Catherine
The stew was mostly turnip, but Sully spooned it out like it was something you’d brag about to a bishop. He set the bowl in front of me, careful not to spill on the linen—my old wedding cloth, pieced over, still with a rust stain from our first meal together, centuries ago, depending on how you counted. The fire was going hard in the hearth, the light from the west window catching every fleck of floating ash and making the whole kitchen look smoky, holy.
Three-month-old Rory hiccupped in his cradle, fists up, already fighting the world. He had my nose and Sully’s scowl. He also had a set of lungs that could challenge a cannon. I’d set him down just long enough to cut bread, and he’d punished me with a howl fit for a Saint’s martyrdom, but now he’d fallen silent, probably dreaming of milk and the smallness of his world. I envied him.
Sully poured two mugs—one tea, strong as sin, the other boiled water with a splash of whiskey—and nudged mine toward my elbow. “You’ll need both,” he said. His voice was gravel dipped in honey, and even now, when I ought to have been used to it, it still got under my skin.
“I’ll need a new tongue,” I said, chewing the first bite. “You trying to poison me, O’Toole?”
He smiled, lopsided, all lines and intent. “That’s tomorrow’s plan. Tonight I’m building up your resistance.”
Rory coughed, then laughed in his sleep, a little snort that set his whole body jiggling. Sully reached out, one thick finger gentle as a feather, and tapped him on the nose. “He’s got your bite,” he said, “but my stubbornness.”
“God help us,” I said.
We ate in the kind of silence you only get after years of noise. Every once in a while, Sully’s knee would bump mine under the table, just enough to remind me he was there, solid and close, the best ghost a girl could hope to keep.
I watched the shadows crawl up the walls. Outside, a blackbird shouted warnings at something in the hedge, and I wondered how much of the world had changed, or if any of it did, really.
“He’s sleeping through the night now,” Sully said. “Mostly.”
“Mostly,” I agreed, rubbing my eyes.
“He’ll be walking in three months.”
“He’ll be terrorizing the market in four.”
He laughed, a real one, the kind that curled at the edges and let you know he hadn’t forgotten how.
I caught his hand, the one with the scarred wrist and the faded shamrock that still made my heart seize every time I saw it. The burn had healed, mostly, but the edges were ragged, the old tattoo a bruise under the new skin. “You ever regret it?” I asked. “The grave, the fire, the rest of it?”
He considered, then shook his head. “If it brought me here, it was worth it. Even the soup.”
He squeezed my fingers, then let go, reaching for the bread. “You think about them?” he said, not looking up.
“Every night.”
He nodded, not disappointed but not surprised. “You wonder what they’re doing?”
I did. I did, and I tried not to let it show on my face, but Sully always read me too well.
I finished my stew and drank the whiskey down, felt it burn in the hollow behind my ribs. “Maeve’s probably running a prison camp. She’s built for it.”
He snorted. “She’d unionize hell in a month.”
“Nora’s probably married a poet. Or a stray dog.”
He grinned, then went soft at the eyes. “You miss them?”
“Every second.” I bit the inside of my cheek. “But I’d have missed this more.”
He reached across and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, slow, as if the air might snap if he rushed it. “They’re alive,” he said. “They’re together. That was the whole point.”
I nodded, and for a moment, the warmth from the fire felt like it could last all night.
“Do you think,” I started, then lost the thread. “Do you think Maeve’s wrestled a patent-leather slipper yet?”
He choked on his tea. “She’d have killed a cobbler by now.”