Epilogue Maeve
FIVE MONTHS LATER
The Boston air is different from Dublin's. The heat in midsummer is stifling in the city, and I’m glad I packed light.
As Sean and I walk out of my family’s mansion—our mansion now, I suppose, even though it still feels strange sometimes—I look at the green expanse all around us and the flowers in the front garden, and wonder if this place will ever fully feel like home again.
Despite the simplicity of Sean’s home in Dublin compared to where I grew up, it feels more like home to me than this ever has.
And we’ve discussed picking out a home of our own soon in Dublin, a place that we can start a new chapter in.
Sean's hand finds the small of my back, warm through the thin eyelet fabric of my sundress. "You ready?"
I nod, even though I'm not sure I am. We've been in Boston for three days now, dealing with the usual estate business that sometimes means we need to be here instead of where we prefer to be. There’s nothing left for me here in Boston, and it holds difficult memories for both Sean and me.
"We don't have to do this today," he says quietly. "We can wait."
But I shake my head. "No. I want to. I need to."
He studies my face for a moment, his green eyes pensive.
Then he nods and takes my hand, lacing our fingers together.
His wedding band catches the light, the same simple band that I put on his finger at our wedding.
I still wear the one he gave me that day, too.
I wonder sometimes if he’ll ever want to replace them, but I haven’t asked.
Maybe I will one day, but for now, it hasn’t felt like the most important thing.
The drive to the cemetery is quiet. Sean doesn't try to fill the silence with empty words, which is one of the things I love about him.
He's learned when I need space to think, when I need comfort, when I need him to just be there without trying to fix anything.
And I've learned the same things about him—learned to read the tension in his shoulders, the set of his jaw, the way his hands grip the steering wheel when he's thinking about things he doesn't want to say out loud. I’ve learned how to see when he’s stressed and when he’s peaceful, and how to give him space when he needs it, too.
We've learned each other, these past five months, really learned each other, in a way we couldn't when we were both so scared and angry and trapped.
Sean pulls into a different cemetery than the one I need to visit, on the north side of the city, smaller and older than the one where my father and sister, and brother are buried.
The gates are wrought iron long long-aged with weather and disuse, and the headstones inside are the same.
Age and New England winters haven’t done this place any favors.
He parks, but he doesn't get out right away. His hands stay on the wheel, and I can see the muscle working in his jaw.
"Sean.” I reach out to touch his arm.
"I haven't been here since the funeral.” His voice is rough. "Twenty-three years.”
I squeeze his hand. "We can leave. We don't—"
"No." He turns to look at me, and there's something raw in his eyes, the vulnerable part of him that I know only I have ever really been allowed to see. "I want to. I want you to... I want you to meet her. Even if it's just a grave."
My heart clenches. I bring his hand to my lips and kiss his knuckles. "Okay."
We walk through the cemetery together, Sean leading the way down paths he clearly remembers even after all these years.
The graves here are packed close together, generations of Irish immigrants who came to Boston looking for better lives.
Some of the headstones are in Gaelic, the letters worn almost smooth by time and weather.
He stops in front of a simple granite marker, smaller than some of the others around it. The inscription is plain: Brynne Flannery, Beloved Mother, and the dates of her birth and death.
Sean swallows hard. “She was thirty-three,” he says quietly. “Younger than I am now.”
I slip my arm around his waist, and he pulls me close against his side. We stand there in silence for a long moment, the wind rustling through the trees overhead.
“I try not to think about it,” he says quietly.
“How I’ve gotten more life than her and I don’t deserve it.
She did. She deserved a long life, a happier, easier one than she got.
I can’t help thinking how I could have protected her now.
How no one would dare touch my mother if she were still alive. But back then…”
"You were a kid," I say softly. "You weren’t who you are now. That’s not your fault.”
“I know.” Sean takes in a slow breath. “It’s hard not to be angry.
At everyone and everything. At myself. At her for…
I don’t know. I was angry at her for leaving me for a long time, even though it wasn’t her fault.
She was strong. Brave. I know she didn’t go down easy.
