Highland Portrait (37 page)

“Tis me a moment a’fore I died.”

Stella felt a cold shiver of fear run down her spin when she thought of Robbie’s words when she had first seen his portrait.  He couldn’t have died. She wouldn’t believe it.  Everything had changed when she went there, everything was different and together they had changed history, albeit their own history, but it had changed so many things.  Surely he had been the victor and he had lived.  She would not think otherwise.  Her Robbie was alive and she would return to him.

Stella called her father to see if he had arrived home but there was no answer so she left a message. She felt alone again.  She desperately wanted to talk with her mother, but that would have to wait until she went back. Her father would help her, she knew she would be seeing her mother again but needed her father to make that happen.  She turned out the studio lights and she and Ferghus walked back to the kitchen.  She fed Ferghus, cleaned up his messes and took a shower.  As she got out of the tub she glanced at the roll of fluffy, white toilet paper hanging neatly and conveniently by the side of an equally convenient toilet and she knew she would trade them both to see her Robbie again.  After dressing she poured herself a glass of wine and sat in her father’s La-Z-Boy.  She sipped her wine, but it tasted of sadness, so she poured it out and went to bed, hoping that Albert would show up tomorrow so she would know what happened.

Two weeks passed with no word from her father. Stella began to spiral into a chasm of sadness and worry that seemed bottomless.  She ate very little, slept fitfully and cried at the least provocation. 

She spent her days finishing Shawn’s portrait, finding it to be painful. The oil was still wet, not dry like Robbie’s portrait had been, and every detail of her original work was still there.  Shawn’s sketches lay untouched, scattered on the floor where she had left them.  She hated the portrait, hated having to finish it, hated that Robbie’s portrait was gone.  She so desperately wanted it back.  But practicality told her she had to finish the commission and have it ready for Kyla as soon as possible.  Her world might have changed radically in the last couple of weeks, but she still needed the money from this commission.

She committed her days to completing Shawn’s portrait, but in the evenings she drew the images that were burned in her brain now.  Her sketch book was filled with her days in Oban, the cairns, the woods, the farmer’s croft, Gregor, the castle.  She tore out a sketch of Robbie, one she had done in his uncle’s library.  She had drawn him in profile standing at the window looking out at the bailey.   She liked this particular drawing because he looked so noble, so strong, so much like a champion.

She put the picture in a frame along with his signature page from her sketchbook and set it by her bed so that she might see him the first thing every morning and the last thing every night.

On the fourteenth evening Stella sat in her father’s La-Z-Boy sketching, trying to remember exactly how Elinor’s nose curved into her lips, when Ferghus started barking and padded down to her studio.  Hearing a noise in the studio Stella rushed in, flipped on the light and found Albert sprawled on the floor.

“Daddy!”  Stella kneeled at his side and helped him sit up.  He seemed disoriented and exhausted, his kilt and shirt both covered in blood. Stella panicked, looking for an open wound.

“Daddy, are you alright?”  Albert shook his head and looked around him, gripping Stella’s hand.

“When did you get back, Stella?  What is today’s date?”  Albert was breathing heavily from the battle with the English guards and the fast run up the hill to the rocks.

“I got here two weeks ago. Today is the 29
th
.  Robbie, what happened to Robbie?”  Stella helped Albert stand and moved him slowly toward Ferghus’s armchair.  Albert fell into the chair and brought his hands to his head.

“Daddy, why are you covered in blood.  What happened, Daddy?” Panic seized Stella and her breathing accelerated until she became light headed.  Terror gripped her heart and she fell into the abyss of hysteria.

“Daddy, Daddy, please tell me what happened!”

Albert took a deep breath and looked at Stella, his eyes filled with regret and sadness.

“He’s dead, Stella.  The soldiers killed him.”

