I think of lying in bed, the dawn creeping under the curtains as Mum read to me about Hobbiton and the Shire. My nightlight illuminating those curly wisps of hair at her temples. You are always the best thing, my darling, the most wonderful thing in my whole life.

Mum never took responsibility for our life of uncertainty and chaos. For running into the path of that silver Lexus, and still – still – refusing to accept that she was anything but special. She never took responsibility for lying to me. For asking me to help her. For asking me to believe her.

Because she knew I didn’t. From the moment I took myself to the doctor’s at age fifteen and ever after, I never believed her again. We both knew it. And she asked anyway. I fed her those pills one after another anyway. Because in my heart – I rub the ache there, the deep spreading bruise – I just wanted it to stop. I wanted it all to be over. I think of sitting on that second-from-last cellar step, looking up at Robert’s stars and thinking, isn’t that what guilt amounts to? Less what we do than what we want to do? And I have never even come close to taking responsibility for that.

I look at that tall stark stone. Trace the swirls and scrolls of its neighbour with numb fingers. Guilt brought me here. To this island. To Robert. To this decision.

You just have to make the right choice, Maggie. And you always do.

*

Blairmore is deserted. The shop is shut. Pinned to the door of the pub is a hastily scribbled sign: Private Party. I hesitate, have to take one deep breath and then another before I find the courage to open it.

The dull hum of already muted chatter goes silent. Everyone turns to look at me. Just like they did on that first winter day three months ago. How long ago that seems now.

The MacKenzies are sitting at their table. Bruce looks worried, but Gillian looks defiant. Donnie is more solemn than I’ve ever seen him; he won’t look me in the eye. I wonder if he knew the whole story all along; if he’d known his childhood friend had once been Calum. Alec stands at the bar alongside Jimmy, and even though both of them are giving me the same kind of glower, I can see Jimmy’s hand hovering behind Alec’s shoulder, ready to grab hold. Isla, Fiona, Sheena, and Jaz are sitting at the long table that Inspector Lynn Urquhart had stood behind. On the other side of the lounge, Charlie sits alone. There’s no Euan, no Cora, no Will.

I don’t venture any further into the lounge. I wait for someone to speak, until I realise that they’re waiting for me. I swallow, throat dry. I can feel my nails digging into the flesh of my palms. I look over at that red wall of photos: landscapes of sea and cliff and beach; portraits of men, women, and children. And the mounted piece of varnished driftwood above them. The sheep will spend its life in fear of the wolf, and then be eaten by the shepherd. And I remember that day in the Big Hoose’s kitchen with Cora and thinking how fucking unfair life is. How relentlessly merciless. And we’re just supposed to go on living it anyway.