“I need this,” I whisper against her mouth. “I need you. I love you, Maeve. I didn’t know what it felt like before… but it feels like this.”
I thrust into her, as slowly as I can, my body shuddering as she clenches around me. Her hands thread through my hair, her mouth finding mine again, and she whispers against my lips as I sink into her.
“I love you too, Sean. I was afraid of it too… but I love you. I know that now.”
I draw it out for as long as I can, there on the bedroom floor, with her arms and legs wrapped around me and her mouth crushed against mine. I fuck her in long, slow strokes until she comes for me, quivering around my cock as she drenches me with her arousal, and then I shove her dress up, pulling out as I spill myself over her smooth, flat stomach, marking her as mine.
My love. My wife. My Maeve.
And now that I’ve found the courage to love her, I’m never going to let her go.
EPILOGUE: MAEVE
FIVE MONTHS LATER
The Boston air is different from Dublin's. The heat in midsummer is stifling in the city, and I’m glad I packed light. As Sean and I walk out of my family’s mansion—our mansion now, I suppose, even though it still feels strange sometimes—I look at the green expanse all around us and the flowers in the front garden, and wonder if this place will ever fully feel like home again. Despite the simplicity of Sean’s home in Dublin compared to where I grew up, it feels more like home to me than this ever has. And we’ve discussed picking out a home of our own soon in Dublin, a place that we can start a new chapter in.
Sean's hand finds the small of my back, warm through the thin eyelet fabric of my sundress. "You ready?"
I nod, even though I'm not sure I am. We've been in Boston for three days now, dealing with the usual estate business that sometimes means we need to be here instead of where we prefer to be. There’s nothing left for me here in Boston, and it holds difficult memories for both Sean and me.
"We don't have to do this today," he says quietly. "We can wait."
But I shake my head. "No. I want to. I need to."
He studies my face for a moment, his green eyes pensive. Then he nods and takes my hand, lacing our fingers together. His wedding band catches the light, the same simple band that I put on his finger at our wedding. I still wear the one he gave me that day, too. I wonder sometimes if he’ll ever want to replace them, but I haven’t asked. Maybe I will one day, but for now, it hasn’t felt like the most important thing.
The drive to the cemetery is quiet. Sean doesn't try to fill the silence with empty words, which is one of the things I love about him. He's learned when I need space to think, when I need comfort, when I need him to just be there without trying to fix anything. And I've learned the same things about him—learned to read the tension in his shoulders, the set of his jaw, the way his hands grip the steering wheel when he's thinking about things he doesn't want to say out loud. I’ve learned how to see when he’s stressed and when he’s peaceful, and how to give him space when he needs it, too.
We've learned each other, these past five months, really learned each other, in a way we couldn't when we were both so scared and angry and trapped.
Sean pulls into a different cemetery than the one I need to visit, on the north side of the city, smaller and older than the one where my father and sister, and brother are buried. The gates are wrought iron long long-aged with weather and disuse, and the headstones inside are the same. Age and New England winters haven’t done this place any favors.
He parks, but he doesn't get out right away. His hands stay on the wheel, and I can see the muscle working in his jaw.
"Sean.” I reach out to touch his arm.
"I haven't been here since the funeral.” His voice is rough. "Twenty-three years.”
I squeeze his hand. "We can leave. We don't?—"
"No." He turns to look at me, and there's something raw in his eyes, the vulnerable part of him that I know only I have ever really been allowed to see. "I want to. I want you to... I want you to meet her. Even if it's just a grave."
My heart clenches. I bring his hand to my lips and kiss his knuckles. "Okay."
We walk through the cemetery together, Sean leading the way down paths he clearly remembers even after all these years. The graves here are packed close together, generations of Irish immigrants who came to Boston looking for better lives. Some of the headstones are in Gaelic, the letters worn almost smooth by time and weather.
He stops in front of a simple granite marker, smaller than some of the others around it. The inscription is plain:Brynne Flannery, Beloved Mother,and the dates of her birth and death.
Sean swallows hard. “She was thirty-three,” he says quietly. “Younger than I am now.”
I slip my arm around his waist, and he pulls me close against his side. We stand there in silence for a long moment, the wind rustling through the trees overhead.
“I try not to think about it,” he says quietly. “How I’ve gotten more life than her and I don’t deserve it. She did. She deserved a long life, a happier, easier one than she got. I can’t help thinking how I could have protected her now. How no one would dare touch my mother if she were still alive. But back then…”
"You were a kid," I say softly. "You weren’t who you are now. That’s not your fault.”
“I know.” Sean takes in a slow breath. “It’s hard not to be angry. At everyone and everything. At myself. At her for… I don’t know. I was angry at her for leaving me for a long time, even though it wasn’t her fault. She was strong. Brave. I know she didn’t go down easy. And it’s no one’s fault but that man who took her life that she’s gone.”
