Chapter 15
Fifteen
CALLIE
T he day after Lewis dropped his bombshell, Mum and I arrived home from the bakery at the same time Harry returned from school. The end of term was quickly approaching, and after the summer holidays, Harry and his friends would be going into first year at high school. He was twelve in July. And I realized that I’d missed a huge chunk of his childhood.
It was never clearer than when we pulled into the driveway as he walked up the stoop.
“Look how tall he is.” I sighed, sad that he’d grown up while I was gone and that it had affected my relationship with him.
When Harry was little, he could be deliberately annoying, like any wee brother, but because of our age gap, we mostly had a good relationship. He was just as likely to come running to me for a hug and reassurance as he was to Mum or Dad.
“Your dad says Harry has to get paired up with the older teens at jujitsu.”
I nodded, because that made sense. While I’d gotten into tae kwon do with Lewis when we were kids, Harry had decided he wanted to learn jujitsu because that’s the martial art Dad studied. He now led a class in Thurso. And if Dad did it, Harry wanted to do it. While he had Mum’s coloring—blond hair, brown eyes—he looked like Dad. When we were younger, there was a part of me that envied Harry. And I worried that Dad would love him more than he loved me because Harry was his blood, and I wasn’t. But it was like Dad knew and when Harry came along, he made certain that I never felt left out or like I was loved less.
If anything, in a slightly sexist way he didn’t intend, he was more protective of me than he was of Harry. Yet, I knew that came from Dad’s own trauma. He didn’t mean anything by it. His sister was killed, and he couldn’t save her, and now Dad was overprotective of the women in his life. I could understand that.
Harry turned and gave us a wave before heading into the house.
“I’d say that’s an improvement, but he was probably waving at you.”
“What are you talking about?” Mum asked, unclipping her belt.
I gave her a look. “Harry is avoiding me.”
Mum scoffed. “Callie, he’s a preteen boy whose only interests are martial arts, video games, and soccer.”
“Football,” I corrected her, getting out of the car. “You’ve been here fifteen years, so that’s inexcusable.”
She chuckled at my teasing as she followed me out. “Fine, fine, football. My point remains. Your brother isn’t avoiding you—he’s just being a boy.”
I harrumphed at that because I wasn’t so sure.
Inside, we found Harry at the dining table with his backpack open. Our parents had a rule that our homework had to be completed as soon as we got home, so it was done and out of the way. It seemed Dad was still at work. He tended to do early-morning to early-afternoon shifts at Ardnoch Castle where he worked security, so I could only guess he was running late or on overtime.
Mum bent down to kiss Harry’s head. “Hi, baby boy. How was school?”
“It was fine. I wish they’d stop giving us homework now. School’s nearly ending and then we’re not even going back there after summer. Why do we still have homework?” Harry complained.
“Just humor your teacher and do it. Like you said, it’ll be vacation time soon. Do you want a snack?”
“Aye, please.” He tapped on his iPad to start whatever exercise his teacher had given. I did think it a bit cruel he was still getting homework this close to the end of term. I couldn’t remember our teacher doing that at the end of primary school. Truthfully, I couldn’t remember much about primary seven. I’d gone from anticipating the jump to middle school back in the US to suddenly still being in primary school here in the UK and then immediately going into high school at twelve, per the way the Scottish school system worked.
“Got any grand plans for the holidays?” I asked, leaning on an empty dining table chair, attempting conversation.
Harry looked up at me. Except for his eyes and hair, he really was the spitting image of Dad. He could pass for fourteen, he was so tall and broad for his age. “This is Ardnoch, not Paris,” he said with attitude. “Not much to do around here.”
Mum turned from making Harry a sandwich in the kitchen and met my gaze. She frowned, having heard his tone. “I told you so,” my expression said. Sighing inwardly, I tried again. “Maybe we could go for a run in the car this summer. Just you and me.”
“You don’t have a car,” he said to his iPad.
“I’m getting one. ”
“Mum and Dad buying that for you too?”
“Harry,” Mum scolded. “That’s unfair.”
He shrugged. “It’s the truth. Everyone says it.”
My stomach dropped. “Says what?”
“That you’re mooching off Mum and Dad. That they paid for Paris only so you could come back and take the bakery from Mum because you’re too lazy to build something for yourself. That you think you’re something special because you stayed in Paris, even though you’re mooching off Mum and Dad again by moving back in with us. Everyone thinks you’re pathetic.”
