*Fiona took Aaron’s hand and led him out the back door. He followed without another word, and that alone upset her. She’d never seen Aaron like this before. He used to be full of himself as if he could conquer the world.
Some of her earliest memories were of Aaron. She’d loved him all her life, with the childish expectation that because she loved him they would always be together. Even though he didn’t return after college as he’d promised and he’d kept her in the dark about his job, that hadn’t changed how she felt about him.
“Here we are,” she said as she threw open the wishing barn door and quickly opened a few windows. The place always got so warm in the summer, but it smelled wonderful inside, a mix of sun-kissed wood and the mingled fragrances of the scented items she kept for people to put in the wishing jars.
Aaron halted on the threshold and twisted his lips uncertainly. “You know, I’m not sure about this. I can’t think what I’d put in one of your jar things.”
Unfazed by his reaction, Fiona pulled a pad of paper and a pen from a drawer. People who had serious issues often couldn’t think about their future until they’d cleared out the past. She’d discovered a simple way to do this when she’d been dealing with her own hurt feelings and broken heart.
“Take this pad, then go and sit somewhere quiet and write.”
He gazed at her as if she’d lost her mind. “I thought you wanted me to make one of your jar things?”
“I do. But first you need to write.”
“Write what?”
“Whatever you need to write. Let all your worries come out on the paper, as many words as necessary. It doesn’t matter if it takes the rest of the day or longer. When you’re done, come and find me.”
“Are you going to read it?”
“No. You don’t even need to read it yourself. It’s simply a way of getting all the bad stuff out of your head.”
He nodded slowly. “Okay. What do I do with it afterwards?”
Fiona smiled and slipped past him out the door. “Follow me.” She led him to the small garden behind the barn. It was a peaceful, sheltered spot, a sunny hideaway in the afternoon.
In the center of the circular paved area on a pedestal sat a large blue ceramic pot decorated with yellow and red flowers. It looked as though it should be a planter, but it had a different purpose.
Fiona tapped the edge of the pot. “You put the pages in here and burn them.”
“You expect me to do all that work writing stuff down, then just burn it?”
She suppressed a smile at his indignant tone. It was a normal reaction to her suggestion.
“Yep. You’ll feel better afterwards. Believe me. I know.”
His frown relaxed, and he dropped his gaze to the pad in his hand. Then he looked at her, a question in his eyes as if he’d guessed she’d done this after he’d hurt her. But she wasn’t going to bring that up now. She didn’t want to heap any more guilt on his shoulders.
He might only be here for a few weeks, but in that time she’d do all she could to help him deal with whatever trauma he’d suffered and move on.
*
Aaron wandered away from the castle to find privacy to write. He followed the footpath through the meadow to the River Glass. A weeping willow shaded a wooden bench near an ancient arched stone bridge that spanned the narrow river and led to the churchyard on the other side.
Very aware of the pad and pen in his hand, he stepped on the bridge and stared into the clear water bubbling over the rocks, tiny fish darting about like silver flashes in the depths. When he was younger, he’d hung out here with Jamie and Fiona. They had paddled, fished for minnows, or simply laid in the shade of the weeping willow and talked.
He smiled when he remembered how Fiona always pretended to be a cat and went through a phase when she mewed instead of talking. That was when he’d started calling her kitten, and the name had stuck.
Fiona had tagged along after Jamie and him back then; now she was the one giving the instructions. He glanced at the pad and considered what she’d said. In a crazy sort of way, it made sense that writing stuff down might help purge it.
He swiped a fly away from his face and stared at the fish some more. “Enough procrastinating,” he said.
Aaron sat on the riverbank, pulled off his shoes, and dangled his feet in the cool water like he used to all those years ago. Then he rested the pad on his knee and twirled the pen between his fingers, staring across the river at Saint Patrick’s Church. Just write what comes to mind, Fiona had said.
He put the pen to the paper and let the first words flow.
Sorry, Granddad. Sorry I broke my promise and let you down.
Okay, that surprised him. He’d expected the nightmares about his undercover work to come crawling out onto the paper.
He put the pen to the paper again.
I’m an idiot. I should have stuck to my dreams and not let Dad talk me out of them. I know being in the Garda is worthwhile, and I know it makes Dad proud of me, but I should have been true to myself. I should have come back to Ballyglass and married Fiona.
Seeing the words married Fiona on the paper made Aaron’s chest cramp, and it hurt to suck in a breath. He never let himself wonder what life might have been like if he’d made different choices. There was no going back. He wiped the side of his hand across his lips and glanced towards the castle. She’d said she wouldn’t read this. He hoped that was true.
I wish I hadn’t hurt Fiona. I know she must have waited for me, and I didn’t even bother to let her know I wasn’t coming back. I was a jerk. I was a coward.
He stopped writing and squeezed his eyes closed, his chest hurting again. Writing stuff down was painful.
He wrote a bit more about his granddad and Fiona, then the nightmarish thoughts of his time in Dublin hijacked his mind with dark, haunting images and terrifying memories. The words poured onto the paper, his heart thumping and his hand cramping. Events he’d pushed deep down and tried to forget rose to the surface like oil on water and found their way onto the page.
Finally the last drips and drabs of memories became sentences, his writing now barely legible as his hand was so tired. He blinked as if waking from a trance, amazed when he counted twelve full pages.
The process had exhausted him mentally, but he also felt lighter as though dumping out all those words on the page had eased the weight inside him. Maybe there was something to this idea of Fiona’s.
For a moment, he considered reading what he’d written. Almost immediately, he dismissed the idea. That would be like tossing out the trash, then going and picking it all up again.
He strolled back to the wishing barn and found Fiona sitting at a workstation, the melodic tones of one of Ewan’s songs coming from an iPod dock nearby. She perched on the tall stool, her long, tanned legs crossed. Engrossed in her work, she didn’t notice him at first.
It looked as though she was making an ocean-themed wishing jar. She arranged some scrunched blue tissue in the jar, then dropped in a small piece of dried seaweed and nestled a tiny wooden boat in the papery folds. Then she started sticking seashells on the jar lid.
“I’ve finished,” he said.
She visibly jumped, and he grinned. He’d forgotten how easy it was to startle her. He and Jamie used to do it on purpose all the time.
“That’s great.”
He thought she might comment on how many pages he had clutched in his hand; hoped she would, actually. He was proud he’d written twelve pages. But her gaze only grazed over the paper before she grabbed a lighter from the bench at her side and slid off the stool.
“Time to set those troubles free.”
He followed her back to the small courtyard garden behind the wishing barn. Brightly glazed pottery fragments and colored glass formed a swirling mosaic pattern in the wall that surrounded the circular space.
Fiona stopped beside the pot in the middle and put down the lighter on the plinth.
“It’s best to burn each sheet separately and make sure it completely turns to ash. Come back inside when you’re finished.”
He watched her go, surprised yet relieved she hadn’t stayed to watch. It wasn’t that he felt silly, but it was a bit odd to write stuff down and then burn it. Jamie would make fun of him if he found out.
Aaron scrunched the first sheet and dropped it in the pot, then lit a corner and watched the golden line of fire consume the white page, eating the words, leaving only delicate lacy ash that fell to dust.
As he burned the final page, he kept his eyes on his most troubling memory as the tiny flames destroyed it. He lifted the side of the pot and tipped it over, scattering the ash for the breeze to disperse.
Aaron blew out a breath that felt as though it was wrenched from the core of his being, leaving him hollow inside, but calmer. He didn’t kid himself that this was the solution to his problems, but it had definitely helped.