“I still do.”
“Don’t you think we’d go barking, just the two of us out there on our own?”
“No,” I say, and he smiles like I answered right.
“Would you like to go home?” Niall asks. “Only interesting humans at this party have been put forcibly to bed.”
What I’d like is to have another child, I almost say, but catch myself. “Yeah. Probably. Before Shan brings out the cocaine and goes insane.”
“Don’t think she’s doing it anymore,” Niall says after a swig. “Not since having the wee one.”
“Oh, right.” Of course not. “She’s in fine form, anyway. Offending everyone and their dogs.”
“Ben told me he has nightmares about her swallowing him whole.”
We laugh because it’s too easy to picture: Shannon’s husband Ben seems utterly terrified of her. Then I notice what Niall’s doing and my mouth falls open. “Are you lighting a cigarette?”
Niall grins and nods.
“Why?”
“’Cause it’s cold.”
“What’s temperature got to do with anything?”
“Nothing. Except that it’s the reason.”
I look at him in the golden light of the outdoor heater.
“I’m tired of fighting,” he says, then takes a long drag. “Nothing seems to make any difference.”
I exhale. “Don’t do that, darling. Don’t give up.”
There is a lot, right now, for him to be sad about. He’s decided to leave MER because his heart is broken and he can’t stand it anymore—I know he achieved not half of what he wanted to. Our savings have run out, which means we both have to take paid jobs. And we saw his mother earlier today, who was cold enough to me to rival the snow-covered backyard we sit within. I’m used to it after so many years, but Niall loathes her endless condescension and her refusal to admit she was wrong when she said our marriage wouldn’t last a year. I don’t know why it means so much to him to be right, but it does. Plus. There’s Iris. We never stop being sad about her.
“Smoke if you must,” I say. “But don’t give up, and don’t expect a kiss from me.”
He smirks. “I’ll give that an hour.”
My eyebrows arch.
A gust of cold wind blows in and through me, taking the heater’s flame with it. It’s darker and colder, suddenly. I reach for Niall’s hand and hold it, taken by some unease, some foreboding.
“All right, darlin’?” he murmurs as he stubs out his cigarette and then rises to deal with the heater. I hold on to him, though, staying him, and he sinks back onto the chair to grip my hand. “Franny?”
“Nothing.” I shake my head. “Just … stay a moment.”
So he does, and we sit still and quiet until it passes through me, unknowable and unshakable.
* * *
Niall’s had about five whiskeys on top of the champagne, so it looks like I’m driving, despite my three drinks. He throws me the keys and I drop them, laughing at his exasperated expression.
“I never promised you I could catch.”
“No, you did not, my love.”
The funny thing that falls into the silence is a shared thought of how we never really promised each other anything, actually. Not with words. I suppose there were promises made with lips and fingers and gazes. Yes, there were thousands of those.
I put the heater on high and we sit for a minute, warming our hands in front of the vents, urging it to get going.
“Christ almighty,” he grunts. “I’ve had enough of this winter now.”
“We’re a good long way from its end yet.” I start the drive home, windscreen wipers struggling to clear the drifting snow. I drive slowly, unable to see well in the dark, but there are never any cars out here this time of night.
“Did you have a nice night, darling?” I ask.
He reaches for my free hand and squeezes it. “It was tedious as all hell.”
“Liar. I saw you laugh so hard champagne came out of your nose.”
“Fine.” He tries to hide his smile. “It was tolerable. You?”
I nod.
For some reason I decide that I will tell him now. I would like to have another child. Would you?
Instead he says, “I do have to go back to MER. And I don’t think you should come with me this time.”
I’m thrown. “I thought you said you were done with MER.”
“I was frustrated, and being childish, but you’re right. There’s still more to do.”
“Good. Of course I’ll come. We’ll find a way to solve the money problem.”
He shakes his head. “I think you should travel.”
“I know it’s only Scotland, babe, but it still counts.”
He doesn’t say anything for a long while. Then, very clearly, “I don’t want you to come with me.”
“Why?”
“We can’t come and go from a place like that. If you’re there, it means you have to stay.”
There is silence in the car. I lick my dry lips. Calmly I ask, “Did I leave, the whole time we were there?”
“No.” He pauses, then adds, “But I was waiting for it day and night.”
I look at him.
“The road,” he reminds me and I reluctantly go back to it.
“Now you’re saying I shouldn’t stay?”
“I’m not saying you should do anything, Franny.”
Anger rears inside me. “So how do I win this?” I ask. “Is it some kind of trap? When I stay, you expect me to leave, so I might as well just fucking go.”
Niall nods slowly. It is the last thing I expect from him. Heat floods my body, making me nauseous. I breathe deeply until it passes, and then I try to explain. “Something changed that night you fell in the lake. I changed.”
He takes my free hand and squeezes it. “No, you didn’t, darlin’.”
“I know it will take a long time for you to trust me again, but—”
“I trust you implicitly.”
“Then why aren’t you listening to me?”
“I am.”
My pulse is quickening because I don’t understand what this conversation is. His calm is starting to derail me—I have none of my own left and my knuckles are white on the steering wheel. Flurries of snow turn the road ahead into a tunnel made by the headlights. “You said I leave because I’m frightened, and that that wouldn’t do, and you were right—it wasn’t good enough, so I’ve stayed. For years now.”
I dart a look at his face—he is watching me in surprise.
“That’s not what I meant,” Niall says. “I meant you were frightened of admitting the real reason you wander.”
I stare at the road, my mind blank. “The real reason?”
“It’s in your nature,” Niall says simply. “If you could only let go of all this shame, Franny. You should never be ashamed of what you are.”
Hot tears. My eyes are flooded with them.
“Have you stayed put since then because I said it would make you brave?”
I don’t say anything but the tears slip freely down my cheeks and chin and throat. I am so tired, suddenly, of denying the pull.