CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Jamie – Now
God dammit!
I hit the steering wheel and yell into the quiet. The car absorbs the sound and it’s almost as if it was never there. The dull thrum of the rain on the exterior drowns out everything else.
Without even knowing where I’m headed, I end up at the ferry terminal, and within fifteen minutes, my car is the last on the boat and I’m moving away from Skye—away from everything that just changed in my life.
Maybe if I can get far enough away from it, closer to home, I’ll feel some semblance of normalcy… But I know I won’t. There’s no going back. No changing what just transpired. No changing the fact that I have a son—that I’m a father.
I yank on the handle to recline my seat until I’m staring up at the roof of the car.
Getting out and being around a single person on this boat isn’t an option.
My emotional state would likely have them worried I’d jump off at any moment.
I close my eyes and just breathe as I attempt to reconcile what I have believed for the last ten years with this new truth.
I can’t process this alone right now—I need my best friend. So, reaching for my phone, I type out a quick text before dropping it onto my chest.
Me
I need you
The phone buzzes against my sternum and I lift my head enough to answer and turn on speakerphone. I knew she’d call.
“Jamie? Are you okay? Is it your grandad?” Rory’s voice is frantic, though I can hear the sleep-addled undertone as well. It’s still the wee hours of the morning there. I can’t bring myself to apologize for waking her.
“No, he’s fine,” I answer. My voice comes out rough, like it’s been scraped raw and dragged through gravel.
“What is it, Jamie?” Rory’s voice pitches high. “You’re scaring me. Are you alright?”
“No. I’m not. I’m…” The words feel like glue on my tongue. “I have a son, Rory.” Silence. Absolute dumbstruck silence meets me from the other end of the line. “Are you still there?”
“Yes. Yeah, I’m here. I’m going to need you to repeat that though.” I hear her swallow and envision her attempting to compartmentalize what she’s feeling so she can be whatever I need her to be. That’s just the kind of person she is.
“I have a son. Lennox is my son.”
Lennox is my son. Will those words ever feel like less of a blow? I can’t imagine it.
“Alright, that’s what I thought you said,” she says, and I can hear clicking in the background like she’s on her computer. “I’m looking for flights to Scotland.”
“What? No, you don’t have to do that,” I say, sitting up so fast the blood rushes away from my brain and makes my head spin… And now I feel queasy again.
“I’ll wait to hit purchase until we finish this conversation, but I won’t hesitate if I think you need me there.”
Everything inside me loosens slightly at her words. I know she would jump on a plane, cancel any elopements she’s supposed to photograph, and be here tomorrow if I so much as asked.
“Thank you.” I resume my prone position, staring through the sunroof.
“Ready to fill in some details for me? I have a lot of questions,” she says calmly.
“You and me both,” I say with a choked chuckle. I pull off my glasses and squeeze the bridge of my nose. “His middle name is Jameson.”
“Okay…” she says. I’m guessing him sharing a name with me doesn’t seem like enough of a clue to have set this all in motion.
“His middle name is Jameson and he has my eyes and, god, all the things I thought felt familiar but brushed off because I was once a ten-year-old boy at the inn…” I know none of this makes sense, it hardly makes sense to me the way it all just clicked together.
“But it was Gran’s reaction. You should’ve seen her face, the apology written there, as the truth dawned on me. ”
“She knew?” Rory’s shocked proclamation fills the cab of the Land Rover.
“Yeah, they both knew. I talked to Grandad after I got violently ill in my washroom.” The betrayal stings anew. Theirs, Avi’s… I feel betrayed by everyone right now. “Why the hell didn’t they say anything, Rory?”
“I don’t know. I’m so sorry.” She takes a breath and then very calmly and carefully asks, “Have you talked to Avi, confirmed this?”
“Yeah. He’s mine.” I blow out a breath and snap my eyes shut. I leave out the part about how I yelled at her. “Ten years, Rory. I’ve had a son for ten years and had no idea.”
“So, ten years means…” She trails off, and I know what it is she wants to ask but isn’t sure how to.
“She got pregnant when we were seventeen.” I answer her unspoken question.
