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Show 147 make his way in the world. This was her dad's people, his parents' the ones who had gotten off the boat-talking: the Scotchman who can make a go of it anywhere in the world. No matter the hardships, the circumstances. For a Scotchman wasn't a man who lived in Scotland, but a man from Scotland. Always, to her, a man making his way in a country, in a world, not his own. Well, that was not true. This was anyone's country. Anyone who was here anyway. That was what her dad used to say. She was here. This was her country. Her place. Not Scotland. She wondered about that country which she had never seen. How desolate-how hard-it must be, she thought, to continually send forth its people: to continually cast them out into the world. He finished his eggs, and lit a cigarette. His features sharp, with his mind somewhere else, he looked like a hawk now. And as she cleared the table and began the dishes, she imagined him not her brother. Is this how he would look to a woman who had spent the night with him? Over breakfast, having his cigarette. His thin, sharp handsomeness now separated off from her. Closed off into himself. And suddenly she was curious about this woman she had imagined. What was she like? She would be attractive, a "looker" as her dad would say; that, she knew, beyond a doubt. And quite different from her, Sharon. Older, certainly. But different in some other way, some basic difference . And he seemed then a stranger to her, sitting there. "Tell me," she suddenly said, "are you dating anyone?" He looked up to her there at the sink, trying, she knew, to read |