Whiskey Eyes and Highland Fire

The Mustang

The Mustang was not built for motherhood.

It was built for noise, speed, bad decisions, open roads and women who had finally remembered they were allowed to want things. It was built for low growls at traffic lights, for sun flashing across the bonnet, for hands wrapped tight around the wheel while the world blurred at the edges. It was not, by any sensible measure, built for an American football kit bag, a pair of battered ice hockey skates, two sticks, one overstuffed backpack, three footballs, a half-crushed case of sports drinks, a laundry bag that had developed its own ecosystem, and a twelve-year-old boy with legs too long for the passenger seat and an opinion on absolutely everything.

Which was exactly why Sergeant First Class Eilidh Fraser loved it.

“It’s official,” Lachie announced from beside her, one knee wedged too close to the dashboard despite her having told him twice already to get his feet down. His American accent made the dry sarcasm sound cleaner than hers ever did, less battered by Glasgow vowels and the stubborn Scottish refusal to soften a consonant. “This car hates me.”

Eilidh kept one hand loose on the wheel and the other resting on the gear stick as the burnt-orange Mustang rolled towards the Fort Carson gate. Ahead of them, the afternoon sun flashed against windscreens, guard hut glass and the hard line of the Colorado mountains. Behind them, every inch of the car not occupied by human bodies was stuffed with evidence that her son considered sport a personality, a religion, and a perfectly reasonable excuse to bankrupt her before he reached high school.

“The car has taste,” she said. “It hates your hockey bag.”

“My hockey bag has character.”

“Your hockey bag has developed independent government.”

“It smells fine.”

“Lachlan Fraser, that bag has committed crimes in three states.”

“It’s not my fault hockey gear smells like hockey gear.”

“No, it’s your fault it smells like something crawled into a locker room, died, and then took up smoking.”

He looked sideways at her, mouth twitching because he was trying not to laugh and losing. His hair was too blond for her bloodline, sun-streaked and messy from the cap he had been wearing all morning, but everything else about him was hers. The green eyes, the long lashes, the expressive mouth that betrayed every emotion before he could shove it back down. The stubborn chin. The habit of pretending not to care so hard he nearly gave himself away.

“You know,” he said, “a normal mom would have bought an SUV.”

“Aye, well, a normal son would play one sport.”

“I play three sports.”

“I ken that, darling. My bank account sends me handwritten complaints about it.”

He grinned then, quick and crooked, and Eilidh felt the familiar catch beneath her ribs. That grin had survived things it should never have had to survive. It had been missing for a while when he was eight. It had come back slowly, in fragments, with ice hockey practices and bad jokes and the two of them eating chips in the Mustang with the windows down because neither of them wanted to go back inside yet. Every time she saw it now, she treated it like a thing returned from war.

The Name They Chose

Four years.

Four years since she had walked away from Travis Hale and never looked back.

Four years since she had stopped being Eilidh Hale in anything but paperwork that took too long to untangle.

One year since Lachie had quietly asked if he could drop Hale too.

Not because she had suggested it. Not because she had pushed. She would have let him keep it if he wanted it. She would have swallowed the burn of that name on every school form, every medical record and every sports registration until the day she died if keeping it had made him feel less torn in half.

But Lachie had looked at the forms one rainy Tuesday evening, looked at her, and said, “I don’t want it anymore.”

He had said it in that careful way he had when he was trying to be brave enough for both of them. She had wanted to cry. She had wanted to tell him he did not need to choose. She had wanted to take the whole ugly weight of it off his shoulders and carry it herself, the way she had carried everything else she could get her hands around.

Instead, she had asked him if he was sure.

He had nodded once.

So now they were both Frasers.

Just the two of them.

Fort Carson

The military police soldier at the gate leaned down towards her window. He was young, sunburnt across the nose, polite in that official American way that still sometimes made Eilidh feel as if she had wandered into a film set. His eyes flicked over her ID, her uniform blouse folded neatly on the back seat, the sports equipment wedged everywhere, Lachie in his Scotland training top, and then the car itself.

“Nice ride, Sergeant Fraser.”

“Thank you,” Eilidh said, with the solemn pride of a woman accepting praise on behalf of a beloved child.

Lachie snorted.

The soldier handed her ID back. “Welcome to Fort Carson.”

“Aye,” she murmured. “Cheers.”

