A Reason to Be Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Although most of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in the novel are based on actual historical counterparts, the dialogue and thoughts of these characters are products of the author’s imagination.

  Published by Greenleaf Book Group Press

  Austin, Texas

  www.gbgpress.com

  Copyright ©2020 Norman McCombs

  All rights reserved.

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  Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-62634-733-5

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-62634-734-2

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  Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

  20 21 22 23 24 2510 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  First Edition

  Dedicated to Grace Nancy Seitz-McCombs.

  My love. My life. My inspiration.

  100% of author royalties donated to

  the Alzheimer’s Association.

  PROLOGUE

  “Clansmen believed that courage

  flowed down the generations.”

  –Alistair Moffatt, The Highland Clans

  “We will get caught,” young Thomas whispered to his little brother, who was lying prostrate beside him in the heather. “And Da will kill us both.”

  “Don’t be so afraid of your own shadow! No one can see us up here,” Douglas whispered back. He was the younger of the two brothers, that was true, but Douglas was also braver, able to marshal his courage even when Thomas’s faltered. Douglas tucked a long black wisp of hair behind his ear. “Now hush or we will get caught.”

  The tartans they wore were spread out over the heather, the boys’ white shirts hanging loosely from their sinewy frames. They were not dressed appropriately for the secrecy of their outing—the colors of their tartans were bright and new and would be easily spotted by anyone who stood amid the knee-high purple heather.

  The night before, their father—Big Thomas as he was known throughout Glenshee—had fanned the tartans out ceremoniously as he presented them to the boys. He, too, had been wearing the same bright blue and green plaid. The colors of these new tartans confused the boys at first. For as long as they could remember, their father had donned the red and green colors of the Mackintosh clan. In fact, everyone who belonged to the Chattan clans surrounding them had worn the colors of Mackintosh.

  “Yer mam’s done a beautiful job, boys,” he said. Big Thomas handed a blue-and-green tartan to each of his sons, asking them to remove their old tartans as he did so. “Wear them with pride. Now undress and give me your old ones.”

  To the boys’ astonishment and delight, they stood naked and watched as their father took their old tartans and threw them into a raging fire. Apprehensive, the brothers looked back at their mother for guidance. When she nodded her approval, they whooped and danced naked around the fire as their father laughed with pride.

  “From this day forward, boys, we no longer answer to Chief Mackintosh,” Big Thomas declared, the sound of his voice loud and clear in the night air. “No sons of mine will answer to or pay a man they have never seen, who has never stepped foot in these glens—yet requires that we pay him for the land we live on! We will show no loyalty to that which does not deserve to be honored.”

  The boys nodded solemnly to show their understanding. As Big Thomas continued speaking, the brothers hastened to put on their new tartans. The story their father told was one they had heard many times, one that had been recounted at bedtime and again any time the boys’ character or courage was in question.

  “We are descended from a great line of men. From William, the seventh Chief of Mackintosh, the eighth of the Clan Chattan, who reigned during the great Scottish King David II. His sons Adam and Sorald were the rightful heirs of this chiefdom—though they could never be acknowledged, as they were born bastards. A shame! A waste!

  “Adam was the largest, bravest, and most feared man in the chiefdom. Big Adam, your great-great grandfather, was rightful chief of the clan. Big Adam, the father of my grandfather, Big Thomas—it was he who fought off our enemies and protected this land and all of our progeny. It was Adam, not some Mackintosh chief, who defended our land from marauders and the evil southerners who wished to ‘civilize’ us. It was he who fought bravely alongside William Wallace to keep Scotland free.

  “I am Big Thomas, son of Thomas, son of Big Thomas, son of Adam, son of William. We are now and always have been MacThomas.”

  The boys knew this tale by heart and could repeat it word for word. But this time, the boys listened raptly. Something was brewing: They were wearing these new colors now, and there were rumors of a battle of Glenshee, a showing of strength between the two clans. The winner would take the land, the children, and most horrifying of all—their mother. Big Thomas had already declared that no other man would raise his children, mind his land, or lay with his wife. He would fight to the death before he ever let that happen. For Big Thomas, death was preferable to a life without his Eve and his two boys, Thomas and brave little Douglas.

  Now, watching from their hiding spot amid the heather on the high hill, the boys watched as Big Thomas stepped out into the glen. He stood with the entire Thomas clan, all descendants of the bastards of William, arranged in battle order. Clustered in groups by family, each generation stood behind the last—fathers in front of their sons, brother beside brother, and all of the elder men making up the front line.

  The oldest, wisest, and most experienced warriors were always in the front during battles. The Scots had long understood that courage flowed down through generations, that it sprang forth as a tiny drop from a single ancestor and grew over time, eventually accumulating en masse within each man as the generations proceeded. They believed that the youngest warriors—those who stood in the back of the line—had the courage of one hundred generations pumping through their veins. They stood in the back, away from the front line of battle, as it would be with them that the destiny of all would be entrusted.

