“Oh, Beatrice, I’m so sorry,” Gwen breathed. “I don’t know what to say.” Tears she’d been holding back slipped down her cheeks; tears for Drustan, and now tears for Bea and Bertie.
“Dearie, are you crying for me? Oh, Gwen!” Slipping over to Gwen’s side of the booth, she hugged her, and they clung to each other for a long time.
And something inside Gwen broke.
Wrapped in Beatrice’s motherly arms, the pain of it all crashed over her. How unfair to love so deeply and lose. How unfair life was! Beatrice had only just found her Bert, much as Gwen had only just found Drustan. And now, were they both to suffer endlessly for losing them?
“Better not to love,” Gwen whispered bitterly.
“No,” Beatrice chided gently. “Never think that. Better to love and lose. The old adage is true. If I never had another moment with my Bertie, I would still feel blessed. These past months with him have given me more love and passion than some people ever know. Besides,” she said, “he’s going to be all right. If I have to sit by his bed and hold his hand and yell at him until he gets better, then tote his ornery butt to the doctor every week, and learn how to cook without fat or butter or a damn thing worth eating, I’ll do it. I am not letting that man get away from me.” She fisted her ring-bedecked hand and shook it at the ceiling. “You can’t have him yet. He’s mine still.”
A bit of laughter escaped Gwen, mingled with fresh tears. If only it were so easy for her, if only she could fight for her man the way Beatrice could fight for hers. But hers was five centuries dead.
She became aware, after a moment, that Beatrice was regarding her intently. The older woman cupped Gwen’s shoulders and searched her gaze.
“Oh, dearie, what is it? It looks to me as if you might be having a problem of your own,” she fretted.
Gwen tucked her bangs behind her ear and averted her gaze. “It’s nothing,” she said hastily.
“Don’t try to put me off,” Beatrice chided. “Bertie would tell you there’s no point once I set my mind on a thing. It’s not only my problem with Bertie that’s made you cry.”
“Really,” Gwen protested. “You have enough problems—”
“So take my mind off them for a moment, if you will,” Beatrice pressed. “Grief shared is grief lessened. What happened to you today? Did you find your, er…cherry picker?” Beatrice’s blue eyes twinkled just a bit, and Gwen marveled that the older woman could still sparkle at such a moment.
Had she found her cherry picker? She fought a bubble of nearly hysterical laughter. How could she tell Beatrice that she’d lived almost a month in a single day? Or at least she thought she had. It was so strange coming down from the foothills to find that no time at all had passed, she was beginning to fear for her sanity.
Yet Beatrice was right: Grief shared was grief lessened. She wanted to talk about him. Needed to talk about him. How could she possibly confide her pain…unless…
“It’s really nothing,” she lied weakly. “How about if I tell you a story instead, to take your mind off things?”
“A story?” Bea’s eyebrows disappeared beneath her silvery curls.
“Yes, I’ve been thinking about trying my hand at writing,” Gwen said, “and I’ve been kicking around a story, but I’m stumped on the ending.”
Beatrice’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “A story, you say. Yes, I’d like to hear it, and maybe you and I will be able to figure out how the ending should go.”
Gwen took a deep breath and began: “Okay, the heroine is a girl who was hiking in the foothills of Scotland, and she found an enchanted Highlander sleeping in a cave above Loch Ness…pretty far out there, huh?”
An hour later, Gwen watched Beatrice open her mouth several times, then close it again. She fussed with her curls, fiddled with her hat, then smoothed her pink sweater.
“At first I thought you were going to tell me something that happened to you today, that you didn’t want to own up to.” Beatrice shook her head. “But, Gwen, I had no idea you had such an imagination. You truly took my mind off my worries for a time. Goodness,” she exclaimed, waving at the plastic containers, “long enough that I ate when I was certain I wouldn’t be able to force a bite down. Dearie, you must finish this story. You can’t just leave the hero and heroine hanging like that. I can’t stand it. Tell me the end.”
“What if there is no end, Bea? What if that’s all of it? What if she got sent back to her time and he died and that’s it?” Gwen said numbly.