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Fraser’s Ridge
May, 1770
Finally, he seemed to be settling. Thankful for the warm, still air of late spring, Brianna left the newborn’s wrappings undone as she paced in the darkness of the dooryard, a few feet from the porch, where a small lantern burned to ward away the black of night. Since the weather was fair, it seemed ridiculous to disturb everyone else in the close quarters of the cabin, so she took the screeching, inconsolable infant, the lantern, and the last, precious ounce of her sanity and came outside. Small scatterings of early season fireflies flickered in the woods farther in the distance, drifting in lazy circles and curlicues between branches and across the gaps in the trees. Brianna followed them with her eyes, letting them latch onto her sleeplessness and entrance her, until the ear-rattling cries sounded somewhat farther off, and she felt she could take a full, effective breath.
She was holding him, naked, in the open blankets, his small limbs splayed over her arm as he lay facedown, his cheek smooshed on the inner side of her elbow (“It’s actually called the chelidon, that part of the body,” her mother had once informed her, unasked. “Oddly enough, also the name of a famous prostitute in Ancient Rome.”). The rash on his bottom was slowly getting better, and seemed to improve most when it was simply untouched, given air, space, and time.
Let it be, then, Brianna thought, slipping into a verse of the song of the same name. She wasn’t much of a singer (Roger would do the song justice, she tried, and failed, not to think.) but her voice was clear and gentle, and she watched her baby boy’s eyelids begin to droop with an equal heaviness to her relief.
…When I find myself in times of trouble,
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom,
let it be
And in my hour of darkness
she is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom,
let it be…
Brianna shifted him up to her shoulder, patting his back and swaying gently while standing in place.
…And when the broken hearted
people living in the world agree
There will be an answer, let it be
For though they may be parted,
there is still a chance
that they will see
There will be an answer,
let it be…
“So, you were in need of her, too, eh?” The deep, contemplative voice of her father silenced the ambient noise of crickets and sent Brianna’s heart into a staccato rhythm as she froze in place, her mind torn between being startled and the vital maternal imperative not to wake a colicky baby.
“Da!” Brianna whispered loudly, and walked up the porch steps to find Jamie seated on the bench in the corner, his back against the outer wall of the cabin and a set of rosary beads resting on his knee.
“Were you there when I came out? I didn’t even see you!” She hadn’t heard the door open.
“Aye, I’ve been here for a wee bit. You were quite occupied, so I felt it best not to disturb ye.” He stretched out an offering hand toward the empty place on the bench beside him.
Realizing how befuddled stress and lack of sleep really was making her, Brianna nearly collapsed onto the bench, the wood creaking beneath their combined weights, and reclined under her father’s arm as it circled her shoulders. She got the baby settled against her chest, and felt her own joints begin to loosen, her jaw unclenching. Brianna leaned back onto her father and his cabin with a sigh of relief.
“A song from your time, I imagine?” He inquired.
“Oh…yeah, it is. It was actually pretty new, just before, well, before I left…” Brianna mulled for a moment over any possible way to explain the Beatles to Jamie Fraser that wouldn’t horrify him, decided there was not, and nodded toward the rosary beads.
“Were you praying for anyone in particular?”
“Actually, I hadnae started yet when you came out with the bairn, then…well, I got to watching ye with him,” he smiled down at the boy and ran a finger gently over the curve of his tiny, pink ear.
The baby nuzzled his head against his blanket and made contented “eh eh” sounds in his sleep. Brianna took a breath, and wondered for a moment why it seemed such an awkward question to ask.
“Can I say it with you? I don’t think I’ll be able to go back to bed just yet.”
She couldn’t remember, specifically, the last time she said the rosary, but it must have been when she was still in high school. It had been a part of the daily routine then, led by her home room teacher, and while Brianna definitely wasn’t giving merely lip service to it, she was rather ashamed to discover that graduation, maturity, and entering university life had broken the routine and she never gave it much thought. Since then, her prayers had been limited to brief, desperate appeals in times of crisis, and while there had indeed been no shortage of those, the loss of that daily connection with something divine, the constancy in the face of all mundane turmoil, was a heavy conviction on her heart as she took hold of the rough-hewn, handmade wooden beads her father held out to her.
“Won’t you need something to count on, Da?” she asked feebly, but she took the beads, did brief, frustrating battle with the wrap across her shoulders, and lifted it up to properly cover her head for prayer.
Jamie smiled, kissed the top of her head over her light shawl, and took a gentle hold on the boy’s tiny foot, one fingertip touching each toe in turn.
