Page 10 of Past Lives
"I've never done anything like this," he admits, looking out at the platform.
"Impulsively followed a woman you barely know to the Scottish countryside?"
"Something like that." His smile is crooked, uncertain.
The train starts moving. His hand finds mine across the table, holding it so gently it’s as if he’s afraid I’ll disappear. We don’t talk much as Edinburgh fades behind us, and I’m surprised by how the silence feels—never awkward, just full of energy. Even from across the table, he radiates warmth, and for a moment, I feel both scared and safe, not like a child, but like someone who is truly seen and chosen.
As we head west, the landscape rolls by in shades of purple and gold, with endless heather and rain-filled streams. I try to focus on the view, but I notice every small movement of his thumb on my hand, every glance he gives the carriage when he thinks I’m not watching. My mind tries to keep up with my body, which is already imagining late-night talks, crooked smiles, and a future that feels both scary and possible.
Somewhere near Linlithgow, Heath digs in his bag and produces a battered Moleskine, edges flecked with blue post-its and crumbs. The notebook is thickened with receipts, plane tickets, and a single pressed flower. He flips to a blank page, then hands me the pen. There is no preamble, no “will you,” just the expectation that I will know what to do.
“Log it,” he says. “Where are we. Who are you with? Like the lighthouse keepers did.”
There is something so endearingly earnest about this, so utterly unselfconscious, that for a moment I can’t breathe. “You’re joking.”
He shakes his head. “Obsession runs in the blood,” he says. “I want to remember every time I was afraid and did it anyway.”
So I write: 8:37am, 12 November, Waverley to Stranraer, in love with the idea of lighthouses and maybe something else. The windows are beaded in rain, and I can see only a suggestion of who he was, who I am willing to become in response.
I pass the notebook back. He reads with an almost religious solemnity, then scrolls down the page and adds: “She’s braver than she thinks. Her hands are cold, but she doesn’t let go.”
I want to say something smart, but all I can taste is the espresso and the feverish tang of new possibility.
Chapter 7
Heath
Maya mentions a Gaelic phrase—amharcanama—“the gaze of the soul,” as the train crosses a bleak moor. The windows are fogged, the cold seeping through the vinyl seats. Her voice is soft and clear, directed more at the silhouette she draws on the window than at me.
"Never heard that, but it sounds nice."
She keeps looking outside. "It's knowing someone. Their pain, their story—all they hide."
I want to ask her if she sees mine—if my own secrets are as plain as the landscape outside. Instead, I say, “How do you even pronounce that?” choosing safety over vulnerability.
She half-smiles. "Probably badly. My mother told me her grandmother could read people by sight."
I imagine Maya’s mother, never quite losing her Manhattan sheen, even here in rural Scotland. I wonder if her great-grandmother would have seen my guilt and ambition, or just a tired capitalist playing at poet for a travel app. I almost laugh.
Galloway Station is made of stone and tin, almost quaint in its desolation. We’re alone getting off; the conductor ignores us. The platform crunches with last autumn’s leaves as we reach the only taxi.
The morning is gray and damp. The taxi windows are wet, and Maya’s hair clings to her jaw. She wears no hat, just a loose scarf. I almost tuck her hair behind her ear, but it feels too intimate for a third date—even out here.
“Christ,” I say. “Remind me why we didn’t just drive?”
She shrugs, shoulders collapsing. “I thought it would feel more authentic, like we’d earn the place if we worked for it.”
The driver is an old man, white-haired and gnarled, smelling of cigarillo. For the first mile, he stays silent. I’m not sure if that’s policy or just Scottish contempt for English-speaking tourists, but I’m grateful. Galloway blurs by—brambled hedgerows, yellowed pasture. No sheep, not even a crow.
Eventually, the road winds through a copse of alder, and the sea appears: black, throbbing, immense. The shape of the lighthouse stands out on its remote spit of land. It is taller than I expected, lurking on the horizon like a warning finger.
“Bleak, isn’t it?” Maya says.
“Not at all,” I reply. “I think it has…ambience.”
She gives me a sidelong glance, then turns back to the window. For a moment, her posture tenses, and she looks less like a woman traveling and more like a woman on the run. I blink and look away, reaching for my bag as I force the thought aside.
There’s one street in the village, lined with worn stone cottages. The only life is the yellow glow of a café window. As we enter, I notice a faint, reedy sound—like a wind-chime in the distance.
