Love by the Stroke of Midnight

can come and help. We’ll bring it into the lounge when it’s made,” she said to the others and marched out without looking at anyone else.
Marcail grabbed some dirty plates and followed her.
“With a face like that, you’ll curdle the milk,” Marcail said as she spooned coffee into the stovetop maker the family preferred, added the water and put it on the Aga. “Get over it, hon. Bloody-minded Bonnie is back with a vengeance and there’s no need. Do you tell Mum and Dad everything that’s going on in your life?”
Bonnie grimaced. “Okay, but did you tell me how things were the pits with you and Rotten Roddy? Did you heckerslike?” She used the expression they had used as kids so as not to incur the wrath of Ruari when he heard them cussing. “Nope, you chose to hide stuff. As do others. Accept it. There’s a lot going on, a lot at stake, and a lot none of us know all of. You can’t say everything is a load of rubbish, do the eye roll thing, not accept what some of us do, and expect to be in the know. Sharing is a two-way street.” She stopped speaking and scowled. “Or it used to be. I don’t know much, and yes dammit I did try to sense something—anything. Nothing. So do not go off on one. I’m as much in the dark as you. Uneasy, doubtful and not to put a finer point on it, wouldn’t trust Paden as far as I could throw him.”
Marcail bit her lip. “Maybe it’s not all up to him.”
“Thank you, ma ghaol, it isn’t.”
She ignored Cyril. What did he know?
“Enough.”
“Maybe,” Bonnie said grudgingly. Nevertheless, for now my jury is out. I can’t sense anything there. I can sense you, though. And how Rotten Roddy affected you.”
“I…”
Bonnie put her hand up in the universal ‘stop’ gesture. “Yes, you.” She moved her arm to point an accusing finger at her sister. “Do not go on at me. No. You. Did. Not. Share. I had to sense it. Not that that was difficult, I could pick you up as if you were standing next to me. I can do that. You could if you really chose to. You don’t, your choice, and I’ll not say if it’s right or wrong. We all have our own ways of dealing with things. You never share your worry or anguish. Come to that, you never have shared much, have you? You bottle it all up, good or bad.” She removed the coffee pot from the stove and thrust it at Marcail. “May be time to stop that.” She pulled a bottle of milk out of the fridge and continued, obviously on a roll.
“That’s you, fair enough, you’ve never been one for opening up much,” Bonnie went on, seemingly oblivious to Marcail’s stunned expression. “But don’t have a paddy when anyone else for whatever reasons appears to do the same thing. You take the coffee and I’ll bring the milk and sugar.”
Thoroughly chastened, Marcail nodded and headed for the lounge. That was her told then. She felt about an inch high, and it was not a sensation she particularly enjoyed. If she thought about it, there was a lot going on. Somehow she sensed she was somewhat lacking in the gifts needed to fully understand what.
“Lacking or unwilling?”
“Who knows?”
Bonnie wasn’t happy either—she didn’t need any extra senses to know that.
‘’You’ve got the means to change that, mo ghaol. All of it.”
Great, now Cyril-Dragh was getting in on the act.
She was convinced she not only heard the sigh, but experienced it as well.
“Grief, love, one or the other, for all that’s dear to you, not both.”
That made her snigger as she pushed the lounge door open.
“Something funny?” her mum asked warily. “Care to share?”
“Just something that tickled me. How some people…” She hesitated, not sure how to phrase what she was trying to convey. “Can be contrary for contrary’s sake.”
“Just like you, maybe? Should I call you Pearl? She was. All of her.”
It—he—better not.
“Which I guess could apply to me,” Marcail added slowly. Especially if someone called her Pearl. She really didn’t like it and had no idea why. It chilled her to the marrow whenever anyone mentioned the name, or the gem. Fanciful maybe, but she could do nothing about it. “Or some people might think so. However, I would say I’m only self-sufficient or self-willed when I need to be, and I’m not the only one.”
“Half an apology is better than none, I guess.”
She was never again going to believe the assurances that the voice would give her a break.
“I promise, no more now.”
Her mum smiled. “Marcail, love, you are so like your great-granny Pearl, it’s uncanny. She acted just as you do.”
“Right down to the waster boyfriend?” Marcail asked wryly. “And the disproportionate disappointment about her birthday?”
“I’m not sure about the birthday bit, because by twenty-nine she was married and had bairns, but the wastrel? Oh yes. I well remember her telling me how the Boy Clennan was a waste of space and she should have realised before she did. However, as the war had not long ended and thousands of young men never returned, it was a bit, in her words, ‘grab who you could and see what happened’. Or not.”
Marcail nodded as Bonnie came in and they began the business of handing round cups. “What about your family?” she asked Paden, who had remained silent during the interchange. “Are you all sweetness and light, or…?”
“Very much or.” He grinned. “My great-grandpa was a right old rogue until he met my great-granny, then he was a reformed character. Except in one way. He refused to stop his twenty-five a day habit, and said it was necessary to cope with life where he lived.”
“Twenty-five a day isn’t too bad,” Ruari observed. “Or it wasn’t in his era.”
“Drams,” Paden said, deadpan. “He worked in the distillery and they were considered necessary perks of the job. As he lived to