“I have plenty, a leannan. Come, we’ll start together, then ye say the first decade, and we can trade off. Which mysteries did ye have in mind?”
“Can we do Sorrowful?”
Her father’s brow furrowed in concern for a moment. “Feeling penitent for somethin’?”
“No, I don’t think so…” Brianna feared that was probably a lie, but the low level guilt and consternation that had been simmering in her since her parents returned without Roger felt like something that needed more acknowledgement than correction.
“I suppose I’m just not feeling particularly glorious or joyful right now, and if I’m going to pray, I should do it honestly.”
Relating to what he could, and submitting to what was far beyond his own power of understanding, Jamie merely nodded. They began the Creed then, speaking in unison in low, droning tones as the crickets began to resume their symphony in the dark, gliding through the first Our Father and the three Hail Mary’s, then finding their voices taking on more emotion, more emphasis, at the Glory Be. The thought of the eternity the prayer spoke of was a liberating one, a promise of a way for all parted things to come together again.
“The Agony In The Garden,” Brianna announced the first mystery. “This first one for Mama and Roger, since they’ve had to agonize over us so much?”
Jamie nodded, giving a brief chuckle of agreement, and Brianna began to recite the first decade. As her mouth formed the words and her fingers worried over the beads, she thought of where Roger might be, which direction he may be heading. She had enough faith in him to trust whatever choice he made would not be made lightly, or with malice toward her, should he decide to move on. She had gotten rather good lately at being torn open; the naked scrap of humanity sleeping peacefully on her chest was only the latest proof of that. Experience told her she could survive it, and that made the rending in her heart as she prayed for Roger regardless of his choice a little easier to bear. Her voice began to lift as her fingers slid across the last bead of the decade, and grasped onto the knotted thread, reaching for the eternity promised in the Glory Be, then opening herself to the humility required for the end.
“Oh my Jesus, forgive us our-“
“What are ye saying?” Her father interrupted her as she was finishing the decade, and she abruptly quit and looked up at him in confusion.
“What do you mean? It’s the Fatima- OH! It hasn’t happened yet!” Brianna got a sudden thrill at the idea of getting to tell Jamie about something as important as a bona fide miracle.
She told him everything she could remember about the Miracle of the Sun, the children at Fatima, and the reported request by the Virgin Mary to add that prayer to the Rosary. Jamie Fraser, when he wished to, was very good at assuming a neutral mask, hiding what he was truly thinking and feeling. In this moment, however, he was doing no such thing, and the expression he wore he did so openly; a look of profound, dumbstruck awe, colored at the edges with deep flushes of joy. It melted the lines of his face, unhinged the tight set of his jaw, for a flash of a second, Brianna saw in his face the boy he must have been once, full of innocence and the bravado it nurtures in the young, taking in some glorious new truth about a world of excitement and possibility. It reminded her of childhood photographs she had seen of herself on Christmas morning. Her baby, God willing, would look out at something, someday, and have that same expression, she could already see the seeds of it in the irresolute shapes of his infant countenance. The sheer truth of that made the corners of her eyes grow wet and start to prickle.
“Mother of God…” he exhaled, and shook his head as this revelation of a future miracle settled into it.
“Of course, there are those who still question it, but that’s nothing unusual. Every miracle has naysayers, but it’s undeniable that whatever happened was important as far as lasting effect. The Fatima prayer is an essential part of the rosary for most Catholics in the future. It was how I was taught to say it.”
Brianna felt her father’s hand grip her shoulder, pulling her and his grandson closer. He was breathing harder, though he still had that same look. A sudden fear unsettled her as she felt his whole body still processing the idea of such a huge event, and his getting to have foreknowledge of it. He’d had knowledge of the outcomes of historical events of the future before, and it was never something that was easy to possess. Could knowing of a true miracle, a supernatural apparition that would prove to weave its way into the daily acts of faith for millions, be too much for someone in a time before it was to occur?
“Are you okay, Da? I guess this is a lot, and it’s very late…should we go back inside?”
“No, no, Lass, all’s well,” Jamie cleared his throat and took a slower breath. “It’s quite a bit of news, but I’m able to bear it. It isn’t the first miracle that’s come to me from another time, ye ken.”
She let that pass without comment.
“Say it again. I do wish to know it.”
Taking hold of the same spot on the string of beads, Brianna recited the Fatima prayer in its entirety, speaking slightly slower and giving the words more consideration than she remembered giving them in what she was starting to feel was an embarrassingly long time.
