Heather Graham - Night Of The Blackbird

“Cool!” Shannon repeated, wide-eyed.

“Oh, yes, all the kids at the preschool will be talking!” Moira said, ruffling her nieces’ hair. Brian was almost a Mini-Me of her brother, with his hazel eyes and deep auburn hair. The girls had acquired their mother’s soft true-blond hair and huge blue eyes. Leave it to Patrick. They were wonderful children, well-behaved without being timid, full of personality and love. Chalk that all up to Siobhan, Moira thought. Her sister-in-law was a doll. Patrick…well, as Granny Jon had once said, he could fall into a mire of cow dung and come up smelling like roses. She adored her brother, of course. She just wished he didn’t manage to go his own way all the time and still wind up appearing to be the perfect child on every occasion. He should have been a politician. Maybe he would be one day. He’d gotten his law degree and now practiced in a tiny town in western Massachusetts, where he also owned land, kept horses and a few farm animals and still maintained a home that always seemed as beautifully kept as something out of Architectural Digest. Business frequently brought him to Boston, where, naturally, he always stopped in to see his parents.

Her brother had married well, she decided. She knew Siobhan, née O’Malley, had taken a chance with Patrick after his wild days in high school, but apparently the chance had paid off. They both seemed happy and still, after ten years of marriage, deeply in love.

“Cool, cool, cool, Auntie Mo!” Shannon repeated.

“Cool. I like that. Good American slang term,” Moira said seriously.

Her mother let out a tsking sound. “Now, Moira, if you can’t hold on to a few traditions…”

“Mum! I adore tradition,” she said.

“And you, you little leprechauns!” Katy chastised the children. “It’s nearly nine. You’re supposed to be asleep now. You’ve gotten to see Auntie Mo, now back in bed.”

“Ah, Nana K!” Brian protested.

“I’ll not have your mother telling me I can’t handle her poppets in my old age,” Katy said. “’Tis back in bed with you. Off now.”

“Wait! I’ll take full responsibility! One more hug each,” Moira said. The girls giggled; Brian was more serious. She kissed their cheeks, hugged them tightly one more time.

“Auntie Mo has to go down and see your father—and Granda,” Katy said. “Besides, she’ll be here for the week, like the lot o’ you. And she’s promised to get you on the telly, so you’ll be needing your sleep.”

Brian nodded seriously.

“We don’t want bags under your eyes,” Moira teased, then winked. Brian’s lips twitched in a smile, and he gave his grandmother a rueful glance. “And,” she added, “I have presents for all three of you. So if you go back to bed right now, you’ll get them first thing when I see you in the morning,” she promised.

“Presents?” Molly said happily.

“One apiece!” Moira said, laughing. “Now, like Granny Katy has told you, back off to bed! And sound asleep. Or the Auntie Mo fairy—just like Santa and the tooth fairy—will know that you’ve been awake, and no present beside the teacup in the morning!”

Her mother gazed at her and rolled her eyes. Moira grimaced, then laughed.

“Night, Auntie Mo,” Brian said. “Come on, girls.” He led them toward the bedrooms.

Molly tugged on his hand and stopped him. “Granny Jon,” she said seriously. “There aren’t really any banshees around tonight, are there?”

“Not a one,” Granny Jon said.

“No monsters at all!” Brian said firmly.

“Not in this house! I’ll see to it. I’m as mean as any old banshee,” Granny Jon said, her eyes alight.

The kids called good-night again and went traipsing off down the hall. Moira rose and stared at her grandmother sternly. “Now, have you been telling tales again?”

“Not on your life! They spent the day watching ‘Darby O’Gill and the Little People.’ I’m entirely innocent,” her grandmother protested with a laugh. “And you, young lady, you’d best get downstairs to the pub. Your father will be heartbroken if he hears you’ve been here all this time and haven’t been to give him a hug.”

“Patrick, Siobhan and Colleen are down there?” Moira asked.

“Siobhan’s off to see her folks, but your brother and sister are both downstairs,” Katy said. “Get along with you.”

“Wait, wait, let her have a sip of her tea before they ply her with alcohol,” Granny Jon protested, bringing a cup to Moira. Moira thanked her with a quick smile. No one made tea like Granny Jon. Not cold, not scalding. A touch of sugar. Never like syrup, and never bitter.

“It’s delicious, Granny Jon,” Moira said.

“Then swallow it down and be gone with you,” her mother said.

She gulped the tea—grateful that it wasn’t scalding.

“I’ll put your bag in your room—give me your coat, Moira Kathleen,” Katy said. “Take the inside stairs down. You know your father will be behind the bar.”

“I’ll be rescuing the teacup,” Granny Jon said dryly.

Moira slid obediently out of her coat and handed it to her mother. “I’ll take my bag, Mum. It’s heavy.”

“Away with you, I can handle a mite of luggage.”

“All right, all right, I’m going. ‘So happy you’re here, now get out,”’ she teased her mother.

“’Tis just your father, girl,” Katy protested.

“How is he?” she asked anxiously.

Her mother’s smile was the best answer she could have received. “His tests came out well, but he was told that he must come in without fail for a checkup every six months.”

“He’s working too hard,” Moira murmured.

“Well, now, that was my thought, but the doctors say that work is good for a man, and sitting around and getting no exercise is not. So he got all the permission he needed to keep right on running his pub, though the Lord knows, he has able help.”

“I’m going down right now to see him.”

Her mother nodded, pleased.

Moira gave both her mother and grandmother another kiss, then started through the foyer to the left; there was a little sitting room there, and a spiral staircase that led down to a door at the foot of the stairs that opened to the office and storage space behind the polished oak expanse of the bar, where she would find the rest of her family—and all the mixed emotions that coming home entailed.

As soon as she opened the door, Moira could hear the chatter in the bar and the sounds of the band. She groaned inwardly. Blackbird was doing a speeded up number from the Brendan Behan play The Hostage.

“Great,” she muttered aloud. “They’re all toasting the Republic already.”

She slipped in, walked through the office and the swinging doors, and saw her father’s back. Eamon Kelly was a tall, broad-shouldered man with graying hair that had once been close to a true, luxurious black. Though he was pouring a draft, she sneaked up behind him, winding her arms around his waist. “Hey, Dad,” she said softly.

“Moira Kathleen!” he cried, spilling a bit of draft as he set the glass down, spun around and picked her up by the waist. He lifted her high, and she kissed his cheek, quickly protesting his hold, worried about his heart.

“Dad, put me down!” She laughed.

He shook his head, beautiful blue eyes on her. “Now when the day comes that I cannot lift my girl, that will be a sad day indeed!”

“Put me down,” she said again, still laughing, “because I feel as if everyone in the pub is looking at me!”

“And why not? Me daughter has come home!”

“You’ve got another daughter in her—”

“And I’ve already made quite a spectacle of Colleen, I have. Now it’s your turn!”