Claire the Auld One, Part 4
“I’m Michael,” he said, in a soft, husky voice with the trace of a French accent. “And ye’ll be Uncle Jamie’s faery-woman, I suppose.”
He was examining me with frank interest, and I felt therefore free to do the same.
“Is that what the family’s been calling me?” I asked, looking him over.
He was a slight man, lacking either Young Jamie’s burly strength or Young Ian’s wiry height. Michael was Janet’s twin but did not resemble her at all, either. This was the son who had gone to France, to become a junior partner in Jared Fraser’s wine business, Fraser et Cie. As he took off his traveling cloak, I saw that he was dressed very fashionably for the Highlands, though his suit was sober in both color and cut—and he wore a black crepe band around his upper arm.
“That, or the witch,” he said, smiling faintly. “Depending whether it’s Da or Mam who’s talking.”
“Indeed,” I said, with an edge—but couldn’t help smiling back. He was quiet but an engaging young man—well, relatively young. He must be near thirty, I thought.
“I’m sorry for your… loss,” I said, with a nod toward the crepe band. “May I ask—”
“My wife,” he said simply. “She died two weeks ago. I should have come sooner, else.”
That took me aback considerably.
“Oh. I … see. But your parents, your brothers and sisters—they don’t know this yet?”
He shook his head and came forward a little, so the light from the fanshaped window above the door fell on his face, and I saw the dark circles under his eyes and the marks of the bone-deep exhaustion that is grief’s only consolation.
“I am so sorry,” I said, and, moved by impulse, put my arms around him. He leaned toward me, under the same impulse. His body yielded for an instant to my touch, and there was an extraordinary moment in which I sensed the deep numbness within him, the unacknowledged war of acknowledgment and denial. He knew what had happened, what was happening—but could not feel it. Not yet.
“Oh, dear,” I said, stepping back from the brief embrace. I touched his cheek lightly, and he stared at me, blinking.
“I will be damned,” he said mildly. “They’re right."
---Echo in the Bone
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 Part 5
