“The Round-Up!”

“Exactly. But you don’t fall forward off the wall. On account of centrifugal force. That’s me. I’m spinning, but the spin is what’s keeping me from peeling off the wall. That’s kind of why I don’t want to see that therapist you recommended.” Maureen has therapist recommendations in the same way she has a stash of pills for every minor mood problem. “I’m sure she’s brilliant, but I know she’s going to want to slow down the ride. And I’m afraid that’s when I’ll fall off.”

Maureen doesn’t say anything. Cate wishes she would say something indicating she gets it. But she doesn’t. Her mouth is moving around a little from side to side. As though she’s sucking on a small, intensely flavored candy. Cate tries to wait this out, but in the end, blinks first.

“Do you think we should sign up for the day tour of the famous whiskey distillery?” These sentences are so difficult to form. Her dread of the trip moves sluggishly through her veins. She’s not sure if it’s the trip, or the implication it holds that she and Maureen will still be together in a distant May. What so recently looked like the stable, portion-controlled life she was aspiring to now comes with a sense of suffocation.

Maureen has been maybe three of the four pushpins holding Cate’s Plan C to the wall. She rounds up a few doubts and tries to give her the benefit of them. So her ethics are a little sketchy. So for a while she was going steady with her sister. So what, really? Nobody’s perfect. She still often enjoys Maureen’s company, and if she’s circumspect, she could hang on to that without giving up the small, secret piece of Dana she has. She just has to keep Dana in a back pocket. As soon as she has formed this thought she’s ashamed of it. If she were the truly decent human she’d like to be, she’d be honest about what’s going on. Which would be the beginning of the end of her and Maureen. But she’s not there yet.

She doesn’t know what to hope for. A bittersweet breakup in April? A quarantine put on all the Hebrides, Inner and Outer, on account of some species-jumping sheep pathogen? Maureen helpfully moving on to someone else? Maureen catching Cate sneaking around with Dana? Even that would be better than Cate having to introduce the matter of breaking up in some quiet conversation in a private place, a conversation begun with throat clearing. Tonight would be a perfect opportunity, but she just can’t do it. Tonight will not be even a slim chapter in her autobiography: Profiles in Courage.