Forever Families
Chapter forty-six
áINE
By the time Noah pulls into the driveway, I'm debating tacos versus spaghetti. The girls will vote for tacos. Mom will pretend she doesn't care but complain loudly if I try to use the packet seasoning instead of making my own.
Kieran will cheerfully eat cardboard if I put it in front of him. And thank me for the delicious dinner afterward.
I smile to myself as I climb out of the SUV.
My life's a weird juxtaposition of armed security, first class travel and cooking prosaic meals for our very middle class minded family.
The front door opens before I reach it.
Joy bursts onto the porch like she's been launched from a cannon. "Mom! Dad's almost home!"
"I know, sunshine. I got the text too." I catch her before she barrels down the steps. "Shoes?"
She looks down at her bare feet. "Oh."
Our front lawn is lush enough to feel like velvet on our bare feet, but I prefer the girls keep bare feet to the back yard for safety reasons.
There may never be glass from a broken bottle, or a carelessly dropped sharp object on our sidewalk, but it could happen.
Inside, I pass Neeve curled in her favorite oversized chair reading in the quiet living room. Sadie and Mom are sitting at the dining table with brochures spread everywhere.
"Still planning our trip to Ireland?" As soon as mom got back from hers she started in on how we all had to go now.
She and the girls have Kieran wrapped around their fingers, so of course he agreed our next family vacation should be in Ireland.
Family vacations. Who knew a deadly mobster would think they were mandatory at least once a year?
"We're comparing castles," Sadie says without looking up.
Mom snorts. "Your daughter has expensive taste."
"She didn't get that from me."
"Nor me." Mom gives Sadie a look filled with fond exasperation. "I blame her father."
"He doesn't have expensive tastes," Sadie says loyally.
"No," I agree. "But he's more than happy to indulge yours."
Mom snorts. "I'd say he has expensive tastes alright. Who was it who booked a private plane to take us to Anaheim? Who upgraded my accommodations and flight to first class when I went to Ireland?"
"That's not expensive tastes, that's wanting the best for my family," Kieran says from behind me.
Joy skids down the hall in her socks on the hardwood floor. "Dad!"
She launches herself at him with enough enthusiasm to stagger a lesser man. He catches her automatically, one arm around her while the other balances a white pastry box with a large manilla envelope on top.
Neeve arrives, book dangling from her hand. "Hi, dad."
"Hi, dad," Sadie echoes.
Three sets of eyes lock onto the pastry box.
Kieran sets Joy on her feet and the box down onto the table. Sadie quickly gathers up the travel brochures and shoves them to the side.
Apparently castles can't compete with pastries.
"Is that dessert?" Joy asks. "You're the best, Dad."
His mouth twitches. "Maybe." There's an excited air around Kieran and I start to have an inkling what the envelope on top of the pastry box might have inside it.
He already considers himself the girls' father, but this man likes having things locked down and legal. Hence our wedding only a few days after we met.
Before I confirm my suspicions, I lift my face for our hello kiss and he gives it to a chorus of:
"Mom!" That's Neeve.
Sadie snarks, "Get a room!"
"Will Prince Charming kiss me like that?" Joy asks for the hundredth time.
And Kieran answers, "Not until you're forty," for the equal number of times.
His arm locked firmly around me, Kieran dexterously pulls a sheaf of papers from the envelope. "Sadie, do you want to do the honor of reading the top page."
My daughter takes it and starts reading, not stumbling once over the legal jargon, but when she reads her and her sisters' new names out loud, her voice comes out choked.
"Sadie Veseli. Neeve Veseli. Joy Veseli."
"Well, isn't that grand? The legal documents have caught up to our family's reality," Mom says.
"We're your daughters now?" Neeve asks Kieran carefully.
He doesn't hesitate. "You always have been."
Neeve pushes her glasses farther up her nose and leans over Sadie's shoulder. "But now it's legal."
Joy wrinkles her forehead. "What does that mean?"
"It means," I manage softly. "Nobody can ever say Kieran isn't your dad."
Her face lights up. "Forever?"
"Forever."
She throws herself against Kieran and hugs him hard. "I like forever."
His hand settles against her back. "So do I."
After he hugs each girl and tells them how honored he is to be their dad, Kieran pulls something from the inner pocket of his suit jacket. "I've got something else."
He hands a plastic card to Sadie. "For you, zemra e vogel."
She stares at it. It's an updated school I.D. with her new legal name on it. Sadie Veseli.
Her thumb strokes over the name like she's afraid it'll disappear.
The second goes to Neeve. "Petal."
Neeve clutches the card and smiles.
The last card goes to Joy. "Sunshine."
She grabs it. "It's got my name. See?" She holds it up toward me. "Joy Veseli."
Remembering my own delight when all my credit cards and new license started arriving in the mail after our marriage, I smile. "I see it."
"I'm Joy Veseli!" She runs to the front door and flings it wide before yelling again. "I'm Joy Veseli!" She runs back. "I'm Joy Veseli!"
Sadie shakes her head, but grins. "We get it Joy. We're all Veselis now."
Mom clears her throat, her eyes suspiciously bright. "Except me and don't you bother asking me to change my name, I'll carry Dougal to my grave."
"What if you get married again?" Neeve asks quietly.
If the question had come from Sadie, I'd be less surprised.
Mom looks shocked too, but shakes her head. "Your grandfather was it for me, girlie."
For the first time, I truly understand my mom's determination to remain single. If Kieran died, I'd never want to remarry either.
"You're it for me too," I tell him roughly. "Don't you dare die."
"No chance. I have too much to live for." Then Kieran opens the pastry box.
Inside sits a white cake trimmed with green frosting. Across the top, written in elegant script is The Veseli Family.
