Page 33 of Kilt Trip

Gemma unrolled a large tan cloth—the same texture as an old pillow case—before pulling out the flour, sugar, and spices. “The recipe has stayed the same for hundreds of years. I like to think you couldn’t improve the clootie dumpling.”

Gemma set her to mixing.

“My mum passed away when I was young, but I remember cooking all these recipes with her. They’re in her handwriting so it feels like she’s still here with me in a small way.” She handed Addie a yellowed card bordered with roses and elegant writing from another time.

Blood roared in Addie’s ears. “I lost my mom, too.”

Gemma was so welcoming and maternal, the words slipped out like an admission of guilt. She clasped Addie’s hand, understanding shining in her bright eyes. “There’s a loneliness you carry deep in your bones when you’ve lost a mother, and I find the only way to soothe it is to share her with others.”

Addie wasn’t confident in this theory. Dredging up memories of Heather risked opening a floodgate she couldn’t close, but it was too late.

Addie could see her mom in the kitchen at the first snow of the season, surrounded by a cookie explosion of flour and sprinkles. Making popcorn and apples on lazy autumn evenings. Reading poetry by Carl Sandburg in the heat of the summer, legs kicked up on the side of the couch.

“Will you tell me about her?” Gemma asked softly, pouring a small cup of milk into the mixing bowl.

Addie focused all her attention on whisking. “Umm... She was a school teacher. Always planned to get an MFA one day.” One of a thousand things she never got to do. “She loved gardening and hiking. Really anything outside.”

Gemma’s warm smile encouraged her to keep going.

“In high school, when I went out, she’d always wait up for me.” Addie could still feel the comfort of sliding under the black-and-white plaid throw blanket, tucking under Heather’s arm. “She’d say, ‘Tell me everything,’ like she genuinely couldn’t wait until morning to hear about the boy I had a crush on.” Listening to that level of hormone-induced pining had to be the definition of true love.

Addie’s heart ached for the ghost of the tether that had once bound them. She tugged on her mom’s gold necklace, the chain biting into her skin. “I’m not really doing her justice.”

This random list didn’t touch the person Heather had been—how her excitement, her curiosity, had been irresistibly contagious. She’d been infinitely patient and caring and bright. But Addie had no idea how to put any of that into words, especially to someone she barely knew, no matter how kind.

“She sounds lovely.”

Addie tried to return Gemma’s smile around the tears stinging the backs of her eyes. “She was.” She cleared her throat twice. “Sorry. I don’t talk about her much.” Unable to take a deep breath through the tightness in her chest, she turned to the window. Her watery gaze anchored to the lone, leafless tree in the yard.

Gemma came around the island, drying her hands on her apron. “And your dad?”

Addie blew out a tattered breath. He’d fallen apart on her. “He was grieving, too.”

After her mom died, the first day back at school had been brutal. Her stoic facade crumbled at the muttered apologies, at the slightest touch. She’d left early, retreating to the safety of home, where she never had to pretend.

The house had been dark when she walked in the door, groceries still in bags scattered around the kitchen, ice cream melted through the carton in a pink puddle. Fear seized her, and she ran through the house, throwing open doors, convinced she’d find Brian collapsed.

He had collapsed—in his bed, surrounded by a mountain of tissues. He got up when she shook him. Walked to the kitchen. Put away groceries and microwaved SpaghettiOs, every movement robotic, silent.

She hadn’t known it yet, but she’d felt it.

She’d lost him, too, and grief had tightened around her heart and doubled, forming a wall she hadn’t let many people through.

Gemma was an accidental exception and a stinging reminder of why she didn’t talk about this. It hurt too much.

“How long has it been?”

An eternity and only yesterday all wrapped into one. “Thirteen years.” Quickly approaching the moment when she’d lived longer without Heather than with her. Addie swallowed past the burning in the back of her throat. The heaviness in the air threatened to drag her back to the chest-crushing intensity of the first days without her mom.

“I’m sorry she didn’t get to see you grown. For all that she’ll miss. But I know without a doubt she’d be proud of the woman you are.”

Addie pulled her sweater over her knuckles and dabbed at the corner of her eyes. It was something a mother would say. Addie nodded in response because her throat was all choked up with tears.

Gemma squeezed her shoulder and, as if sensing Addie’s need for space, crossed the kitchen to the kettle and poured boiling water over the cloot in the sink.

While Gemma’s unfazed acceptance of Addie’s tears was surprising and comforting, Addie didn’t want to spend another second in that fragile state, powerless against the swirling memories ready to burst from her tightly held dam and sweep her away.

This was more than enough emotion for one day. In fact, she’d used up her quota for the next three years.

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