Love, Luck, and Little Green Men: A Contemporary Romance

by Diane Kelly

  Seamus nodded meekly. “I’m sorry to break it to you, Erin. But you have a right to know.”

  My knees gave way under me and I sat down on my stool, staring down at the floor.

  I wasn’t the daughter of Grace and Cormac Flaherty. I was the secret bastard love child of my mother and a tiny Irish shoemaker named Dermot Dunphy. “Holy shite.”

  My mother had gotten lucky with a self-proclaimed Leprechaun. Why hadn’t she told me? Did my dad know? And if my mother had betrayed my Da and he knew about it, why had he stayed around to raise me, another man’s child?

  Who was I?

  Seamus walked over and put a hand on my knee. “It’s clear you’re hurting, Erin. But know this. Dermot Dunphy loved your mother with all his heart. He loved you, too. More than you’ll ever know. You were the only child he ever had, and it broke his heart that he couldn’t be part of your life. He insisted your mother send him a copy of every school picture. Riley’s, too. He tacked them to the wall over his workbench. Your kindergarten photo was his favorite. He thought you were adorable in those curly red pigtails.”

  Tears pooled in my eyes. Not only for me, but for the man who’d been my father, the man who’d somehow slipped undetected into my room on each of my birthdays to leave a gold coin on my pillow. What had he thought as he’d watched me sleep? Did he think the same things that I thought when I looked at Riley? Did he hope for my safety, my fulfillment, my happiness?

  “My favorite photo of you was the one taken your senior year in that tight pink dance costume.” Seamus shot me a mock leer. “That one put a hammer in my pants.”

  I somehow managed to laugh through my tears. “Tammy was right. You’re shameless, Seamus.”

  “Just trying to cheer you up.”

  I brushed my tears away with my fingers and sniffled. “I’m not sure anything could cheer me up right now.” Hell, I’d lost not one father but two, now. Lost my identity, too. And soon, I’d either lose my self-respect or my dog. Some choice. Life didn’t get much worse than this, did it?

  Seamus held out his hand. “Give me the keys to the shop. I’ll lock up. Brendan’s coming by in a bit to pick me up. You run on home and talk to your mother, set things right.”

  “I . . . I don’t know what I’ll say to her.”

  “Just tell her what you know,” he said. “Then let her explain.”

  “Let her explain? Why?” The initial shock of his revelation had worn off by then, and a hot, prickly rage filled me. “There’s no excuse for what she did!” I cried. “What explanation could she possibly give me?”

  How could she have done such a thing? Risked not only her marriage, but the happiness of her children? What kind of woman—what kind of mother—does something like that? It was immoral. Dishonest. Selfish.

  “Listen to your mother, Erin. Try to put yourself in her shoes, okay?”

  “If I were in her shoes, I’d kick my own ass!” I snatched my purse from under the counter, dug around until I located the keys to the shop, and handed them to Seamus.

  “Remember, Erin. If your mother hadn’t done what she did, you wouldn’t be alive today. Don’t be too hard on her.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  A MOTHER OF A CONFESSION

  Don’t be too hard on her? Don’t be too hard on her? What the feck! If I hit her in the head with my cobbler’s hammer I wouldn’t be too hard on her.

  Honnnk!

  I laid on the horn when the car in front of me failed to move immediately after the traffic light turned green. It probably wasn’t fair for me to take my anger out on other drivers, but that was what road rage was for, wasn’t it?

  My ma had done a terrible, horrible, hurtful thing. And it was time for her to come clean. Pay for her sins.

  My front tires jumped the curb as I turned much too fast into the cracked driveway of our house. I screeched to a stop and yanked up the parking brake. I burst out of my car, slamming the door behind me.

  Riley came out the front door with a basketball in his hand. He dribbled twice on the porch, the ball emitting a thunk each time it the concrete. “Mind moving your car out of the driveway, Mom? I’m going to shoot some hoops.”

  I held out the keys to Riley.

  His eyes widened in surprise. “I can move the car? Really? Cool!”

  The kid was too young for a student permit, but he couldn’t get in too much trouble just backing out of the driveway, right? Besides, I wanted to make sure he was outside when this thing with my mother went down. It could get ugly.

  I stepped inside. Ma and Da were sitting in the living room, watching the early news. Ma looked up and smiled. “’ullo, dear.” She reached to the table beside her and held up an envelope. “Got some mail here for you. From Matthew.”

  Probably the check he’d agreed to contribute toward Blarney’s medical care.

  She held it out to me, her face contorting in confusion when I made no move to take it. I simply stood and stared at her, trying to reconcile the sweet, soft, wrinkled face of my mother with the knowledge that she was an adulterer. A cheat. A tramp. A skanky ho. Holy shite, my family story could be featured on Jerry Springer.

  “You okay, sweetheart?”

  “No,” I said plainly. “Not really.”

  Da looked up then. “Something you want to talk about?”

  Now I looked into his face, my dad’s face. His furrowed brow and brown eyes reflected his concern. Something was wrong with his girl and, as usual, he wanted to fix it for her.

  Did he know about Ma and Dunphy? Did he know I wasn’t really his daughter? Should I tell him? How would he react? He’d been so good to me all these years. I didn’t want to hurt him. What’s more, I didn’t want to lose him.

  “It’s . . . girl stuff,” I told Da.

  He chuckled and held up his hands. “Yikes! Say no more.”

  My mother stood and followed me into the kitchen.

  As soon as we were alone, I reeled on her, my face just inches from hers. “Who the feck is Dermot Dunphy?” I hissed.

