“You’re not my attorney, Maxie, you’re his.” I turned to Brandy and saw disgust in her eyes.

My father looked into my eyes and saw fear. “Oh, come on. It’s a bloody lake. Not like yer goin’ down in yer birthday suit.”

“Why does it seem like every time you’re in a courtroom, I get it up the ass?”

“Maybe ye like it there?”

“He’s all yours, Max. Come on, Brandy.”

“Come on where? Ye heard tha’ barrister. By the time they’re through humiliating yer father, no tourist in their right mind will come tae the villages. I’m none too happy aboot this, Zachary, but Angus is right—ye got tae go.”

“Listen tae yer wife,” the old man gloated.

“Shut yer pie hole, ye old bampot,” Brandy snapped. “Before my husband signs his name tae anything, I’ve a few conditions myself. First off, ye’ll be moving Alban intae the hotel immediately, so’s True can take proper care of him over the next five months.”

“The Crabbit… in my resort… the resort he cursed when we broke ground?” Angus was about to lose it when he saw the look in Brandy’s eyes. “Aye, whitever.”

“Second, when September comes ’round and it’s time for Zachary to go to Antarctica, True goes with him.”

Now it was my best friend who protested. “Me? In tha’ icebox for six months wit’ a bunch of boring old men? Are ye tryin’ tae neuter me, Brandy girl?”

“I’m trying tae neuter that Chinese vixen. Yer there tae prevent any alone time between Zachary and Dr. Liao before they descend intae that lake. So help me God, True MacDonald, if I hear my man so much as sits next tae her at breakfast, I’ll skin the two of ye alive—starting with yer short and curlies.”

5 months later …

6

August, die she must. The autumn winds blow chilly and cold;
September, I remember. A love once new has now grown old.

—Simon & Garfunkel, “April Come She Will”

13 September

For five months Vostok hung over my existence like a death sentence handed down by an oncologist. It greeted me every morning when I awoke, and it haunted my last thoughts before I succumbed to sleep.

What exactly was I afraid of? Being the anal-retentive left-brained thinker that I was, I mentally cataloged my fears into more easily digestible categories for self-analysis.

Fear of Separation: Six months would be a long time to be separated from my family. William was rapidly passing through infancy into the terrible twos, and each day seemed to introduce us to another facet of his burgeoning personality. I simply couldn’t get enough of him and arranged for my sabbatical from Cambridge to begin in June so I could spend the summer with him and Brandy back in Drumnadrochit.