He brushes past me, expressionless, and picks up the large bowl of potatoes, placing it at the center of the table. But when he sits across from me, his features pull together, looking from me to the table, then back again.
“What is it?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Nothing.” But I can see a shiver in his eyes, a thought, something he won’t say.
“Did I forget something?” Maybe I did something wrong with the clams, the potatoes. Maybe I used the wrong silverware, or I’ve disturbed something of his I shouldn’t have.
“Nae… no.” He lifts his eyes back to me, mouth settled into an easy line. “Ye just… that scent, lavender, is it?”
I nod.
“It reminds me… it smells like—” His voice breaks off. “It’s been a long time.”
“I’m sorry if—maybe I shouldn’t have—”
He shakes his head, smiles at me—barely, like his mouth isn’t used to the movement. “It’s… nice. I forgot how much I’ve missed it.” He nods to himself. “It reminds me of another time, summer days when the light stays long in the sky.”
I don’t know what to say. I’m quiet for a moment too long. “When did you last… I mean, when was it summer here, last?”
He exhales, using his fork to slide several potatoes onto his plate. “Hard to say. Months. But it’s not summer exactly, there are no seasons on the island. It’s the tide that decides the weather.”
I can tell he tries to speak more clearly with me, in words I understand. His tone flattened, taking on a steady American lilt. “What do you mean?” I ask, filling my plate with potatoes and several clams. I feel hungrier today than I have in days, working in the garden, and the soak in the tub has renewed my appetite.
“A year or so back, the island blew south. The air warmed, the sea too. I stayed for a couple weeks before the tide, or fate, sent me back north.”
“You have no control over where you go?”
“Nae.” A tiny smile edges along his lips. “To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.”
I stare back at him.
“It’s somethin’ my father used to say.”
His life has been at the mercy or cruelty of the sea. And I can’t imagine what he’s seen out here. What he’s lived through. Alone.
“Have you ever wanted to leave the island?” I ask. “Return to the mainland, to Scotland?”
His eyes settle, calm and thoughtful. “I dinnae belong in that world… yer world.” His voice is level, sure. “I’ve seen parts of it, when the island runs aground, an’ I know there’s nothing for me beyond this place.”
He spears a bit of potato, chewing quietly, and I watch him from across the table. I wish I could see more of his face through the scruff of his beard, maybe I’d be able to decipher his meaning when he speaks. So much of him is unreadable.
“Do you ever feel lonely?”
Wind rattles the window above the sink, then falls quiet. “We’re all alone inside ourselves,” he answers. But there is no sadness in his words, no melancholy. As if he was simply stating a fact, benign and harmless. A quiet truth.
I glance briefly to the locket hanging beside the stove, shivering in the firelight. “I’m sorry,” I say. “For taking it all those years ago. I was just a kid. I didn’t know what it was… what it meant.” I hope I sound earnest; I hope he can hear the regret in my voice.
He doesn’t turn, doesn’t look at the locket, but he nods. “Aye, I knew it would find a way back here eventually.” When his eyes lift, there is a sudden quiet in him—pensive, thoughtful. He is a man who has seen the far edges of the ocean, a man with nothing to prove. And nothing left to lose.
“How did you know it would come back?”
He leans back in his chair, considering this. “It belongs here,” he answers, his tone plaintive, infused with memory. “The island is…” He hesitates, searching for the words. “It grips yer heart an’ winnae let go. Anything taken from this place will always return.”
I think of the years that have passed since I first stepped on the island, how desperate I was to forget it. But it was always there, at the center of my chest like a second beating heart that begged to see the island once more.
To return.
Maybe I would always find my way back here. The island wouldn’t let me go.