  The boys held their breath, watching as their father, Big Thomas, a massive man in his own right, took his axe in his left hand and drew his broadsword high above his head with his right. Once the blade was aloft and all eyes focused on him, Big Thomas recited all two hundred years of his lineage back to their ancestor William, born in the year 1300. In these days, all warriors did such a thing. When their father told them tales around the fire, the boys loved to hear stories of how such battles began—fearless warriors raising their swords above their heads and regaling the enemy with their fearsome lineage. The brothers settled in. They knew this would take a long time.

  True to their father’s tales, every single man in the front line of his father’s clan drew their swords and proudly shouted the same l
ineage. Once they were finished, it was time for the enemy to do the same. On the other side of the glen, the Mackintosh clan leader drew his sword and raised it aloft to begin the recitation of his lineage. But before his voice could break the tension that hung thick in the air, Big Thomas charged across the field, leaving all his kin behind him, their swords drawn above their heads. As Thomas ran, he took aim with his double-bladed Lochaber axe at the Mackintosh clan leader—the man who, only a day before, had come to his door to claim his wife. With strength and deftness unlike anything the boys had seen before, their father hurled the axe at the man who would strip him of his family.

  The boys shot to their feet as they watched the axe fly across the field, blade over handle, before burying itself in the Mackintosh leader’s skull—cleaving him right between the eyes. The brothers watched in horror as the man’s lifeblood flowed from the grievous wound and the Mackintosh leader fell back into the heather, dead.

  Shocked by the violence that for the first time wasn’t safely contained in a bedtime story told around the fire, the boys turned to run for their lives, away down the glen. But just then, a roar rose up from the field of battle behind them. The two clans were descending on each other, the two lines of men smashing headlong into one another. The boys couldn’t help but turn and watch to see if their father, their uncles, and their older cousins would survive. Neither one wanted to see their mother ripped from their home if their father died. Neither one wanted to wear any tartan other than the one their father had given them the night before.

  The two boys knelt in the grass and watched the chaos below. Axes flew through the air, sinking into chests with a sickening sound. Those who threw the axes chased down their targets, ripping their weapons violently from the bodies so they could throw them yet again. Some men fought with short swords, plunging the blades into their enemies’ bellies. Others wielded their broadswords, oftentimes decapitating their enemies in a single blow. Still others aimed crossbows with such precision they didn’t have to step forward from the line to slay their targets across the broad field.

  By the time the sun had fully risen that morning, Mackintosh men lay scattered across the glen—their blank eyes open skyward, their bodies torn and broken, their red tartans made redder with gore. But there were blue tartans spread out in the fields as well. During the onslaught, the boys had lost sight of their father. Now with great trepidation, they struggled to see who remained standing.

  As they searched for their father’s face among the bloodied survivors, they heard footsteps approach from behind, crunching through the heather.

  Frightened, the brothers cowered. A man stepped forward, tall, broad, and filthy, his tartan so matted with gore its color was unintelligible. Fear gripped the boys tightly, and neither one seemed to draw breath for a long moment as they stared at the bloody stranger.

  “What are two Mac-om boys doin’ in the heather like scared li’l Mackintoshes?” came the stranger’s booming voice, familiar to them both. “You’ll rise up, you will! You’ll stand like men of honor! We Mac-oms are descended from the great Thomas, and you descend from a great Thomas too. You and your line and all the men in it from now until judgment day will have the courage and honor to defend your women to the death. You will never, ever hide amid the heather again. Do ya hear me?”

  “Yes, Da,” the boys, stricken, replied as one.

  “Now what’s your name, boy?”

  “Thomas, son of Thomas,” the boy said proudly. “I am a MacThomas!” He raised his arm as if holding a broadsword and heading into battle.

  “And you, boy,” Big Thomas said to his younger son. “What’s your name? Where do you come from?”

  “I am Douglas, son of Thomas, son of Thomas, son of Big Thomas. Son of Adam. I am Mac-om,” Douglas said, repeating his father’s abbreviation of MacThomas. “And like me father, like all the great warriors before me, I am a warrior!”

  “Yes, yes you are.”

  Big Thomas leaned over and grabbed the two boys, drawing them to him in an embrace tighter than either brother could recall receiving from his father before that moment or afterward. Pulling away from the boys with a touch of reluctance that neither one noticed, Big Thomas bent down and picked up young Douglas, swinging him up on his shoulders.

  The three walked down the hill together, through the heather and back home to Eve, who had kept the fire burning in their hearth all this harrowing day long. A serene and loving smile spread across Eve’s face when she caught sight of her boys returning from the fray. Though as a mother she did not defend her family by the sword, she had spent the day busily distracting herself from the battle she could hear raging outside by preparing an elaborate feast, keeping faith that the angels would protect her husband from harm, guide his hand to victory in battle, and bring him and her boys home for supper.

  1

  WAS SHE EVER REALLY THERE?