Somewhere in the depths of her brain she heard someone’s scream of pain, of loss. She heard the wailing of a heart broken, a soul cut loose from its moorings, sent adrift desolate on a black sea of pain.  For many years afterward the smell and sight of blood would cause her a terrifying sense of loss. She felt a sword slice into her heart and spill out the joy that had so recently been there, now like a spilled bottle of ink it left a stain on her world. 

Twenty One

1 year later – Texas

Stella got up before the alarm, having slept the whole night through for the first time in almost a year, but still feeling the tiredness that she carried with her like a Herculean weight, always pressing on her heart, pulling at her shoulders, bending her back, robbing her of her smile.  Her moments of joy were conditional now, only when she looked into grey-blue grey eyes or heard Robbie’s laughter, then her heart would swell and a bittersweet sadness would sweep over her.  Her inestimable loss was a heavy weight and she held tight to the burden because sadness was all she had left of him.

Ferghus uncurled himself from her bed and leapt to the floor headed to the back door.  She shuffled when she walked now, no longer gliding like a ballerina, dance-walking with grace.  She let him out and prepared herself for the day, wishing that it would get easier, wishing she could have shown him what their love had done, how it had changed her life.  How it would have changed his.

She and Albert had leaned on each other for comfort, and he had been as bereft as her, but there was no consolation.  She looked at the calendar hanging by a magnet on her refrigerator door. Today’s date was circled in yellow highlighter.  It was exactly a year and a day from the day that she and Robbie had hand fasted.  Today they would have been married.  Or parted.  She had promised herself that she would only mourn for a year, but she did not feel she could let him go, there was too much to remind her of him, too much that remained.  No, she wouldn’t let go, not now. Not yet.

She had begged Albert to let her go back, but he was adamant. There was nothing they could do.  If he took her back, Robbie would still be dead, they would not be able to help him, his injuries had been too severe, he had bled to death quickly, his vital organs pierced by English blades, his noble life taken protecting her, keeping her safe.

“Och, lass, ye will be the death of me.”
How many times she remembered his words and felt her body implode into emptiness from the grief.  She had been the cause of it.  He had died shielding her, allowing her to return to safety.

Her grief had left her hollow, but there had been moments when she felt his love reach out and embrace her, touch her.

Her studio was full of paintings of Robbie.  Robbie in profile, Robbie on Grey, Robbie smiling at her.  But he never came back.  The magic of her canvases had stopped and he never returned to her. Now she would have been jubilant to have even his ghost, but he never came.

She reached up to get a cup from the cupboard and the phone rang.  It was early for her to be receiving phone calls, and she couldn’t imagine who it might be, her friends knew that she didn’t take calls before nine or sometimes ten o’clock now – if she answered at all.  But this was too early and some quiet inner urgency told her that she needed to pick up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Stella, you need to come to the hospital right away.”

“Daddy?  Daddy, are you ok?  Oh my god, Daddy…”

“No, Stella, I’m fine, but you need to be here as soon as you can.”

“Is it mama?  Is she hurt?
              “No, Stella, she’s ok.  Just do what you need to do and come down as soon as you can.”

“Ok, Daddy, it’s going to take me a little bit to work this out, but I’ll be there.”

“Good girl, see you then.”  Albert gave her the room number and then hung up and Stella flew to her room, wondering what could possibly be the matter, but for the first time in a year she felt her heart beat move faster than a funeral dirge

Stella walked into the hospital lobby and asked the receptionist to direct her to the room where she would meet her father.  The receptionist looked at a sheet of paper on her desk, checked off a name and asked for ID.  Surprised, Stella scrambled through her purse and showed the woman her driver’s license.   She was directed to the elevator and went to the fourth floor. When she stepped off the elevator she was met by a nurse.

“Miss McKenzie?” she asked.  Stella, again surprised, nodded. “Yes, is my father here?  Albert.  Albert McKenzie.”

