Heather Song

by Michael Phillips

  There had been a time when Alicia had leaned on me for strength. Now it was my turn to lean on her.

  I drew in a long breath and slowly let it out. My relationship with my father had always been troubled. Even the recent years of spiritual renewal in my life had done little to resolve the deep conflicts in my mind whenever I thought about my parents. It was one of those areas in my life I compartmentalized and stuck off in a corner where I wouldn’t have to look at it. I had never opened that box to God’s scrutiny either, never asked if there was anything he wanted me to do with it. As personal as you think your faith is, maybe there are always areas you close off like that, both to yourself and to God. I wasn’t feeling like a very dynamic or mature Christian right about then. What did my last few years of growth matter if there were areas left I refused to look at, and refused to let God into?

  “I don’t even know how to answer you,” I said at length. “My father and I…we were never close. He is a lawyer. He was always busy…gone, involved with other people whose needs, as I saw it, he put ahead of his family…ahead of me. It’s the same story you always hear—career man neglects children…children resent it…estrangement results. I didn’t think he loved me. I know that’s not true, but when you’re young you think those kinds of things. Then my mom died, and at a time when I really could have used a father and maybe we might have repaired the damage and grown close, he buried himself even more in his work and his clients and his causes. Though he mostly mainstreamed, he was always sort of a Greenpeace, Save the Whale, Free Tibet type. But even then he still had no time for me. I suppose I never forgave him for that. Basically, I suppose I gave up trying to have a relationship after that. Who’s to say it wasn’t as much my fault? I blamed him for not making room in his life for me, never coming to visit. But then how many times did I go visit him?…How much room did I make for him in my heart?

  “It gets confusing, you know. You can be completely sane and rational and mature in every other area of your life, but with your parents, all the emotions and confusions and longings and disappointments get twisted into a mess, and you’re nothing but a confused hurting child again. Maturity…what’s that? In any event, whatever there was between us degenerated into a Christmas-letter relationship. I never thought he liked my husband—my first husband. I don’t know if it’s true. Who can tell with such things? But in all the wedding pictures my dad had a scowl on his face. It’s like he didn’t care about developing a relationship with me, but he resented my husband taking his little girl, his little angel, away from him. But like I say, my impressions of the thing might be completely cockeyed from what was really going on. I guess I was more confused than ever. By the time you get to be an adult—or when you think you are—your relationship with your parents is based more on false expectations and misunderstandings and disappointments and guilts than actual facts. If there’d been grandchildren, maybe it would have been different, I don’t know. But there weren’t.”

  “Do you regret not having children?”

  “Sure…I suppose. But life isn’t always what you expect. Do you?”

  “No, not anymore. You adjust. Sure, there’s an unfulfilled part of life you won’t experience. The way it’s going,” she added with a light laugh, “I’ll never know what it’s like to be intimate with a man either. But the older you get, the more you realize there are more important things in life. I’m dealing with it. I’ve got no major regrets.”

  “But minor ones?”

  “Sure,” she said, smiling, “who hasn’t?”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Home at Last

  We’ll meet nae mair at sunset, when the weary day is done;

  Nor wander hame thegither by the lee licht o’ the moon.

  I’ll hear your step nae longer among the dewy corn,

  For we’ll meet nae mair, my dearest, at eve or early morn.

  —Lady Jane Scott, “Durisdeer”

  The hours went by. The days lengthened into a week. Alasdair’s physical condition did not dramatically worsen, but his spirits were noticeably altered. He was at peace. But as sure as I now was that he would, neither did he improve.

  He got out of bed when he could, but did not seem concerned when he could not. Ranald came to the castle almost every day. They spoke of many things. A number of letters from Alasdair resulted, which he asked me to post. All were addressed to people I had never heard of. When I asked about them, Alasdair only replied with a faraway look and words to the effect, “Just unfinished business from long ago.”

