hy must you let your damn Scots pride stand in the way?”  she’d been shouting after him as he’d stormed out.  It was a fierce pride, making conversation, on some things, very difficult. 

                Andy had fled.  From himself, mainly.  He’d not even been aware of where he was going.  A calling from the ancient celtic roots of his past?  The blind, desperate desire to escape, to where none could reach him, had him standing, shivering, on the misty shore of Loch Ness.  The memories of the previous night’s  shouting-match were all too strong.

                “Why can’t you see that it’s the only way?”, Cathy had bitterly demanded, unable to comprehend his resistance, “It will still be our baby, even if you’re not the biological father.”

                How could he explain the hurt.  His hopeless ambition to further the bloodline of his ancestors?  Last of his line, and an only son, he felt the awful weight of his responsibility, a duty he could never fulfil. 

                                                His family, proud and brave, had graced battlefields with honour for centuries past, but no more.  Duncan, a brave ancestor of his, had been born beside this Loch, and later died at Culloden.  The discovery of his sterility had plunged Andy into deepest despair.

                Cathy loved him.  In spite of the diagnosis, she wanted children desperately,  and had discussed IVF with the family Doctor.  As tactful as she’d tried to be when bringing up the subject with Andy,  she’d torn at his very soul, and he’d reacted angrily.