Reunited. Kate Hoffmann
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believed I was an only child. Do you know how that feels?” Keely snatched up a pastry bag and began to scoop icing into it. “There’s no one else in this world that I can call family except you. And what happens when you’re gone? Who will I have?”
“A nice thing, that,” Fiona murmured, a haughty arch to her brow. “Putting me in my bloody grave so soon, are you?”
Keely sighed, then tossed the spatula back into the bowl and began to pipe the Italian meringue icing over the first layer of the wedding cake. “Why shouldn’t I be angry with you? I have a father and six brothers. And you kept me from them.”
“How many times have we gone over this? It’s been a week since you got back from Ireland. When are you going to forgive me?”
“When you bloody well give me a good reason to,” Keely shot back. “I want to know everything. Why you left him, how you could walk away from your children, why you never told me. Until you’re honest about everything, then I’m going to keep bringing up the subject.”
Fiona sighed softly. “I wanted to keep you from being hurt. There are reasons I left your father. Good reasons.”
“I can understand that. Marriage is difficult. But how could you leave your sons? They were your children.”
As she had so many times over the past week, Fiona refused to explain further. At first, Keely had been furious with her, lashing back with anger and accusations. Then after a few days, her anger had abated and was replaced by cool intolerance. But now she was frustrated by her mother’s silence, curious to know more but stymied at every turn. Keely knew from the look in her mother’s eyes that the memories still brought back overwhelming pain. But she didn’t care! She picked up the bowl of buttercream and heaved it across the room. It bounced off the wall, then spattered all over the floor.
“Well,” her mother muttered, “that’s a fine way to behave.”
“If you won’t talk to me about this, then I have no choice. I’ll have to go to Boston and find out for myself.”
Her mother drew in a sharp breath. “You’ll only get hurt.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Fiona said.
“That’s not a reason!”
“They don’t even know you exist.”
Her words were barely a whisper, but they were like a dagger to Keely’s heart. She blinked as emotion welled up inside of her. “They—they don’t know about me?”
“I left Boston right after I learned I was pregnant with you. Your father didn’t know. I came here to get away, just for a little while, to decide what I wanted to do with my life. And I just never went back. When I had you, I put my maiden name on your birth certificate and started using that name. Anya was the only person who ever knew the truth. So if you’re determined to find them, you have to understand. They won’t know you. And they might not believe you.”
“I have a right to know them!” Keely cried, brushing a tear of frustration from her cheek.
“And what can I say to stop you?” Fiona asked. “If I tell you everything, you’ll still go.”
Keely shrugged. “So why not tell me?”
Fiona closed her eyes and tipped her head back. “It was a long, long time ago. Another life.”
“And you’ve made no move to contact them in all these years?”
“I was protecting you,” Fiona explained. “I thought my marriage was over. I knew that Seamus would never change. And when I walked out, I never intended to stay away for so long. I decided I’d go back after you were born. But by then, it was even more difficult to leave New York. I had a good job. I’d built a life for us.”
“But your sons,” Keely said. “How could you—”
Tears flooded Fiona’s eyes. “Do you think it was easy leaving them? I thought it would force Seamus to grow up if he had to be responsible for the boys for a while, if he had to pay the bills and take care of the house. I kept in touch with a neighbor for a time, just to make sure the boys were all right.” She paused. “I didn’t want to leave. But I was trapped. I would have taken them with me, but didn’t have a way to provide for the boys, and Seamus did. I’d never worked in my life before I took the job in the bakery.”
“I used to make up all sorts of stories about my father,” Keely said. “He was so heroic and brave and he died in a very tragic way. You see, I had to make up stories since you never told me anything.”
“Would you have been happy with the truth? Your father was a dirt-poor Irish fisherman who spent most of his time on a swordfishing boat out in the North Atlantic. When he was home, he was usually drunk. He gambled away most of what he earned. And when he went back out to sea, I was glad for it.”
Keely laughed softly. “And I imagined the reason that you never married again was that you never stopped loving him.”
“I’m a Catholic and divorce wasn’t an option.”
Keely gasped. “You’re still married?”
“I am,” Fiona said. “I’m not sure about your father. He could have another wife. I suppose that would make him a bigamist.”
Keely stared down at the piping on the cake, noticing that her work had become uneven and sloppy. With a soft curse, she picked up her spatula and smoothed the decoration out, preparing to start all over again. “I have to go,” she murmured. “I have to know who they are.”
“Even if it means you’ll get your heart broken? Please, Keely, don’t turn this into some romantic fantasy,” Fiona warned. “It’s more likely to be a disaster.”
“And maybe it won’t be. Maybe they’ll be happy to meet me.”
A long silence grew between them. “When will you go?” Fiona finally asked.
“I’ve asked Janelle and Kim to take care of the jobs for this weekend. You’ll have to do the Wilkinson cake and the Marbury cake. They’re both decorated with marzipan and I’ve made all of that ahead of time. You’ll just need to frost the tiers and do a little simple piping. I should only be gone about a day or two.”
“Then, you’ll need this,” Fiona said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a chain with a jewel-encrusted pendant. She held it out to Keely. “Take it,” she said.
Keely twisted the chain around her fingers and examined the necklace. “What is this?”
“It was given to me on my wedding day by my mother. It’s a McClain family heirloom. A claddagh. The Irish symbol of love. The heart is for fidelity, the hands for friendship and the crown for loyalty. I was saving it to give to you on your wedding day.” She paused. “Seamus knows this pendant. If you show it to him, he’ll know where it came from.” Fiona laughed softly. “In truth, this necklace was the reason I left your father.”
“It was?”
Fiona nodded. “He’d just come home after two months away. He was drunk and he’d just gambled away most of his pay down at the pub. He took the necklace to a pawn shop and sold it for gambling money. He said he needed to win back what he’d lost. Before I left Boston, I convinced the pawnbroker to let me buy it back over time. It took me three years.” She stared at the pendant, dangling from Keely’s fingers. “That’s the kind of man your father was…the truth be told.”
“Maybe he’s changed,” Keely said softly. “People can change, you know.”
“And maybe he hasn’t,” Fiona countered.
Keely slipped the necklace into her apron pocket. “I guess I won’t know for sure until I meet him myself.”
She turned back to her cake and studied it critically. Suddenly she didn’t have the patience