“I’d leave them with my brother, but—”
“Exactly what I said. The boys are there on your new husband’s instigation. So tell me about the ring. Give me the c’s. Cut, color, clarity, carat, cock.”
“Not sure that last one is one the diamond chart.”
“You know I like to keep my hand in.”
Pressing my hand to my head, I moan.
“Oh, come on. That was funny. I haven’t been completely broken of the D yet.”
“I’m sure Gabby just loves to hear that,” I say, invoking her wife’s name.
“As a matter of fact, she does. It makes for some spicy bedroom—”
“Niko gave me my grandmother’s engagement ring,” I blurt. “It’s a family heirloom that was stolen and he found it.”
“Oh, wow. You know, that’s so romantic.”
“Yes, I suppose it is.” If you don’t concentrate on how it went missing in the first place and if you don’t consider how Niko came to find it. It’s not like he wandered into Cartier.
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I am, it’s just. It’s all happened so fast.”
“I wouldn’t say fifteen years is fast.”
“This time around,” I add, frustrated. “Everything has been so wonderful, but I feel like I haven’t had time to think.”
“Okay, lets break this down,” she says, slipping into her faux-therapist mode. “It’s not like you just met. There’s a history between you.”
Not a very pleasant one, I think to myself. We’d kept what happened between us, though I’d almost told her after things fell apart. But, in the end, I just tucked my tail between my legs and moved back to Scotland.
“I bet this thing has been simmering between you for years.”
“No, I was completely faithful to Tom.”
“I wasn’t suggesting anything. I’m just making the point that it’s not like you’ve married someone you only just met.”
“But that’s just it. I don’t really know him. I’m not sure I can trust him.”
“Isla, love, you don’t trust anyone.”
“What?”
“And it’s not all that surprising.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I trust!”
“I suppose to an extent. You trust your brother, but I’d bet my retirement fund you don’t tell him everything. Meanwhile, you make yourself useful to everyone around you, often to your own detriment.”
“No,” I scoff. “That’s not true. I like to help.”
“You don’t like, to help, Iz. It’s a compulsion.”
“Is it?”
“We all have our wounds, babe, but as far as my therapist loving little heart is concerned it’s not surprising you are the way you are. If you ever find yourself on a therapist’s couch, you’ll probably discover your father shooting your dog when you were a kid was the start of it.”
Ice washes over me, from my head to my toes. I don’t really hear anything else, not as my mind moves back in time to that moment…
It was raining and I was in the boot room with Sandy. We were supposed to clean it as punishment for arguing at the breakfast table. Bess started to whine at the back door, so I thought she might need to go. I hadn’t bothered with her lead—oddly for a Labrador, she wasn’t very keen on water, including wet weather—when she’d taken off across the courtyard. I’d run after her. She didn’t like the rain and there was supposed to be a storm coming. I got so wet so fast, my hair plastered to my head and my T-shirt stuck to my chest. I’d spied her slipping through the broken gatehouse door. I’d dashed in after her, following her familiar barks and higher yips to find her playing with my mother’s best friend’s Yorkshire terrier. But my heart had sunk to my boots. Clothes hitched, flashes of skin, heavy grunts and higher pitched sighs, I’d also found my father. And Aunt Annabelle, my mother’s best friend. I backed out of the room. My twelve-year-old eyes not able to comprehend what I was seeing but knowing anyway. I ran home, mute. Bess was the least of my worries at that point.
Sandy wanted to know what was wrong, but I couldn’t find the words to explain what I’d seen. It hadn’t even occurred to me to worry about hiding it from my mother. But it turned out I never would, because within twenty minutes of my letting her out the door, I’d heard a rifle shot ring out. And I knew. I ran out to the courtyard to find Bess on the sandstone. She was still, a ruby red puddle bloomed under her, and she was still warm as I’d dropped to the ground and sunk my fingers into her fur. I’d sobbed, my immature heart breaking as I’d looked up at my father for an explanation.
“That’s what happens to when you don’t do as you should,” he’d said in that detached tone of his. Then he’d stuck the butt of the gun under his arm and turned away, but not before adding. “Make yourself useful, girl. Go and find the gardener. Tell him to plant a shrub over this.”