As she eased forward, the Mustang gave a low, satisfied rumble, as if it too had decided Fort Carson would do for now. Lachie twisted to look out of the passenger window, taking in the broad roads, low buildings, barracks, flags, training signs, families moving between housing areas, soldiers in uniform crossing car parks in twos and threes, and the looming mountains beyond it all like they had been placed there to make every human problem look temporary.

Eilidh watched him without turning her head.

He always did that on a new base. Looked first. Mapped second. Pretended neither mattered. She could feel him catalogue things: the road out, the sports fields, the housing blocks, the nearest shop, the groups of kids, the men in uniform, the places where voices carried, the places where they did not. He had learned too young that buildings had moods and men had weather. He had learned from her, partly, because she had never managed to hide as much as she thought she had.

“You okay, wee man?”

“Yeah.”

“A real yeah or a twelve-year-old boy yeah?”

He gave her the suffering look he reserved for moments when she insisted on parenting him in public spaces. “A real yeah.”

“Convincing.”

“I’m fine, Ma.”

She let the lie sit because he had earned the right to keep some dignity.

“Good. Because if you vomit in my Mustang because of nerves, I’ll leave you by the side of the road with a protein bar and a note pinned to your shirt.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I wouldnae even slow down.”

“You love me too much.”

“I love the car too.”

He laughed properly then, the sound filling the cramped interior and softening something in her shoulders. Eilidh glanced at him again, just briefly. He had grown another inch since spring. She had measured him against the kitchen doorframe two nights before they left their last place, pretending not to be emotional while he complained that she was pressing the pencil too hard against his hair. He was all elbows and legs now, no longer the little boy she could carry half-asleep from the car to the house, but not yet the man his height kept threatening to become.

Twelve was a strange age.

Too old to be scooped up. Too young to carry what he carried.

The Duplex

The housing office had assigned them a duplex in one of the family areas, beige and practical and almost aggressively identical to every other military home Eilidh had lived in since crossing the Atlantic. She followed the directions on her phone through neat roads and clipped lawns, past bicycles abandoned on porches, plastic toys in yards, American flags, unit signs, barbecue grills, women unloading groceries, men in PT kit, teenagers pretending not to stare at the noisy orange car.

Lachie noticed that too.

“You know everyone’s looking at us, right?”

“They’re looking at the car.”

“They’re looking at you.”

“They can look at my arse if they keep a respectful distance and dinnae open their mouths.”

“Ma.”

“What?”

“You can’t say that on base.”

“I absolutely can. I outrank half the wee babies wandering about this place with haircuts and opinions.”

“You’re going to embarrass me.”

“That is one of the sacred duties of motherhood. It was in the paperwork after birth.”

“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.”

“You were busy screaming. You missed loads.”

He groaned and sank lower in the seat, but he was smiling.

Their duplex sat at the end of a short row, with a small patch of lawn in front, a narrow drive, and a garage that looked as if it might accept the Mustang only if everyone involved held their breath. Eilidh pulled in and killed the engine. The sudden quiet felt too large.

For a moment neither of them moved.

The tick of cooling metal filled the car. Somewhere down the street, a child shouted. A door slammed. A dog barked. A tactical vehicle rumbled faintly in the distance, low and metallic beneath the summer air. Colorado sun glared off the bonnet, turning the orange paint into fire.

Lachie’s fingers had gone still around the strap of his backpack.

Eilidh saw it. She always saw it.

“Right,” she said briskly, unbuckling her seat belt before the stillness could settle its weight over him. “Rules.”

“Oh my God.”

“Rule one. Sports equipment lives where I say it lives, not wherever your limbs decide to abandon it.”

“My limbs don’t abandon things.”

“Your left skate was in the kitchen sink last week.”

“I was multitasking.”

“You were being feral. Rule two. No pucks in the house.”

“That happened once.”

“It happened in three houses.”

“That wall was weak.”

“That wall was military housing. It had survived four decades of soldiers, toddlers and questionable DIY until you introduced it to slap shot practice.”

He pressed his lips together, shoulders shaking.

“Rule three,” she continued, pointing at him. “No football boots on carpet.”

“Cleats.”

“Football boots.”

“Cleats, Ma. Football boots are for soccer.”

Eilidh turned slowly to stare at him.

He immediately grinned because he knew exactly what he had done.

“Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry in the slightest. “Football boots are for football, and cleats are for football football.”

“Out,” she said, pointing at the door. “Get out of my car before I abandon you to American vocabulary permanently.”

He opened his door, laughing, and the heat rushed in. “You know you live in America, right?”

