Page 14 of Of Heather and Thistle

O n Wednesday, Heather woke up to the sharp buzz of her phone vibrating on the nightstand.

She groaned, rolling over, her body aching with the weight of last night’s revelations.

She had barely slept. Not from crying—she’d done enough of that.

But from the r age still simmering under her skin, from the betrayal thrumming in her bones, from the sheer, exhausting weight of realizing that the two people she was supposed to trust most—Ivy and her father—had never really seen her at all.

She squinted at the screen, blinking against the pale morning light.

Ivy’s name flashed across the notifications, one after the other, relentlessly:

“Heather, are you seriously ignoring me?”

“You’re really blowing this out of proportion. Can we talk?”

“Fine. Be mad. I don’t care.”

Heather stared at the messages, her thumb hovering over the screen, and for a second—just one second—her chest tightened.

Because this was Ivy. Her best friend since childhood.

The girl who had woven herself into every part of Heather’s life, who had made herself so essential that it felt impossible to untangle where Ivy ended and Heather began.

But now? Now she saw it for what it was. Ivy was panicking. Not because she regretted what she did, but because she got caught. No, if she was sorry, then the messages would have looked different.

Heather exhaled sharply with a sigh and turned her phone over, face down. She wasn’t dealing with that. Not today. Not now.

She grabbed it again a second later, firing off a quick text to Mark. “Not coming in today. Can you cover for me?”

A moment later, the dots appeared. “You okay?”

Heather hesitated, then typed back. “Just need a day.”

His reply was immediate. “Got it. I’ll tell Irene something came up. Let me know if you need anything.”

Another pause. Then another text popped up. “Like a hitman. Or a churro. Your call.”

Heather huffed out a breath—almost a laugh. Almost. “Just a day, Marky. Not a crime spree.”

“Fine. But the churro offer stands.”

She sighed, tension slipping from her shoulders. Mark didn’t ask questions—he just had her back . Even when she didn’t have the words, he knew how to make space for her.

Heather tossed the phone onto the bed next to her and let her eyes drift shut again. Just five more minutes. Then she’d get up. Then she’d start figuring out how to put her life back together.

Byrdie, who was curled at the foot of the bed, flicked her tail once.

Heather sighed. “I know, I know. I’ll move in a sec. ”

Byrdie didn’t bother looking at her—not fully, anyway. Instead, she cracked one eye open, just enough to say, ‘Sure you will.’

Heather groaned. “Traitor.”

Byrdie exhaled slowly and rested her head back on her paws, unimpressed but still waiting.

Heather forced her eyes open, pressing her palms against her face. She flipped her phone to silent and forced herself to move.

She threw herself into mindless tasks—rearranging bookshelves, reorganizing drawers, scrubbing the sink until her knuckles ached.

Even cleaning out Byrdie’s litter box, because at least cat shit was easier to deal with than the tangled mess her life had become.

But no matter how much she distracted herself, her gaze flickered to the envelope on the counter.

The Glenoran paperwork—her inheritance—her mother’s past; Heather’s future.

She hadn’t let herself dwell on it, not with everything else unraveling around her.

But now, as she scrubbed the sink with more force than necessary, she realized she wasn’t avoiding the decision to go to Scotland anymore—she’d decided that last night.

What she was avoiding was what came next regarding her father’s house.

She sighed again, tossing her kitchen sponge into the sink. There was no easing into this, no careful planning. Scotland wasn’t just an idea anymore—it was happening.

Her eyes drifted toward her mother’s estate documents and, this time, she didn’t hesitate in reading over it to learn more.

* * *

By nightfall, after cleaning the entire apartment twice and reorganizing a cabinet that didn’t need it, Heather sat at her kitchen table, laptop open, staring at the email draft she’d been working on for an hour.

Subject: Decision Regarding Sale of the Property.

It was her father’s house: the place she grew up— the place she spent years suffocating in neglect.

She could still smell the brandy that had soaked into the carpet. Could still see the cracked walls, the broken cabinets, the stacks of unpaid bills. The real estate agent had suggested she visit his house before finalizing the sale to take inventory, to see if anything was worth keeping.

Heather’s fingers hovered over the keyboard. She could go back to see the house one last time. Maybe she owed it to him. Maybe…

No.

