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What he didn’t know was that I understood that resentment. “But you did see past it eventually.”

As if my lack of judgment took him aback, Aidan studied me thoughtfully. When he spoke, his voice was low and gravelly with emotion. “Our parents are not strong people. They could never handle the bad stuff. They hated that Nicky was a single parent, and once they moved down south, they made very little effort to come see Sylvie. They weren’t strong enough to be there for my sister. They only came at the end. After I watched cancer eat my sister alive. I watched her stay strong and brave and selfless to the end, caring only about me and Sylvie and what was to become of us. Those months changed everything.”

“How long was she sick?”

“About four months.” He gave me his profile, looking out at the water, and I saw the pain he kept hidden most of the time. “It was the end of January last year. She called me while I was in New York and asked me to come home. She wouldn’t tell me why but I knew that it had to be bad for her to ask me. When I got home, she told me while we were alone. That she had cervical cancer.” His eyes flew back to mine, blazing with anger and grief. “Nicky was a bloody nurse. She knew, Nora. She knew and she was so paralyzed by fear she couldn’t face it until it was too late. She could have lived. She could have survived. But she left it too bloody late.”

I reached across the table and grabbed his hand. “I’m so sorry.”

He squeezed it. “We told Sylvie together,” he continued. “You know how smart she is. She understood. I …” He swallowed hard, clearly lost in the memory. “I couldn’t stand it. I had to leave the room. Listening to her wail like a wounded—” He cut off, letting go of my hand to take a huge gulp of water.

Pain for him squeezed my chest tight.

“Everything stopped. Life as you know, it just stops. I moved in with them, got a full-time nurse, and I hired Olive Robertson to homeschool Sylvie so she could spend as much time with her mum as possible without missing out on school.

“Aye … I stopped resenting Nicky as I watched her die, but you know what’s worse, Pixie?”

I blinked back tears at the hollow emptiness in his voice, wondering how I could not have noticed how much pain this man was hiding. “What was worse?”

“I wanted her to die. Because anticipating her leaving was fucking agony. I just wanted her to die.” He shook his head, as if ashamed of himself. “Now that she’s gone, I can’t believe I ever thought that every single goddamn day she had to spend with us, with Sylvie, wasn’t a miracle. And I hate myself for wishing those days away.”

I was overwhelmed.

It pressed down on my chest, making it hard for me to breathe.

Because I felt like I understood this man more than anyone ever could, and all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around him tight and whisper in his ear he wasn’t alone. My heart had been broken before, and right there on the promenade, it broke again. Because I knew that this man and the little girl he loved so much were going to use me up and leave me in pieces.

And I didn’t know if I could let them. They could be my repentance, I could let them selflessly take what they needed and leave me shattered, and maybe in some twisted way, I’d find peace. Yet I still had some measure of self-preservation left that made me want to run away. Because people could disappoint you, and sometimes that was okay, but sometimes, like with my dad, it wrecked you so badly it changed you irrevocably. I’d made so many mistakes because of that, and I was afraid that when Aidan inevitably disappointed me, I’d lose what little of myself I still respected.

Aidan’s eyes narrowed on me and he said, “I haven’t told anyone that.”

“Why are you telling me?”

“Because I’m being haunted, Nora, and I sense you know all about being haunted.”

Horrified that he could see that, I shook my head. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“Your name is Nora Rose O’Brien McAlister. You were born November 12, 1992, in Donovan, Indiana. You lived there until you were eighteen years old when you eloped with Jim McAlister to Vegas, and then returned with him to Edinburgh. You were married three years before he died of a brain aneurysm. You work at Apple Butter on Cockburn Street and you live alone in Sighthill.” He paused as I tried to recover from the shock of him having all that information about me. “I remember you, Pixie. I remember locking eyes with a pretty girl in a pub one day and then lifting her off the floor after her husband got into a fight with a drunk over her. And I remember seeing you again the next day in the supermarket, knowing you were too young and too married, and wanting you anyway. And maybe if it had been six months earlier, I would have been a selfish bastard and tried to seduce you, damn the consequences. But my sister was in a flat above the supermarket, dying, and I’d promised her and my niece I’d make pancakes with syrup.”

A tear splashed down my cheek before I could stop it. I brushed it away quickly, impatiently.

“I’m not the kind of man who would allow his ten-year-old kid to spend so much time with a woman and not have her investigated, Pixie. So don’t take it personally.”

When I didn’t say anything—I couldn’t speak for fear I’d burst into tears—Aidan continued, his words no longer fingernails picking at my wounded memories, but a knife, slicing them clean open.

“I know your secret, Nora. I know that you really become Peter Pan for yourself, not for the kids. What I can’t understand is why an obviously talented, smart, twenty-two-year-old with her whole life ahead of her would volunteer on her day off at a sick children’s hospital … because she needs to. Because you do need to, Nora. I see it. Is this more than your husband dying too young? Or did you love him that much you can’t see that life still goes on? Whatever it is, like me, you’re haunted. And I can’t help but need to know … what the hell happened to you?”

Roddy’s voice suddenly appeared in my mind. There’s nothin’ wrong wi’ lettin’ this guy get tae ken ye. Answer his fuckin’ questions if ye want tae.

Except I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I wasn’t ready. Telling him meant finally facing all that guilt I kept buried beneath my costume.

“I’m sorry.” I pushed back from the table, nearly overturning my chair. “I have to go.”

I left him there.

Alone.

After he’d given me so much of himself.

And I’d never liked myself less.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when Aidan didn’t stick around the next week. He barely looked at me when he picked up Sylvie from the hospital. She’d already told me that Uncle Aidan had a meeting so they couldn’t stay for lunch.

However, the aloofness with which he treated me made me suspect Aidan didn’t have a meeting at all. He just didn’t want to be around someone who could listen to him bare his soul and then abandon him directly afterwards.

I was a coward.

All this time I’d been telling myself that I needed to fill my life with good, do good—like spending time with the kids at the hospital—searching for peace from my guilt. Finally, I’d found two people who maybe I could really help, and I was so terrified that I’d get torn up by them in the process that I was running away.

There was no time for me to apologize to Aidan, and I didn’t have his phone number so I could call to make amends. Yet I hated the idea of him hating me more than I hated the idea of getting hurt.

The following Wednesday when I hurried into the hospital, I found Sylvie and Aidan waiting for me.

“You’re here.” I grinned, relieved, because I’d begun to worry that Aidan would stop bringing Sylvie altogether.

“Yup!” Sylvie grinned. “And we can stay for lunch this time.”

My eyes flew up to Aidan’s to find him staring stonily down at me.

“That’s wonderful.”

His expression didn’t change and I had to look away because I couldn’t stand to see him look through me. “Well, let’s go inside.”

“I’ll be here when you’re done.” Aidan lowered himself into a chair, his phone out, eyes determinedly on it.