“I am painfully aware.”

“And I was born here.”

“A temporary clerical error.”

“I have a passport.”

“A tragic escalation.”

Unloading

He climbed out, stretching his long frame with a groan that made him sound like a retired veteran instead of a child who could play three sports in one weekend and still have energy to ask what was for dinner. Eilidh got out too, automatically scanning the street before she reached into the back for the first bag. It was habit, so old now that it had become indistinguishable from breathing. Windows. Doors. Parked cars. Corners. Men standing too still. Vehicles she had seen before. Vehicles she had not. Faces turned towards them. Faces turning away too quickly.

Nothing.

Just a new street on a new base under a hard June sun.

Lachie had circled to the back of the Mustang and was already wrestling with the boot.

“Careful,” Eilidh warned.

“I’m being careful.”

“If you scratch her, I’m selling your PlayStation.”

“That’s illegal.”

“So is biological warfare, but your hockey bag persists.”

The boot opened with difficulty because the ice hockey bag had wedged itself against the American football pads and the footballs had rolled into an arrangement that felt personally malicious. Lachie stared down into the packed space.

“This is impossible.”

“No, darling. This is character-building.”

“This is why SUVs exist.”

“SUVs are for people who’ve surrendered.”

“To practicality?”

“To death.”

He looked at her over his shoulder. “That is so dramatic.”

“I’m Scottish. It’s cultural.”

He started tugging at the hockey bag. It did not move. Eilidh stepped in beside him, braced one boot against the bumper and grabbed the other strap.

“On three.”

“You always say on three and pull on two.”

“Because I raised you to trust no one.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“It wasnae meant to be. One. Two.”

They pulled. The bag came free with a wet, rubbery squeal of protest and landed on the drive with a thud that sounded suspiciously organic. Lachie nearly fell backwards. Eilidh caught his elbow before he could, as automatic as breathing, her fingers closing around him, steadying him, checking him.

He felt it. His face softened for half a second.

“I’m good, Ma.”

“I know.”

She let go.

They unloaded the car in stages. Hockey bag first, because it needed containing. Football pads. Backpack. A duffel full of uniform items. Two battered boxes marked KITCHEN despite also containing books, chargers, one framed photo, and an alarming number of odd socks. A plastic storage box with Scotland shirts, scarves, and the carefully folded kilts Eilidh had brought out of storage for Boston.

Lachie eyed that box as if it might betray him in front of his future school friends.

“Do I actually have to wear the kilt?”

Eilidh lifted the box as if it contained relics. “To Scotland versus Morocco? Aye.”

“What if I wear the shirt and the flag instead?”

“You’ll wear the kilt.”

“What if it’s weird?”

“It is meant to be weird. That’s half the point.”

“I sound American.”

“You are American.”

“So people are going to be like, why is this American kid in a kilt?”

“And you’ll say, because my Ma is Scottish and terrifying.”

He considered that. “That could work.”

“It will work beautifully. Also, the Tartan Army will adopt you within eight seconds. You’ll be fed, insulted, taught songs you cannae repeat in school, and possibly handed a flag bigger than your body.”

“That sounds kind of awesome.”

“It is awesome. It’s also exhausting, loud, emotionally unstable, and may involve grown men crying over football.”

“Soccer.”

Eilidh lowered the box and stared at him again.

He lifted both hands. “Football. I meant football. Please don’t deport me.”

“You are on thin ice, boy.”

“I play hockey. I’m good on ice.”

“Into the house.”

The House Rules

The front door opened with the flat, hollow resistance of a place that did not know them yet. The air inside smelled of fresh paint, old carpet and the faint chemical trace of military housing turnover. Beige walls. Beige carpet. White blinds. Functional kitchen. Narrow stairs. Empty rooms waiting to be assigned meaning. It was not home. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Eilidh had learned to be careful with that word.

Lachie stepped in first because she let him. He always needed to claim space with his own eyes before she filled it with orders. He stood in the entryway, hockey bag at his feet, and looked around.

“Same layout as Bragg?”

“Nearly.”

“Kitchen’s smaller.”

“Aye.”

“Stairs are steeper.”

“Aye.”

“Back door?”

“Through there.”

He nodded and turned towards it, not pretending this time that it was about curiosity. Eilidh watched him cross the small living room, open the back door, glance out into the fenced yard, then close and lock it again. He tested the lock twice.

Her throat tightened.

She hated that he did that.

She loved that he was alive to do it.