Oh my Jesus
Forgive us our sins
Save us from the fires of Hell
Lead all souls to Heaven
Especially those most in need of
Your mercy.
“That’s just a thing a mother would say, aye?” Jamie responded after a long pause when she finished. “To ask us to remember each other’s welfare?”
“I’m not sure how qualified I am yet to say what mothers do.” Her hand rested lightly on her child’s back, feeling the satisfying rhythm of his breathing as he moved into deeper sleep.
“You’ve done everything he’s needed of ye so far, there’s no reason to believe you cannae keep it up. But what I meant was, well, it was regarding a mother’s hopes for what a bairn will grow to be. You want him to grow and have a good life, but you also hope that he will do good, do ye not? That he will be kind, forebearing, forgiving? All the things you hope you can be yourself?”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“And to ask for us to pray for the ones most in need? Since we can only look at that from our own viewpoints, the ones we see as irredeemable, is she not asking us to pray for those who have hurt us the most?”
Brianna laughed, a soft snort bursting from her nose and making the baby squawk briefly in irritation before settling again.
“I’m not sure that’s something MY mother ever said as a matter of course!” She was dodging the heart of the question, and they both knew it.
Her father joined her in the laugh, letting his head fall back against the cabin wall.
“Aye, your mother’s anger has a very sharp edge to it, but dinnae underestimate her forgiveness. The amount she’s given me when I didnae deserve it is second only to God Himself.”
“What about you, Da?” Brianna turned the tables on him when she saw her chance. “Have you ever prayed for…your worst enemy’s soul, that it might make it to Heaven?”
She was going to say “Randall.” What stopped her was the thought that more than one person of that name could be his enemy. She didn’t want to think of Frank Randall in adversarial terms, but with Jamie Fraser right in front of her, it would be difficult not to if he were brought up.
Jamie sighed the kind of sigh that always precedes someone being more honest than they wish to be.
“I have forgiven my enemies, Brianna, those that have done me great wrong. I do it rather often, in fact. I have found peace, a way to let go of the rage, and to move forward, leaving their souls to the mercy of God, whatever it may entail,” he paused, laying a hand over hers, the both of them cradling her child.
“But have I hoped explicitly for their peace? Have I wished for the gates of Heaven to be open to them? Christ help me, Brianna, but I have not.”
There was no response she could give more eloquent than the lilting tthrripp! of crickets that was all around them. Dwelling in the peace of a radical acceptance of the moment, Brianna tilted her head up, still resting on her father’s shoulder, and looked up at him again. His jaw had gone back to its usual stony hardness, and the arch of his neck as he looked up was elegant, for all the sun-reddened skin and abrasive, silvery stubble.
“I’m trying to, Da,” she said, when she finally could speak. “If being a mother, like you said, means wanting that kind of regard for each other in her children, shouldn’t I try to do it myself, to have that kind of love in me? That ability to forgive?”
“‘Tis a fine thing to strive for, a leannan. I’ll ask ye to consider this, however…” The elegant bend straightened, as Jamie Fraser raised his head, released his hold on her, and looked out into the night, the lantern light flashing in the dark blue velvet of his pupils.
Brianna adjusted the baby’s position so he lay across her lap horizontally, his blankets a crumpled nest beneath him, and she leaned forward to sit tall beside her father.
“I was near death, years ago, lying on a cot in an abbey. I had a raging fever, and…many injuries, the kind that are more merciful if they do claim your life. Make no mistake, lass, I was being killed, but no one was guilty of the crime more than I was myself!” His last words came out with a slight hiss, bitter but resigned.
“The hatred I bore in that time for my very body, my every breath, it was nothing less than murderous intent. We live with ourselves the longest, Bree. We know our own soft parts, our own wounds, our own fears. In the end, no one can abuse ye like ye can abuse yourself.”
He continued to look out into the night, but his arm found its way back around her.
“I can look at ye through a parent’s eyes. I want nothing less than every blessing of heaven showered on ye every moment of your life. If the Blessed Virgin, as a parent for all of us, wishes the same, and asks we pray for the salvation of those who are most in need, would we not, upon occasion, at least, be praying for ourselves?”
“Why does that feel like such a hard thing to do?” Brianna asked, her voice flat. “Even when you can manage it for those who hurt you?”
“I suppose it could be because forgiving one’s enemies is more visibly noble. You can console yourself by considering it sacrificial, making you the righteous one. Being gentle on oneself is…well, it requires a different kind of faith, doesn’t it? That it really could be that simple?”
