Chapter 35
Christmas is perfect. From waking up to them yelling at the TV, to cooking in the kitchen, and finally seeing all of their faces when they taste my dishes.
Two cultures gather at the table in the form of food, African American and Irish American.
They blend in a way that our families are forever going to as we add more people to the mix.
Looking around and seeing how easy it is for us to come together, I have to wonder again why it was so hard for my parents. Callahan promised me it would be different with us, and it is. I’m going to make sure all of us, including him, feel loved and welcomed.
As everyone sinks into their post-meal quiet, I ask Cormac if I can speak to him alone.
We go on to the back porch just the two of us and sit on the steps. Our breath is visible as a fog, but we grip our coffees to keep us warm.
“What’s up, lass?” He rubs his salt and pepper beard while giving me a small smile. When he does it, he looks so much like his son.
“Callahan told me about his past and what happened between you guys.”
He tenses up and looks at the ground. Thoughts form in the lines of his forehead, but I can’t read them.
“I’m not trying to overstep,” I quickly stutter. “I just wanted to talk to you about our relationship.”
He nods, but keeps looking away from me.
“Getting diagnosed with cancer this year was the hardest thing I have ever been through.” The words peel out of me slowly, reluctantly, my mouth not used to making these types of confessions.
“It’s shifted my entire life forever. At first, I didn’t realize how much it would affect me. Much like yourself, I’m stubborn.”
This gets a small chuckle before his face pulls tight again.
“I thought I could do this on my own with little help. I was wrong.” I push my hat down further on my head while looking between him and my cup. I let the silence bloom a little while I try to uproot the right words.
“Callahan showed up even when I didn’t want him to. He quite literally picked me up from off the floor. Getting through this year without him wouldn’t have been possible.”
He still isn’t looking at me, but I can tell he is listening by the turn of his head. It pushes me to go on.
“Look, I know he has made mistakes, and you have your reasons for feeling how you feel. But I just wanted to tell you that your son healed me. He held me together when I was falling apart. He made me laugh when I didn’t think I could.
He did everything to be what I needed when I didn’t think I needed anyone. ”
He finally looks back at me, his hazel eyes bright even in the darkness. Full of so many things I can’t name.
“He is a really good man. You raised a good man.” I grab hold of his hand like that will help him better hear what I’m saying. “He’s not the boy he was before, and I think, based on the values your family has, you should be really proud of him.”
Cormac sighs deeply, his fingers trailing his beard as he tries to find the right response.
“He really did all of that?”
“He did even more, but I can’t put it into words.”
His frown finally cracks, and a little bit of that small smile comes back through.
“You’re a good woman to come and talk to me.”
“I would do anything for your son, just like he would do anything for me.”
He pulls me into a side hug and squeezes his appreciation before we stand up. Pausing before the door, he gives me one more look before he nods.
Back inside, I watch as he walks up to Callahan and grabs his shoulder.
Callahan looks at him just as Cormac pulls him into a hug.
Callahan’s eyes go big before he closes them tightly and grabs his dad like he is five again.
They hold each other so long that it gets everyone’s attention.
Mary presses a hand to her mouth, and Rowan claps quietly.
We all watch in excitement as father and son reconnect.
When they break apart, they shake hands, and then without a word, Cormac goes to sit on the couch. In his own way, he just showed Callahan that he forgives him.
I watch as Callahan grips his chest and lets out a big breath. Then his eyes connect with mine. In them, I see tears. Crossing the small space, he pulls me into his arms.
Into my neck, he whispers, “Thank you.”
“All I did was try to give you what you deserve.” His father’s respect, his family’s love, and me.
He deserves someone who will make him feel appreciated and wanted. The way he looks at me when we pull back lets me know that he knows that now. It’s all I have wanted to give him.
I know that it will still take time for him to work on his own wounds from his past, but I hope I have been showing him that I don’t plan on giving him any more. I hope his father’s hug shows him that everything he thinks is wrong.
He wipes his eyes and sniffs before pulling me back into his arms. Despite the crowded room, a silence descends between us.
“I have to fix this myself, but I appreciate you helping me try to do that. At the very least, I’m really starting to believe you think I’m enough. You want me.” His breath is heavy on my skin.
“Callahan, I need you. My life doesn’t work without you.” I pull back so I can see his eyes. “I can’t imagine a future that doesn’t have you in it.”
His smile is so full it pushes his eyes close. Still, one tear leaks out. I wipe it like it’s precious, because it is. This is the reversal of the ones I made him cry in Martha’s Vineyard. This shows me that I’m undoing the damage I caused.
He takes my lips in a kiss that solidifies these thoughts. It’s much too indecent to have in front of our parents, but neither one of us cares. We are glued to each other until Conor pulls our attention.
“Let’s go to Patty’s,” he yells.
