“Oh, Jamie.” Now the use of Glen instead of Dad speaks volumes. I, of all people, can empathize. Pete was nothing but kind to me, but Carrie came along when I was eleven, and my pubescent hormones still manufactured all sorts of slights, real or imagined. Carrie was a choice. I wasn’t Pete’s choice; I came with my mother. By then, I wasn’t sure I had ever been my mother’s choice either.

He shrugs, and aims for a jovial tone. “Aye, well, we all have our crosses to bear.” He pauses. “Look, do you think you could see your way to keeping this private?”

“I’m not exactly planning to tell all the locals someone thinks my father was playing away. They already think he was a thief, I bet.”

“Aye. Well. Thanks for that.” It doesn’t escape my notice that he hasn’t contradicted me on the thief part. He half shrugs and smiles. “Well. At least I have you to blether to now.” I smile back. I can’t think when I was the person that somebody turned to, in a nonprofessional context. There’s a pleasure in it that I hadn’t appreciated.

•   •   •

Later, Carrie comes back, buoyant of spirit and flushed of cheek after her ride with Fiona, and asks a dozen questions about Ben and Callum and Jamie’s visit. I’m vague on Jamie, but I do my best on Ben and Callum—even so, it quickly becomes evident my answers are wholly unsatisfactory to her. For my part, I want to know about her time with Fiona, what they talked about, how she conducted herself, but I don’t know how many questions are too many, so I hardly ask anything at all. It’s bedtime before I remember to look for Callum’s curly writing. I switch the light on in the dining room, then cross quickly to draw the curtains to prevent the blackness peering in on me. In the corner, just under the window. I can’t see anything anywhere along that wall, but the curtains I’ve just drawn fall below the windowsill. I have to lift them up and scan the wall behind a section at a time, and even then I nearly miss it: faded cursive script in gold paint, maybe half an inch tall, barely distinct from the warm hue of the wood paneling it has been inscribed upon. Callum’s young eyes must be far sharper than mine, or perhaps it’s more visible in daylight. Though now that I can see it, it appears to be gaining in luminosity and it seems ludicrous that I could ever have missed it. I can understand why Callum couldn’t read it, with the loops and curls and each s written to look like an f:

Love makes a furnace of the soul