  I knew he was trying to set right relationships that had gone wrong. But he remained stymied in that regard with his sister. He sent several messages to Olivia requesting a visit. But she did not come.

  When he was through with the letters, a calm came over him. He asked me for my Bible. A wedding gift from Professor McHardy’s sister Moira, who lived in Crannoch, the Bible was becoming well-worn from my use. Alasdair read for hours a day in the Gospels, and when he was unable to he asked me to read to him. He wanted to hear all the words that Jesus had to say about his Father. Sometimes we would talk about what we were reading, sometimes not. Most of what we read was not unfamiliar, yet was altogether new. Alasdair was reading with deep personal interest for the first time. Every story, every parable, every teaching was newly alive with meaning. It became newly real to me all over again as I listened to the words of Jesus through Alasdair’s ears.

  One afternoon Alasdair set down the Bible and laid his head back on his pillow and closed his eyes.

  “Would you play me the tape of Gwendolyn’s singing?” he said softly. “I would like to hear her little song.”

  I brought the CD that included Gwendolyn singing with her harp music. When I again heard the little song she had called “Daddy’s Song,” the sound of her pure high voice was so poignant I could hardly stand it. But Alasdair listened calmly, his eyes dry, a sad but content and happy smile on his face.

  A baby came to Mummy and Daddy.

  I do not remember—I had just begun to be.

  Mummy and Daddy loved baby.

  That baby was me.

  “Imagine, Marie,” he said, “it will not be long before I will see her again.”

  My eyes stung. I glanced away, trying to hold myself together for his sake. I still could not make myself believe it. I was so sure he would recover.

  “And her mother,” he added. “There is much I need to make right with her. I hope Ranald is right, that I shall be able to do so face-to-face. By now Gwendolyn is with her. She will have told her about me…and about you. You and Fiona will like each other. I hope she will already have forgiven me for doubting her, for thinking ill of her and Iain. But I will talk to her about it myself. That is the important thing, that everything be brought into the light, that everything be made clean…that I be made clean and pure. Maybe I will see your first husband, too.”

  For the next two days he listened again and again to the CDs I had made of Gwendolyn. He did not speak of her again. After that day, he did not say much. He tried to read, but often simply lay back with his eyes closed, holding the Bible and listening to the music.

  One morning I came into the room after being away for about an hour. Alasdair was holding several blue sheets of what looked like a letter. Quickly he stuffed them beneath the blanket. I was puzzled, but he obviously didn’t want me seeing it. The only thing I could conclude was that it was a private communication between him and Ranald, the same one I had seen Ranald with before.

  I walked over to turn on the CD player. He motioned for me to come. I walked to the bedside and bent down to kiss him.

  “You play for me,” he said weakly. “You play me…play the angels’ music.”

  Journey was set up in the room. I began playing mostly what I had myself learned of Gwendolyn’s music, though try as I might, I could not succeed in achieving her same magical sound.

  But Alasdair also wanted to hear my own music. He wanted to hear everything—every song I
knew, every song he had ever heard me play. He wanted to hear them all over again, as if I were reprising my first two private concerts for him—in the churchyard and in the Music Room where he had listened without my being able to see him—and then every other time he had ever heard me play. He even wanted to hear “Eleanor Rigby.” He listened to it with the most delightful smile on his face.

  He hardly said a word now. His body was weak. His large frame had thinned steadily over the months. Now at last his face grew gaunt as well, his eyes and cheekbones accentuated as never before.

  It was all I could do not to burst into sobs every moment. I recognized everything exactly as it had been with Gwendolyn, the same progression, even some of the same facial expressions, the same smile of weak contentment and anticipation, the same gradual letting go of earthly attachments.

  Gradually I sensed the end was near. I don’t know how. I just knew. He was not going to recover.

  One day in the middle of my playing, I glanced over at him. A smile of such radiance shone on his thin features. I stopped and went to him and bent down to his face. I could see that he wanted to speak.

