Epilogue Labor Day Picnic 2.0
KARA
Six years ago, I sat on this lawn watching Fitz and Enoch race toward the terrace for cookies, my marriage fractured by fears I was too ashamed to name.
Today, Fitz is in the bay with Sadie, both of them laughing as they try to shove the other beneath the water. Sadie gets her hands on his shoulders and pushes. He twists before she can use her weight against him, catches her around the waist and dunks her instead.
She comes up sputtering and slaps both palms against the water, sending a sheet of it into his face.
Fitz laughs and dives before she can grab him again.
Their friendship is still innocent. A boy and girl who have known each other since grade school, who trust each other in the uncomplicated way children do.
It won't stay uncomplicated forever.
I don't know when that will change or which one of them will realize it first. I only know Mick and Wraith are both going to be impossible when it does.
A small body collides with my back.
"Sorry, Aunt Kara!" Joy calls without slowing.
She races after Cormac and Mavie, all three of them shrieking as they weave through the blankets spread across the first level of the lawn.
Cormac has someone's abandoned badminton racket.
Mavie is carrying one of the giant yard-pong balls pressed against her stomach with both arms, and Joy appears to be chasing them for the sheer pleasure of the chase.
They remind me of Fitz and Enoch at their first Labor Day picnic together, tearing across this same lawn with no understanding of how much their lives had changed.
Or maybe children understand change better than adults do. They accept joy when it is offered without demanding a guarantee that it will last.
"You're going to run into someone," Neeve calls from beneath the shade canopy.
Joy looks over her shoulder. "No, I'm not."
She immediately clips the corner of a picnic blanket and windmills both arms to keep from falling.
Neeve pushes her glasses higher on her nose and goes back to her book without comment.
Beside her, Sorcha is arranging a collection of animal figurines into two precise rows. Conor's two-year-old daughter sits cross-legged nearby, watching with grave concentration as Sorcha considers a small plastic fox.
"You can have this one," Sorcha tells her.
The toddler accepts it solemnly and puts it beside a spotted dog. Sorcha moves the fox so it stands directly in front of the dog, then gives the little girl another figurine to distract her from the correction.
I bite back a smile.
Mick's hand settles on my ankle. He's stretched out beside me on our picnic blanket, one knee bent and his bare feet in the grass. He has been talking to Miceli for the last few minutes, but some part of him remains aware of me no matter where his attention appears to be.
Things have been different since Christmas in July when I gave him the gift of total trust and he returned it by doing exactly what I wanted. There's a peace about him that wasn't there before.
He's settled deep in his soul as mamo would say.
And I am the reason because I am his reason.
Miceli glances toward the bay, where one of his men stands at the end of the dock watching Fitz and Sadie swim. He has men stationed at every access point to the property, along the beach and on two boats sitting far enough offshore not to interfere with the children.
Our security has always been extensive at the Labor Day picnic. This year, it could repel a small country size invasion.
Róise lowers herself onto the blanket beside me and bumps my shoulder. "He almost didn't come."
Well, I know they didn't bring their baby boy, who is staying with his grandmother, Aria, under even tighter security than here. So, she must be talking about Miceli.
"But he wasn't going to let you come without him and you were bound and determined to be here for me and Fiona."
Róise grins. "Got it in one."
Miceli's head turns in our direction. Róise smiles sweetly at him. He narrows his eyes.
Smart man.
I have no idea what my cousin has planned, but there's a look in her eye that says Miceli will both love and be appalled by it.
Miceli's attention ostensibly returns to my husband, his posture relaxed by anyone else's standards. I know enough made men to recognize how much attention he is paying to every movement around us though.
Just like Mick.
Róise sighs. "Apparently, having the entire Shaughnessy organization in one place makes this gathering an unacceptable security risk now that we have a child."
"He isn't wrong."
"No, but we can't let the dangers in our world stop us from living."