“You want the room facing the street or the back?” she asked, keeping her voice light.

“Back.”

She had known he would.

“Done.”

“You don’t want it?”

“No. I want the one where I can hear the stairs.”

He looked at her then, and for a moment the banter thinned enough for the old truth to show through. The private architecture of the two of them. His room at the back, away from the road. Her room closer to the stairs. Locks checked twice. Phone charged. Shoes by the bed. Keys in the same place every night. A mother who slept lightly. A boy who had learned to walk quietly. A house arranged like a perimeter.

Then Lachie gave a small nod, the kind soldiers gave when the plan was understood.

And just like that, he was twelve again.

“Can my football stuff go in the garage?”

“Your American football stuff or your actual football stuff?”

He gave her a flat look. “You’re going to make this my whole life, aren’t you?”

“It already is.”

“I mean the pads.”

“Garage. Hockey bag also garage, preferably inside a sealed container inside another sealed container under armed guard.”

“Drama.”

“Odour-based terrorism.”

The Scotland Box

He dragged the hockey bag towards the garage door, muttering under his breath about Scottish mothers and unreasonable standards. Eilidh carried the box of Scotland things into the living room and set it down against the wall. For a moment, she lifted the lid.

The smell hit her first. Wool, old storage, a faint ghost of cedar, and memory.

Her kilt was folded on top, dark green and navy with threads of red and white. Lachie’s was beneath it, smaller, newer, bought with money she probably should have spent on sensible things but never regretted. She had ordered it when Scotland qualified because she had cried in the kitchen and Lachie had pretended not to notice. He had said, “Guess I need one too then,” like it was no big deal, and she had turned away before he saw what that did to her.

Boston waited on the calendar like a bright, reckless promise.

Scotland. World Cup. Her boy in a kilt. A city full of songs. A match they might lose because Scotland had a historic talent for hurting its own supporters. It did not matter. They were going. They had survived enough to be there. That was the point.

“Ma!”

“What?”

“Garage smells weird too, so don’t blame me.”

“The garage has just met your hockey bag. It’s in shock.”

He appeared in the doorway, hair falling into his eyes. “Can we get food after we unload?”

“We have food.”

“We have protein bars, cereal, and whatever that thing is in the cooler.”

“That thing is chicken.”

“That thing used to be chicken.”

“It is still legally chicken.”

“I’m calling social services.”

“Tell them you’re oppressed because your mother bought a sports car instead of a minivan.”

“They’d take my side.”

“They wouldnae fit your gear in their car either.”

Emergency Numbers

He leaned against the doorframe, watching her with that too-adult attention that appeared whenever the room got quiet. “You okay?”

Eilidh closed the box.

“Aye.”

“A real aye or a Scottish aye?”

“Cheeky wee shite.”

“So Scottish aye.”

She crossed the room and ruffled his hair because it annoyed him and reassured her in equal measure. He ducked away, scowling, but not before leaning into her hand for the briefest second.

“I’m okay,” she said, more honestly. “New place. Same nonsense. We’ll get sorted.”

He nodded. “No forwarding address for him, right?”

The question landed soft, but it did not land light.

Eilidh looked at her son. His eyes were on the carpet now. He had grown so much, but in moments like that she could still see the eight-year-old he had been. Small shoulders. White face. One hand clutching the sleeve of her hoodie. The terrible silence after a door slammed too hard.

“No,” she said carefully. “He doesnae know where we live.”

Lachie nodded.

“He knows I’m stationed here eventually, because paperwork exists and the Army loves paperwork. But that’s all he knows.”

“He hasn’t tried in ages.”

“No.”

Four years.

Not a visit.

Not a fight for custody.

Not even consistency.

Just occasional appearances whenever it suited him and long stretches of silence in between.

“He didn’t call on my birthday.”

“I know.”

“He didn’t call at Christmas either.”

“I know, baby.”

“I’m not a baby.”

“No,” she said softly. “You’re not.”

That was part of the grief too.

He looked towards the front door. “If he shows up?”

The old answer rose in her automatically.

If he shows up, I’ll handle it.

If he shows up, you get behind me.

If he shows up, you run.

If he shows up, I’ll make sure he never scares you again.

She swallowed all of it down because he was twelve and standing in a beige living room with a hockey bag in the garage and a World Cup trip on the calendar. Because he deserved answers that did not drag blood across the new carpet before they had even unpacked.

“If he shows up,” she said, “you come to me. You don’t engage. You don’t argue. You don’t let him pull you into anything. You come to me.”