  “I think,” he whispered, though I could just barely make out his words, “that this has been the happiest day of my life.”

  “Oh, Alasdair!” I said, blinking hard and kissing his forehead and cheeks, then his lips.

  “You have made these,” he went on, “the happiest years…the happiest days imaginable. Marie…I love you…I will never…will not forget you. Thank you…love you…I love you.”

  He closed his eyes and lay back again, smiling and content. I sat up weeping, but remained on the bedside, one of his hands in mine.

  Those were his last words to me.

  By morning he was with Gwendolyn again, with Fiona, with the angels, and with the Father of them all.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Aftermath of a Farewell

  There is sorrow, deep sorrow, heavy sorrow down-weighs me;

  Sorrow long, dark, forlorn, from which nothing can raise me.

  Yea, my heart’s filled with sorrow, deep sorrow undying

  For MacGregor of Ro-ro, whose home is Glen Lyon.

  —“MacGregor o’ Ruara”

  For the second time in my life, I was a widow. I no longer cared about being a duchess. I no longer cared about living in a castle. I was more glad than ever that I had anticipated exactly those feelings—​not dreaming anything would actually come of it—before my marriage to Alasdair.

  I had wanted only to be a wife. Twice I had been. Now twice that privilege was gone.

  Alasdair’s funeral was nearly identical to Gwendolyn’s. Only myself and Olivia—who, notified of her brother’s passing, returned to Port Scarnose at last—walked behind the horse-drawn hearse bearing Alasdair’s casket from the castle through the village and to the churchyard, where he would be laid to rest next to Gwendolyn and Fiona. The tears and outpourings of grief from the entire region were more heartfelt and genuine than they could possibly have been a few years before. Alasdair had so endeared himself to the community, and was so greatly beloved, that there was scarcely a dry eye in the streets. Earls and dukes and baronets, a number of MPs, and various dignitaries from Aberdeen and Edinburgh and Glasgow and as far away as London all came to pay their respects. Every man, woman, and child of the village stood silent and solemn as we passed, and then joined the procession. He was, of course, the laird. But the outpouring of grief was so real that it was almost as if he had been chief of an ancient Highland clan. Women I did not even know wept with abandon.

  Reverend Gillihan awaited the funeral procession at the church. I wondered what Olivia was thinking, to have to walk beside me behind Alasdair’s casket. I knew what she thought of me. We had hardly spoken since Gwendolyn’s death. Not a word passed between us that day. Not so much as a sign of recognition passed her lips when she looked at me.

  I had asked Alicia, Jean, Tavia, and Cora to arrange an informal gathering at the town hall after the brief graveside ceremony. The community needed some means to express its grief as a whole. I was not up to playing the role of hostess to a thousand people at the castle. Not only did I have my own grief to contend with, but without Alasdair’s covering protection I suddenly felt exposed and vulnerable to the stares and gossip and talk to which an incomer in such a community is always subjected.

  All the past anxieties from my first months in Scotland returned. For the past several years I had felt completely loved and accepted and had made so many new friends. But I had been loved as Alasdair’s wife. Would that same acceptance continue now that I was alone, especially with Olivia free again to begin planting the seeds of her subtle persuasions? Would people again give me strange looks, as if I were a gold digger from Canada…and had been all along?

  I knew well enough how it often went—the woman from outside, knowing of a man’s mortal illness, worms her way into his affections, persuades him to marry her, and within a year inherits a vast fortune. Hopefully the prenup had put all that to rest. But I was still nervous. Much of my anxiety, of course, was because of Olivia. She was such a presence that her influence could not be ignored. And I was probably not thinking straight. Trauma and personal tragedy do not produce clear thinking. As loving as were Ranald and Alicia and my other dear friends, they could not help me make the decisions that suddenly loomed on my horizon. They always say it is not wise to make major decisions within a year or two of major life crises and changes. But I didn’t have two years. I would be afforded as much time as I needed, I knew that. But I still had to look forward.