The tears come before I can stop them. Nobody comments, but Kieran offers me a handkerchief. Black of course.
Mom slips from the room and returns with a cake knife, dessert plates and forks.
The girls are already arguing.
"I want the corner piece."
"No, I do."
"Corners have too much frosting."
"That's impossible."
Kieran cuts the cake while pretending not to hear them but somehow manages to give each girl the slice she wants.
His eyes find mine over Joy's bouncing curls. Neither of us says anything. We don't have to.
The I love yous shimmer in the air between us.
An hour later, we've eaten the cake and tacos. Mom didn't even mention when I used the premade spice packet with the ground beef.
We're in the family room, the girls playing a board game at the game table, Mom knitting in her chair and Kieran and I snuggle together on the chaise part of the couch.
Quiet.
Normal.
Family.
I'm thinking about asking Kieran if he wants to go upstairs while everyone is happily occupied when the doorbell rings.
The chimes are quickly followed by the sound of the front door unlocking.
Ellie then.
She's not the only one with a key for security's sake, but she's the only one who will use it and walk in without being invited. I'm surprised she rang the doorbell at all.
She doesn't usually.
She's carrying two bottles of sparkling grape juice when she walks into the living room. "I heard there was something worth celebrating."
Her smile seems strained, but it turns genuine when Joy announces for the umpteenth time she's Joy Veseli. All the girls want to show their aunt their new school I.D.s. She puts the sparkling beverage on the coffee table so she can examine each with the attention it deserves.
"Makes me want to change my name to Veseli too, so we're all the same," she jokes.
"Not gran," Sadie says. "She's still a Dougal."
"I'm still a Dougal too," a familiar voice I never thought I'd hear again says from the doorway.
Mom gasps, her expression going slack with shock.
I turn to see who it is because it can't be the man it sounds like. For several long seconds my brain refuses to understand what my eyes are seeing.
Brady. Older. Eyes almost identical to mine but showing no emotion at all.
Alive. My brother is alive.
I want to stand up, run to him, touch him to see if he's real. But my limbs move like they're stuck in treacle.
Mom stands, her knitting slipping from her hand and falling to the floor. "My boy. Is that you?"
"It's me," Brady says and grimaces like something about that statement bothers him.
What?
Finally, I manage to stand up, but mom is already rushing across the room. She touches Brady like I want to, assuring herself he's not a ghost.
Like they call Kieran. Only my husband is solid and here.
So is Brady.
How?
"Where…how…what…" Mom doesn't finish a single thought.
"When they told you he was dead, he'd been taken captive. The CIA didn't plan to get him out and letting his family believe he was dead was their answer," Ellie says bitterly.
"You've been in captivity all this time?" I ask, pain ripping through my chest at the thought.
With no one looking for him?
Brady shakes his head. Ellie scowls.
But Kieran answers. "When he got released as the result of a different op, he didn't know who he was and the CIA wasn't going to tell him."
It's strange having my husband of few words explaining what my brother went through when Brady used to be the consummate storyteller.
"When did you get your memory back?" I ask, willing my brother to talk to me.
It won't be real until he talks to me.
"Two years ago."
"But…"
"He didn't tell us he was alive because he'd been playing assassin and he thought his life was too dark to touch yours." The words make sense.
My bestie's hostility doesn't.
Except she's very protective of me, mom and the girls. She probably takes it as a personal affront my brother let us keep grieving his death instead of telling us he was alive.
"I'm not the man I was when I was part of our family," Brady says.
Mom smacks him on the arm. "You stupid boy." Another smack. "I buried you." Another. "I cried for you. I still cry for you." Then she throws both arms around him and clings so tightly I'm not sure either of them can breathe.
Some intolerable emotion breaking through the stoic facade, Brady folds around her. "I'm sorry, mom."
She shakes her head against his chest.
"I don't care. You're home."
I move so I can hug them both. We stay like that for a long time, our family renewed by the man who holds my heart.
Brady gently but firmly extricates himself from me and mom. "I've got three nieces I need to meet."
The words are right. The flat tone? Not so much.
Joy marches straight up to Brady and plants her hands on her hips. "I'm Joy."
He blinks.
"I know."
"I live in Cinderella's castle now."
"I noticed." He gives me a barely there smile. "Your mom wanted to live in a castle when she was a little girl too."
"She did?" Joy looks at me and I nod in confirmation.
I'd forgotten saying that. My big brother didn't forget I said it though.
"She didn't want to marry Prince Charming though." Brady almost smiles. "Said he was too goody-two-shoes."
Everyone laughs at that.
I smile up at my prince, who is more villain than charming and let him see all the love I have for him in my eyes.
Sadie and Neeve drift closer, studying the uncle they never expected to meet.
Brady looks around the room.
What does he see? The cake. The adoption papers. An unfinished boardgame. Three little girls with a new last name. His mother. His sister. Family.
He sees family.
"I guess it's a good thing I came back," he says in that strange almost lifeless tone that is his voice but isn't.
"Why's that?" Ellie taunts.
He gives her an intent look. "Mom is outnumbered by Veselis, but the Dougal family is still here."
"We're all family," I say, looking at Ellie and then my brother and mom. "No matter what our last names are."
"Yours isn't changing to Veseli," Brady tells Ellie with more animation in his tone than he's had so far.
She doesn't bother to answer him and turns toward me. "You're right, sister, we're all family. Even the prodigal son."
Later, he's playing a game with the girls and Ellie. Mom is watching it all from her recliner, tears slipping down her cheeks occasionally, but there's no mistaking them for sorrow.
Happiness radiates off of her like sunlight on a summer day.
I'm sitting sideways in Kieran's lap, my arm around his neck wiping every once in a while at my own happy tears. "You gave me back my family."
His lips brush my hair. "You gave me one to love."
THE END