She didn’t owe it to him.

The last time she stood in that house, the stale scent of liquor hung in the air, and his silence pressed against her like a weight.

The last time she stood in that house, they were wheeling his body out the front door.

Heather swallowed hard, her vision blurring.

It wasn’t that she didn’t care; it was that she couldn’t.

She had spent enough of her life drowning there.

She refused to sink into it again. Her hands trembled as she forced herself to type:

I’ve decided to move forward with selling the house as-is. Please proceed with the listing. I won’t be visiting the property, so feel free to coordinate with the cleanup crew for access.

She hesitated for only a second before she hit send then stared at the email with her fingers frozen over the keyboard.

The words were there; the decision was made.

So then why did her chest still ache? Not because she wanted to keep the house—not even close.

But because this—this moment right here—was the last time she would ever have to think about it.

Wasn’t this the last thread connecting her to the man who was supposed to be her father?

It was the house where she spent years tiptoeing around his drinking and temperamental indifference.

Her throat tightened as an uninvited memory surfaced, cutting through her like a blade:

She was nine, standing in the doorway of the kitchen.

Her dad was at the table with a half-empty bottle in front of him and his head in his hands.

She had worked up the courage to say it that night: to tell him that she missed Mom.

That she was scared. That she just wanted him to look at her and actually see her—not a shadow of the woman he lost.

“Dad?”

He lifted his head too slowly. His eyes were glassy, unfocused. She had opened her mouth to speak more, but before she could say anything, he let out a sharp humorless laugh.

“Shit, Heather, you still standing there?”

She froze.

“What do you want from me, huh?” he muttered, rubbing a hand down his face. “You wanna hear some bullshit about how everything’s gonna be fine? ‘Cause it’s not. It’s never gonna be fine.”

She had flinched, gripping the edge of the doorframe, willing herself not to cry.

“Go to bed, kid.”

And she had.

She had stopped trying that night—stopped hoping he’d comfort her, stopped waiting for him to care.

Heather exhaled hard now, wiping her face before any tears could fall.

Her father never got to choose a better life because his addiction controlled him, but Heather was done carrying the burdens of her father’s alcoholism—done with that house, done with his shadow, done carrying the weight of what he left behind.

It was done.

The decision was made.

And just like that, the email was gone.

Byrdie jumped onto the table, her small paw landing on Heather’s arm. Heather scratched behind Byrdie’s ears and let out a shaky breath: “I’m doing the right thing, right?” she asked quietly. Byrdie just purred in response and Heather took that as a yes.

* * *

Heather was pacing the small living room with her phone clutched tightly in one hand and a notepad in the other.

She was researching everything she’d need before flying to Scotland—passport, plane tickets, packing essentials—but every time she tried to focus, the reality of what she was doing hit her hard.

Was she really doing this? Was she really going to uproot her entire life and leave everything behind?

She kept losing her train of thought, her list half-written, her mind spinning between logistics and the terrifying enormity of it all.

“Okay…” she muttered, tapping the pen against her lips. “…Step one: book a flight. Step two: tell Mark I’ll be gone for a while. Step three…” She faltered, glancing at the blank space beneath her neatly numbered points. “…figure out everything else.”

Byrdie meowed from the couch as if in encouragement. Heather smiled despite herself, tossing the pen onto the notepad. “You make it sound so easy,” she said, scooping the cat into her arms.

Byrdie purred loudly and put her paws on Heather’s shoulder so she could nuzzle her on her cheek. And for a moment, the weight in Heather’s chest felt lighter.

A thin beam of sunlight streamed through the window, illuminating the ornate cursive writing on the Glenoran House Estate papers that were spread across her small kitchen table as she sat down and placed Byrdie in her lap.

She hadn’t yet called the law office listed in the packet, despite the instructions to do so.

Robert Ellis had only handed it off as a favor—he wasn’t the one who could give her the answers she needed.

But now, she knew she couldn’t put it off. Taking a deep breath, she dialed the number. The line rang twice before buzzing momentarily then clicked, and a cheerful voice answered on the other end.

“Duncan & Reid Solicitors, this is Isla speaking. How may I help ye today?” The familiar lilting Scottish accent threw Heather off for a second.

She cleared her throat quickly .