Epilogue
Present Day…
I t was Saturday and that meant one thing: A Hartigan family brunch. It was the one time, each week, when all of the Hartigan siblings brought their significant others to the single-story ranch in Waterbury.
And their kids.
And their pets.
And the occasional foreign princess hiding out from her long-suffering personal security guards. Of course, that's a story for another time.
On this Saturday, though, the Hartigan house was filled to the brim with people, pets, and the smell of Hawaiian ham just out of the oven.
Katie Hartigan stood in open space between the kitchen and the living room and surveyed the scene. Something was off. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but a person didn’t raise seven kids like hers without having a special sense for when shenanigans were afoot. On high alert, she scanned the living room.
Her granddaughter, Freya, was hosting a tea party with her favorite stuffed animals while her baby brother was rocked to sleep by mom, Lucy. Meanwhile, Frankie Jr. was keeping a fatherly eye on their first born, Frankie the third, known as Trey, who was dressed in his Spiderman costume and telling everything that he was tracking down the evil Dr. Kitty. That one-eared cat (known to everyone else as Honeypot) sat on the top of a bookshelf in the living room and watched Trey with the kind of disdainful look only a cat could make.
Finn and Fallon pulled their brother, Frankie Jr., in a corner and began whispering ferociously, confirming Katie’s belief that they were obviously up to something. The rest of her brood (Fiona, Faith, Ford, and Felicia) had left their significant others behind and disappeared together into the garage, supposedly in search of extra chairs. That really was the worst cover story ever. It wasn’t as if there weren’t already enough chairs for all of the Hartigans, their significant others, and all the rest of her grand babies: Amalie, Vito, Charley, and the latest addition to the brood, Finn’s love Princess Andromeda Lavinia Vespera known to everyone in the family on this side of the Atlantic as simply Andi.
She was pondering the possibilities (with her kids they were infinite) when Frankie Senior stepped up behind her. She didn’t have to turn around to confirm it. After more than forty years of marriage, he was still the only man in the world who made heart flutter just by walking in the room.
"Your children are up to something," Katie said, moving her gaze over to the people who’d joined the Hartigan family voluntarily, knowing they’d be easier to crack than any of her hard-headed kids.
Frankie wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close against him. “Why are they always my kids when they’re up to something?"
"Because I am a model of virtue and restraint,” she said, almost managing to get the words out without smiling.
Frankie dipped his head and whispered in her ear, “You weren't last night."
Failing to smother her chuckle, she turned in his arms to face him. “Francis Delano Hartigan, you shush."
The cocky smart ass just grinned at her. “Pretty sure the kids are aware by now of how they got all those brothers and sisters."
Katie rolled her eyes at him. “You are nothing but trouble."
“And you love it,” he said, punctuating the declaration with a quick kiss.
She couldn't argue. She did. Since her first date with Frankie, her life had never been boring. That's not to say she wouldn't have minded a little boredom here and there, but on the whole it had been a pretty amazing four decades with the very last man in Waterbury that she ever should have dated. No, she hadn't ever made it to Italy—hell, she hadn't even ever moved out of Waterbury—but she had absolutely no regrets.
"So, you never told me if you liked my new jacket," Frankie said.
That stopped her in her tracks.
New jacket? The man had been wearing the same one for the last ten years. He'd only started wearing that one because she'd tossed the ragged excuse for a coat he'd had before.
"You went shopping?" she asked, stepping back to get a look at what he was wearing, ready to make some comment about alerting the media, when he turned around and the comment died on her lips.
Frankie was wearing a leather jacket. But it wasn't just any black motorcycle jacket. It had T-Birds stitched onto it, along with the outline of a bird.
He flipped up the collar and turned around in one smooth motion. "Heard you were looking for a cool rider."
Katie didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Not that it mattered. In a heartbeat it was 1982 and she was just walking out of the movie theater after watching Grease 2 and into the best night of her life with her one-night stand, Frankie Hartigan.
"Turn around Mom,” Fallon called out, pulling Katie back to the here and now.
There was no stopping Katie’s giggles when she did.
All seven of their kids were wearing either black motorcycle jackets or pink statin bomber jackets. Felicia even had on a bright pink wig that screamed beauty school dropout. Her chuckles turned to happy tears by the time they broke into Stephanie Zinone’s signature song, complete with Finn sitting on top of a ladder the kids must have brought in from the garage.
It was ridiculous.
It was hysterical.
It was the best and worst rendition of that song ever to be done.
"So it was the kids idea to serenade you with your favorite song from the ‘Saturday morning cleaning the house mixtape’ before I gave you your anniversary present,” Frankie said as soon as the song was done.
Katie narrowed her gaze at him. She loved the man, but they’d had an agreement about this. “We don't do anniversary gifts,” she said.
With seven kids on a teacher’s and firefighter’s salaries, there hadn't been the money even if they'd wanted to.
He shrugged as he handed her an envelope. “Well this year we are and my gift is seeing your face when you open this."
Heart beating against her ribs like it was trying to break free, she opened it with shaking fingers.
Inside were two plane tickets to Rome.
"You would not believe what a pain in the ass it was to get actual tickets," Frankie said. "But come on, what was I supposed to do, give you a piece of paper I printed out from our laptop?”
She covered her mouth with her fingers, blinking fast to clear the tears from her eyes. “Oh Frankie."
"It wasn't just me,” he said. “Fallon and Zach demanded to pay to upgrade us. Fiona and Dixon insisted we use his grandmother's private train car to travel from city to city. Felicia and Hudson threatened to leave that evil cat of hers at our house if I didn't agree to stay at the Carlye Hotels free of charge during our trip. Gina got Ford to agree to break his personal rules—and some Waterbury PD ones—to run the lights for us so we could avoid any travel snarl-ups on the way to the airport. Frankie and Lucy got us a new set of fancy luggage with chargers and things just for the trip. And Faith and Finn agreed to split house-sitting duties so you don’t have to worry about your house plants dying while we’re gone for the next month.”
Katie looked from her husband, to her kids, to their significant others, but she could barely see them through the tears. They were happy tears, yes, but they still made seeing the people she loved pretty damn hard. “I don't know what to say,” she got out between sniffles.
"Good,” Frankie said, taking a step away from her, which really should have set off he shenanigans alarms. “Because you have to start packing. We leave in three hours.“
The man shocked her tear ducts into submission. Three hours?
Three?
Hours?!
“That's not enough time,” she said on a gasp.
He winked at her—as if he could charm his way out of this. Which, fine, even after more than forty years together he could. “As if something as insignificant as a clock could stop Katie Hartigan from making something happen.”
Despite it all, she laughed. Really, what could she expect from the man who had made her life one great adventure from the time he blew her mind in a bar’s supply closet during a retirement party? Cupping his face with both hands, she leaned in and kissed him with all of the ‘I love yous’ she’d spent the last forty years saying out loud to him.
“What am I ever going to do with you Frank Hartigan?" she asked when she broke the kiss.
"I have some ideas," he said and then stepped closer and lowered his volume so only she could hear. "I'll tell you all about them in detail once we're alone."
She couldn’t wait—but first she had to pack.