I gaped at him, stunned, not only by his words but the contempt with which he said it. So much contempt for an eleven-year-old. Was that really what he thought? What everyone apparently thought? I mean, they had to be saying it a lot for it to get back to a kid.
“Harry Ironside, don’t you ever speak to your sister like that again,” Mum warned, approaching the dining table. “Apologize, now.”
He shoved away from the table, grabbing his things. “I’ll do this in my room.”
“Harry—”
“And she’s not my sister. She’s my half sister. Her dad is a psychopath, which is probably why everyone hates her. You should go back to Paris. No one wants you here.” He marched out of the room, ignoring Mum calling his name in fury.
I knew he was only a kid and probably unaware of how deeply his words cut, but I felt shattered by them. Not merely the words themselves—hitting right at my greatest fear about myself—but that Harry seemed to hate me so much. Maybe going to Paris really had been a mistake.
“Callie …”
“I’m going for a walk.”
“Callie, he didn’t mean it. ”
“No, he meant it. And people are clearly gossiping about me.”
“Your brother should not be one of them. And there will be consequences for what he said to you.”
“What did he say?”
We turned to find Dad standing in the doorway. So engrossed in the horrible moment with Harry, I hadn’t even heard his car pull into the drive. I glanced at Mum and gave a slight shake of my head. If Dad found out, Harry would be in for it.
Mum ignored me. “Our son said terrible things to his sister and I’m frankly baffled and too upset to even …” She threw her hands up, tears gleaming in her eyes. “I can’t believe one of my kids could be that cruel.”
“Mum.” I shook my head at her. “He’s just a kid.”
“And you would never have said anything so nasty to anyone when you were his age.”
“Because I wasn’t a coddled eleven-year-old who’s never had a hard day in his life. Harry has grown up with two loving parents in a financially secure home. You can’t compare us. Circumstances made me more empathetic.”
“Are you really defending what he said?”
“Wee yin?”
I turned at that. Even after all these years, Dad still called me wee yin .
“What did he say?” Dad repeated, striding into the room. He bristled with tension and even though he’d cut me to the quick, I suddenly felt a bit sorry for Harry. I couldn’t bring myself to tell Dad.
Mum repeated his words verbatim.
Dad’s expression darkened and he marched toward the hallway.
“Dad, don’t.”
He looked back at me. “He’s twelve in July. He wants to start spewing nasty shit like that as if he’s a man, then he can take a telling like a man.”
I looked at Mum in worry.
She shook her head at me, fully trusting Dad to deal with it in the correct way.
Too concerned I’d caused a rift between my parents and Harry, I followed Dad against my mother’s whispered wishes for me to stop. He was already in Harry’s room, the door ajar. I held my breath, listening as I watched Dad tower over Harry’s bed where my brother sat with his iPad on his lap.
“… Is that what you said?” Dad growled.
“So what if it was?” Harry whined. “It’s the truth.”
“Do you even realize how much you hurt your sister? Does it even compute? Do you even care, Harry? Because we’ve got big problems if you don’t care that your sister is out there looking like you punched her in the gut.”
Harry flinched and looked away. “I didn’t think it would bother her that much.”
“That you said she wasn’t your sister? Or that you referred to her as the daughter of a psychopath? Or that everyone hates her? None of that was supposed to bother her?”
Silence from my brother.
“If you choose to wield words like weapons, you have to deal with the consequences. And if you’re grown up enough to say terrible things to people, you’re grown up enough to handle the truth.”
I frowned, wondering where Dad was going with this.
Dad lowered himself onto Harry’s bed, elbows on his knees, hands clasped. “Harry, look at me.”
My little brother didn’t bother attempting to deny the order. He turned his head, and I watched as he struggled to meet my dad’s gaze.
“There are two reasons I never, ever want to hear you tell your sister she’s not your sister or hear you throw her birth father in her face. One—when your sister was only a year younger than you are now, she was terrorized by that man. Terrorized , Harry. He kidnapped Callie and held her at gunpoint before he tried to kill your mother. You have no idea how traumatic that was for them. I never want you to be in a position to ever fully understand that. Ever. So I won’t go into the details. I will say if you did know what your sister has been through, you would be disgusted with yourself for using that man as a weapon against her.”
I heard an inhale of breath and turned to see Mum standing, eyes wide with sadness at the reminder of all we’d been through. And concern that Harry was too young to even know this much. But I’d experienced the trauma as a ten-year-old, and I’d come out all right. Harry was almost twelve, and I did agree with Dad to an extent. If he could use those words against me, he was old enough to understand what he was talking about.
