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Kittie smirks. “This way.”
She retrieves my bag, and then leads me out of the kitchen door, and around the side of the house. “Fraser’s place is right next door,” she explains, as we cross the overgrown yard. “The owner moved out a few years back, so he snapped it up. He stays there when he’s visiting, so he has his own space, but there’s always one of us around, borrowing the key.”
Fraser’s place turns out to be a charming cottage with a bright red front door, nestled in the trees. She unlocks, and I follow her inside, somehow unsurprised to find it just as homey and cluttered as the house next door. The foyer leads to a cozy living room, with a fireplace and wood stacked along the wall, and Kittie points out the kitchen and bathroom, too, and—hallelujah!—the washer/dryer. “Fraser’s room is right upstairs,” she adds, while I merrily pour laundry detergent into the machine and pile all my dirty clothes in. “But there’s a guest bed down the hall. Depending on where you want to sleep…” she adds, clearly fishing.
“The guest room is fine!” I blurt. “What’s through there?” I ask, pointing to a door at the end of the hall.
“That’s Fraser’s studio.” Kittie lingers in the doorway, watching me. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on with my brother, if you’re just working together or whatever but… Don’t break his heart again.”
My head snaps around. “What?” I ask, stunned.
Kittie looks determined. “It was bad enough you dumped him, but you couldn’t have picked a worse time, with everything else we had going on, with mum. He was a fucking wreck, he needed you more than ever, and you just fucked off and forgot about him.”
“Me?” I echo, bewildered. “He’s the one who broke up with me. Didn’t even have the guts to tell me, either. Just cut me off and ghosted me like I didn’t exist!”
Kittie’s face changes. “He did?”
“Yeah.” Then I pause, realizing what else she said. “What do you mean, what you had going on, with your mom?”
Kittie looks at me like I’m stupid. “She died.”
“Back then?” I gape. “That summer?”
I sit down with a thump on the nearest surface, which, luckily is the arm of the ancient couch. “I… I had no idea,” I breathe, my mind racing. “I mean, Fraser mentioned she died, but he didn’t say when. It happened right when we… When he…?”
“Yeah.” Kittie lets out a sigh, and sits too, on the arm of the chair opposite. “He came back after uni for the summer, all happy about you, and thenithappened, and everything went to shit. My dad fell apart, utter zombie, and we were all just kids, so Fraser… Well, he had to step up and take care of everything.”
The only adult in the room.
Suddenly, everything becomes perfectly, painfully clear.
“He was great,” she adds. “Packed our school lunches, and braided my hair, and dragged our Eddie off to counselling so he wouldn’t keep setting things on fire.”
I nod, still reeling. “Is that why he dropped out of art school?”
“Yeah.” Kittie looks sad. “He said he was just taking time out, at first, to help out around here. But then a mate’s dad got him an apprenticeship, at an accountancy firm in Inverness. Paid,” she adds. “Mum was the one who always handled the bills, you see. Dad was useless with that stuff, so Fraser took over. And once he was finished with that, he got his certifications, and moved to a bigger firm. More money. He said he liked it, that he’d changed his mind, and didn’t want to be an artist anymore, but…” she trails off. “Shit, you can’t tell him I told you any of this. He’ll throw a fit.”
I nod dumbly.
“Anyway… I didn’t know that he was the idiot who broke it off. Sorry,” she offers. “Turns out you’re not a heartless bitch, after all.”
I nod again, as she gets up. “Towels are in the hall cupboard, and there should be milk for tea in the fridge! Sleep tight.”
16
JJ
Kittie shows herself out,leaving me sitting there, dumbstruck, taking it all in.
His mother died. That summer, after I went back to Massachusetts. His mother died, and he never said a word.
That’s why he cut contact. All this time, I’ve been imagining that he was just being careless and coldhearted, tossing me aside. Instead, he was doing his best to keep his family together, reeling from an unimaginable grief.
Why didn’t he tell me?
I find myself wandering down the hall, towards that closed door. And when I push it open, I find that there’s a part of Fraser that hadn’t been left behind, after all.
His paintings.
