“I’m standing right here,” Cillian says.
“I know.” Ronan smiles at me, and it reaches his eyes. “Welcome to the family, Nora.”
Then Lorcan is there, and unlike his brothers, he doesn’t bother with formality. He wraps both arms around me in a hug that’s all energy and no restraint, and I’m so startled I laugh.
“I told you she was a keeper,” he says, addressing the room over my head. “Nobody listened.”
“Nobody listened because you say that about everyone,” Declan says.
“No. I only say it about people when I truly mean it.”
Cillian peels his brother off me with one hand on Lorcan’s collar. “All right. That’s enough. Stop touching my wife.”
“You’re mad that your wife and I click so well.”
“I’m not?—”
“You’re definitely a little mad.”
“I’m going to break your nose.”
“You’ve already done that. This time I’ll see it coming and be sure to duck.”
And there it is—the specific rhythm of brothers who’ve been driving each other insane their entire lives, who fight and needle and show up anyway. I watch Cillian’s face during it, the way his mouth curves slightly in a smile.
I want our future children to have this. This noise and history and family and love.
Dinner is light and easy.
Not effortless. Kathleen is formal in a way that may never entirely relax, and Declan doesn’t exactly fill silences with small talk. But when I mention I’ve signed up to take online college classes, Ronan asks me about my coursework, and Lorcan wants to debate the ending of a book I recommended at that first disastrous dinner.
Cillian’s hand finds mine under the table every now and then. His way of asking if I’m okay.
I squeeze back. I’m okay.
Kathleen asks, midway through the main course, “Have you decided what you’d like to major in?”
The question is careful. Not warm, but not unkind either.
“Social work,” I say. “I want to work with abused children.”
A pause. Then Kathleen says, “That’s meaningful work.”
Not a compliment, exactly. But not an insult either.
“It’s what I know,” I admit.
She holds my gaze for a moment. I think she understands what I mean—that I don’t mean textbook knowledge—and something in her reconsiders. She nods and returns to her plate.
Midway through dessert, Lorcan stands.
The table goes quiet.
“A toast,” he says, and picks up his glass. “To my big brother and his gorgeous wife. May they live happily ever after.”
Cillian’s eyes find mine and stay there. He lifts his glass immediately. Ronan follows. Declan, after a beat, does too.
Kathleen is last. She raises her glass, and I watch her look at her son—really look at him—and whatever she sees there makes her rigid posture loosen.
