Chapter Thirty-Five
In March, there’s a break in the Premier League schedule so the players can join up with their national squads in their home countries.
Like most of the back office staff, I’m taking a few days off.
I decide it’s a perfect time to get back to Erica’s List. The list never quite made it out during my move into this flat, self-improvement being shunted down the priority list in favor of my most basic needs: food, shelter, extra-large bottles of Sauvignon Blanc.
But I fish it out of its shameful place beneath a pile of crap on my desk and tape it to the wall.
And though the childish and petty part of me wants nothing to do with Josh or his wife while I’m still not speaking to him, the part of me that’s tired of waking up with a wine hangover understands that maybe it’s time to start the climb up and out of rock bottom.
I look for the easiest box to check off, and find it quickly: Take a train journey.
Escape sounds pretty great right now. The only question is where?
Amina tells me she’ll go down to London with me, but as we look at Hamza asleep (for once) in his bassinet, we both know it’s a lie.
My mom has been begging me to come home for a few days, and for a second I wonder if riding Boston’s commuter rail out to my parents’ house in the suburbs could technically be enough to count…
But no, going home is out of the question.
The parabola has arced back to its origin: Just as I felt when I first moved to Liverpool, I know that if I go back to Boston right now, in my current state of anguish, there’s an enormous chance I won’t be able to board the plane back, to return to the remnants of the life I’m trying to build here.
As much as I could use a hug from my mother right now, if I go home and see my brothers all happy with their families, hear how amazing their lives are, it will cement my defeat that I couldn’t make the same thing happen for myself.
I will sink into my depression, crawl into my childhood bedroom, and stay there, awash in my failure.
A bit dramatic, maybe, but these days, I find I can only deal in absolutes.
So I open Google Maps and stare, idly swiping my fingers around and zooming in on different bits of Europe.
This continent being what it is, trains can take you pretty far, and there’s something appealing about locking myself in a little metal capsule for a couple of days.
I should go somewhere like Spain; a weekend soaking up the sun in Málaga would do wonders for my rapidly depleting levels of vitamin D.
But Málaga is a place for happy people, and I’m definitely not ready for poolside Aperol spritzes and tapas on the beach.
In fact, it feels like the entirety of southern Europe should be out.
I need to go north. Somewhere I can just slink down into my feelings, wallow in the mess, get it all out once and for all, and try to come back grateful for what I do have.
Somewhere even colder and grayer than Liverpool…
Can they accommodate tourists at the North Pole?
A thought is nagging at the back of my mind, a little flickering flame that’s sucking up more and more oxygen, despite my efforts to stamp it out. It’s a thought I can’t engage with, because even I am not so much of a masochist. Even I would not be so foolish as to do this…
…and yet, I google Oban. The flame grows.
After about ten seconds of contemplation, I book train tickets.
I find a cute bed-and-breakfast on the waterfront and the credit card comes out again.
It’s like I’m in a fugue state, the idea completely filling my brain now, running the controls like I’m in Ratatouille.
I’m going to Lachlan’s hometown. Without him. Alone.
I slam my laptop shut and push it away like it’s radioactive. What the fuck have I just done? The last thing I need right now is to be more reminded of Lachlan Ramsay’s existence.
When the day comes and I’m on the train speeding northward, I can’t quell my shaking panic.
I have to change train stations in Glasgow and I keep my head on a swivel for the entire ten-minute walk between buildings, as if Lachlan Ramsay would just be having a casual pint at the downtown TGI Fridays.
My fight-or-flight reaction is triggered by every Scottish accent I hear—really unfortunate when one is in the biggest city in Scotland—but I make it to the station and onto my train to Oban.
As it pulls out of Glasgow and heads up the coast, I allow myself to unclench.
The bustling city center quickly fades to suburbs with neat terraced houses across the River Clyde.
And sooner than I would have expected, Glasgow is fully behind us and we’re headed into the Highlands.
The evening has slipped into twilight by the time we pull into Oban, and I have a crick in my neck from keeping my face pressed to the window for so many hours.
The staggering beauty of the lochs and mountains was enough to distract me from thoughts of Lachlan for long spells—thirty, even forty seconds at a time!
—but now that the train has arrived in his hometown, the stupidity of this getaway comes rushing back.
It feels like a transgression somehow, though the (admittedly small) rational side of my brain is trying to convince the rest of me that it’s fine.
I’m just on vacation in a lovely small town in Scotland.
I would have come here even if I didn’t know its most famous former resident.
I check into my quaint waterfront B basically one high street along the harbor, with little side streets disappearing up into the hills behind and the bay dotted with ferries carrying people to the islands on the other side.
A vicious wind whips off the water and I double up my scarf to protect my cheeks from the sting.
This is a brutal cold even for March; it makes Liverpool seem balmy by comparison.
The street is still bustling, though, families popping into shops, couples holding gloved hands, huddled against the cold.
I’m surrounded by people and I’ve never felt lonelier.
I wander around the town, letting my feet take me wherever they want.
It’s only when I find myself standing in front of Lochdon restaurant that my subconscious allows me to understand the real reason for my trip up here: Moira.
Going to see my own mother was too difficult, but I’m still desperately in need of parental guidance, especially from the mother of the fucker who broke my heart.
The only question is this: Does she want to see me?
I grit my teeth and push open the door, bracing myself for an unexpected surprise, like maybe the entire Scotland men’s national team has decided to take a detour to Oban for team dinner tonight.
But the dining room is intimate enough that I can confirm there aren’t twenty-five exceptionally fit men lurking in any of the corners, and I will some of the tension to leave my shoulders.
And I exhale even deeper when I see that Moira has hung the charcoal drawing I gave her on the wall right behind the hostess stand.
Then the woman herself looks up and sees me lingering in her doorway, and her face is all astonishment. “Abby, what on earth are you doing here? Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
My eyes prick with tears and I sniffle and rub my arms to try to make it seem like it’s just from the cold.
Fuck. I thought I could keep it together for more than three seconds.
But I can’t, not in the presence of her kind, searching face.
Those eyes that are just like her son’s.
“Remember when you said I could come to you if I needed a mum?”
I burst into tears before she can answer, but she wraps me into an enormous hug and lets me sob it out on her shoulder. “There there, hen,” she says, rubbing my back. “Everything will be all right.”
“I’m sorry for showing up unexpectedly. I’m sorry for causing a scene,” I mutter into the wool of her sweater.
“Dinnae fash,” she says. “It’s no trouble at all.
Sit down and let’s get some nourishment in you, then we’ll talk.
Never do anything serious on an empty stomach, that’s what my granny always said.
” She maneuvers me to an empty table and flags over a server.
“Can you please bring our Abby some food and lots of wine?” She winks at me.
“You just rest here. Whatever you need, give a shout. When you’re finished, you can rabbit away at me as long as you like. ”
Rabbit. It stings in my gut. Great, am I going to spend the rest of my life overreacting to that word? Heaven help me during Easter season.
The sting is soon crowded out by plates and plates of food and at least a full bottle of wine; Moira must have instructed the servers that every time the level in my glass drops even a millimeter, they’re to fill it up.
And even from the pits of my emotional abyss, I can appreciate how exceptional this meal is.
Oysters and scallops harvested this morning just offshore, venison from wild Scottish deer, Brussels sprouts and radishes from the restaurant’s own gardens, and a rhubarb crumble that nearly stops me in my tracks.
It’s refined without being stuffy or pretentious, just absolutely delicious food that’s clearly been prepared with care.