“The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” The words rang in my ears, making me want to scream as I watched my mother’s body being borne away. Hot tears streaked my face, and I reached up to wipe them away with the back of my hand, conscious though I was that they would return instantaneously.
Father wrapped his arm around my shoulder. I looked up at his face and was surprised to see tears in his brown eyes. In all my fourteen years I had never witnessed Father crying, and yet here he was, sobbing uncontrollably. Not that I blamed him. I myself was weeping like the world was crashing to an end. Because my world was. Looking about me at the grieved and sympathetic faces of my friends and others who had attended the funeral made me want to run away and hide, never to show myself again. I couldn’t bear to be pitied. It was only by an exertion of every bit of willpower I possessed – and because of Father – that I managed to remain standing where I was, though my knees buckled and my whole body trembled. I clenched and unclenched my hands repeatedly, squeezing them so hard that my knuckles turned white, then pressing my fists against my shaking legs and opening my hands. Mother was gone. There was nothing I could do.
My name is Eilidh McKay. My father worked as a fisherman off the coast of Aberdeen, and my family – now just him and me – lived in the small fishing town of Footdee. All of our neighbors were just like us in terms of occupation and social status, and we all got along pretty well. Until Mother died, I was just like any of them.
The way Mother died was shocking. Father came home one night and said that he had found her, already dead and lifeless. He said that he presumed she had had some sort of accident and had been unable to get help in time. I had wanted to investigate more into her death, to try to find out the cause, and whether it was really an accident, but Father had refused, for what reason I did not know.
After Mother’s burial, Father and I promptly returned home. Father seemed different somehow, quieter and more reserved, but when he did speak his voice was so full of bitterness and grief that it startled me.
“You will keep house, Eilidh,” was the first thing he said, after which he added, “Prove yourself of use. I’m hardly surviving without your mother anyway. I canna have a useless daughter.”
“Aye, I will,” I said quietly, not daring to meet his eyes. Didn’t he know I was suffering, too?
I stood to make our supper of boiled potatoes and fish, a heavy feeling in my heart. Father sat motionless at the small wooden table, staring off into the depths of his mind, pondering something unknown to anyone but himself.
Neither he nor I offered any words or conversation that night as we were eating, and it grieved me. Father had not always been this way. He used to have a laugh that would fill the entire cottage with merriment, and a manner of speaking that made anyone, even those intent on being troubled, smile, if only for a fleeting instant. Now, however, he seemed hardened and thoughtful, traits I attributed to the loss of Mother. I don’t see why he needs to be so sulky about it, though, I thought. Nothing we can do about it.