Thinking about our upcoming trip to Disneyland, which will have more security than a Presidential tour, I grin. "You aren't wrong either."
"Exactly." Róise looks at our two husbands. "They're ridiculously protective."
"One hundred percent."
Mick's thumb strokes once over the inside of my ankle.
Róise's mouth curves. "And we're very lucky."
"More than either of us could have imagined when we married our made men."
Mick squeezes my ankle while my cousin gives her husband, Don of the Genovese, a sappy besotted look.
I don't say a word because I'm pretty sure right now there's a lot of family resemblance between the two of us.
Across the lawn, áine stands with Wraith near the refreshment tables. She is saying something to Neeve, who has left her book long enough to collect a bottle of fizzy juice. Wraith has one hand at áine's waist, his fingers spread possessively over her side.
He isn't looking at her.
He doesn't have to.
His body is angled toward hers, a living barrier between his wife and anyone who might come too close. When Joy barrels toward them, he releases áine long enough to catch the little girl against his chest before she can crash into the table.
Joy laughs and loops her arms around his neck.
Wraith says something that makes her grin, then sets her down and reaches immediately for áine again.
There is nothing left of necessity in their marriage. The man who once claimed he did not have whatever other people called a heart watches áine like she carries his outside his body.
áine looks up at him and smiles.
His eyes warm in a way they never do with other adults.
"He's so gone for her," Róise says.
"Utterly." My gaze travels to the blanket in the center of the lawn.
My father sits in a wooden lawn chair because Hope finally persuaded him that getting up from the ground without making a production of it was not a test of masculine virility. She sits beside him, turned slightly in his direction as they talk.
Brogan's hand rests over hers on the arm of her chair.
He looks lighter than he did six years ago. Not physically. My father will always carry authority like another layer of clothing. But the tension that once lived in his shoulders is gone.
Hope has done that.
Or loving her has.
I wanted more from my father when I was a child. I wanted him to see me, his daughter, before he saw the pawn he could use to secure his succession. I wanted him to ask what I needed instead of telling me what our family required.
For a long time, watching him give Enoch the attention I once craved hurt.
It doesn't today.
Enoch is already in Santa Fe, settling into Sagewind before classes begin. Esther went with him and will stay while he adjusts to the academy and Brogan and Hope prepare for their move. At twenty-two, with her university degree finished, she could have chosen any number of futures.
She chose to be there for her brother.
She's closer to Fiona than she is to me, which considering our age difference and life circumstances makes sense. She and Róise will be Fiona's bridesmaids. I'll be my sister's matron of honor.
That's one wedding I look forward to with no misgivings.
A few yards from Brogan, our nephew, Eoghan sits beneath an oak tree with the sketchbook Mick gave him after he arrived in New York balanced on one knee.
Apparently taking my husband's, "Use it," for the order it was, his pencil moves quickly over the page, his attention fixed on the children running across the lawn.
He looks up when Cormac shouts, studies him for a few seconds and returns to the drawing.
Adam once believed art would make his son weak. Because of me, Mick believes it will keep him human.
"Attention everybody," my father's voice booms out over the crowd of the Shaughnessy Mob family.
I look over to see him standing with a megaphone in his hand. Of course.
"Listen up," he adds through the sound amplifier with a smidge more authority in his tone.
Conversations quiet in uneven waves as people turn toward my father. Children are called back to blankets. Fitz and Sadie climb onto the dock, dripping water as they grab towels.
Mick sits up beside me.
His hand leaves my ankle only long enough for him to get to his feet. Then he holds one out to me.
I take it.
Brogan waits until he has everyone's attention. Hope stands beside him now, close enough that their arms touch.
"I've got a few announcements that give me great joy to make."
Whatever talking was still happening ceases.
He puts down the megaphone and beckons to Fiona and Zoey, who join him. Something my sister would have found horrifyingly stressful to do six years ago.
Now, she's smiling and I can't help smiling with her.