His eyes flicked up. “And if you’re not here?”

“You call me. Then you call the numbers on the fridge once I put them up. And if you feel unsafe, you call 911. I dinnae care if you think it’s dramatic. I dinnae care if you’re worried he’ll be mad. You call.”

He nodded once.

She hated the relief in that nod. Hated that clear instructions soothed him because uncertainty had once been the most dangerous thing in their world.

Then he shifted, dragging the moment back into safer territory with the brutal determination of a boy who did not want to drown in it.

“Can one of the emergency numbers be pizza?”

Eilidh stared at him.

“For emotional support,” he added.

“You are a menace.”

“I’m hungry.”

“You are always hungry.”

“I’m growing.”

“You’re bankrupting me.”

“You chose motherhood.”

“Under duress. You were very loud about arriving.”

He smirked. “So pizza?”

“After we unload.”

“Chinese?”

“After we unload.”

“Burgers?”

“Lachie.”

“Fine. But if I collapse from starvation, make sure my obituary mentions the Mustang had more room than your heart.”

“I’ll bury you in the hockey bag. No one will find you till the smell changes.”

The First Ripple

He laughed and went back outside, leaving the front door open behind him. Eilidh followed, pausing on the threshold.

Across the street, a woman in leggings and an oversized unit sweatshirt was pretending not to watch while watering a planter that had already drowned. Two doors down, a pair of boys around Lachie’s age slowed on their bikes as they passed the Mustang. A soldier getting out of a truck looked briefly at the orange car, then at Eilidh, then away when she met his eyes.

There it was. The first ripple of arrival.

New woman. Scottish accent. Pretty enough to be noticed. Mustang. Kid. No husband in sight. Rank on paperwork. Surname Fraser.

Rumours travelled faster than household goods.

That suited Eilidh just fine.

Fraser was hers.

Fraser was her father’s name, her grandfather’s name, the name she had carried before she had ever met Travis Hale.

The name she had taken back.

And the name Lachie had chosen for himself.

Eilidh lifted another box from the back seat, feeling the sun on the nape of her neck and the faint pull of old scar tissue beneath her hair. She resisted the urge to touch it. Not here. Not on the drive. Not where anyone could see the movement and wonder.

Lachie emerged from the garage carrying two footballs under one arm and a pair of trainers dangling from his fingers. One ball slipped. He trapped it neatly with his foot before it rolled into the street.

“Nice,” Eilidh said.

He shrugged, pleased despite himself.

“Football,” she said, pointing at the ball beneath his foot.

“Soccer ball,” he said.

“Football.”

“Soccer.”

“Football.”

“Ma, I play American football too. We need categories.”

“The categories are football and American nonsense.”

“Football is literally in the name.”

“Aye, and yet you mostly carry it in your hands. Suspicious behaviour.”

“It’s strategy.”

“It’s rugby with helmets and committee meetings.”

He gasped. “Take that back.”

“No.”

“I’m telling Coach.”

“You do that. Tell him your Scottish mother has opinions.”

“He already knows. You corrected him three times at tryouts.”

“He was calling football soccer in front of me. That is an act of war.”

“He said you were intense.”

“He was being polite.”

“He looked scared.”

“Good.”

Lachie shook his head, smiling, and kicked the ball up into his hands. For all his American voice and American school years and American sports obsession, there were pieces of her in him that no country could sand away. The stubbornness. The humour. The refusal to give ground once he had decided something mattered.

He was Lachlan Fraser now because he had chosen to be.

And Eilidh would never forget how much courage that choice had taken from a boy who had only been eleven when he made it.

Food Sources

They carried the last of the bags inside as the sun began to slide lower behind the mountains. The house filled slowly with their disorder. Football boots by the garage. Hockey sticks against the wall. Eilidh’s uniform hung in the downstairs cupboard. The Scotland box placed carefully beside the sofa. Lachie’s backpack abandoned in the middle of the hall until she pointed at it with one finger and he sighed theatrically before moving it.

By early evening, they had achieved the first stage of moving in: every room looked worse than it had at the beginning, nobody knew where the phone chargers were, and Lachie had eaten two protein bars, half a packet of crisps, and an apple while claiming imminent death.

Eilidh stood in the kitchen, staring into a cupboard that contained three mugs, one saucepan, and absolutely no will to cook.

“Burgers?” Lachie suggested from the doorway.

“You’re relentless.”

“I’m consistent. Coaches like that.”

