Chapter 2 #3
I slide the card back into the envelope, and slam the covers of the book together.
I’m actually bordering on angry now. Mostly because, for just a few moments there, I almost fell for it myself.
I almost let myself imagine a world where I was free of pain, where I could sleep. Where I could see the damn puffins.
It’s got to be a scam, but part of me still wanted to think it was true. Apparently these days I’m the vulnerable and the emotionally unstable – so pathetic and broken that I wanted to believe it.
I rest my head in my hands and sigh. It might be a scam, but those words hit a nerve.
I am tired, and I am lonely, and even worse I’m scared.
Big man that I am, I’m scared – of going back to a family home that no longer contains my family.
Of being me, and not knowing who that is.
I’m not a husband any more. I’m not a cop any more.
I’m still a dad, but to a daughter who lives on the other side of the world.
Without any of that, what the hell am I? Useless, that’s what.
Am I crying? Shit. There are definitely tears in my eyes.
What the heck is happening to me? I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I jerk upright, back in the real world.
I glare up at whoever has touched me, ready to rumble.
I could really go for a fight right now.
I’d like to hit someone, mainly myself for being a solo guest at a self-pity party.
I blink the annoying moisture from my eyes, and immediately see that it is Shannon.
She’s standing there above me, looking like an angel with her long blonde hair, a gentle smile on her face.
Her eyes meet mine, and she is tearful too.
I stand, ignoring the twinge of pain that shoots up from my hip, and wrap her in a hug.
‘What are you doing here, sweetheart? Didn’t you have a thing?’
‘I did have a thing,’ she says, as we both settle down at the table, ‘but I decided I didn’t want to go to it. I… I decided that I can’t do this, Dad.’
‘You can’t do what?’ I ask. She sounds distressed, and her fingers are trembling on the table top.
‘This! All of it! I can’t leave Chicago. I can’t leave you!’
Her words hit me with all the force of a jackhammer to the head.
This is what she’s dreamed of for years.
What she’s worked so hard for. This is her greatest achievement, her home run, her life goal.
To be here, in Oxford, studying the subject she loves.
And now she wants to come home? That can’t be true.
She’s been so happy since we arrived here, so pumped up, ready to start the next phase of her life.
If she’s changed her mind on all of that, then there can only be one reason for it – me.
My darling girl, my precious baby, wants to give up on all of this because she’s worried about her dad.
No. In fact, hell no. That can’t be allowed to happen.
That can’t be the way this plays out – I’d never forgive myself.
Sure, there’s maybe one per cent of me that would like to book her a flight right now and go back to normal, but the other ninety-nine is horrified.
Her tears are flowing now, streaming down her cheeks.
I wipe them away with my thumbs, like I’ve done a thousand times before.
Like I did when she was a kid, and skinned her knee coming off her bike.
Like I did when her best friend Sukie told her she didn’t want to be pals any more.
Like I did when that teenaged sack of shit Michael Monaghan didn’t turn up to take her to Prom.
Like I did when her mom died.
I wipe away the tears, and I kiss her forehead, and I smooth away the tendrils of hair that are sticking to her damp skin.
‘Sweetpea, you can do this. You can leave Chicago, and you can leave me. I’ll be fine.’
‘Yeah? Then why are you sitting alone in a pub, crying?’
‘I’m not crying. I have something in my eye.’
‘Both of them?’
She manages a weak smile, all for my benefit.
I’m floored with love for this girl, for the woman she has grown into.
So strong, so intelligent, so kind. Willing to give up her dream just to make sure her old man is okay.
I admire her selflessness, but I will not accept this sacrifice – it’s time to find some courage of my own.
It’s time to stop hiding behind her, to stop hiding behind the memories of what once was, and step back into the world as it is.
‘I have a plan, though,’ I tell her, improvising. Maybe finding that card was a little nudge from fate after all. Looking at Shannon’s distress, maybe it found exactly the right person, at exactly the right time. ‘I’m not even going back to the States myself.’
She frowns at me, confused. ‘What do you mean? You’re staying here?’
‘Not Oxford, no. But in the UK, yeah. Someone bought me this book, you see? Hiking in the Highlands. And it looked so good, I decided to head up there and see for myself. I have friends in Scotland.’
‘Wait? What? You have friends?’
‘Yeah. Friends. Is that so hard to believe?’
‘No, idiot! I know you have friends… it’s just that they all live in cop bars in Chicago and never leave Illinois. You’ve never mentioned anyone in Scotland…’
She’s staring at me suspiciously, her blue eyes probing me for any weak spots. I need to bring my A-game if I’m going to pull this off.
‘Hate to break it to you, baby, but I don’t tell you everything. Besides, they’re, uh, pretty new friends.’
So new I don’t even know their names.
Her head is tilted to one side, still disbelieving.
I take her hands in mine, and smile. ‘This is hard, for both of us, but it’s time, Shannon.
It’s time. I really am heading up to Scotland, I promise you.
I’m not just going to skulk back to Chicago and cry myself to sleep every night.
I’m going to take this little vacation, see a bit of the place – seems a shame to have flown all these thousands of miles and not go to Bonnie Bay. ’
‘Bonnie Bay?’ she echoes, like she’s trying it on for size. ‘That doesn’t even sound real, never mind a place where you have friends! How did you meet them anyhow?’
‘The usual way. In a pub. And guess what? They run a bookstore. I hear it’s real cosy!’
Technically, I am not lying – I did meet them in a pub – but I can see her mind isn’t yet quite at rest. I pick up my phone, show her the screen I had open earlier – the one that shows a series of images of this random place in Scotland, which is presumably full of crazy-ass people who invite strangers to visit.
She smiles as she looks at the photos, admiring the one she finds of the store, then moving on to look at the seabirds the area seems famous for. Her face breaks into a full grin.
‘Puffins, Dad! You love puffins! Is this a birding thing? That makes more sense to me than you having friends who run a bookstore!’
‘Yeah, honey. You know how I’ve got into it recently. I was invited to stay up there for a while, and thought what the heck.’
She nods and carries on browsing. ‘It looks beautiful, Dad. Real beautiful. Maybe you could come back here for a few days before you fly back to Chicago? Tell me all about it? And send pictures! Lots and lots of pictures – I want to see the puffins, and the store, and your friends. Promise?’
I had planned to simply head home without telling her, leave her thinking I was away on some magical mystery tour, or stumbling slowly through the Highlands. But she looks so excited that my plan suddenly seems lame, and also a little cruel.
It might be insane, but what if I tried it? What if I turned this fiction into fact? I really would like to see the puffins, and it would make her happy.
Damn. What the hell am I doing? This has all been too fast. I’ve barely had time to think about it, never mind figure out what kind of lunatic bookstore owners pull a stunt like this. I’m not normally a guy who makes rash decisions, but something about the hope shining in Shannon’s eyes breaks me.
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘I promise, baby.’