“Simple doesn’t always mean easy, Da.”
“No, it doesn’t. I ken you’ve done well forgiving your enemies. That strength, it’s a great comfort to me, and a source of pride,” he admitted, ironically sounding abashed.
“But, I do hope you can develop the habit of forgiving yourself that well, and those who love ye, though they may be all too frail and human about it.”
The fireflies still glowed in the distance. They watched them together, without speaking, for a length of time impossible to determine. Eventually, when the shawl on Brianna’s head began to slip, and she instinctively reached up to readjust it, she remembered what they were doing in the first place.
“Can we finish the Rosary? We only got through the first decade.”
The rosary beads had slipped down between them on the bench while they were talking. Jamie retrieved them and handed them back to his daughter.
“Aye, we should. We’ll say the rest, and we’ll be sure to include the prayer for those most in need.”
“Does it feel strange at all? Knowing about a future act of God?”
“I know of several, as do you.”
“You know what I mean, Da.”
Brianna wasn’t going to let him out of it, she was truly curious. They settled back against the wall, and Jamie affected a mild forgetfulness.
“Remind me, what is the second mystery?” He asked.
“The Scourging at the Pillar,” Brianna regarded him with a cynical eye.
“Aye, that’s it. Not very pleasant, something like that, is it?”
“YOU are asking ME?”
Jamie rested his chin against her head, pillowed in the shawl and her humidity-enlarged mass of coppery curls and waves, his smile softly mirthful.
“I’m only pointing out that we can better comprehend the things we have experience with. I’ve told ye, more than one miracle from the future has come my way. I do not presume to know why the Lord sent them, but I’m grateful for them more each time.
“Trust that miracles will come, Brianna. More than once, they have walked right in the front door. I think, if ye have enough faith to believe in that, ye can have hope for even the worst among us to reach paradise, whomever that may be.”
They finished the rosary in earnest, working through the mysteries together in solemn, reverent hope of heaven, for everyone. By the final decade, as the final “mercy” left their lips, the Cross and all its sorrows and sufferings began to seem big enough for that to be possible. The pain of sacrifice cast a large shadow, but the sun was still in view.
Hunger woke the baby, and in the time it took for Jamie to recite the Hail Holy Queen, Brianna had put the child to her breast, adjusted herself to lean more fully against him, and was dozing off, exhaustion finally claiming her as anxiety loosened its hold.
With her uncanny knack for showing up at the most compelling times, Claire appeared on the porch, accompanied by the creaking whine of the door hinge. She had been listening for no short amount of time, but had been determined not to interrupt. The wee boy was finishing his meal and drifting off himself, and with a shushing finger at her lips, his granny swooped in and lifted him smoothly up to her shoulder, taking the now pee-sodden blanket along with him. Delicately, Jamie lifted the neck of his daughter’s shift to cover her, and she barely stirred.
“I’ll get him settled and put down to bed,” Claire whispered, rocking the boy gently and rubbing his back in steady, urging ovals until he released a mighty belch.
Jamie nodded, adjusting awkwardly against the wall to give as much of himself to his daughter’s comfort as he could. She shifted, curling under his arm and reaching across his waist to hold him back.
“I trust it, Da,” she whispered, slipping further into sleep, releasing the rosary beads and letting them clatter to the floorboards as she grasped him tight, her open hand coming to rest on the crisscrossed, ridged scars in the small of his back. Her palm flush against him, he could feel the damp heat of it through his shirt.
“The miracles always come…”
His eyes grew wide with emotion as they met his wife’s in the lantern light. Under pain of death, there was truly no way he could get up.
“We’ll be in, Sassenach, soon enough.”
………………..
The Next Afternoon
Brianna watched her father whittling a small stick of wood by the hearth fire, as she absently nudged the cradle with her toe, urging the well-fed boy to settle down for a nap. The late afternoon sun poured a hazy shower of gold into the cabin through the uncovered window, and the smell of vegetable stew and the whole fish baking on the coals wafted around them, making her mouth water in anticipation of supper. Things were beginning to feel familiar again, she noted. The necessary actions of life no longer felt so surreal, so varnished in unreality as she haunted her way through her own existence. She was living in her own skin again, a feeling finally restored in her for the first time in months. And the future, no matter what it brought with it, could be faced with solid confidence in her capabilities, for she once again knew who she was in the story of her own life.
She had held this self-assurance for a solid thirty seconds, until the front door opened, and she turned to find the ragged, dirty, half-starved miracle, staring wild-eyed in the doorway…