Free Someone Like You by Barbara Bretton

Somewhere in the world it was still the night of the summer solstice, and he wanted to share it with his girls.
     
    Loch Craig
     
    Something was wrong. It had to be. Joely had left five messages on William’s voice mail and still hadn’t managed to connect with him.
    Maybe the sixth time would be the charm.
    “William Bishop here. Leave your name and contact information, and I’ll return your call.”
    “William, it’s me again. Please phone me immediately. Annabelle’s fine. I’m fine. But I need to talk with you.”
    It wasn’t like him to ignore her messages. For that matter, it wasn’t like him to let a day go by without phoning home. Kyoto wasn’t on another planet. Last she heard they had phones there. The Japanese were the acknowledged masters of electronic communication. There was no excuse for being out of touch unless he wanted to be out of touch.
    She didn’t blame him for not wanting to speak to her. He probably didn’t enjoy their late-night telephonic silences any more than she did. But their problems had nothing to do with Annabelle. He loved his daughter with every fiber of his being, and if he hadn’t phoned it wasn’t because he didn’t want to; it was because he couldn’t.
    Which didn’t automatically mean he was laid up in some foreign hospital unable to communicate with anyone in order to get a message to her. It might just mean that with all the travel and time zone changes he had lost track of things like calling home.
    She had to decide whether or not she was going home to Maine, and she needed to decide soon. She wanted to call Cat back and tell her that she didn’t owe Mimi anything. Neither one of them did. Maybe Mimi hadn’t walked out on them the way their father had, but she might as well have, for all the mothering she had actually provided. Mothers were supposed to shield their children from danger, sacrifice for their children’s good. Mothers were supposed to teach their daughters how to navigate the choppy waters of adolescence. When you were trying to make the leap from girl to woman, it was your mother there on the other side of the great divide, holding out her hand to you, encouraging you to jump.
    Mimi had done none of those things. Her mother had been weak when Joely needed strong. An embarrassment when she wanted someone who would make her proud.
    It was Cat who had helped Joely find her way. Cat who had made the life she was living now possible.
    Cat who had never asked one single thing of her in all these years until now.
    Annabelle had a passport, and she was a good little traveler. Joely wasn’t entirely sure what William would think if she took the child out of the country, but she didn’t have a choice. Cat needed her now.
    There was some degree of comfort in reaching a decision, and her mind shifted into planning mode. She would book the first flight out of Glasgow tomorrow morning. She would go back to Idle Point for her sister’s sake but not for her mother’s. She would do whatever she had to do, and then she and Annabelle would fly back to Loch Craig, and it would be like none of this had ever happened.
     
    Kyoto
     
    Unfortunately, George had been dead on. William wasn’t able to maintain a mobile connection long enough to either reach Joely or his voice mail messages.
    “Let’s find someplace we can get a drink,” George said as they left the train. He was nothing if not persistent. “I can’t face those meetings without a beer.”
    “You go,” William said. “I’m heading for the hotel.” William believed in traveling light. He slung a garment bag over one shoulder and his laptop bag over the other and set off toward the hotel, which was an easy walk from the rail station. He had only a minor command of Japanese, but that rarely proved problematic. The desk clerk’s English was flawless, albeit vaguely American in cadence, and thirty minutes after the Shinkansen pulled into the station, William was listening to the sound of his home