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As my heart sped up, I dug my fingernails into my palms and fought the spiral of panic threatening to pull me under. Just as I was losing the fight, the faintest whiff of cigarette smoke wafted under my nose, yanking me back to the present. I closed my eyes and took a breath, picturing Grandma in her oversized flannel shirt, asking me what I wanted.

This. I chose this. I want this. And I’m not going to let anything take it from me.

“Go now. Find a hotel in the city. Go save your job. I’ll take care of Viv. I’ve got this,” I said, nodding firmly. “Trust me.”

THIRTY-TWO

“Viv, we need to talk about this!” I insisted, following her up the stairs and across the beautifully painted space between the kids’ rooms.

“I don’t want to talk about it with you!” she cried, stomping into her room and spinning around to slam her door and then groaning when she saw me standing in the way.

“You don’t want to talk about it? Or you don’t want to talk about it with me?” I asked, settling myself against the doorjamb with my arms crossed, like I had all the time in the world.

“Neither!” she yelled, throwing herself dramatically backward onto her bed and pulling her pillow over her head. She howled a wordless scream into it. Then her arms flopped to the side as though she’d expelled the tension holding her together.

“Feel better?” I asked without moving any closer.

Viv threw the pillow to the side. “No.” She sighed. “Yes. I don’t know.”

“I actually understand that feeling better than you might think,” I laughed, and she lifted her head to shoot me a wary glance.

“You do?”

“Existential crises aren’t reserved for teens, you know?” I shrugged. “Mind if I come in?”

“Whatever,” she answered with a shrug of her own, but she sat up and scooched back until she was resting against the headboard.

I took it as an invitation to join her on her bed.

“You know, we’re not so different, you and I,” I said, and smiled at the dubious expression I got in return. “I’m serious! We both moved to a brand-new country where we didn’t know anyone and suddenly had to do work that we’d never done before.”

“Yeah, but you chose to come here, and opening the shop was your decision. I didn’t want any of this,” she argued.

I tipped my head to the side. “That’s fair. Even so, we’re still both experiencing a new place with new expectations, making new friends, living with new people, deciphering a language harder to understand than it should be, and dealing with way more rain than we’re used to.”

She grunted at that and glanced out the window, where the storm that had pummeled us all night was still raging.

“Do you think Rory’s okay?” she asked, worry for the young calf pinching her forehead.

The coast of Massachusetts was no stranger to spine-chilling storms, so I’d weathered my fair share growing up. But getting battered by sideways rain and howling winds just a few feet from a furious ocean was giving me new respect for our ancient building and the general hardiness of the Scottish people.

“I’m sure Mr. O’Shea has him safe and snug somewhere warm,” I reassured her.

“I still wish you’d let me go get him last night,” she grumbled, picking at her coverlet.

I laughed. “Yes, because what was missing in my bed last night was a hundred-pound calf.”

Merry and Viv—with Pipsqueak tucked under her arm—had slipped into bed with me at some point in the middle of the night, and the four of us had huddled together under a mound of quilts, drifting in and out of sleep as the storm raged outside. The power cut out a few hours before daybreak, but Peggy had warned us that could happen during big storms, so we were well stocked with a wide range of camping lanterns and enough batteries to power them for days.

For now, Merry was still entertained by the novelty of being without electricity, but I had a hunch that would wane as soon as he realized he couldn’t watch his favorite cartoons until it came back on.

“Do you think Dad’s okay?” Viv asked in a little voice that reminded me just how young she still was.

“He texted me when he got to his hotel in Edinburgh and again this morning on his way to his meeting. The storm isn’t as bad there as it is here.”

“That’s good,” she whispered, looking out the window again.

“Can we please talk about your schoolwork now?” I asked.