Brown Bread and Burnt Toast
Fiona and Lin made breakfast the following morning with relish. They put together a full-on Irish, and then added pancakes, berries, cut cheeses and unfortunately at the last, toast. It was this that filled the kitchen with just enough smoke to make it clear that their culinary efforts had not all been successful. On the birghtside, however, it did serve to get both boys out of bed without any prodding. They slugged into the kitchen looking as if they had not slept nearly long enough and took seats at the table. Fiona began to lay out the feast as Lin tried to salvage what she could of the toast, scraping off the worst of the burnt patches. Finally, exasperated, she gave up. "If you want jam on bread of any sort, you will need to use the brown bread, the toast is shot."
Sean began to fill his plate, eggs, bangers, and brown bread. Fiona pressed some pancakes with berries on him, but he said he would have to empty what he had first. Ian on the other hand, was smelling each dish and had yet to put a single item on his plate. Finally, he put a couple of slice of brown bread and several pieces of bacon on the plate. He accepted a large glasss of milk, which disappeared almost as soon as it was in his hand. He had it refilled and was sitting down as Lin and Fiona had made their choices and joined them for the morning meal.
Lin glanced at her mother, the look in her eyes clearly stating, "Something strange is afoot?"
Fiona nodded. "Well, its a good think that things happened as they did, since the tickets to go home are set for tomorrow. I'm sorry you boy's did not get to see as much as you wanted to. But, perhaps your adventure was interesting?" She let this last comment hang in the air, an opening gambit to try to get them to speak about where they had been and what they had down.
Silence fell like a heavy curtain around them. Neither of the boys responded.
"I know Ian did not get a chance to speak to Emma, or even to shop for her. Maybe he can pick something up on the drive to the airport tomorrow or at the shops there. Sean could probably also get any souvenirs he might like that way too. I haven't put the call in to change my ticket, but I am really thinking it would be a good idea for us to be together for awhile. What do you think?"
Ian crunched into a bit of bacon and looked at his mother, not saying a thing. His gaze was so distant that whe wasn't even sure if he had heard her at all. Sean seemed to very interested in the banger on his plate. Again, there was not even a nod from either boy.
"Is there something either of you would like to tell us? Are your okay? Did something difficult happen to you? We won't judge, we just want to know uf we can help." added Lin.
She was once again greeted by silence from the boys.
"All right, you will talk when you have a mind to." She picked up her breakfast items and moved to the sink where she could begin the wahing up. "Let's spend the morning getting packed. I can make my arrangements to fly with you and we can consider where we want to go before we leave tomorrow.
The boys moved back to their room. She could hear them going about the rudimentary requirements for packing, but they were still so very quiet, Not a single word was spoken between them. She and Fiona worked to straighten the rest of the house. They located all the items they had brough in. Worked together to pack up what they would take with and put together a package to take into down for the church to hand out of the food stuffs they had not opened but which could be of great value to those living on the Church's largesse.
If Fiona noticed that Lin was withdrawn she did not comment, though she did suggest several times that there were errands that could be run in town which would have given Lin reason to and visit Roary alone. To all of these Lin replied that the errands could wait until supper, as they planned to in to the Pub to eat. There was certainly no need to waste the time they had together setting off on a separate trip to the village.
Truth be told if, Fiona would have loved to given a good shake to both her daughter and her grandsons. They needed to snap out of whatever they had let take hold of them and grasp tightly to the fact that they were back together. They had come through so much, to let this silence settle seemed almost blasphemous. In fact, she determined, if they did not get their heads out of the collective hind-ends by supper she might just be forced to take drastic action.
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