  What would I do now?

  The letter from my father weighed on me. I still had not sent him a reply. I had delayed doing so in hopes that events would make my way clear. Suddenly, with Alasdair gone, everything changed. The thought of going back to America could not but figure prominently among my options.

  I could think of only one thing to do in the immediate days ahead that even halfway appealed to me. I hoped it would not raise too much untoward speculation. After the events of the funeral settled down, I would set out aboard the Gwendolyn. I had to think…and pray. How desperately I would have liked to take along my two dearest friends—Ranald Bain and Alicia Forbes—for comfort and fellowship and counsel. But somehow I knew this was something I needed to do alone.

  Where would I go? I had no idea.

  Just out…away…where I could be alone…to think and cry out to God, and hopefully come to terms with yet one more sudden change that had come to my life. There, on the sea, I could commune with God and Alasdair’s memory together.

  I notified Captain Travis to assemble Alasdair’s small crew, which was only a local boy or two, depending on the length of trip, and to lay in stores and be ready to sail.

  I sailed three days after Alasdair’s funeral. We did not announce the fact, and managed to depart the Port Scarnose harbor with a minimum of fanfare.

  I sent a letter to Reverend Gillihan, asking him, if he felt it appropriate, to read it in church, or, if not, post it in town, or both if he thought best. In it I wrote:

  Dear friends of Port Scarnose,

  I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the outpouring of sympathy, affection, and kindness you have shown me since the duke’s death, and for your kind and gracious words of love toward my dear Alasdair. I know you loved him as I did. We will all miss him sorely.

  I will be gone for several days, a week, maybe even two, on the Gwendolyn, thinking and praying and grieving on the solitude of the sea, which my Alasdair and your duke loved. Be assured that my thoughts and prayers will be with you, and I hope you will remember me in yours as well.

  Affectionately,

  Marie Buchan Reidhaven

  Chapter Twenty-six

  At Sea

  With the Loorgeen o hee, with the Loorgeen o ho,

  In the gray dusk of eve, o’er the waves let us go.

  On the ocean, o hee, waves in motion, o ho,

  Naught but
clouds could we see, o’er the blue sea below.

  —“A Boat Song”

  The open sea revived my spirits.

  Ever since I had come to Scotland, the sea had had that effect on me. Out on the blue expanse, I was free to think about Alasdair and Gwendolyn, to cry but also to rejoice that I had been able to know them both while there was still time.

  Again the sea became my refuge and consolation. I was reminded of my revelation of earlier when watching the tide rise and fall over rocks and the shoreline, that the sea was like the great love of God, sweeping in and out and through the lives of mankind as a great tide, giving life to the whole world and everything in it. I now felt that I had been left all alone in the world except for God. I was floating on that sea of his love, upheld by love, sustained by love. All earthly loves might be taken away. But the great sea of the universal love of God would never cease giving its life to man, and to me.

  God’s life and love had entered me and changed me. I had left Port Scarnose feeling alone. I knew that God was with me and that I was never really alone. But now I could not but wonder if the time had come—sooner than I had anticipated—when I would spend the rest of my life alone.

  Tears flooded my eyes. I walked toward the bow of the yacht, and there stood, face into the wind, unable to stop the flow of tears as they streamed down my cheeks.

  Tears are usually good—the cleansing agents of God’s healing processes. Those tears that day, though they stung my heart, I knew were good tears.

  The Gwendolyn sailed north to Shetland, which I had not visited before. We sailed about its islands and inlets for two days, then set a southwesterly course, laying over at several of the small islands of the Inner and Outer Hebrides, then Skye, then Iona, and from there to Ireland. I was not feeling touristy. I simply wanted to travel, to move, to see new sights and stay away long enough to let Alasdair’s death settle. So many decisions were facing me. I wanted to have some idea of their resolution prior to my return, and with only Captain Travis and one boy aboard keeping to themselves, most of my time was spent in perfect solitude.