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16
SAVANNAH
Releasing a deep yawn,I watched Aoife as she cooked our Saturday night meal.
This was a new ritual, one that I enjoyed.
There’d been an unofficial divorce within the O’Donnelly clan, and we were the kids who weren’t taking sides and were appeasing both ‘parents.’
Sundays used to be a family day. We went to the compound upstate and we ate together.
Now, after this past year and all the secrets that had come to the fore, the family went to Aoife and Finn’s on Saturdays, and Sundays were for Aidan’s parents.
The last couple Sundays since Aidan Sr.’s death, however, there’d been no Sunday get-together. Lena had called each of her sons earlier this afternoon, though, and informed them that the meal was back on, and that she expected everyone to attend.
‘Everyone’ didn’t include Finn, Aoife, and Jacob, their son, and I was actually jealous.
I figured most of the other wives were too because Aela was grumbling, "I didn’t expect her to go into purdah, but I’d have liked if she did it for a couple months. Just to let the dust settle."
Aoife studied her then surprised me by standing up for the woman who’d freakin’ killed her mom: "She needs her family around her. Couples who are as symbiotic as Aidan and Lena were rarely do well after one of them dies."
"Do I smell your brownies?" Camille chirped, making me hide a smile behind my glass of wine.
"It’s okay, Camille. You don’t need to change the subject. I can talk about the old bitch without wanting to cry," Aoife said wryly. "I can even pity her. I just won’t break bread with her."
"Did Finn tell you if she called him or not?" Aela queried.
"He’d have told me if she had because he knows that if he keeps any more secrets from me, we’re done."
The words, combined with how she was carving up the roasted chicken in front of her, packed a hell of a punch.
Aoife had, before her marriage, attended culinary school and had been taught how to properly butcher animals… Finn would be a fool to forget that fact.
"You wouldn’t leave him," Inessa said, tone scandalized. It blurred the lines between a statement and a question, but Inessa’s ingrained obedience won out in the end.
Raised the way she’d been, much as Aidan had declared, it was no wonder really.
"I would," she said grimly. "I love him. I want to be with him. But I won’t deal with any more of his secrets. If they’re big enough to tear us apart, then I’ll let them."
I whistled under my breath. "You’ve gone hardcore, Aoife. I didn’t know you had it in you."
"There’s plenty you still don’t know about me," was her cool retort, but she softened it by saying, "Plenty I still don’t know about myself either." To Camille, she said, "No, you can’t smell brownies. I’m making blondies for dessert."
Taken aback by the change of subject, Camille blinked. "Oh. Okay. Great!"
"Have you stopped weeping into your water about the old bastard croaking?"
I frowned at Aela. "That’s mean."
"Do you know what he did to Declan?" she grated out. "He’s lucky I’m only calling him an old bastard. I have plenty other words I can use to describe him."
"Aela," Aoife chided. "Savannah’s grieving him."
"I don’t get it," she said flatly.
I didn’t either so it wasn’t like I could judge.
Shrugging, I murmured, "It’s just a sad, sad day, you know?"
