Having Their Say

Having Their Say

The three surviving children of Hector MacDonald stood silently at his grave.  Although Hector had died nearly a year ago, it was the first time Lizzie or Paul had been to the gravesite and the first time Archie had been there since the funeral.  Archie didn't much see the point of visiting a gravesite.  What mattered with a person is what you had together when they were alive.  Hector had largely been a thorn in Archie's side, first convincing him to come home and take over the failing family estate in the Scottish Highlands, and then telling him that everything he was doing was wrong.  Archie preferred not to think about him too much.

It was Lizzie who wanted to come.  She had been living in an ashram in India when her father died and only recently returned to their ancestral home.  Lizzie had been running away from home for most of her adult life, and Hector had been one of the things she was running from.  Now she was back to mourn the the man who had so terribly let her down.

Paul had received even less of Hector's love and attention than the other two.  Born on the wrong side of the sheets, he had not even known his father's name until recently, when he was sorting through his mother's things after she died.  He had come to Glenbogle to find the man who left him nothing but some genetic material, but by the time he arrived, it was too late.  He was not quite sure why he was there, except that he was invited by the others to come along.

They had talked about their expectations in the car on the way over.

"I like to think his spirit is out there somewhere," Lizzie said.  "Out there with Jamie,"  She was referring to their older brother who had died years ago.  "Do you think they are out there watching over us, Archie?"

"I don't have a clue," Archie said.  He clutched onto the steering wheel and stared ahead.  All he knew was what was in front of him at the moment.  All he knew right now was the road.  At least that's all he wanted to know.

"I believe there is a spirit world out there and sometimes we can connect with it," Lizzie said, as much for her own benefit as the others'.  "I don't mean like in a seance where they actually speak to you, but sometimes if you put your fingertips up to that other world, you might get a sense that someone is touching back.  Do you know what I mean?"

Archie frowned.  What could he say to a thing like that?  More often than not whatever he said to Lizzie was the wrong thing.  He did not want to upset her and have her make a scene.

"I've visited my mum's grave twice," Paul said. "I kind of talk to her. Tell her the things I wished I had said before. Tell her what's new with me. I don't know that she can hear me, but it makes me feel better."

"Yeah, that's what I mean," Lizzie said.

"I don't know what I'm going to say to a man I never met, though."

Now that they were at the grave, nobody seemed to have anything to say.

"Soldier, sportsman, laird and gentleman, always himself," Paul read aloud from the headstone.  He still couldn't believe his father was a nobleman, what with him growing up so poor.  Not that the MacDonalds had much money, but they had their own private wilderness and lived in a castle for Christ's sake, cold and dilapidated as it was.

"So is he here? Does anyone feel his presence?" Lizzie asked in an anguished tone.

Archie took in a breath and tried to steady himself, "We're here together and we're remembering him. That's what counts."

"I'm remembering him," Lizzie said, "but I'm not remembering many good things. Maybe that's why I can't feel him. We never had much use for each other in life. Why should it be any different now?"

"Lizzie, don't think that way." Archie found himself saying, without knowing what was coming next. "If he is in some kind of spirit place, he... understands all the things he was clueless about in life. He would care about you now in ways he wasn't able to before." He still didn't have any idea what he meant by these words but he wanted, somehow, to make things all right for Lizzie, so that things could be all right for himself.

"How do you figure that happens?" Paul asked, his hands in his jacket pocket.

"Well..." Archie concentrated hard, as if he were recalling something from long ago. "The way I see it is that when a person dies, he sees this light, and the light is a kind of enlightenment. It shows him where he went wrong in life."

"So it's kind of like Purgatory, where you repent," Paul said.

"You could see it that way. I guess one repents. But then one gets whisked away to a party."

"A party?" Lizzie and Paul both looked sceptical.

"Yeah, it's a welcome to Eternity party." Archie smiled doubtfully. "They have all one's favourite foods and music, anybody who was ever anybody is there, as long as they're dead."

"Archie, you're being silly." Lizzie said. "You don't believe any of this."

"No, I don't. I just made it up. But it's the way it ought to be."

"So that's what Eternity would be, if you were in charge - one big party?" Paul asked.

"No, then I think one should go to his own customised paradise. For Father it would resemble the Highlands so he could stalk, fish, play golf, and drink. But, here's the catch."

Now he finally understood what he had been babbling about. "Whenever one of us here wanted to talk to him about anything, he'd have to stop and listen, even if we were complaining about him. And because he had received enlightenment he'd understand what we were talking about for a change."

"This sounds good," Paul laughed. "What church do you go to?"

"When I go, I go to that one over there." Archie said nodding at the small stone chapel on the premises. "But this isn't what they taught us in Sunday School."

"So you mean I could rant and rave to Daddy about whatever I wanted and he'd have to listen." Lizzie said.

"Yes, without interrupting or sending you to your room or threatening to disinherit you."

"I would tell Daddy about how every bloke I went out with, I was hoping would give me the love I never got from him. I went to bed with some of the world's biggest sleazebags that way."

"I'd tell him how much he hurt my mum," Paul said. "I think he needs to hear that a few more  times before I have anything else to say him."

"How about you Archie," Lizzie said. "What would you say."

Archie paused and narrowed his eyes. "I'd tell him that marrying Lexie was one of the best things I've done with my life," he began. "That he was wrong when he said it would never work out... I'd tell him I'm running Glenbogle as I see fit, without regard for what he would have thought when he was alive."

"That's good," said Paul. "Sounds like you've made your peace with him."

Archie sighed. "But if I did think I had his approval, that would be even better,"