Page 93 of Carry Me Home

‘You’d really be okay with it?’ I ask. ‘If I left?’

‘We’d miss you,’ Mum says. ‘Terribly. But we’d survive. Parents are supposed to want their children to fly. Even when it hurts to watch.’

‘Besides,’ Hayley says, her voice slightly thick, ‘Scotland’s not that far.’

‘Would you wear a kilt?’ Meg asks, and the question is so perfectly, absurdly Meg that the table laughs, and the laughter is a relief valve that lets everyone breathe.

‘I’m not wearing a kilt.’

‘You’ve got the legs for it. I saw them at the fete. Very tanned. Very capable.’

‘Can we not discuss my legs?’

‘Hayley, back me up. Tom has good legs.’

‘Tom has adequate legs. The knees are a question mark.’

‘My knees are fine.’

‘You’ve never looked at them properly.’

‘Why would I look at my own knees properly?’

‘What about Nessie?’ Hayley asks. ‘The loch’s right there. You could investigate.’

‘Do they have proper pasties?’ Dad asks. ‘Or is it all haggis?’

‘Don, they’re not savages,’ Mum says. ‘They have bakeries.’

‘A man needs a proper pasty.’

‘I’m sure Tom can survive without pasties.’

‘Can he though?’ Hayley tilts her head. ‘Remember when the Padstow place closed for refurbishment? He nearly cried.’

‘I didn’t nearly cry.’

‘You were misty.’

‘I was tired.’

‘Misty about pasties. It’s fine. We all have our weaknesses.’

I look around the table. Meg with gravy on her chin. Hayley gesturing with her fork. Mum trying not to laugh. Dad shaking his head at all of them, his hand still tight around his glass, the knuckles still white, his face already rearranged into something lighter than what I saw underneath.

This. This chaos. This noise. These impossible, wonderful, maddening people who have been the background music of my entire life.

I’m already missing them and I haven’t left.

‘What about Nina?’

Meg’s voice. The table goes quiet. A different quiet from the Scotland announcement – this one has edges.

‘What about her?’ My fork stops in mid-air. I put it down.

‘You’re just going to leave? Without telling her? Without⁠—’

‘Meg.’ Mum’s warning tone.