Meeting the Mother-in-Law
Chapter eight
WRAITH
Maureen Dougal is a rounder, graying version of her diminutive daughter with a no-nonsense attitude that reminds me of my gran.
We find her in the apartment's living room, knitting while watching a cooking show on television.
"Who's this then?" she asks áine after the whirling dervishes that are my new daughters hug and greet their grandmother before regaling her with stories of making cookies in a castle's kitchen, eating dinner with their new friends and riding home in a stretch limo.
"It has a refrigerator inside, gran!" Joy informed her. "With juice!"
"There's a cabinet with snacks too," Neeve had offered, not wanting to be left out.
Sadie hadn't commented much on the limo, but she'd been happy to explain that her friend Fitz was the reason they'd been invited to the Long Island mansion.
Memories of why that happened seemed to take hold of her as the girl's eyes grew haunted and she'd grown quiet after that.
I'll get the names of mob approved therapists for áine as soon as I get back to the Bunker tonight. Tomorrow, I'll be having words with the boys involved in the assault and their parents.
"That's mom's boyfriend," Joy answers her gran before áine has a chance to.
Neeve asks, "Did you know mom had a boyfriend, gran?"
"We didn't know," Joy informs her.
Sadie takes on the mature mien of the eldest and offers, "His name is Kieran Lleshi."
I've seen Fitz like this with his siblings, like he's another responsible authority figure in the household for the younger children to rely on.
"No, I did not know." Maureen gives áine a reproving look.
My fiancée's shoulder sag. Her mouth opens and closes, but no words come out.
She doesn't want to lie to her mother.
I do it for her, forcing out a more complete explanation than I would have given on my own behalf. "áine didn't want to introduce me to her family until she knew we were serious." I put my arm across áine's shoulders, drawing her closer to me. "She's very protective of you all."
Which is one thing I know to be true.
And apparently Maureen does too because the censure in her gaze softens a little. "I understand you not wanting to introduce the girls until you were sure about things, but you should have brought him to meet me before this."
Okay, not so softened.
"Things happened today that made it impossible to continue keeping our relationship under wraps," I add calmly.
Sadie's face screws up with emotion.
And suddenly áine is not the chastised daughter, but the competent and protective mother. "It's time Neeve and Joy were in bed. Sadie, you can watch an episode of Wednesday on your tablet in my bedroom while you're waiting for the shower to be free."
Relief flashes in the twelve-year-old's eyes. "Thanks, mom."
"I'll make some tea." Maureen stands up from her easy chair and looks expectantly at me. "You can give me a hand, Mr. Lleshi."
Her calling me Mr. Lleshi causes a cascade of reactions on my girls' faces. áine looks pained. Sadie looks amused. Neeve looks worried.
And Joy looks confused. "Why'd you call him Mr. Lleshi, gran? He's our friend. We call him Kieran."
"We'll see about that." Maureen turns and heads to what I assume is the kitchen.
áine's turmoil is written all over her pretty features. She doesn't want to leave me alone with her mom, but she needs to get her girls settled.
Leaning down, I kiss her forehead and then speak quietly near her ear. "It will be fine." My lips brush the shell of her ear. "Trust me."
Her body lists toward me before her eyes widen and she straightens, taking a step back. "I need to get the girls to bed."
Said girls are staring at us with open curiosity but áine shoos them down the hall toward the bedrooms.
"He kissed you again," Neeve points out like her mom might not have noticed.
Joy skips, stops and turns. "On the forehead like you kiss us."
"It was sweet," Sadie says before disappearing into one of the rooms along the short hallway.
Huh. Sweet? That's the first time that word has been used to describe me since I was too small to remember, if it ever was.
Does áine think I'm sweet?
"Lleshi's not an Irish name," Maureen observes as I walk into the kitchen.
"It's Albanian."
Maureen finished filling the electric kettle and flips the switch to turn it on. "So, your father is Albanian?"
"No."
"How is that then?" She bustles around the brightly lit room, gathering mugs and the tea caddy, which she places on the counter by the heating water.
"It's complicated." And not something I share with strangers.
Or anyone for that matter.
Since we took out Besnik and his crew before my final initiation into the mob, Mick and Brice are the only living people who know my past. I had to tell Brice so he could understand why I have no loyalty toward the Albanian Boys.
"Uncomplicate it," Maureen demands.
"No."
