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I barreled out of the hospital, my anger boiling over. Even Joe Abernathy could not assuage my fury over the treatment planned for Mr. Hamilton. The man was near to death, and I had suggested a more palliative routine to help elevate some of the pain. My mail colleagues disagreed and were planning on operating yet again on the frail old man.
It was a frigid early evening as I trudged down the street away from the hospital. Only in my scrubs, stethoscope still slung around my neck, I soon started to feel the cold in air. The wind picked up and I darted into an alleyway to avoid it. Between the two buildings the wind was less, but it was still cold. I wrapped my arms around me, tucking my hands under my arms. I refused to return to the hospital, I kept walking.
Downtown Boston was full of the types of places I had avoided skillfully over the last twenty or so years. Museums, exhibition halls, galleries, places where history might be on display. It was ironic that given Frank’s profession. But he understood, and never really pushed the issue. It was odd to many that I rarely attended functions with Frank, especially those held in historic places. Frank died almost 2 years ago, I thought. Part of me still anguished over this death, feeling as if it was partly my fault. It was nonsense, I knew, but after….after returning…my heart never truly returned with me. It died there, in the past, with him…with Jamie. The only remaining pieces of my heart were held exclusively for Brianna.
As I walked I thought of Brianna. She was almost 18 now, and the spitting image of her father, both in looks and in spirit. My journey down the street continued as I walked slowly, turning this way and that. I knew of a good diner not too far away from the hospital and decided to go there to settle my thoughts. The wind blew harder, slowing my progress even more. My nose and cheeks were red from the wind, my ears felt like they were going to all off. Then an icy rain started to fall. I ducked into a doorway, but the wind blew and I was getting soaked. I huddled as far away from the icy rain as possible, but my hair was already starting to freeze as well.
Suddenly, the door behind me came open.
“Oh you poor dear, come! Get inside with ya!” The kindly old woman with a slight cockney accent. I didn’t hesitate and dashed inside. Just inside the doorway, I felt the warm heat of the room seep through my damp clothes.
“Thank you. I don’t know where that came from.” I stated looking curiously at the rain as it fell outside the glass door. It hardly ever rained in Boston at this time of year.
“Ooochh! Never you mind.” The woman said as she smiled at me, handing me a small towel. I looked around, noticing the cases lining the walls that reach far into the back off the room.
“What is this place?” I asked curiously. I’d been at the hospital for years, walked by this building hundreds of times, but never noticed the place. The cases were filled with metal objects, jewelry, tools and such. Some looked antique as well.
“It a metallurgy and textile museum.” My head snapped up at the word museum, looking a bit skittish at the surroundings. “We hardly get any visitors. Not much interest in such.” The old woman sighed a bit wistfully. “My husband’s life work. He collected these items, and decided open a museum. Told he was straight daft for doin’ so.” I handed the towel back to woman thankfully. “After he died, I was going to close it, but I…I just couldn’t do it. Sometimes I think, he…he still wanders these old cases. Just didn’t seem right to close it. Oh, listen to me prattle about…I’m sure you…”
I interrupted the woman with a soft hand on her arm, smiling. “I understand.” I really did understand. For weeks after my return to the future I refused to part with my clothes. I didn’t wear them, but I would hold them to me, smelling them, remembering. Every so often, I would catch the scent that was uniquely Jamie. I could well imagine if I had a trove of Jamie’s items I would be hard pressed to part with them. Even now, the wedding ring he gave me still encircled my finger. It was the one thing I refused to relinquish. Frank would remarked to me once that when I was stressed I would toy with it, as if some sort of talisman.
I looked out the window, the rain showed no sign of letting up. I glanced at my watch. I still was not needed for a while. I looked at the cases. So many years it had been since I was in such a place. I decided that it seemed safe enough to look around.
“Do you mind if I take a look around?” I asked kindly to the woman, who beamed for a moment at my question.
“That would be lovely.”
I walked down the cases, looking at the tools and metal objects displayed. I read each card next to each item. Each card lovingly handwritten in neat script, no doubt by the old woman’s husband. There were all manner of objects, some useful, some fanciful. Some of the silver jewelry was lovely and delicate. I looked to my silver wedding ring briefly, then continued on. I glanced a few times to the window, checking the rain’s progress, the old woman now seated at the old wooden desk at the front.
Gradually, the metals turned to different fabrics. Some of them were very beautiful and I gazed at them with a charmed smile. As I was bent over looking at a particular piece I felt a sudden sensation, something otherworldly. The hair on my arms and back of my neck stood on end. I hadn’t felt something like this in many years.
In the immediate years following Brianna’s birth I felt a presence at times. At first I thought it was my mind playing tricks on what my heart wanted to desperately. He only appeared a few times, but always in the moment I most needed him. I never spoke of my “visions” to anyone. They were mine and his. My mind would replay that moment in my mind, and now was no different:
“I will find you," Jamie whispered in my ear. "I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you - then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is the one thing that shall lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest."
His voice dropped, nearly to a whisper, and his arms tightened around me.
“Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.”
My mind knew it wasn’t him, but my heart clung to the words he spoke to me in the moment of our parting. My heart knew that Jamie Fraser would not be denied. So perhaps my soul waited for his arrival.
I turned slowly towards the thing that was behind me. My hands unfurled to release the sensations that had built within them. It was dark in the back of the long narrow room, but the light from the cases shone brightly before me.
There is was, the thing that called to my soul. My breath caught at the sight of it, my hand going to my mouth to stifle the gasp and whimper that threatened to escape my mouth.
A tartan plaid. A brilliant crimson and black cross stitch with a faint white stripe present. It was a Fraser plaid, I knew. I remembered it clearly from our wedding. The white was faded, but the red and black still rich and dark. I walked slowly towards it, the glass encasing it preventing my fingers from touching it. My knees seemed made of jelly and slowly I slipped down in front of the case, my fingers leaving fingerprints as I went. The tears overfilled my eyes and started to stream down my face, my quiet sobs quickly following.
“Oh Jamie. Jamie. You promised me.” I whispered.
“Aye, lass.” I heard behind me. The words came from both a male and female voice, almost as if they came from the same person, but not from the same person. The old lady was standing behind me with a concerned look on her face.
“What’s the matter dear? Are you alright?” She asked as I sat before the case with the Fraser plaid within. I turned back to the case, my fingers still touching the glass.
“That tartan was my husband’s most prized possession.” The old woman stated fondly.
“Is it…is it a reproduction?” I asked hopefully, wiping my eyes a bit.
“Oh, no. That tartan has been in my husband’s family for near 200 years.” The woman replied. My breath caught a bit as I stood once again. I looked to the outside and saw the rain had stopped. I had to get out of this place, and I moved swiftly towards the door, the old woman following me with a concerned look in her eyes.
“Thank you for your kindness, Mrs…?” I asked, my hand on the doorknob.
“Fitzgibbons. But everyone calls me Mrs. Fitz.” The old woman smiled widely.
“Thank you, Mrs. Fitz.” With that I opened the door and walked out, looking back to see the woman standing in the glass door watching me with an odd gleam in her eye.
As I walked back to the hospital I decided, I would no longer stop avoiding the past. I needed to confront it. I would go to Scotland for the first time in 20 years. My body shivered, and it had nothing to do with the cold around me.