The Sweetest Hours. Cathryn Parry
we’d left the sheep behind in Scotland,” her father-in-law answered.
Malcolm silently agreed, watching longingly as they ate. “How is business at your diner?” he politely asked Stephanie.
“Truthfully, there are two factions keeping my operation afloat. Aura Botanicals employees, and my in-laws.”
“Yeah, and this is why we come to dinner at your house,” one brother remarked to PJ as he sank his teeth into the bun. “Your wife knows how to cook.”
Malcolm’s mouth watered. A sane response. And it would also be a sane response to reach forward and grab a hamburger along with the other men at the table. He knew what awaited them.
Stephanie left the room and returned with her iPod stand. “Now,” she said to her daughter. “Now it’s time for your part.”
Then she addressed the table: “Technically, I was also supposed to serve a Cock-a-leekie soup course, but since you people don’t like soup in general, I didn’t want to hear the bitching and moaning.”
Only silence answered her. With the exception of him, Kristin and the urchin seated beside him, the rest of them were munching and chewing happily.
“In any event, no matter, because it is time for the parade of the haggis. I’ll start the music, and Lily will dance the Highland Fling. Everyone will show the traditional respect.”
Malcolm had never heard of the Highland Fling being combined with the presentation of the haggis. He bit his tongue. Do not laugh.
The strains of a lone bagpiper playing a Scottish reel exploded over the small iPod speakers centered on the dining table. It was like nothing Malcolm had ever heard, and it struck him as uproariously funny. He wished his sister was here; she would appreciate the humor in this.
Don’t laugh. Don’t make a sound.
Stephanie planted her hands on her hips and scowled. Malcolm followed her gaze to Lily, cowering and doing her best to hide under the tablecloth.
“What?” Stephanie asked her daughter. “What is the problem now?”
“I need Aunty to dance with me!” Lily wailed. “I can’t remember the steps without her!”
Malcolm glanced to Kristin on his left.
“Of course I’ll help you, honey. Excuse me, George,” Kristin said as she attempted to edge backward from the tight circle.
Malcolm stood and assisted, pulling back her chair for her.
“Oh, Kristin, really?” her mom admonished. “You have a guest.” She glanced apologetically to Malcolm.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I’m greatly interested in seeing this.”
“It’s for Lily,” Kristin mouthed to him, blushing further. But she held her niece’s hand and smiled at her.
“Please start the music again,” Kristin said to Stephanie, and took a position beside the girl. Kristin nodded at her, and they both turned out their toes like ballerinas, with hands on their hips.
Kristin looked down at Lily, nodding in encouragement. When they had eye contact, in a low voice, she said, “Step, bow, up on your toes... Go.”
Malcolm couldn’t keep his eyes off Kristin. Gracefully, like a dancer, she lifted her arms above her head and leaped in the stationary dance, said to have been traditionally performed on the face of a warrior’s shield before battle. Her legs pointing and kicking, she looked like a true Highland dancer. “One-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, turn-two-three-four,” she instructed her niece.
And, God love her, as his aunt would say, the little girl kicked and twirled right along with her aunt. It was thoroughly charming.
After they’d finished their short duet and he’d risen to help them both into their seats, he asked Kristin, “You took Highland dance lessons?”
“Not really.” Her face still flushed, she smiled. “My grandmother thought she was paying for ballet classes, but unbeknownst to her, the dance instructor also taught us the Highland Fling and the Sword Dance so that we could compete at the Highland Games up in Quechee.”
“Quechee?”
“Vermont. They host a Scottish Festival there every August.”
“And did you compete?”
“No.” She grimaced. “Nanny ran out of money to pay for the classes.”
“Then what happened?” he asked.
“She passed away,” her mother interrupted. “And that was that.”
Blunt. Practical. Cautious. All words that could describe his own family, too. He sat back, watching as Stephanie strolled the perimeter of the room carrying her pride and joy on a platter: the perfectly composed haggis. It looked like a bloated rugby ball, exactly as it should. Stephanie set it on the table, to sniggers and wry jokes from the brothers and the brothers’ friends.
There was a gap in the banter, a long, drawn-out, uncomfortable moment when it appeared that the night had failed. That the ceremony itself was patently ridiculous, and that other than Kristin and quite possibly her niece, no one else bought into the fun. Even Stephanie seemed peaked, tired of swimming against the current of everyone’s bad opinion.
The platter just sat there. No one even bothered to cut into the haggis.
“I am not eating that,” Lily said flatly.
“Me, neither,” came a chorus of voices.
Kristin blinked silently. He couldn’t be sure, but her eyes looked moist.
Malcolm edged the platter with the haggis on it toward his plate. His stomach was clenching and threatened to revolt. But he forced himself to do it. Maybe it was penance...but he said it.
“I’ll be the first to taste the haggis.”
All eyes were upon him. No one moved. He picked up the carving knife. He might have been the only one who even knew there was a ceremony to go along with the slicing, plus another poem to be read—“Address to a Haggis,” by Rabbie Burns himself—but the verses were long, with many stanzas, and Stephanie was likely abandoning the readings due to lack of interest.
The more the tradition was being given up, the lower Kristin seemed to droop. Malcolm wanted that sadness in her to go away, even if just for tonight. He loved it when she smiled. He needed it. Worse, only he foresaw the sadness that he would soon bring to everyone around this table. It was the only way to explain what he was doing.
He sliced into the haggis, through the thin skin of intestine, releasing the mass of sheep’s innards mixed with other assorted flotsam and jetsam—bits and pieces of spices and chopped vegetables—onto his plate. Somehow, he resisted the urge to plug his nose and instead, he picked up his fork....
Stephanie hurried to his side. “I’m told it needs a wee dram of whisky on the top.” Without asking his permission, she opened a bottle and drizzled some whisky generously on, as if adding Vermont maple syrup to her pancakes.
Bless her. Diving in before it got cold or he lost his nerve, he shoveled some of the dark, steaming specks of sheep onto his fork. If Kristin could dance a Highland Fling before an unsupportive audience, then he could take one bite of Scotland’s national dish.
Tentatively, he tasted it. Everyone stared at him. “It’s...not bad.” Actually, it wasn’t. “It tastes like chicken,” he pronounced. “Whisky-flavored chicken.”
The father—Rich—held out his hamburger plate. “I’d like some whisky with mine, please.”
“Is that haggis?” Stephanie demanded. “Because only the haggis gets the whisky.”
Immediately, one of the other brothers pulled the haggis platter toward him.
The