We don’t indulge. Not to hide.
To live. Our lives belong to us.
Love. Family.
It hasn’t been easy to get back here. The harassment from the sect nearly broke Avonna. Nearly broke all of us.
Scripture bent into weapons. Promises of punishment wrapped in prophecy. Fear followed her everywhere, into dressing rooms, onto planes, into bed at night. We lived on edge for months before the trail led back to her former sect.
Federal investigators stepped in. Procedures began. Interviews. Paperwork. Long silences between updates. Nothing moves quickly when institutions protect themselves.
The damage didn’t wait.
Stress does things to a body. To a heart. To hope. We lost three pregnancies in the span of a year. Each loss carved something out of her. Out of us. She blamed herself, even when logic told her otherwise.
Liam and I watched helplessly when she’d flinch at sudden noises. Cringed at the way her hands shook when unfamiliar mail arrived. We talked about stopping. Protecting what we already have. Hunkering down with the family we’ve been lucky enough to build.
Then she’d sit at the piano again. Late. Quiet. Fingers trembling, voice cracking open, grief pouring into melody. She never said she wanted to keep trying. She didn’t have to.
We knew.
She wasn’t finished dreaming.
As for me, Isis Management is thriving. I salvaged the profitable parts of Niamh’s father’s firm after it collapsed andlet the rest fall away. LTZ signed with us this year. It’s been a strange kind of full circle.
With my stellar roster of managers, mostly I mentor careers instead of chasing mine. Every night I come home to Liam, Avonna, Sloane, and Quinn. When Fireball tours, so do I. Otherwise, I have staff to cover the rest.
One part of my life has never settled. My family back home. I’ve kept them looped in as best I could. It’s a goddamn void. Photos sent into silence. Updates on the girls met with nothing. Invitations to Fireball shows in Europe go unanswered.
I’ve tried. Never stopped.
Now, everything’s fractured.
My father died three days ago.
A massive coronary. Sudden. Final. I didn’t hear it from Mum, a cousin called instead already assuming I knew.
I didn’t.
Liam and Avonna immediately offered to come with me without hesitation, but I couldn’t add to everything else going on. I already knew they weren’t welcome. My mother made it clear years ago.
I’m on my own.
The plane cuts through cloud and drops low over the water. Dublin Bay comes into focus, slate and steel and familiar in a way my body recognizes before my mind does.
I missed the wake. By hours, not days, but it might as well have been a lifetime. Irish rituals happened without me. Stories shared. Pints raised. Doors closed.
Instead, I arrive for the service.
St. Patrick’s is full but hushed, quiet built from obligation rather than grief. I slip into a back pew. My sisters sit together near the front, shoulders angled inward, a unit I’m no longer part of. My brother keeps his gaze fixed ahead, hands clasped as if prayer might excuse him from acknowledging me.
Mum wears black like armor. Veil pinned just so. Spine straight. She doesn’t look back once. Probably would be shocked to see me here.
I walk forward when it’s time. Kneel beside the coffin. The wood is smooth under my palm, polished to a shine my Da would’ve appreciated. I press my hand there anyway, grounding myself in the weight of him, of what’s finished. I whisper goodbye under my breath. No one hears but me.
At the graveside, the wind cuts sharp. Soil thuds hollow as it hits the casket. I stand apart from the family cluster, close enough to be seen, far enough to be separate. A cousin nods. An aunt touches my arm briefly, then pulls away, as if contact might be contagious.
I wonder, standing there, if my da would’ve wanted me present. If pride would’ve outweighed disappointment. If his love for me could’ve survived the truth of who I am. Rather than reframing my sexual preferences as a choice.
