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“You're perfect.” He tried to smile. And it was only when he did that I realized how much I missed seeing him happy.
“I’m going to get dressed.” I grinned but he held onto my waist.
“Thank you, wife,” he said as he kissed my forehead.
“You don’t need to thank me. This is what families do, right?”
His grin turned into a soft snicker. “Yeah, this is what families do.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.”
—Thomas Campbell
MELODY
This was not about me, nor Orlando. However, a small part of me felt guilty that I had not done anything like this for him. Never had I seen so many Irish people in one place, outside of Ireland. Even a few of my people were here. It had only been two days, but some had flown in just in time, while others drove for hours just to make it to Chicago to attend the memorial overlooking the river. It was beautiful with nothing but green all around us, and a dark blue river below.
Sitting at the table nearest to the edge of the cliff, I stared at the large photo of Sedric that stood beside the podium. It was the perfect summer day for this. The sun hid behind the clouds, but it was still warm, and even the wind had calmed, as if it too wanted to be respectful.
“Sedric raised me, and since he brought me into his home I saw him not as my uncle, but as my father, who I loved…love dearly. Cheers,” Declan finished taking his shot before he stepped back to Coraline.
She hugged and kissed him before she went up. It was the first time I had not seen her bother to wear heels. “Hello,” she said into the microphone. “Many of you know me as Coraline Callahan, wife of Declan. Sedric and I weren’t very close. But he was kind to me. He made me laugh…he made everyone laugh without even trying. He had a dual nature to him; one moment he had this ability to freeze over the whole room, and the next, you forgot who he was. He had so much life in him, so much so that you almost forgot that he could die. People like him should live forever. Should live to see more grandchildren, more fights, more love. I’d like to think that he will, that he’s here watching us all right now talking about him with a bowl of kettle corn in his lap because he’s still afraid that Evelyn will find out that he got popcorn with extra butter and salt.”
I hear a soft cry coming from the end of our table and I looked over to find Evelyn in Neal’s arms, laughing and crying at the same time.
“Sedric Callahan was one of a kind, and the world is a darker place with him gone. We will never forget him. Cheers.” She wiped her eyes and downed the liquid before she moved back to the table.
Neal stood up walking to where Coraline had just stood with a bottle in his hands. I felt Liam tense beside me as though he wasn’t sure what to think of his brother speaking. Placing my hand on his thigh, he placed his hands over mine.
“I’m still at a loss for words,” Neal began. “To some of you, that might not be surprising. I’ve never known what to say or where to be or what to do. I just followed my father’s lead and hoped, and prayed that I was making him proud. There is no denying the fact that my father and I had issues, I dare you to find any father and son who don’t, but I knew he cared about me. Many men in his position don’t have time to take care of their sons, but he did. He always made sure to check up on me when he could.
“He thought that I didn’t know. Early every morning, before the sun was even up, he would check up on me. From the time I was eight until I turned eighteen…yes eighteen and I was not a tiny eighteen, he would come into my room and just talk to me about his day, about the stupid shit I had done. I looked forward to those brief moments when the door would open, and I was heartbroken when they stopped.”
He dropped his head and nodded as though he was being told what to say, but I knew that he was just trying to force himself to stay strong.
“When I was fourteen, he was seriously injured and he’d lost a friend. When he was feeling better, and after he’d come back from his friend’s funeral, he once again came into my room, leaned at the edge for the door and said, ‘I don’t plan on dying anytime soon, son, but if for some reason I do, you all better feast like Vikings and send me off like a fucking king. Oh, and you can let your mother know that I did trick her into dating me, and that I did kill her fish….but make sure I’m really dead before you tell her that.”
With a grin on my face, I rolled my eyes. Beside me, Liam snickered. Of course Sedric would’ve said something like that.
“I knew it,” Evelyn muttered shaking her head as even more tears fell. I wondered if they would ever stop.
“For him. Cheers.” Neal lifted the bottle up and took a long swig that would’ve made any Viking or Irishman proud. Everyone drank in response, even Liam.
Liam stood and moved towards his brother and they hugged for a moment before he stood up to the microphone himself. He regarded us all before he began his speech.
“Deartháireacha, deirfiúracha, máithreacha, teaghlaigh. (Brothers, sisters, mothers, family.)” He spoke in Irish, and then, much to my surprise he switched to Italian and said, “famiglia allargata (extended family), thank you all for coming. I have always known that my father meant a great deal to so many people, however, seeing it now is humbling. Many of you have dropped everything just be here out of respect, love, and let’s be honest, a little fear.”
There were a few snickers that spread throughout the crowd.
“But great men ought to be feared, and my father was a great man. Even his flaws were great. He is gone and I find myself staring at shoes so large that they could’ve only belonged to a giant. We are here because somehow he figured out how to unite us all. Irish, Italian, it did not matter. There is nothing I can say about my father that you didn’t already know. I have stories going back almost three decades, from the first moment he dropped me as a child to when he was twisting my arm around my back to marry an Italian…the feistiest one of them all at that.”
I wanted to take a shovel to his head, but that would’ve only proven his point. Evelyn leaned to me, took my hand and squeezed it.
“He told me that everything I did as the leader of family was not just for me, or my immediate family, it was to make sure that we all remain strong. He wanted me to be someone who not only cared about our heritage but also reminded the people that no matter where they are, if they need help they can come to us. I owe all of my strength to him, and I will use all of it to make sure that the man responsible for his death burns.”
Their cheers felt like thunder as they started to sing, holding up their drinks for Sedric. It wasn’t sad, but beautiful, arm in arm, as loud as they could, they sang up to the sky to him.
LIAM
We all sat in silence in the study of our house, drinking shots from two bottles of ninety-year-old brandy that Neal had brought up from the cellar.
“What did he name his first car?” Declan asked.
“Hennessy,” I muttered as I reached for my shot, but Declan blocked me.
“Wrong. It was Fiona. Where the hell did you get Hennessy?”
I looked to Neal, waiting for him to back me up.
“You said his first car, which was the Hennessy truck grandfather gave him when he was sixteen, not the first car he got after married.” Neal snickered taking two shots.
