuckle.
“There is something else I wanted to talk to you about.”
Kay tilted her head, silently encouraging me to continue.
“I would like to have you and Greg over Friday night as a thank you. A thank you to Greg for rescuing me and taking me back to your house.” Not because he’s gorgeous and the first man I’ve been remotely attracted to since my husband died. “And to you, for all the help you lavished on us the past few days.”
“Well, I would love to come over. I can’t speak for Mr. Gillie, though.”
“Do you know where he lives? I imagine it has to be near the two of us, somewhere in the forest, but I can’t, for the life of me, find a path or lane off the main road that would be close enough.”
“I don’t think he has a path.”
“How do people find him to visit? How are things delivered? What happens if he needs, say, a plumber?”
“I am thinking his accommodations are very rustic. He’s a simple man and not needing heaps of things from places like Amazon.”
“Somebody has to know where he lives. This village isn’t that big. I can probably find him online. Search engine ought to show something.”
“Good luck. The internet service is sporadic and often out. We tend to hold to the old ways, leaving the web to the mainlanders. Besides, I doubt Greg Gillie would show up. He is, what you Americans say, ‘living off the grid.’ You could try the post office or the library.”
“I can’t believe everyone knows him, but no one knows where he lives.”
“Well, it isn’t as though anyone is close to him.”
“I feel sorry for him.”
“He has had more contact with you than anyone, at least since I’ve lived here.”
“How old is he?”
Kay patted my hand. “Why don’t you just let it go?”
“Perhaps I should,” I said. Fat chance.
Chapter 10
KAY WAS DUE AT THE tea shop to help with inventory. Apparently, they needed to be well stocked because many of the goods came via ferry, so it wasn’t as if you could just pop over to Sam’s and find items needed in bulk.
“I think I’ll walk into town with you,” I told Kay, then called Jess and told her where I would be.
The girls were invited over for lunch at the Samms, so Jess didn’t think they would be back until one thirty at the earliest, leaving me with plenty of time to investigate. My husband used to tease me that I just couldn’t stand a mystery. He said it must be part and parcel of being a university professor.
I met David when I was at a faculty dinner. He didn’t work for the university but was at the same restaurant. We bumped into each other. Me, on my way out of the bathroom—I had retired there to avoid a particularly fierce debate. He had just hung up the telephone. His date had cancelled. He impulsively asked me if I would like a drink. Since my meeting had, for all practical purposes, ended, I agreed. The rest, as they say, is history. Originally, I had intended to go back to work. In fact, David insisted that I keep my maiden name since I already had numerous articles published in professional journals and magazines. Once I had Jessica, though, I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her with someone else all day. So, I stopped teac
hing and became a stay-at-home mother. I’d never know why they called it stay at home. I spent most of the time running to and fro, shopping, and taking the girls to dance and horseback riding lessons, carpooling to games, and so on. When the girls got old enough to stay at home alone, I found myself with too much time on my hands, so I procured a teaching certificate and began substitute teaching. I thought it would help me choose what grades I would prefer to teach. I’d finished my first year at Roosevelt Elementary when David had his fatal car accident.
ONCE KAY AND I PARTED ways, I searched for the red post office sign and, finally, found one—so faded it was barely legible—at the grocery. I entered, uneasy that I might be trying to question a man with a crush on me about finding a man he already disliked. Conall was nowhere to be seen, but his nephew was carefully stacking baked beans in a pyramid at the end of an aisle.
“Very nicely done,” I commented, startling the boy. He wheeled around, knocking the first four rows off the top. Cans rolled across the wood floor. Unable to hide it quickly enough, a look of anger and disgust flashed across his face. He turned his back to me to chase cans and when he turned back, his expression was forced pleasantry.
I had rounded up the cans that rolled my way and tried to hand them to him, then realized he had his hands too full to take them. “I’m so sorry.”
“Just leave ’em on the floor. I’ll fix it.” He began to rebuild his monument to beans. I stood there perplexed. In the States, I would be asked if I needed help. Surly clerks were not the norm—and if that was the said clerk’s norm, they wouldn’t be a clerk much longer.
I cleared my throat. “I was wondering where the post office is.”