Buck had merely grunted in reply to that and said no more. But it wasn’t Buck’s response that was occupying Roger’s mind at the moment.
It hadn’t hurt when he’d cleared his throat while talking to Buck, though he hadn’t noticed consciously at the time.
McEwan—was it what he’d done, his touch? Roger wished he’d been able to see whether McEwan’s hand shed blue light when he’d touched Roger’s damaged throat.
And what about that light? He thought that Claire had mentioned something like it once—oh, yes, describing how Master Raymond had healed her, following the miscarriage she’d had in Paris. Seeing her bones glow blue inside her body was how she’d put it, he thought.
Now, that was a staggering thought—was it a familial trait, common to time travelers? He yawned hugely and swallowed once more, experimentally. No pain.
He couldn’t keep track of his thoughts any longer. Felt sleep spreading through his body like good whisky, warming him. And let go, finally, wondering what he might say to his father. If . . .
A MAN TO DO A MAN’S JOB
Boston, MA
December 8, 1980
GAIL ABERNATHY provided a quick but solid supper of spaghetti with meatballs, salad, garlic bread, and—after a quick, penetrating look at Bree—a bottle of wine, despite Brianna’s protests.
“You’re spending the night here,” Gail said, in a tone brooking no opposition, and pointed at the bottle. “And you’re drinking that. I don’t know what you’ve been doing to yourself, girl, and you don’t need to tell me—but you need to stop doing it.”
“I wish I could.” But her heart had risen the moment she walked through the familiar door, and her sense of agitation did subside—though it was far from disappearing. The wine helped, though.
The Abernathys helped more. Just the sense of being with friends, of not being alone with the kids and the fear and uncertainty. She went from wanting to cry to wanting to laugh and back again in the space of seconds, and felt that if Gail and Joe had not been there, she might have had no choice but to go into the bathroom, turn on the shower, and scream into a folded bath towel—her only safety valve in the last few days.
But now there was at least someone to talk to. She didn’t know whether Joe could offer anything beyond a sympathetic ear, but at the moment that was worth more to her than anything.
Conversation over dinner was light and kid-oriented, Gail asking Mandy whether she liked Barbies and whether her Barbie had a car, and Joe talking soccer versus baseball—Jem was a hard-core Red Sox fan, being allowed to stay up to ungodly hours to listen to rare radio broadcasts with his mother. Brianna contributed nothing more than the occasional smile and felt the tension slowly leave her neck and shoulders.
It came back, though with less force, when dinner was over and Mandy—half-asleep with her arm in her plate—was carried off to bed by Gail, humming “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” in a voice like a cello. Bree rose to pick up the dirty plates, but Joe waved her back, rising from his chair.
“Leave them, darlin’. Come talk to me in the den. Bring the rest of the wine,” he added, then smiled at Jem. “Jem, whyn’t you go up and ask Gail can you watch TV in the bedroom?”
Jem had a smudge of spaghetti sauce at the corner of his mouth, and his hair was sticking up on one side in porcupine spikes. He was a little pale from the journey, but the food had restored him and his eyes were bright, alert.
“No, sir,” he said respectfully, and pushed back his own chair. “I’ll stay with my mam.”
“You don’t need to do that, honey,” she said. “Uncle Joe and I have grown-up things we need to talk about. You—”
“I’m staying.”
She gave him a hard look, but recognized instantly, with a combination of horror and fascination, a Fraser male with his mind made up.
His lower lip was trembling, just a little. He shut his mouth hard to stop it and looked soberly from her to Joe, then back.
“Dad’s not here,” he said, and swallowed. “And neither is Grandda. I’m . . . I’m staying.”
She couldn’t speak. Joe nodded, though, as soberly as Jem, took a can of Coke from the refrigerator, and led the way to the den. She followed them, clutching the wine bottle and two glasses.
“Bree, darlin’?” Joe turned back for a moment. “Get another bottle from the cupboard over the stove. This is gonna take some talking.”
It did. Jemmy was on his second Coke—the question of his going to bed, let alone to sleep, was clearly academic—and the second bottle of wine was one-third down before she’d finished describing the situation—all the situations—and what she thought of doing about them.
“Okay,” Joe said, quite casually. “I don’t believe I’m saying this, but you need to decide whether to go through some rocks in North Carolina or in Scotland and end up in the eighteenth century either way, is that it?”
“That’s . . . most of it.” She took a swallow of wine; it seemed to steady her. “But that’s the first thing, yes. See, I know where Mama and Da are—were—at the end of 1778, and that’s the year we’d go back to, if everything works the way it seems to have worked before. They’ll either be back on Fraser’s Ridge or on their way there.”
Jem’s face lightened a little at that, but he didn’t say anything. She met his eyes directly.
“I was going to take you and Mandy through the stones on Ocracoke—where we came through before, you remember? On the island?”