“Right. Okay, and then she just never thought to tell you?” She’s doing her best to stay subjective, but I can hear her indignance under the surface.
“Pretty much. I didn’t really give her a chance to explain before I left. I’m so mad, Rory, but I’m also sad, and… scared? I have a kid. What am I supposed to do with that knowledge?”
“Where are you now?” she asks.
I listen to the raindrops on the sunroof for a minute before answering. “On the ferry.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know… I can’t actually leave.” I might want to.
My instinct for self-preservation is kicking in and I know I could go straight to the airport, get on an airplane, and never look back.
But doing that at seventeen didn’t do me any favors and it won’t fix this.
I can’t do that to Gran and Grandad either. As mad as I might be, I can’t.
“Does he know who you are?”
“Lennox?” I ask. Christ, I hadn’t even thought about that.
Does he know who I am? No, I don’t think so.
“Yeah, Lennox.” Rory’s voice goes soft around his name like it’s something precious.
“I’m not sure, but I don’t think so based on our interactions over the past few days. He was surprised to find out my name was Jameson, like his middle name. That’s how this all got started. And god, I just bolted. Left him standing there with Gran. He’s probably so confused.”
Fuck. Well, that makes two of us.
“Do you want to tell him?” Rory’s gentle voice is back.
I shake my head, then nod, and then remember she can’t see me. “Yes. No. I don’t know. He has this whole life with Avi and her parents and now there’s me, on the outside. I don’t even live here, not really. I never planned to stay forever. I don’t know what Avi wants—”
“I’m not asking what she wants,” she snaps, cutting me off. “Sorry. But I’m asking what you want. This is your life, your son. You should have been part of the decision years ago, you deserve a say in how this goes now.”
“I don’t know how to be a dad, Rory. I don’t have siblings. Other than spending time around Willow last winter, I’ve hardly been around kids since I was one. And being cool Uncle Jamie is very different to being a dad.”
“I don’t know anything about being a mom either, but I’m going to figure it out when Willow and Breck get here next month. No one knows how to be a parent until they are one. It’s all trial and error.”
“But you’re amazing with her, a total natural.
And you also have a partner who actually wants you to fill that role and be part of their family.
Avi and I are practically strangers at this point.
Doesn’t sound like a recipe for successful co-parenting to me.
” I inhale sharply. “Fuck. Co-parenting… That sounds daunting. Do I even have a right to try and parent a kid I don’t know? ”
The overwhelming feeling of panic begins to build again as my breathing shallows and my eyes blur.
“Jamie, take a breath, okay. You don’t have to have all the answers right now.
It sounds like you and Avi have a lot to talk about still.
But if you want this—a relationship with your son—I can promise you right now that he’ll be lucky to have you.
He’ll be the luckiest kid in the world to know you, because you’re an amazing man. ”
“Thanks, Roars. I needed to hear that. I’m just really freaking out.”
“That’s understandable. Now, do you want me to click buy on these tickets? I can be there tomorrow if you need me to be.”
I smile for the first time in what feels like years. “You’re the best, you know that? Let’s wait on pushing the button. Let me get my bearings and I’ll keep you posted.”
“Okay. And for what it’s worth, I think you’ll be a great dad if you want to be. The rest of it can be figured out as you go. I love you.”
“You too.”
The call disconnects and I give myself a few more minutes to just lie there in the car, wondering what I should do now. Get off this ferry and drive—where to, I have no idea—or turn around at the other end, get right back on, and go home to figure this out?
Home.
I think that’s my answer. America has been my home for a long time—it still is in so many ways—but Skye has always been home. The Thistle & Tartan, Gran and Grandad, Avi… they’ve always been home. Nox. He’s part of that now too.
I don’t know what that means, how it will work, or what it’ll look like, but right now I wish I could turn this ferry around myself and head straight back to where I just left. If nothing else, I think that’s a good sign.
I spend the rest of the crossing to the Mallaig terminal getting lost in my thoughts—in the what-ifs and the what-the-hells.
After I drive off and pull a U-turn, I decide to get out and take in the fresh air on the upper deck.
The rain has stopped and with it comes the clarity of a sunny, blue-sky day.
Maybe I can find that same clarity if I sit up here and soak it in.