The nurse smiled and took her arm, “Yes, please follow me, he’s this way.”  She led Stella down a hallway to rubberized double doors, but this one had a plainclothes guard, badged and armed.  The nurse stopped at the door and the guard asked Stella for her ID.  Confused and annoyed at not knowing what was happening she nonetheless followed the nurse passed the double doors down another hallway. It was so like her father to be surrounded by the mysterious. There was another guard standing in the hallway and she realized she was in the high security ward of the hospital.  Why had her father called her here? 

She saw Albert and her mother standing not too far away and she ran to them.  Her mother was wearing Western clothes now, a modest dress that teased her ankles, a dress that was not too dissimilar to what she was used to, so she felt some comfort in her new world. Her assimilation to the 21
st
century was still a work in progress, but she was trying hard because being with her family was more important than her fear of time travel. Stella hugged her mother and looked anxiously at her father.  He had a grim look to him, but seemed somewhat less tired than he had this past year.  It had been a difficult year for all of them.  He had finally convinced Merry to come back with him and they had lost her until she showed up in Stella’s studio after she had finished her portrait.  Albert saw to it that they were married immediately in a simple ceremony and it had been one of the few bright spots in a dark and mournful year.  Since then Merry had gone through some trauma being introduced into her new world, but both Stella and Albert had guided her, protected her and nurtured her through the change.  She would probably never be completely comfortable here but she was happy to be with her family.

“Daddy, what’s going on?”  Stella, so easily overcome by nerves now looked anxiously at her father.

He led her into the small chapel sanctuary, “Let’s go in here where we can talk.  You need to sit down.”  Stella did not like what was going on, but she obediently followed her father into the small room, her mother followed and shut the door.

Albert indicated a chair for her to sit and then he sat across from her and took her hand.  Merry stood by his side.

“It has taken me a year, Stella, but I was finally able to get to Robbie before he died. He’s here now and he’s alive. No, no, don’t cry, don’t Stella, sit and let me finish, you can go see him in just a minute.  Please, Stella, please don’t cry, you need to be strong. He’s just had surgery, his third since he’s been here and he’s still in Recovery.”

Stella again felt the nausea that often assailed her when she was so overcome with emotion that her body rebelled and needed to cleanse itself.  Her mother, seeing what was about to happen grabbed a small waste bin and held it under Stella’s chin and cried as she watched her daughter empty her stomach.  She had done this so many times she knew the look, the symptoms, the signs.

Albert reached over and patted her on the arm and continued his story. “I knew I had less than a minute to bring Robbie forward to get immediate emergency treatment.  I had to have a doctor and staff waiting, had to make sure that I brought him right into an operating room, and I had to make sure that the medical staff didn’t ask too many questions.  I found a doctor that would work with me on this because he, too, is…a Traveler.  It wasn’t easy, but between the two of us we were able to bring him here.”

“Daddy,” Stella could barely talk, afraid that this was not happening, afraid that it was a dream and she would wake up and find that the Celestial Committee was having a joke on her.  She was trembling, holding onto Merry’s hands so tightly Merry was grimacing.

“Dr. Holloway feels confident that Robbie is going to survive.  He lost a lot of blood, but Robbie is strong and in excellent condition.  His body was clean, very low toxin level so the drugs worked quickly and very effectively.  He’ll have a long period of healing, and may have some problem digesting for awhile, but it looks very positive right now.”

Stella listened to her father, her tears unchecked, unable to speak. 

“Stella, you’ll be able to see him in a few minutes.  Will you be ok, then?”  Stella could only nod, words having left her upon hearing her father’s news. She was trying to understand the rules of time traveling but they shifted and moved like large land masses, different after each quake

The door opened and the doctor came in, looking first at Albert and then at Stella. Clad in a white lab coat, dark hair cut short, and heavy Clark Kent glasses, Dr. Holloway was tall, well built and athletic.  Much younger than Albert he appeared to be in his early forties with minimal graying.  He had a pleasant confident smile and seemed genuinely pleased to meet Stella.