And it’s no one’s fault but that man who took her life that she’s gone. ”
His voice cracks slightly. “I’m always going to be glad he’s dead. No matter what kind of man that makes me.”
I turn to face him, reaching up to cup his cheek. "She'd be proud of you. Of the man you've become."
He lets out a shaky breath and covers my hand with his. "I don't know about that. But I hope—I hope she'd be glad I found you. That I have someone in my life now who matters to me.”
“She would be,” I say firmly. “She’d be proud of you for being brave enough to love me. For making me yours, even though it terrified you.”
"Because of you." He leans down and kisses my forehead. His lips linger there for a moment, soft against my skin. "You make me better, Maeve. You make me want to be better."
“And you make me stronger than I was before,” I whisper, leaning into his side.
We stay a while longer, in the warmth of the summer sun.
Sean tells me stories about his mother—small things, memories he hasn’t talked about for years.
The way she used to sing while she cooked.
How she'd give him extra dessert on the nights she had to work.
The time she took him to see the ocean and they spent the whole day on the beach, just the two of them, and it was the happiest he remembered being as a child.
I listen and hold him as he talks, soaking it all in. I’m grateful that he trusts me with this, with these pieces of himself that are so tender and painful. When we finally leave, he seems lighter somehow. Not happy, exactly, but unburdened in a way he wasn't before.
"Thank you," he says as we walk back to the car. "For being here with me. I know this isn’t a happy trip.”
“Not everything is happy.” I squeeze his hand. “But those parts are meaningful, too.”
The cemetery where my family is buried is across town, larger and more modern.
The graves here are spread out with more space between them, the headstones polished granite and marble.
There are fresh flowers on a lot of the graves.
We stop in front of the three that hold my family—the headstones with my father’s name, with Siobhan’s, with Desmond’s.
There’s a familiar ache in my chest as I stand there looking down at them. I stare for a long time, wondering what to say. I loved my family, and I didn’t. They were cruel and harsh, but they were still mine. And I have good memories of Desmond, but they don’t mesh with the man he turned out to be.
Sean stands beside me, his hand in mine, and doesn't say anything. He just waits, patient and steady, while I try to find words.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, looking at them.
“I’m sorry that you couldn’t see that I was something more than just a shadow, the third child, the one who wasn’t really needed.
I’m sorry that whatever the world did to you made you the way you were.
I’m sorry we were all born into a world of such violence that it warps people.
But I…” I swallow hard. “I’ve found a way to still be someone full of light, even in a world that’s full of darkness.
And I hope you’d find some happiness in that, if you were still alive. ”
Tears spill over my cheeks before I even realize they’re welling up, and Sean pulls me against his chest. I let myself cry, let myself feel all the grief I've been holding back since they died, one after another. I needed closure, and that’s what it feels like I’ve found here.
I cry until I feel as if all the tears are gone, as if I’ve released everything that’s been twisting inside of me for months and months, and then I squeeze Sean’s hand, pulling back from him as I wipe my eyes.
“I’m ready to go back,” I say quietly. Not home, because I don’t think the mansion will ever really be my home again. But I’m ready to leave this place.
Sean drives us back to the house with one hand on the wheel and the other holding mine. And I feel, as we sit there together in the car, as if another page is turning, a new chapter beginning.
One where I can finally leave all the ghosts of my past behind.
—
The next morning, I wake up to sunlight streaming through the windows of my old bedroom.
It's strange being here, in this house full of memories, but it's less painful with Sean beside me.
He makes everything less painful. He's already awake, propped up on one elbow, watching me with an expression I can't quite read.
"What?" I smile sleepily, turning in his arms so that I’m facing him.
"Nothing. Just looking at my wife."
“Don’t be creepy.” I swat his chest, but I’m laughing, and he smiles.
“I can’t take my eyes off of you. Sometimes, I can’t believe you’re really here.” He leans forward and kisses me, reaching past me as he does. When he pulls back, I blink, seeing a small black velvet box in his hand.
My heart thuds in my chest. "Sean—"
He hands it to me, pressing the small box into my palm. "Open it," he says quietly.