Epilogue
Bronagh was helped from the vintage silver Rolls-Royce by Patrick O'Mara, looking every bit the gentleman in his morning suit.
He'd telephoned Bronagh from Los Angeles and asked if he could be the one to give her away at her wedding.
Bronagh had been deeply touched by the gesture and quickly added Cindy to her bridesmaid contingent.
She'd always had such a soft spot for Pat, and to have him standing beside her, offering a steadying hand as she walked into the church to meet the love of her life, felt completely right.
She'd warned him on the short drive from Cullingford Drive to the church that he was under strict instructions not to grin like a Cheshire Cat all the way up the aisle.
Nor was Cindy, for that matter. The pair of them would distract everyone from the dress she'd waited so long to wear with their glow-in-the-dark LA teeth.
He'd taken it exactly as she'd intended and promised there'd be no grinning on his part.
The day was a typical November day in Dublin—damp and grey—but Bronagh couldn't have cared less. She'd been on a high ever since she, Lenny and Myrna had moved into their new house, which had felt like home from the moment they'd walked through the front door. The drizzle could do its worst.
Nothing was dampening today. Besides, the glass or two of bubbles she'd sipped while getting ready had taken the edge off the eight-degree chill.
There'd been lots of giggling as Myrna, Hilary, Maureen, Joan, Roisin, Aisling, Moira, Cindy and Erin put the finishing touches to their outfits.
The giggles had turned to shrieks of laughter when Maureen produced a blue garter and, as Bronagh slipped it up her thigh, she'd flashed her lucky shamrock knickers at them all.
Joan had presented Bronagh with a necklace for her something borrowed.
The daintiest Claddagh on a silver chain.
It had belonged to Leonard and Joan's grandmother, and Bronagh had grown quite emotional as Joan fastened it around her neck and explained its history.
Instinctively, she reached up and touched the tiny Claddagh resting against her collarbone.
The heart symbolised love, the hands friendship and the crown loyalty. It was perfect.
It was Hilary's gift, however, that had threatened to ruin Bronagh's mascara. Thank goodness Moira had been on hand with the tissues.
It was a silver-framed photograph Bronagh had never seen before. In the black-and-white picture, Hilary stood with one arm draped protectively around her little sister's shoulders while Bronagh—missing her two front teeth—grinned happily at the camera.
Bronagh stared at the photograph, unable to remember when it had been taken. It didn't matter. The little girl with the gap-toothed smile was looking up at Hilary as though the sun rose and set with her.
‘I told you, you were thick as thieves,’ Myrna had said.
Bronagh had hugged her sister tightly. They'd faithfully kept their thumb-press promise, chatting on the phone every few days.
There was a great deal of catching up—and getting to know one another again—to do.
They'd also agreed there would be no more hashing over the past. It was time to look to the future.
It wasn't the years they'd lost that mattered now. It was the years they'd found again.
To have her sister back was the greatest gift of all, Bronagh thought now, watching Hilary smooth the creases from the back of Maureen's jacket while the others climbed out of the identical Rolls-Royce that had pulled up behind them.
Joan—only this was a very different Joan from the woman Bronagh had first met—busied herself fluffing Bronagh's short veil.
Today she carried herself with a confidence that had once been missing.
People always said clothes didn't make the woman.
In Joan's case, however, they had helped her stand a little taller.
The burgundy trouser suit had been the compromise eventually agreed upon by Joan, Maureen and Hilary.
It was elegant yet stylish, and Joan had successfully pushed for a hat, although Hilary had remained adamant it couldn't be bigger than Myrna's.
They'd found dresses in a soft champagne gold for the bridesmaids—a shade that worked beautifully with the burgundy worn by the matrons of honour and flattered every one of them.
When all five young women had given the dresses their stamp of approval, Bronagh had breathed a sigh of relief.
That had only left her own dress. Therein had lain the problem. There wasn't one in her size. Or if there was, it was too poufy. Or not sparkly enough.
Round and round they'd gone until Bronagh had been close to despair. Then Maureen had what she insisted on calling her 'Eureka moment'.
Patricia could make the gown. What better way to showcase her talent than with a wedding dress?
Maureen had become terribly excited, declaring she would ring the local newspaper and tell them that Bronagh Hanrahan, long-serving receptionist of Dublin's iconic O'Mara's Guesthouse, was getting married.
Think of the publicity! she'd exclaimed, her eyes glazing over.
After all, she was Patricia's new business partner and head of marketing.
Bronagh had been hesitant. It was a huge favour to ask.
But the way things were going, it might otherwise have been the cream wool suit after all.
Hilary still maintained it had been smart, although she'd conceded that it was Bronagh's day and she should wear whatever made her feel wonderful.
It had been desperation that prompted Bronagh to ask Patricia whether she'd consider designing the gown.
She'd called in to collect her mam, Margaret, who had taken to spending much of each afternoon in the conservatory with her new friend Myrna.
The pair of them loved nothing more than dissecting what that 'eejit pair of newsreaders' had been wearing the previous evening.
To Bronagh's enormous relief, Patricia had leapt at the opportunity.
And now here she was. A white bolero jacket over a fitted ivory gown with a sequinned bodice and fishtail skirt. You'd never have guessed it had been lovingly fashioned from two second-hand dresses Patricia had found in the charity shop where she volunteered.
A camera flash exploded.
It instantly galvanised the bridal party into an orderly line so the newspaper photographer could capture them as they entered the church.
Roisin hurried towards Bronagh clutching her bouquet of burgundy calla lilies.
She was glowing, Bronagh thought, and little Luke was thriving. That wasn't to say life with her little family didn't have its ups and downs, but that was true of families everywhere. So long as there was love, everything had a way of working itself out.
She slipped her hand through Patrick's arm and climbed the church steps towards the usher waiting to open the heavy wooden doors.
They swung wide. Every head inside the church turned towards them.
The opening notes of Van Morrison's Someone Like You drifted through the air.
And there, at the end of the aisle, stood Lenny.
The moment his eyes found hers, his face relaxed.
Bronagh's fluttering nerves disappeared.
The church, the guests, even the music all seemed to fade away.
Flanked by the people she loved—and who loved her in return—Bronagh took her first step towards the man she couldn't wait to spend the rest of her life with.
It felt like coming home.
The End