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April blushed crimson while Callum hooted with laughter at my side.“How strange, I have the exact same one at home.” I shoved his face into his mashed potato and the girls laughed harder.
It was two weeks since our night at Storr. Two weeks since the best night of my life. Two weeks of bliss laced with worry. In that time, we’d fallen into a routine, breakfast out on the bank (I’d even started feeding the bloody foxes) and dinner split between the manor and my cottage. Days of hard work and play-filled nights, not a single one spent apart. And through it all, I obsessed over the script. I’d read it cover to cover. Twice. It wasgood. So good that if she got the part, I’d put her on the goddamned ferry myself and strap my heart in beside her.
April assured me things moved at a snail’s pace in the film industry after she’d phoned the agent who had agreed to her terms with virtually no persuasion. April had even asked me to listen in on the meeting because she valued my opinion, trusted I had her best interests at heart. And I did. If my love for this woman had taught me anything, it was the lengths I’d go to keep her happy. But it didn’t stop that gnawing voice that whispered perhaps I could be selfish, just this once.
Following the phone conversation, she’d sent over some self-tapes for an initial screen test and was waiting to hear back about a possible audition. I could think of little else.
“It sounds like it’s going well then?” My mother smiled and April returned it somewhat timidly, dragging me out of my musings.
“As well as we could hope at this point, we’ve yet to make it through a quiet winter.”
“Oh?” Mum looked surprised and unwittingly pointed to the elephant in the room.“You plan to stay on the island until then?”
I paused with a fork full of food to my lips. I felt April tense where her elbow brushed mine. She grasped for an answer.“Well—”
“And what about you, Malcolm? What are you doing while the women are hard at work?” My dad’s voice cut through the atmosphere like alcohol at a children’s birthday party. Cutlery clattered on plates. April’s hand found my thigh beneath the table.
The same old tension crept up my neck, a small sting between my shoulder blades, but I didn’t look up from my plate.“Same as always, Dad,” I answered, loading more salad onto my fork.
My dad tilted his glass to April.“You’ve turned that place around, Elsie, but then you always did have ambition, Kier admired you for that.”
“April,” I corrected him bitingly. The insinuation that I lacked ambition didn’t hurt as much as it once would have. I knew the work was important to me and the community. To April. My dad being unable to see the value in it didn’t change that.
I shovelled more food into my mouth, content to ignore him. April had other ideas.“The new forty-seven label—the blend we sold twenty bottles of in one night alone—was Mal’s creation.” Her voice was cut steel as she stared down the man who I’d loved and loathed for my entire life.
“Princess,” I murmured beneath my breath.“You don’t need to—”
She looked back at me, eyes bright with hurt.Hurt for me.“Someoneshould.” She glanced at my dad again, eating his food at the head of the table like nothing happened, and her glass hit the table with a thud.“Who do you think ran the distillery while Kier was sick? Actually… who do you think was running that place while Kier was spiralling? Putting his own money in and never taking a real wage? Who do you think carried out repairs and managed the staff and did the bookkeeping? Who do you think kept the manor from falling down around Kier’s ears?”
I turned to her sharply, heart squeezing exquisitely in my chest. I felt the stare of everyone in the room but I couldn’t look away from April. I was about to drag her lips against mine when a loud crash made us all flinch.
“Jim,” my mother cried, flying to her feet and rounding to my father at the head of the table. His glass lay shattered at his feet, red wine like spilled blood on the stone tile. He was blinking furiously, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.“What are they doing here?” he muttered.“It’s only Wednesday, you shouldn’t be here.” His voice sounded so small all of a sudden, nothing like the man who’d raised me.
We all looked at one another, the twins giggling as Ava corrected,“It’s Saturday, Grandpa.” I only found grim understanding on my siblings’faces.
Dad shook his head furiously while my mother did her best to soothe him.“It’s all right, Jim, perhaps you should have a lie down.”
He looked at my sister.“What did you do to your hair, Iris?”
She paled.“It’s me, Dad… Heather.”
My dad made an awful retching sound and it took me a moment to realise it was the sound of him crying. We all sat frozen to the spot, stunned. I’d never heard my dad cry before. Callum was the first to react, face completely serious for once as he slung my father’s arm over his shoulder and led him down the hall to his bedroom.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I snarled the moment Callumstepped into sight. I’d retreated almost immediately to my old hiding spot, out of view from the house behind my father’s bursting greenhouse. I barely felt the cold sting of the wind as it tore at my clothes and hair. April tried to follow me once the chaos in the kitchen died down but I was fit to explode and I couldn’t have her here for that.
My brother froze on the stone path, hands sinking into his pockets.“We planned to, but we didn’t know how.”
“You come out and say,‘Hey Malcolm, our dad has Alzheimer’s.’”I pushed to my feet.“How long have you known?”
“Six months. Heather found out a few weeks ago. Mum kept it to herself for as long as she could, but he’s starting to need more and more help.”
“Six months!”I thrust an accusing finger at his chest.“Have you told Alastair?”
Callum tensed.“Yes… he says he’s coming home as soon as he can.” He didn’t sound like he believed him, but I didn’t care about Alastair right now.
“Six months is more than enough time to figure out a way to tell me.”
“You’re never around, maybe we didn’t think you’d care—” He was cringing before the words even fully left his lips. He held up a placating hand.“I didn’t mean that, all I meant was… you two have a complicated relationship, it isn’t always easy to navigate that.”