“Coaches dinnae pay for it.”

“You get paid.”

“Not enough to feed a twelve-year-old athlete with three sports and hollow legs.”

“I’ll buy dinner when I’m in the NHL.”

“And the NFL?”

“And the Premier League.”

“Ambitious.”

“I’m versatile.”

“You’re delusional.”

“You’re supposed to support my dreams.”

“I support realistic dreams. Like you learning to put socks in a laundry basket.”

He gave her a look of deep disappointment. “Burger place is six minutes away.”

“You checked?”

“I’m a growing boy in a new environment. Food sources are critical intel.”

Eilidh leaned back against the counter and looked at him. His hair was damp at the temples from hauling boxes in the heat. There was dust on one cheek. His Scotland top was wrinkled. His socks did not match. His eyes, for the moment, were bright.

Alive.

Safe.

Hungry.

Hers.

“Aye,” she said. “Fine. Burgers.”

He punched the air. “Yes.”

“But you’re carrying in the rest of the boxes from the car after.”

“There are more boxes?”

“There are always more boxes.”

“Can we get fries?”

“You’re pushing your luck.”

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s a maybe.”

“That means yes in Scottish.”

“It means I may yet make you eat the legal chicken.”

He was already heading for the door. “Fries it is.”

The Road Ahead

Eilidh grabbed her keys from the counter. The Mustang key fob sat heavy in her palm, warm from the day, familiar in a way very few things were. She looked once around the kitchen before leaving. Back door locked. Windows closed. Front door open because Lachie had gone ahead but still in sight. Phone in pocket. Wallet. Keys. Son.

The checklist ran without permission.

She stepped outside into the Colorado evening.

Lachie was already by the Mustang, trying to open the passenger door while balancing a football under one arm.

“Don’t bring that.”

“What if there’s space near the burger place?”

“There willnae be space near the burger place.”

“There might be.”

“Lachie.”

He sighed and tossed the ball back through the open front door. It bounced once in the hallway and rolled into the living room.

Eilidh pointed at it.

He groaned, retrieved it properly, put it inside, and locked the door under her watchful eye. One turn. Check. Second check. He caught himself doing it and looked at her, embarrassed.

She did not comment.

Neither of them did.

Some things were easier when left unnamed.

They climbed into the Mustang. Lachie slid into the passenger seat and immediately started adjusting the radio.

“No country,” Eilidh warned.

“We’re in Colorado.”

“I dinnae care if we’re in the Grand Ole Opry. Touch that dial and I’ll make you listen to bagpipes all the way to Boston.”

“That’s basically emotional abuse.”

“That’s heritage.”

He found a rock station instead. Acceptable. Barely.

Eilidh started the engine. The Mustang growled awake, deep and rude and entirely inappropriate for a base housing street full of sleeping toddlers and respectable family cars.

Lachie grinned despite himself.

“You love this car more than me.”

“Some days.”

“Rude.”

“The car doesnae leave wet towels on the floor.”

“The car can’t hug you.”

She glanced at him.

He was looking out of the windscreen now, suddenly fascinated by the road ahead, as if he had not said anything that mattered.

Eilidh reached across and squeezed the back of his neck gently, careful and brief.

“No,” she said. “It cannae.”

He leaned into the touch for half a heartbeat.

Then he batted her hand away. “Drive, Ma. I’m starving.”

“Aye, aye. Bossy wee goblin.”

As she pulled away from the duplex, the Mustang’s headlights swept over the beige houses, the clipped lawns, the bikes, the flags, the watching windows. Fort Carson spread around them, unfamiliar and temporary and full of people who did not yet know them but might soon think they did.

Eilidh kept both hands on the wheel.

Beside her, Lachie tapped his fingers against his knee in time with the music, already talking about whether he could fit football conditioning around hockey practice once school started, and whether she thought Scotland had a chance against Morocco if the defence held shape and nobody did anything “painfully Scottish in the first ten minutes.”

She told him not to be cheeky about the national team.

He told her realism was not cheek.

She told him he sounded American when he was wrong.

He told her she sounded Scottish all the time.

The Mustang rolled through the evening, loud and bright and impractical as hell, carrying the two of them towards burgers, fries, Boston, football, new routines, old ghosts and whatever waited next.

For now, though, Eilidh let herself breathe.

Her boy was beside her.

Her keys were in her hand.

Her car was under her control.

The road ahead was open.

And for one rare, fragile moment, nothing behind them was catching up.