Chapter 1 Sean
Sean:
I didn’t mind starting our love story, even though it hadn’t been one at the beginning. Looking back, I was amazed that Cormac and I had pulled our asses out of the fire and found a way to get our wives to give us a chance and then make them fall in love with us.
God, the thought of what these past forty-two years would’ve been like without my Brenda and our kids made me want to break out in a cold sweat, but I held it together.
Sharing this had been one cautionary tale told to our children more than once over the years.
It never hurt to revisit it for those who were still single.
“Let me set the scene for you. It’s early December, forty-two years ago.
We hadn’t established the Commune yet. Patrick and Maeve had been married for two years, and Darragh was due to be born in a month.
Cor and I were still single and having the time of our lives.
I was twenty-eight, and Cor was twenty-seven.
“Our family was in the hands of Patrick, though Daid was still very much involved. He was showing Pat the ropes, even though the title of Ceannaire an Teaghlaigh, Leader of the Family, was officially Pat’s.
Daid stepped back and stayed in the shadows, offering advice only when he saw we were about to make a mistake or if Pat asked for it.
Our parents were thrilled that our oldest brother had found his anamchara and was expecting his first child.
While we were delighted for Patrick, we didn’t like the pressure it brought to bear on us.
“Cormac and I were happy staying single for a good while longer. Despite Patrick and our parents spouting off about how we should never marry anyone for any reason other than love and only if that person were our anamchara, we weren’t sure whether we bought into that idea.
Who in that day and age believed in them?
None of our buddies did. Plus, we had women for the taking.
Why ruin it?” As I paused, Cormac interjected.
“We had discounted that the Old Ones still influenced our lives. We forgot to account for the Morrígan and áine. We had no idea they were about to step in and throw our plans out the door.”
“Who are they?” Luc asked.
“The Morrígan is the Celtic goddess of fate, among other things, and she’s a guardian of destiny.
áine is the goddess of love. And before you say they’re not real, we believe in God, but all true Irish folks still believe in the gods and goddesses of old.
Don’t ever discount them. They are known to play hell with lives,” I warned.
“And they sure loved to mess with two arrogant rakehells like us. We were making tons of money from our illegal activities. We hadn’t started to make the move to get ourselves out of that lifestyle quite yet.
That came after Darragh and Cian were born.
We had women throwing themselves at us, but none for the right reasons.
We worked hard and played hard. We thought it was the best life had to offer.
We were so wrong,” I finished off, having set the stage.