I reached for Mum’s hand and squeezed it in reassurance.
Turning back, I watched Harry lower his eyes, his expression tight. I realized why when a tear slipped down his cheek. Damn.
“Can you possibly imagine what that was like for Callie? That her own father could do that to her and to your mum? Do you understand now why you should never throw that in your sister’s face?”
“Aye.” His voice was quiet and young. “I’m sorry.”
Dad reached for him, and Harry bent his head forward, pressing it against Dad’s chest. Dad squeezed the nape of his neck, his voice softer, but still gruff as he comforted him. “And two, I legally adopted your sister, and in every way that matters, she is my daughter. Callie is just as much my daughter as you are my son. She is your sister in every way that matters. And if I hear you ever say differently again, I’ll take away every electronic device in this house that you love and you won’t get them back for six months.”
“I’m sorry,” Harry whispered again, his voice cracking. “I … Axel Beaton and Greg Anderson and his mates have been hassling me at school ever since Callie got back.”
I flicked a shocked look at Mum.
“Hassling you how?” Dad asked.
Harry pulled back, wiping at the snot under his nose. “They made a comment about Callie being a slut. They’d been on her social media and saw her with a couple of guys. I took a swing at Axel and because I reacted, they’re at me every day, saying stuff about her.”
“What stuff?”
“That she’s taking the piss out of you and Mum, taking your money, taking Mum’s business, shagging loads of guys, that her dad is a murderer and she’s tainted, that we’re sick for keeping her in the house in case she murders us in our sleep. It’s constant, nonstop!”
Tears blurred my vision as I turned away. Mum tried to pull me into her arms, but I slipped out of her grasp.
Kids didn’t just have that information readily at hand. They were overhearing adults talking about me. Gossiping about me. And they were using it to torment my wee brother.
No wonder he hated me.
Needing air, I trusted Mum and Dad would find a way to help Harry. I was probably the last person he wanted to deal with, so I grabbed Mum’s car keys and hurried out of the house.
I found myself driving into Ardnoch. In Paris, the shower in my apartment was so rubbish, I’d started a ritual of having a glass of wine while sitting in a bubble bath instead. I felt like taking the world’s longest bubble bath and drinking a mammoth glass of wine.
Parking outside of the Gloaming, I kept my head down to avoid meeting anyone’s eyes as I wandered down the cobbled lane that led to William’s Wine Cellar. It wasn’t even five o’clock yet, but I didn’t care. Let the arseholes gossip and call me a drunk along with everything else.
As soon as I walked into the wine shop, I spotted Carianne at the wine wall and wanted to turn around and walk right back out. We hadn’t spoken since yesterday and now her joke about me shagging half of Paris came back to me. It was too similar to what Harry said. I wasn’t surprised by his language. There were kids in my class at that age who tried to emulate the adults around them and swore all the time. And worse.
Staring at Carianne, I suddenly wanted to know who was saying those things about me and how it had gotten back to a group of primary school kids.
I gave William a nod of hello before approaching Carianne.
She glanced toward me at the sound of my footsteps and her face burst into a friendly smile of recognition. “Callie, how are you?”
Without preamble, I asked, “Who’s gossiping about me, Carianne?”
Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“People are spreading rumors about me. Please tell me who.”
Whatever she saw on my face made her sigh heavily. “Yesterday … I should never have said what I said, even as a joke. Especially … while you were gone, nosy bastards were following your social media. The more conservative types gossiped a bit, like dating two men in two years meant you were giving it to anyone.”
Indignation flushed through me. “Even if I was, whose business is it? If I was a man, would they even care?”
“Exactly!” Carianne nodded in vehement agreement. “I’ve said as much to a couple of women who’ve tried to talk about it in the salon.”
“What women? Do they have kids?”
She bit her lip and nodded. “Jana Anderson was one of them.”
I scoffed, looking away. Harry had mentioned a boy with the surname of Anderson. What was wrong with people? “Do I even know her?”
“She used to be Jana Bailey. She was a few years older than us.”
“I don’t remember her.”
“It’s not personal, Callie. She’s the biggest gossip from here to John O’Groats. You’re just gossip fodder to her. Plus, she’s friends with Ursula Rankin, and we both know her and her mother like to have a target for their bile.” Carianne took a step toward me. “But yesterday was personal. I’m so angry I said that. It slipped out because I wanted … look … I … I was going to talk to you about this …” She licked her lips nervously and suddenly, I felt sick with anticipation. “You’re my friend, so I would never have done anything about it then, but the truth is, I’ve always liked Lewis. Always. Even when I was dating Fyfe. And it’s been years since you and Lewis broke up. Now that he’s home, I’d like to ask him out on a date. I want to be honest about that with you. I mean, you don’t want him back, do you?”