We pull back, and Callahan says thank you once more with a kiss. Then we tell Conor we’re coming. Surprisingly, everyone wants to go, including my dad. So we all wrap up warm and pile into cabs.
Callahan insists that we make a stop first at a corner store just so he can grab chips, so we’re the last to arrive. Before we walk in, he goes behind me and wraps his arms around my waist.
“Do you know how much I love you?” He asks.
“Yes.”
“Do you remember what I said when we first came here?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Holding me tight against him, he walks us through the door. Before it even closes, there is an eruption of cheers.
I look around to see Farrah, Errol, my great aunts from Atlanta, and his whole family. They are all standing in the bar that is decorated in white. When I turn to look at Callahan, he is on one knee. I gasp and throw my hands to my mouth.
“Monty Pierce, it was in this very bar that I told you that you were going to be my wife. I thought there was no better place to make this happen.”
I wipe the tears that are instant just as he does the same. Both of us are overwhelmed so quickly by this moment.
“When I first saw you, my heart stopped, and when it restarted, every beat was singing your name. Every day since then, you have shown me every reason why it was right. I have never loved someone like this, or been loved by someone like this. I have never needed another person the way I need you.” His voice catches on his emotions, and he fights to break it free.
“I don’t ever want to take a step through life without you by my side,” he rasps.
“I always want to be your first phone call and the last voice you hear at night. I hope to show you every day why we were meant for each other.”
Pulling out a box, a gold ring glows inside of it. A round, green emerald sits in the center with diamonds all around it. I can’t breathe in the face of its beauty. He grabs my hand, pulling my focus back to him.
“Sweetheart, love, woman, can I finally call you wife?”
“Yes!” I scream, causing everyone to start as well.
He slides the ring on my finger and then jumps up and grabs me into his arms, spinning us around. My laugh is so loud as pure joy sings through my beating chest to resonate in my vocal chords.
I’m crying, he’s crying, everyone is crying as they crowd us and embrace us in their love.
It’s the biggest group hug I have ever been a part of, as we are surrounded by the people who want the best for us.
In the center is me and him, holding on to each other, promising to never let go.
In this moment, I promise that I will choose him back.
I will always show him how much he is needed.
“Welcome to the family,” Rowan says, hugging me.
Mary kisses my cheeks while blubbering her congratulations.
“Thank you, Ma,” I say to her, and for a moment we sit in this declaration.
Both of us are confirming that she is now mine, too. It’s me allowing for this love I never thought I would have to solidify in my heart. When she looks away to blow her nose, I watch as Callahan is grabbed by my dad and hugged tightly, just further confirming this truth.
Farrah walks up and nearly knocks me over with the force with which she hugs me.
“I’m so happy for you.”
I don’t know if she ever thought she would see the day where I would be with a man like this. Where I would lean on him, and give myself to him fully. I know, much like her, it took me taking a risk to reap this reward.
It was worth it to open myself up to something I didn’t think I would want because it turned out to be everything I needed.
“If you think you are getting away with a small ceremony, you are wrong,” she says, pulling back.
“With how big his family is, I know that’s not going to happen.” Which excites me more than anything else.
No longer will it be me and my dad, haunted by the ghost of our past. We have a future that I didn’t think was possible.
“Good, because the dress I am going to find is going to be worthy of a crowd.”
I roll my eyes, remembering how extra her wedding dress was.
Before I can protest, I’m pulled towards more people I have never met.
Soon I am video calling with his aunt and uncle in Ireland, and by the end I have met so many folks I can’t keep track of their names.
I’ll learn them eventually, because this is my family now. The kind I have always wanted.
I never thought this cancer was going to kill me, but I also never thought it would change me in this way.
While I lost parts of myself, I transformed into this new version that is so much better than the original.
It’s someone who is healed, and open to so much more of what life has to offer. It is a person who is ready for him.
This journey has taken so much from me, but in the end, it gave me my passion back and Callahan.
Like he heard my thoughts, Callahan raises a shot to our future and then takes it like it’s a promise. From there, in true O’Connor fashion, shots and toasts are nonstop. I don’t know if I’m drunk off the liquor or the love being poured into me. Every time I look at Callahan, he adds a little more.
When he walks up and wraps me in his arms I feel like I’m going to explode from all the good feelings building inside.
“Hello, wife.”
“Not yet,” I say, still loving the sound.
“We can fix that tomorrow.” Just like always, he is so serious about his pursuit to be my husband.
“Callahan,” I sigh out.
“Monty.”
“You’re so impatient.”
“I waited a year.”
“You only met me last year.” I nuzzle his nose, unable to help my smirk.
“And what did I say then?” he asks.
“That I was going to be your wife.”
“Exactly.”
I can’t help but giggle at the fact that he feels he was proven right. I guess to him he did wait a year to make it official, but he can wait just a little bit longer.
“I love you,” I say meaning it with every fiber of my being.
“I love you, too.”
“Every day.”
“For the rest of our lives.”