  As a sunbeam broke through the crack in the floor-length windows of his Fifth Avenue brownstone, falling in a long, bright line across his bed, Douglas McCombs turned away and pulled the comforter up over his head. He was in no mood for such a glaring display of optimism. The nerve of the sun, daring to rise on yet another day.

  This dusty shaft of sunlight was only the first of many provocations to greet him. Across the room, in the pocket of his jacket, which was draped over several days’ accumulation of dirty laundry, his phone vibrated incessantly. He had lost count of how many calls had come in, but he estimated this latest one was the fifth or sixth of the morning. Douglas had no intention of answering the phone, let alone getting up and crossing the room to turn it off. Any movement, even the slightest, was too exhausting to even think about.

  Besides, he knew who was trying to call him. It was his friend Mark. The younger man was like a son to Douglas, and he was the only one who called these days. If it were Mark, then he could wait. In fact, everyone could wait. That’s all that was left to do with his life anyway, Douglas thought. Wait. Wait for it to all be over. Wait for the pain—that dull, incessant ache that permeated everything—to disappear and take any vestige of himself that still remained along with it.

  True, Douglas’s entire body ached, but his heart ached most of all. It felt a lot like it had in high school, when he’d recovered and then landed on a fumbled football moments before a pile of players jumped on him. His heart had felt the impact first back then. As the mass of other players piled on and crushed him, it took all the energy Douglas had to just breathe.

  But the pain he felt now wasn’t like that moment in high school. When the other players had clambered off him, he could breathe again. But Douglas couldn’t find relief now. His heart ached relentlessly, and there was no escape. He had felt this way for months. He could pinpoint the precise moment when he felt his heart break. It was when the EMTs had come bounding up the stairs of the home he had shared with Hope for nearly fifty years. The EMTs had wheeled the gurney up beside Douglas’s marriage bed and pulled the sheets back to reveal Hope’s small, wasted, and impossibly fragile body. Seeing Hope so exposed, Douglas felt as though someone had punched him in the chest. All the air had escaped him and he couldn’t catch his breath.

  How did this happen? he had thought. Where did my Hope go?

  This moment was the first time Douglas had really seen her the way that other people had. He could still remember the look on the EMT’s face, looking first down at Hope and then back to Douglas.

  “How long has she been like this?” the other EMT asked, checking Hope’s vitals.

  Douglas had been confused by the question. Were they asking how long had she been in bed? Douglas wasn’t entirely sure at the moment. Weeks? Months? Either answer seemed plausible to him in that moment. Did they mean how long had she been catatonic? Unresponsive? Not herself? Douglas didn’t know how to answer. He couldn’t tell them how long Hope had suffered from Alzheimer’s. He just looked back at the EMTs, baffled and confused.

  “Have you been taking care of her all by yourse
lf, sir?” the second EMT asked, more kindly this time.

  “Yes,” Douglas said. At least he seemed to be able to answer that.

  “For how long?”

  “About, I don’t know, the past five years or so,” Douglas said. He pushed his hand over his matted hair and looked around the room. He saw it, too, as if for the first time, now that he found there were strangers in his bedroom. Hope’s adult diapers were stacked on the dresser. Empty and half-full prescription bottles were clustered on the bedside table. Dirty sheets and towels were piled high in one corner. What a mess, Douglas thought, suddenly self-conscious.

  “Sir? You’ve been caring for your wife all by yourself for five years?” the EMT asked, shock in his voice.

  Douglas nodded.

  It was true. For five years, he had taken care of Hope. At first, taking care of her meant covering up for her. Whenever she forgot an appointment, a beloved cousin’s name, or an item from the grocery store, Douglas would handle it. As time went on, his role became more obvious. He would tell her something he did or something someone had said, and a few minutes later she would ask about the very same thing. Realizing she had forgotten something, she would get upset. Seeing Hope agitated upset Douglas too, so he did whatever he could so she wouldn’t get too flustered. He would simply repeat the story again and again. Douglas also took great care to make sure none of his associates knew about what was happening with Hope. He never mentioned it. He couldn’t even really say why he had felt the need to keep her condition so secret. After all, he was an inventor and a designer of state-of-the-art, life-saving healthcare equipment. He was a celebrated biomedical engineer. Everyone would understand.

  If he were being honest, Douglas would admit that he didn’t want them to understand. He wanted his wife back. More than anything, he was overwhelmed by a fierce desire to protect her. She had always been a stunning beauty—bright and witty, too. He didn’t want anyone to pity her or to upset her in any way. As her condition worsened, keeping her calm and happy was no easy task. Hope often became so moody that she wasn’t herself. Keeping her gradual deterioration a secret became increasingly difficult. Douglas began mostly keeping her at home. As the disease progressed, she forgot how to dress herself, brush her hair, or find her way to the bathroom. Eventually, he had to bathe her and take her to the bathroom himself. He even had to feed her, holding the spoon up to her speechless lips, encouraging her to chew or swallow, whatever was required. She couldn’t seem to remember how to do those things either. As the years went on, Douglas began spending his nights awake, sitting beside her and attending to her every need. She needed around-the-clock care.