* * *
—
Later, once Finn had dropped us off to allow Cassie time for a nap at home before dinner, I stood in front of the small mirror in the bathroom of the bothy. I had started bleeding again. The cramping had started in my lower back and deep in my pelvis. It wasn’t my period. I knew this wasn’t going away. No matter how much I tried to run from it or deny it, this illness was here, inside my body. Stitched into my DNA.
I needed to see a doctor. I needed to be up-front with Finn, and with my daughters.
After all, they were at risk of inheriting it, too.
I was wearing another of Saffy’s dresses and a touch of red lipstick. I looked nice. I even liked my hair. I felt like I had been in hiding for years, and now, for the first time, I was coming out of the cave. Right as my time was running out.
The doorbell rang. I took a breath, tried to position the words on my lips, and opened the door.
But the man who stood there wasn’t Finn. He was young, late twenties at a push, a black beanie tugged down over black hair to his jaw, and a hoodie worn under a denim jacket.
He did a double take when he saw me, so much so that I wondered if we knew each other.
“Patrick,” he said, expectantly. “I’m Patrick Roberts.”
VII
“Patrick Roberts?” I said, uncertain if I’d heard correctly. This . . . was Patrick Roberts? The Patrick Roberts?
“Yes,” he said. “You’re Liv? The artist?”
“I am,” I said, clearing my throat. I hesitated, expecting him to say he was the son of the owner of the Longing. But he didn’t. He was the owner. I held out a hand. “We finally meet.”
He was slender with searching eyes and a soft voice, barely more than a whisper. I looked him over, taking in the tatty black jeans and Adidas trainers, trying to reconcile the image I’d carried in my mind of this man with the one in front of me. I’d always pictured an older man, the kind who wore a tie and played golf, who talked too loudly and maybe drank too much. This was a . . . boy. A gentle, slightly awkward, rakish twenty-something, with a whiff of nerves and body odor. A Keanu Reeves circa Bill & Ted’s kind of boy.
He spent a moment wiping his feet on the doormat—laughable, really, given how old and worn the carpet was—before stepping inside. His eyes fell on the dining table set for six—my girls and I, as well as Finn and Cassie.
“I’m not disturbing you, am I?” he said.
“Not at all,” I said, lying. The fact that Finn and I had just been talking about him made me self-conscious, as if our words lingered in the air, incriminating us. I scanned the road outside nervously. It occurred to me, a moment too late, that if Finn arrived to find Mr. Roberts here it would be an awkward start to the evening.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived,” Patrick said, glancing around. “Did Isla tell you I was on a sailing trip?”
“She did,” I said. “Shetland, I think she said.”
He nodded. “You’ve settled in OK?”
“Yes, thank you.”
His eyes fell on a pair of Clover’s knickers, which she’d inexplicably left on the armrest of the sofa, and he gave a nervous laugh.
“My daughters are with me,” I said as an apology.
“Sapphire, Luna, and Clover,” he repeated with a smile. “Isla told me. Are they here? I’d love to meet them.”
Just then, Clover came into the living room, dressed in nothing more than a swimsuit, a pair of goggles strapped to her forehead.
“Hello,” she said, looking up at him. “Who are you?”