"My daughter Fiona is getting married." Our father puts his arm around Fiona's shoulder, his naturally booming voice carrying across the lawn.
If his Irish brogue is pronounced despite him never having lived in the country of his mother's birth, I'm not saying a word.
He smiles warmly at Fiona's fiancée. "I'm delighted and proud to welcome Zoey into our family."
Fiona's grin is as incandescent as it was the day she told they were getting married. Our father's approval means more to her than it does to me and I'm glad he's giving it without reservation.
I'd have to do something drastic if he didn't, but then I'd have to beat Mick to it, I think.
My father's expression softens perceptibly as he looks at Fiona and Zoey.
There was a time when he would have treated my sister's marriage as a strategic announcement. An alliance to be weighed for advantage and risk.
Today, he looks like an Irish father whose youngest daughter has found someone he trusts to love her.
"My cup runneth over." The words thicken at the edges.
Fiona's eyes fill.
She turns into him and wraps her arms around our father. He hugs her back while the cheers and congratulations erupt around us. I clap hardest of all.
He doesn't hurry to release her. When he finally does, he kisses her forehead before letting Zoey take her hand again.
He clears his throat and waits for the noise to die down to announce, "My son, Enoch, has been accepted to Sagewind Academy of Fine Arts."
My son, not my stepson. I like that and from the look on Hope's face so does she.
He smiles with open pride. "His talent is extraordinary. More important, he has had the courage to pursue it."
Eoghan is watching my father with intent regard.
Hope's hand finds da's arm.
My father covers it with his own. "Hope and I will be moving to Santa Fe so Enoch can attend the academy while living at home."
A murmur rolls across the lawn.
"I have led this organization for over a decade. I intended to lead it longer." He glances down at Hope. "Plans change and sometimes, it's for the better."
He looks toward Fiona, then me.
"I spent too many years believing being a good boss was more important than being a good father. I've learned differently, which just goes to show an old leprechaun can change its path to the gold at the end of the rainbow."
My throat closes. It's so schmaltzy, but his sincerity is unmistakable.
"The time is right," he continues. "The man is right. And this family is strong enough for what comes next." His gaze settles on Mick. "I will be passing the reins to my son-in-law, who will become the new boss of this organization. Join me in toasting your new boss."
For one long moment, no one moves.
Everyone knew Mick would succeed my father. They expected it years from now, after Fitz was grown and Brogan was too old to hold the position through force of will.
Then applause erupts across the lawn.
"That deserves a pint," someone calls.
"It deserves two," another man answers.
"You'll have to settle for champagne, you heathens," my father shouts as suddenly waitstaff are there with trays of champagne and others with short cups of fizzy grape juice for the children.
This is a whole family celebration.
Mick smiles.
It is the smile the Shaughnessy organization knows. Warm, charming and touched with enough humor to make men forget he can watch another person die without feeling anything at all.
His public face.
Not the man who touches me in his sleep to make sure I'm there. Not the husband who bought a heatless fireplace insert because I wanted Christmas in July to feel like Christmas. Not the father who gave his nephew a sketchbook because a boy's gift should never be treated like a defect.
Mick steps forward and accepts the glass my father offers him.
Then he looks at me. "Kara."
I walk across the grass and place mine in his. He draws me to his side, where I have always belonged, and beckons a waiter for another glass of champagne before handing me his own and taking it.
Then he waits for the crowd to settle. "Kara, my beloved and equal, will lead Shaughnessy Corp by my side."
His fingers tighten around mine.
"We promise to make our organization stronger than it has ever been so we can pass down a legacy of power and strength to our son, Fitzgerald Shaughnessy, who will one day take over."
This time the applause and shouts are instantaneous and deafeningly loud.
My father did not include me in his announcement and that's okay. I was Brogan Shaughnessy's daughter raised to be a mob princess.
I am Mick Fitzgerald's queen.
THE END