Nowhere Man 12
By: Harry Hogg
Tags: Fiction Series, Fiction, Writing, Fiction Writing, Romance

The evening silence was something I had never experienced growing up. Dad in one armchair, me in the other. There were things in my life dad and I talked over a thousand times. He had unhappy eyes. It felt unimaginable that we had nothing in our different points of view to talk about. I had let him down. He took that hard. Getting Katie pregnant before marriage.

Since my barefoot days, dad was the best example of a good, hardworking, decent, and respected man. He had been my role model, and no doubt about it. We lived off each other’s love. Sat together, I had reduced him to a disconcerted silence.

Growing up his son, feeling his strength, sheltering in the security of his faith, understanding his way of discipline, I had never bent, buckled, or leaned away from being the kind of man to make him proud. He had a deep influence on my life. In childhood he entertained, taught, and gave every day a new expectation. Looking back, I didn’t realize that dad was a fortune teller.

At 8 years old, I was a poor reader, well behind classmates. When dad came home from the sea, we spent a lot of time around bookshelves at the library. Dad said that a great part of being safe in life was being able to read and understand as much as possible.

It was like a key turned in a lock.

By 10 years old, I was reading as well as any other kid in class. When mum discovered my secret, she bought a book every week. Not one of these books had pictures, only stories about how good overcomes evil.

Not once, one single time, did dad ever sit me under an ugly lecture lamp. He never once told me how to be, only demonstrated. He stood up proudly to watch RAF wings pinned to my chest. But that was in another time.

Along the way the world changed.

I wanted him to hear the choices I’d made for me and Katie. That Katie and I had changed each other. I remember thinking: I’m a retired flight officer, but a child in this armchair, hurting. I’d never been arrested, done drugs, wrecked a car, or been intimate with a woman before Katie. A man wearing a military flight suit hears lots of offers of marriage. Friendships are formed between men and women, most of a curiosity. Fighter pilots learn one lesson fast. Beat out every other pilot’s desire to be the best.

Not just in the cockpit.

I’d gladly have taken on a dangerous mission before sitting in front of dad’s furrowed brow. Becoming an aviator was simple. The worst that could happen was a bandit on your tail.

“I love you, dad,” I said. “I was a sparrow when you and mum chose me. That sparrow has left.”

Dad and I hadn’t quite got comfortable with the conversation when Katie entered. She shot brightness into the room, like sun poking through clouds. Without hesitation, she went to the back of the armchair in which dad was sat. She bent over the chair, placed her arms around him, grasping her hands together on his chest. She kissed his oversized ear. “You’ve raised the kind of man any woman would be blessed to have as a husband, but he has chosen me. He chose me, and that means everything to a woman. To be chosen. I begged him. I wanted to try for a baby before he left. I want to be the mother to your grandchildren.”

I watched dad’s face become warm and happy. He didn’t break into a smile, more a sketch of what was to come. My eyes watered.

I didn’t get around to explaining that Ian Anderson, Debbie Harry, Chris Rea, and Billy Idol would attend the wedding ceremony. Mum said it would screw with dad’s head. He never understood the music industry after Billy Holiday.

The wedding was held at the MacLean’s home, Duart Castle. Katie’s close family and three of her school friends would attend. Altogether, less than fifty guests. There was one person, however, a woman not of the island, not a Scotswoman, then retired, who would be the most important guest at the ceremony. Grace Hodges.