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intentional on his part, it was she who had lost her spontaneity and her confidence. And she hated how solicitous he became when she couldn’t find a pencil or a phone number or the right word for a sentence. He too was terrified the operation on her brain would leave her diminished, but she knew it was simply who she was, who she had always been, but forever searching for more.
    About to ask for Rob, she found herself saying, “Mr. McLeod, please.”
    Someone picked up the phone and answered with an irritated “Aye?”
    â€œIt’s Joanne.”
    â€œLass. How are you? Where are you? No lost in the wilds o’ Mackenzie country, are you? Right funny people up there.” As a McLeod of Skye, he had the right to joke about fellow clansmen.
    â€œI’m at home. And I need your advice.” She was smiling as she spoke, knowing she’d called the right person, knowing Don cared for her. Much shorter than her, his head reaching her shoulders, partial to a drink and a bet, and a chain smoker, he was not a man she would have imagined as a father figure. If someone had described him as such, she would have protested, saying he was a friend. But father figure he had become, a person who gave her painfully honest advice, a friend who cared for her as a daughter.
    â€œI was just about to go and have ma dinner break, so why don’t we—”
    â€œI am not going to the Market Bar.”
    â€œPity. The Station Hotel? You can have tea, I can have a dram.”
    â€œNot there either.” She was scared Alice Ramsay might still be there. Joanne could only think of tea shops. “No, you’re right. The Station Hotel, just not the bar.”
    Half an hour later, she and Don met up. Lunch was being served to the worthies of the county and what looked like commercial travelers, which they turned out to be, as there was a sales conference of insurance agents going on. That and a Liberal Party meeting made the place much busier than usual. Joanne was uncertain if she was relieved or disappointed when she discovered no sign of Alice Ramsay.
    â€œYou’re looking well,” Don said as he looked around for an empty table. He spotted one, and as they reached it, a man in a navy-blue suit with a shiny tie swept in and pulled out a chair. But when he saw Don’s face, he stood aside.
    That glower from Don McLeod would have made Joe Louis stand aside, Joanne decided.
    â€œI’m glad to see you’re looking the same as ever,” Joanne said as she looked at him over her menu.
    â€œPity. I need to look ten years younger.” Seeing the question in her eyes, he continued, “The high heid yins in the board of management want to give me my gold watch.” He took a long glug of his beer. “I ask you, what eejit came up wi’ the idea o’ giving a person a gold watch on retirement? To count down the hours to the grave? Nah, I’m hanging on as long as I’m standing.”
    â€œMcAllister will be pleased to hear it.”
    â€œAye, and so he should be. No one knows this place like I do.” He looked around at all the strangers. “Or like I used to. Nearly the end o’ another decade, but too many changes too fast for my liking.”
    She was quiet. Joanne did not want a discussion on the pros and cons of progress, Don’s pet peeve, as she, for one, hoped the new decade would bring changes. And she felt in her bones, in the air, on the television, in the demolition of the old buildings on Bridge Street and along the river, that changes were indeed coming.
    â€œI wanted your advice.”
    â€œThe case in Sutherland? The woman some say is a witch? Are you still following it? It’s a good story, that.”
    â€œAfter the disaster in the Herald , no.”
    Don nodded. McAllister had told him already.
    â€œI’m interested in using the burning of the last witch in Scotland for a short story, maybe even using it