Epilogue #2
The reception is in the house. Long tables in the dining room, overflowing with food Saoirse has been cooking for three days.
Wine and whiskey and toasts that range from eloquent to barely coherent.
Liam speaks first, measured and warm, and says something about Rafferty finally coming home that makes the brothers go quiet for a moment before Connor breaks the tension with a joke I don't catch but that makes Aidan choke on his drink.
My father speaks. He's brief, which is unlike him, and his voice cracks once, which is even more unlike him.
He says he prayed for a man who would love his daughter the way she deserved.
He says he believes that prayer was answered.
Rafferty reaches under the table and squeezes my hand so hard his healing knuckles must scream, but he doesn't flinch.
Iris gives an unofficial toast that's mostly a roast of Rafferty's inability to dress himself, buy groceries, or function without someone reminding him to eat. She ends it by looking straight at me and saying, "Thank you for taking him off our hands. We love him desperately but he's exhausting."
The laughter carries through the room like warmth.
I dance with my father. He holds me the way he did when I was small, one hand on my back, the other clasped around my fingers.
He hums along with the music, slightly off key, and I press my face into his shoulder and breathe in the smell of his aftershave and think about all the things I didn’t think he knew.
"I'm proud of you, sweetheart," he says.
"For getting married?"
"For being happy. You haven't been happy in a long time. A father notices these things, even when his daughter thinks he doesn't."
I pull back and look at him. His eyes are steady and knowing and I wonder, again, if he understood more than I gave him credit for. Not necessarily the details, but the shape of it. The shadow it cast.
"I'm happy now, Dad."
"I know." He kisses my forehead. "That's all I ever wanted."
Rafferty cuts in. My father gives him a look that's equal parts warning and approval, the universal expression of a man handing his daughter to another man and trusting him not to break her.
"Take care of her," my father says.
"Always," Rafferty says. And he means it the way he means everything. Completely.
We dance. His hand on my lower back, mine on his shoulder. He's a terrible dancer. Stiff, slightly offbeat, concentrating on his feet like they're enemy combatants he needs to outmaneuver. I love it.
"You're overthinking it," I tell him.
"I'm trying not to step on your dress,” he grumbles.
"It's fine. Step on it."
"Your mother will kill me."
"My mother loves you. She told me this morning you remind her of my father."
Something moves across his face. Surprise, maybe. Or the quiet shock of being compared to a good man by a good woman. "Your father is a better man than I am."
"My father didn't drive through the night to destroy someone who was hurting me."
"He would have if he had the chance."
I rest my head against his chest and listen to his heartbeat. The rhythm I've been falling asleep to for the last four nights and will fall asleep to for every night that follows.
Around us, the family moves. Liam is holding Lorcan against his shoulder, swaying gently near the window while Grace watches with soft eyes.
Aidan and Tanya are dancing properly, gracefully, because Aidan is the brother who actually learned how.
Killian is sitting with Katya, her swollen feet in his lap, his hand rubbing her ankle while she eats a third piece of cake without apology.
Connor and Anya are in the corner, his arm around her, her head tipped back as she laughs at something he's murmured in her ear.
Saoirse is standing in the doorway. She's stopped crying. Her eyes move across the room, touching each of her children, each of their partners, the grandchild in Liam's arms, the one growing in Katya's belly. Her boys. All married, all home. The Council mandate fulfilled, the family whole.
Her gaze finds mine across the room and she smiles. It's a smile that holds years. Decades. A lifetime of raising kids in a dangerous world and hoping they'd find partners strong enough to stand beside them.
I smile back.
Iris appears at Saoirse's side and loops her arm through her mother's as she says something. Saoirse nods and looks at the room one more time, then she pats Iris's hand and turns back toward the kitchen.
The evening folds in on itself. Guests leave in waves. My parents are among the last. My mother hugs me so long that Timofey has to physically steer her toward the car. Darya squeezes my hand and whispers, "Call me tomorrow. I want details."
"You're not getting details," I whisper shout, part horrified, part embarrassed.
"I'm absolutely getting details," she retorts, cackling as she leaves.
Timofey high-fives Rafferty on his way out, which makes my husband look so bewildered that I laugh until my ribs hurt.
The house empties. The brothers drift to their rooms or their homes with their wives. Iris starts clearing plates until Saoirse shoos her to bed. Lights go off one by one until the estate is dark and quiet and ours.
Rafferty takes my hand at the bottom of the stairs.
"Ready?" he asks.
I look at this man. My husband. The man who heard my worst secret and responded with violence and tenderness in equal measure. Who showed up on my porch with blood on his knuckles and told me I was beautiful. Who gave me back my power in the same breath he used to claim me.
"I've been ready," I say.
He leads me upstairs to our room. Our bed. Our life.