The idea of Carianne and Lewis nauseated me.
Yet only yesterday, I’d told Lewis I didn’t want to be with him. I shook my head, barely hearing anything over the rush of blood in my ears. “I don’t … but … Carianne, it would be weird for me for you to date him. I’m not going to lie about that.”
My friend slowly exhaled, searching my face. “I get that. I do. But I really like him, Callie.”
“You don’t know him anymore,” I argued .
“He can’t have changed that much. He was always the kindest, loveliest guy, and I appreciate that about him.”
What? Like I didn’t?!
“And I think it would be unfair to say you don’t want him but you don’t want anyone else to have him.” She reached out to squeeze my arm to gentle her words.
And I wanted to burst into a sobbing mess.
What a bloody day.
I nodded numbly, because she was right about that. It would be childish to mark Lewis as off-limits to Carianne. We lived in a small village. Our romantic options were few. Lewis Adair was a catch, and if it wasn’t Carianne, it would be someone else.
She bent her head, expression sympathetic. “And if I hear anyone talking shit about you, their ears will be ringing by the time I’m done with them.”
I nodded again.
“It’ll blow over, Callie. You’re the latest gossip because you’ve just come home. But once you’re here a while, they’ll find someone new to talk about. You know what they’re like.”
I did. I’d just never taken the brunt of it before. When there was gossip about me and Mum all those years ago, I imagined she protected me from the worst of it.
Being home seemed to have caused nothing but trouble so far. If I left, maybe the bullies would leave Harry alone.
And if Carianne and Lewis began dating, I wouldn’t want to see that.
How ironic would it be if Lewis ended up staying in Ardnoch, and I ended up leaving?
“I have to run. Promised some girls from the salon I’d bring wine to a potluck.” Carianne grinned and then kissed my cheek. “Thanks for being the best. Love you.”
I don’t know how long I stood there in that shop before I finally got up the strength to grab a bottle of wine, pay for it, and get back in the car.
There were missed calls from my mum, but I couldn’t talk to anyone right now. Instead of going back to my parents’ house for a bubble bath, I drove to the car park where only yesterday I’d told Lewis I didn’t want him, where he’d taken the news like he barely cared. His reaction made little sense since he’d apparently returned to Ardnoch for me.
Kicking off my shoes and dumping them in the car, I grabbed the wine bottle and stomped through the dunes.
The coastal wind hit me, fluttering through my light shirt and whipping my hair back off my face. I barely felt it. This part of the beach, as I hoped, was empty at this time of day, even though it was low tide. The sand was soft and golden, resistant to my footfall until I neared the shore where it was compacted by the water’s continual caress. The cold sand squeezed pleasantly between my toes as I walked along the edge, letting the water kiss my feet before falling back again. Miles of it stretched on ahead, and dark green hills loomed in the distance where the earth jutted out into the sea. Sunbeams cut through the white clouds, and light bounced and glittered across the gentle waves.
I sucked in a breath, trying to pull myself together.
It shouldn’t bother me feeling rejected by my brother, by my village, and in a way, by Carianne who was choosing her attraction to Lewis over me … but it hurt so badly, I wanted to disappear.
After what my real father did to us, Mum asked if I wanted to see a therapist and I’d said no. It didn’t take a therapist to tell me that the kind of traumatic rejection and lack of love I’d experienced at my real father’s hands had scarred me deeply. I handled rejection like it was the end of the fucking world.
Having chosen a twist-cap wine bottle, I moved to take the cap off and guzzle it down. But my hand hovered over it. The last time I got drunk I had sex with Lewis, and it messed with my head.
More than that, I could hear Aunt Ally’s voice in my head. When she was younger and going through something traumatic, she escaped into drugs and alcohol and ended up in rehab.
I didn’t want to turn my weekly ritual of a wee glass of wine and a bubble bath into downing a bottle by the ocean. It changed it from a simple pleasure to a tool to numb my feelings.
Stopping, I hugged the bottle to my chest and stared out at the vastness of the water before me. Sometimes I wondered what it would be like if a body never tired and you could dive into the ocean and swim for eternity, free of troubles, heartache, and responsibilities.
I let its rhythm soothe me, lull me, calm me.
Until I felt ready to return home to face my family.