The older woman turns to face me in a pose familiar to her daughter, her hands on her hips, her chin tilted in stubborn resolve. "That's not going to fly with me, Mr. Lleshi. If you think I'm going to let my daughter marry a man with a mysterious past, you've got another thing coming."
"Marriage?" Convincing this woman that áine and I want to marry is going to be a lot easier than her daughter thinks.
"Of course marriage. My áine wouldn't allow a man to build a relationship with her daughters that she thought was going to walk out of their life. That means marriage in this family."
And Maureen has drawn the conclusion that I wouldn't be here, having spent the afternoon and evening with the girls, if áine and I hadn't already made a serious commitment to each other.
Conveniently for us and the necessity of making them my family, she's right.
"My gran was Irish and my grandfather Albanian, so I am part Slavic. But mom was assaulted by her employer while my stepfather was out of town." His prison was in upstate New York, so not a lie.
"I take it the miscreant wasn't Albanian?" Disgust fills Maureen's tone.
"No, ma'am. He was not." He was Cosa Nostra scum.
Now, he's worm food.
"Your mother chose to keep you."
"At great cost to herself," I agree. "But she loved me."
Mom had no way of knowing just how big a price she would pay for keeping and loving the child conceived from rape.
Maureen's hostile attitude drains away. "She's a good woman."
"She was." No matter what my stepfather tried to make her into, ma was a good woman and mom.
"She's gone? Oh, I'm that sorry, son. Too many of the good die young."
From Mr. Lleshi to son? I don't like revealing my past, but it was worth it to mitigate additional questioning like this of áine. She doesn't like lying to her family and I'll do what I have to in order to make that as unnecessary as possible.
"Thank you. I still miss her." The woman she was before my stepfather got out of prison and turned her life into a miserable hell of existence.
"I'm sure you do. It's the way of things. I swear it was missing her dad that had my áine jumping into marriage at the young age of eighteen." Maureen shakes her head. "Not that we can be anything but grateful to be blessed by my granddaughters. So, something good came from that marriage."
"You weren't a fan?"
"I don't speak ill of the dead, young man."
But if she did, she'd have nothing good to say about her daughter's dead husband. We've got that in common then.
"I'll do my best by them and your daughter, Mrs. Dougal," I vow.
"Oh, call me Maureen, Kieran. None of this ma'am or Mrs. Dougal business. We don't stand on ceremony in this family." She busies herself pouring the now boiled water over the teabags in three mugs.
Which is why she called me Mr. Lleshi when we first met, to point out that I was not yet a part of their family.
"Thank you."
She turns back to face me, blue gray eyes as expressive as her daughter's, but without the heterochromatic brown circle, narrow on me. "That doesn't mean you've got my blessing to marry my daughter just yet."
"You need to get to know me first."
"I'm glad you understand that."
"As long as you understand that whether or not I marry Kieran is my decision and not yours, mom," áine says from the doorway.
"Of course it is, child," Maureen agrees readily. "I didn't raise a daughter willing to let anyone else make her decisions for her, but that doesn't mean I won't have my say."
áine's lips form a flat line at her mother's words.
Maureen probably thinks that it's in reaction to her determination to have her say. But I know it's about áine's belief she was railroaded into this marriage, her choices taken from her.
It would be a lot easier if she'd been raised in the culture I was, or as part of the mob. Arranged marriages are pretty common in both.
Maybe if she spends some time with Kara, áine will come to terms with her new reality faster. Kara and Mick's marriage was the result of a contract alliance between two mobs and the underboss's wife is very happy.
My áine can be too. If she'll let herself.
We're sitting at the kitchen table, drinking our tea when Maureen asks, "What happened today that made it so you had to introduce Kieran to the girls?"
Not knowing how much detail she wants to go into, I look to áine to answer.
A look of remembered horror washes over áine's features. "Sadie was attacked by some boys at school today."
"What? Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Maureen demands. "Why didn't the school call?"
"Because they thought that Fitz Shaughnessy beating them up to protect her was more important than the fact the boys tried to hurt Sadie," áine says, her voice laced with helpless anger.
Her anger isn't helpless though. And it never will be again because she has me to make sure it isn't.
She's a strong woman, but I have a different kind of strength. The kind that makes things happen in the world her dead husband's actions drew her into.
"Did they now?" Maureen's gaze fills with furious fire. "We'll just see about that."
"Kara Fitzgerald demanded an emergency meeting of the school board," I offer.