Letters from Skye

Chapter Twenty-two Margaret

Glasgow

6 September

Margaret,

It’s weighed on me for years that I was the cause of my sister’s sadness. I’m sure she blames me still.

You see, I had a girl named Kate. When I went off to soldier, she wove a lock of her hair into a rosette and stitched it to my shirt, near my heart, so that she’d always be with me.

Then came Festubert and I returned home a leg short, wanting nothing more than to bury my face on her shoulder. But that first moment, when I tried to draw her into my arms, she flinched. Literally flinched. She slowly stopped coming around, but, really, that made it easier. If she wasn’t there, I wouldn’t have to see her eyes sneak to my folded trouser leg, wouldn’t have to feel the air between us as she stepped aside to let me pass.

I thought I understood. What lass wants a cripple for a husband? Even when I received my prosthetic, I knew it wouldn’t matter. She already felt so far away.

Then Willie came home on leave. I was out at Elspeth’s new cottage, carving a mantelpiece. Willie found me sitting behind the kailyard with a lapful of wood shavings, and he tossed off his tunic to help. There, sewn to his shirt, right over his heart, was a golden rosette of hair.

We scuffled. He kept saying that we can’t help who we love. I think I broke his nose. Màthair was furious, and Elspeth cried and cried. Willie left the next day and didn’t come home on leave again.

And I thought that was that. I simmered, but Willie left and I could carve Elspeth’s mantel and try to forget I’d ever met Kate. But peace doesn’t last long. Elspeth received a letter from the War Office. Iain had been officially declared dead.

Those months passed in a blur. Iain, closer to me than my own brother, was gone. We’d set off for France with a lot of bravado and a promise to watch out for one another. I’d failed. Those were black days, to be sure. Elspeth was better off than I was. Alasdair’s bairns had come to stay with her, to fill her days. Since Kate left me, I had no one. I spent my time alone, walking the hills with my cane and a flask. When I went to Edinburgh for a check on my prosthetic, the doctor took me to task for abusing it so on the climbs. I didn’t care. I needed the pain.

But on my way back to Waverley Station, I saw Elspeth. She wasn’t back on Skye, mourning Iain. She was in an embrace right there on the street, with a stranger.

I know I wasn’t being fair when I squared her around and gave her a piece of my mind. The man pushed between us, as if it were any business of his. He wasn’t even from here; he was just an American. How could she forget about Iain like that? Only months after his death, and here she was throwing herself at someone else. How could she betray him, and with an American?

She stood with head down and let me say my piece. Whispered that she hadn’t forgotten Iain and never would. But then she started to cry, and the American stepped between us again. I went for him, asked what he was doing going after other men’s wives while soldiers were dying in the trenches. And Elspeth’s eyes flared up.

Yes, men were dying in the trenches. But, back at home, people were living. She was living. And I was never to step between her and her life again. She threw back her shoulders in that stubborn way I knew so well and said that we can’t help who we love. Just as Willie had.

Hearts meant more than blood? Now I knew why Willie thought that. But he was only a lad. Elspeth was supposed to be the smart one. The loyal one. The one who’d never turn away from her family or the promises she made. It was always supposed to be Elspeth, Iain, and me against the world. I told her to choose. Chin lifted, she took the American’s arm. I spat, said she was a fool, said that my whole family were fools. One day he’d play her false, but I wouldn’t stay to pick up the pieces. And I didn’t.

I did write to Màthair once, a few weeks later. I asked if Elspeth had listened to what I said. I asked if she was still with the American. Màthair wrote back that I should know well enough when to quit, that Elspeth didn’t much care what anyone said these days. She’d just received word that her American had died, and it took all of Màthair’s strength to keep Elspeth from following after.

Of course, I felt rotten after that. Who wouldn’t? But I was young and stupid and thought that any apology was too late. The past is past, Màthair always said, and so I stepped away from it all. If Elspeth decided to forgive me one day, she’d find me. At least that’s what I thought at the time. And, lad that I was, it made sense.

Now I know it was stubbornness—foolish stubbornness—and I’m too old to keep waiting for forgiveness. For breaking her heart, for breaking our family, the forgiveness might never come.

I’m asking for it now. I know how things can change in an instant in wartime. I know how quickly things can be lost. If you hear from your mother again, please tell me. I need to write to her. After all this time, I need to tell her that I’m sorry.

London, England

2 September 1940

Dear Sir,

Many years ago, a young man named David Graham volunteered with the American Field Service, near the beginning of the Great War. I understand the American Field Service Association plans reunions of the ambulance sections and maintains a publication with news and information about the former members.

If you have any information on David Graham, no matter how slim, can you please contact me? You can write to me at the Langham Hotel, London. I thank you in advance.