23. Maeve
Maeve
I've been dreading this day.
This is the nightmare that's chased me for four years. A caseworker with a clipboard, examining every detail, deciding whether I'm enough.
One wrong answer, one misstep, one negative school report, and my siblings are taken. Split up. Scattered into the system I’ve worked so hard to keep them out of.
So when the caseworker's car comes through the gate, my whole body goes cold, and I’m ready to submit to whatever scrutiny I need to endure, however humiliating.
But the visit doesn’t go quite the way I thought it would.
There's a lawyer. Two of them, actually—O'Rourke lawyers, sharp and ruthless, with a folder of documentation.
Guardianship papers, school enrollment for Jamie and Cara at a private academy I didn't even know I'd agreed to, a top-notch pediatrician on record, a child psychologist already engaged for Cara, and trust funds that make the caseworker's eyebrows climb.
Bedrooms that pass inspection so well that the woman actually laughs.
The kitchen is not only full of food, but a smiling Dierdre is cooking up a three-course meal.
Jamie and Cara are splashing in the heated pool, and Oisin, fed and clean, is shrieking happily up the staircase.
And then there’s Kathleen. Kathleen O'Rourke pours the caseworker tea in the good sitting room and turns the full force of her grande dame persona on the woman—warm and gracious, yet formidable, dropping the names of two judges and a state senator with the offhand ease of someone commenting on the weather.
By the time she's done, the caseworker isn't evaluating whether the children are safe. She's apologizing for the intrusion.
"I know you think I'm the enemy." She tells me as I walk her out. "I'm not. Truth is, I really care about my families. All of them. I always wish some miracle would befall them so their lives could do a one-eighty, even though I know the odds are against it.”
She smiles so wide it crinkles her whole face. “It feels amazing to finally see someone beat the odds.” She nudges my shoulder wth hers. “Good for you, girl."
As I watch her leave, I stand in the doorway of a house with gates and expensive lawyers and a grandmother who terrorizes social workers into apologizing, and I have to put a hand on the doorframe to steady myself.
"You okay?" Lorcan comes up beside me. He's been hovering all afternoon—not interfering, just staying close. Letting me know he’s here if I need him.
“I passed with flying colors.” My voice doesn't sound like mine. I'm not crying. I don't cry. But my eyes are doing something and my breath has gone strange. "Nobody's going to take them."
“Damn right nobody's going to take them." He says it like a fact, like a thing already decided. “And you don't have to hold it all together by yourself anymore."
I turn into him and press my face into his chest. His arms come around me, and I breathe him in.
Nobody's going to take my family away.
Three weeks later
The pub is closed for the day for a private party. Cara's tenth birthday party. My little sister is holding court at the corner table, talking. Loudly. About Squishmallows, friendship bracelets, and Taylor Swift.
Two weeks of intensive therapy with the best specialist in Chicago—the one Lorcan hired—and now the hardest part of my day is getting Cara to stop talking long enough to get a word in edgewise.
I wouldn't trade it for anything.
"MaeMae! LOOK!" Oisin barrels past me wearing a paper crown, brandishing the plastic sword Uncle Declan gave him. Behind the bar, Jamie is pulling sodas for the kids with the focused pride of a boy who got promoted to "official party bartender" and takes it deadly seriously. He’s still Lorcan’s shadow, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Across the room, Kathleen sits with Nora, Saoirse, and Prudence—my Wednesday girls—with baby Sean asleep on her shoulder. Grandma Kathleen, Cara calls her, and Kathleen pretends she doesn't glow every time.
Warm arms wrap around me from behind, and I lean back into my husband.
"You've got that face," Lorcan murmurs against my ear.
"What face?"
"The one that makes me want to clear this pub out and make love to you on every surface of the place."
"There are children present." I giggle. “Besides, I think that’s probably some kind of health code violation.”
"Tragic." He turns me in his arms, and his finger comes up to my forehead. "Huh. The wrinkle is gone. I take full credit."
"You would."
"I'm a very effective husband." He kisses me, soft and slow, and it sends heat all the way to my toes. "Speaking of which. You've been quiet all day. What's going on in that beautiful, calculating head?"
I've been rehearsing this for three days. Planning it. Controlling it, if I'm honest—old habits.
I let go and freefall. "I'm pregnant."
Lorcan goes completely still. Then his whole face breaks out in raw, blazing joy—and he lets out a whoop so loud the entire pub turns. I’m swept off my feet, spinning, laughing, while he shouts to the room, "MY WIFE IS HAVING MY BABY!"
The pub erupts. Cara screams. Jamie whoops. Kathleen presses a hand to her heart.
Lorcan sets me down gently, hands framing my face, forehead against mine.
"How hard can one small wife be?" he whispers, grinning through suspiciously bright eyes. “Not easy, but easily the best deal I ever made."
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