Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt Unbreakable Bonds
AO3
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
“No, loving him wasn’t in my plans. It was a way to escape being taking back to that horrid man. That was all. The ultimate marriage of convenience. That was to be it. We were friends, yes.” She stretches and sits up a bit straighter in her rocking chair. “Friends and I did find him attractive. That helped.” A chuckle has her great- grandchildren looking up at her with grins. She has to recall they are mere children. Raised to know some things. She, their parents and grandparents, did teach them about their bodies and sex, as they got old enough to understand. But to imagine Granny and Pappy doing such, it is probably a stretch for them.
“We had a successful wedding night.” A few hands covered faces and a few nervous giggles erupt. “That is all I will say. The next day, we took a picnic out on the top of a Monro. He asked me, was it unusual, why was between us, what our touches brought out.” Claire-Julia, her eldest great-granddaughter, sighs at this. At twelve the lass was almost at the age where boys will start to be more then annoying. Claire smiles at her. “I told him it was often something like this but it was unusual. That was the beginning.”
She stretches again. At ninety, no chair is comfortable for long. “By the time he first takes me to the stones, I am conflicted. To return to my own time or stay with him. I knew I loved him when I chose him.” All the lasses sigh and the lads eyes shine with interest. She had sat her grandchildren down, thirty odd years ago, and told them the same tale. They knew of the stones, of the time traveling their Granny did, that their grandparents or Auntie Brianna and Uncle Rodger did, with Jeremy and Mandy. Those stories are part of their inheritance. Her and Jamie’s though, it is special. A story only she tells fully. “By the time the upraising came, we had an unbreakable bound. To leave him, it was the hardest thing I ever did.”
“Grandma was in your uterus, eh?” Paul, her Bree’s first grandson, asks.
“She was. Pappy expected to die. The baby would be all that was left of him. I had to keep it safe.”
All nod. Those twenty years are well known. Talk of cars, planes, and the like, are whispered among the lads. The lasses talk of washing machines and water that flows from the taps. She looks over at them with affection. The children that, ultimately, came from her and Jamie’s love.
“I never stopped loving him. Not for one moment. When I got a chance to go back,” she sighs, even fifty years later, she can still recall the tug of motherhood vs. the tug of her love for him. “it was hard to go back. Hard to leave Bree.”
“Auntie!” Amí Collette, Fergus and Marsali’s little granddaughter, calls out.
“Yes, your Auntie. She was just my daughter then. To leave her was quite difficult. Ultimately, that unbreakable bound, pulled me back to him. Then Bree and Roger followed. I was so glad. To have my family all together but, want to know a secret?” All the children moved closer, their eyes big. “If it would have been just your Pappy and I, I would have been content. Love like ours is worth any sacrifice you have to make. Don’t settle for less. Promise Granny?”
“We promise.” Echoes back.
“I love you all. Granny needs to go lie down now.” They stand and scatter off to chores and play. She sits a moment and watches them. As she starts to get up, he is there, offering his arm.
“Jamie, my love.” He smiles and his blue eyes, surrounded by wrinkles, light up.
“Mo grá, I heard you tell the bairns you needed rest. Come lay beside me.” It is an offer seventy four years after their wedding night, she still can’t refuse.
“To bed or to sleep?” She cheekily asks him. He laughs.
“To sleep, I am afraid. But we can dream about the past.”
As they lay wrapped up together, they do.
