She didn’t look back in the rear-view mirror as she drove away. She couldn’t. She didn’t want the last thing she saw to be a chance of happiness fading into the distance behind her. She focused instead on the road ahead and tried not to worry that she had just made the biggest mistake of her life.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Twenty-seven

‘Hi, Mum. It’s me,’ Elle said as she curled up on the hard bed of the pub room she’d found late that afternoon.

‘How are you?’

She opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out.

‘Elle?’ Caroline asked. ‘Elle, what is it?’

‘I couldn’t do it, Mum,’ she said, unable to hold back her sob. ‘I couldn’t spread her ashes at Stormeil.’

‘Oh, sweetheart,’ her mother said softly, which only made Elle cry harder. ‘I knew it would be harder than you thought,’ she said gently. ‘Letting go always is.’

Elle knew her mother was talking about Gran, and maybe that’s what this was really about, but part of Elle knew it was also about Stuart and what she’d just given up.

It had been the worst day. She’d stopped so many times to give in to the tears that she’d tried so hard to control as she left Skye, feeling as though part of herself were being torn away and left behind as she finally reached the bridge that took her back to the mainland.

‘Just come home,’ her mother said.

‘I can’t,’ Elle said. ‘Not yet. I’m not ready.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Caroline asked, and for the first time in far too long, there was no criticism or judgement in the question.

‘I’m heading back to Portsoy. I think Gran would like it there. It’d be nicer to have family around.’

Elle hadn’t called Alice yet to tell her she was coming; she wanted a day or so to herself before she would have to muster a believable smile.

After saying goodbye to her mother, she put on the TV and cuddled her pillow as a sitcom played, the recorded studio laughter breaking the silence of her room. As her tired, gritty eyes grew heavy, she imagined the soft touch of a hand on her head, brushing back her hair, and the soft hum of an old lullaby as she let herself fall into an exhausted sleep.

‘It’s so good to see you,’ Alice said, wrapping Elle in a tight hug two days later when she arrived in Portsoy.

‘It’s good to be back,’ Elle said, and found she actually meant it. She hadn’t realised how much she’d missed the family—even if they were only recently discovered family.