  The color drained from her face again and she put out a hand to grab the back of a chair. Under normal circumstances, I would have pulled the chair out for her, helped her into it, but at the moment I wasn’t exactly feeling sympathetic.

  Her response told me that everything Seamus had said was real, at least as far as my parentage was concerned. “It’s true, isn’t it? Dermot Dunphy is my father.”

  My mother hesitated a moment, then gave a small, almost imperceptible nod.

  This knowledge altered my identity forever. What was my place in my family now? I no longer had brothers and sisters. I had half-brothers and half-sisters. A step-father. A biological father I’d never met and, now that he’d passed away, would never have the chance to. I felt orphaned. Unconnected. My mother hadn’t only betrayed my father, she’d betrayed me all these years, taken away the thing that meant most to me.

  Family.

  After a few seconds, a look of quiet, sad resolve spread over her face and she sat down. “Please, Erin.” She gestured to the chair across from her. “Sit down so we can talk.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’d rather stand, thank you very much.”

  My mother nodded and folded her hands on the table in front of her. “Who told you about Dermot?”

  I was tempted to say none of your feckin’ business, but even then I couldn’t be so disrespectful to her. Old habits die hard. “Let’s just say a little bird told me,” I said. Or a little man.

  She looked down at her hands, twisting her wedding band between the index finger and thumb of her right hand. “Dermot was . . .” She seemed to be searching for the right words, finally coming up with, “A mistake.”

  “A mistake?” I hissed. “You call cheating on Da, betraying the entire family, committing adultery, a mistake? This is much more than a mistake, Ma!” Of course if Dunphy was a mistake, that meant I was a mistake, too. Unplanned. Unwanted. Not exactly good for the old ego. Of course the same logic co
uld apply to Riley, but I ignored that for the moment. This was about my mother and her mistakes, not about me and mine.

  My mother looked up at me, crying now, her lips and shoulders trembling. “Dermot came along at a point in my life when I really needed a . . . friend. I never meant for things to go as far as they did. Neither did he.”

  When she needed a friend? What did she mean by that? And why wouldn’t her female friends be enough? “I don’t understand.”

  Ma hesitated, as if reluctant to tell me more.

  “Tell me, dammit!”

  Our gazes locked. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. My eyes narrowed in a glare.

  A deep voice came from the doorway. “I was the reason she needed a friend.” My dad stood in the doorway leaning on his cane.

  I hadn’t intended for him to hear this. But at least now I knew that he knew, too.

  My voice was much softer when I spoke to him. “What do you mean, Da?”

  My dad shuffled into the room, his slippers making a shush-shush sound on the linoleum as he made his way to a chair. I scurried over and pulled the chair out for him. He fell back into it and scrubbed a hand over his face. He looked first at my Ma, then at me. “We wanted to spare you this knowledge, Erin. This pain.”

  Luckily, he seemed to have full control of his communication faculties at this critical moment. He reached across the table and took my mother’s age-spotted hand in his. I looked back and forth between my dad and my mother.

  Da sighed. “Things were hard back then, Erin. Money was tight. We had so many mouths to feed. It put us under a lot of pressure. I got in the habit of going to the pub after work to relax with the chaps from the factory, having a pint or two before I went home. Eventually, a pint or two became four. Then six. Then eight. Some nights I didn’t get home before midnight.” He glanced at my mother, a look of regret, sorrow, and shame on his face. “My drinking got out of control. I wasn’t there for your mother and the children, didn’t do the things a husband is supposed to do. I left her to carry the burdens on her own.”

  I now understood why my dad never partook of the communion wine, never drank beer while watching football. He was a recovering alcoholic.

  My dad’s gaze locked on me then. “Don’t blame your mother, Erin. I drove her into Dunphy’s arms. Hell, I was the one who sent her to him to get my shoes repaired. I’d cracked the sole tripping over the railroad tracks, drunk. If anyone made a mistake, it was me.”

  I had no idea what to say. I hadn’t realized my parents shared this history. They’d always seemed so united, so devoted to each other. I could hardly imagine them having marital troubles.

  But they were only human, after all. People go through hard times, make mistakes, errors in judgment. I knew that better than anyone. And, obviously, whatever they’d gone through hadn’t destroyed them, hadn’t destroyed our family. In an odd way, didn’t the fact that they were able to forgive each other and move on show an even greater devotion? Anyone can stick it out when things are going well. But to tough it out under such difficult circumstances, that took real commitment. Real love. Right?

  Still, this was big news. It wasn’t something I could accept instantly and just move on. It would take some time for me to get used to this.

  I looked at my dad, thinking back to all of the dance lessons he’d paid for. The dozens of pairs of shoes, leotards, and tights he’d bought me. All of the recitals he’d sat through. He may not be my father, but he was, and would always be, my Da.

  As if he’d read my mind, he said, “You may not be my biological child, Erin. But you were the result of my actions just as much as your brothers and sisters are. I’ve been proud to call you mine all these years.”

  That did it. I burst out crying then, all-out sobs, convulsing as the sobs racked my body. My parents stood and put their arms around me, holding me in their united embrace until I had no tears left. They released me and I took a seat at the table with them, grabbing a napkin from the lazy Susan to dab my eyes.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked them.

  “When your mother realized she was pregnant,” Dad said, “she told me everything.” He looked down for a moment. I could only imagine how hard that had been for him, how betrayed he must have felt. He looked up, pain evident in his eyes as he dredged up these agonizing memories so long suppressed. “I didn’t want to lose her, lose my family. I cleaned myself up and we met with Dunphy. The three of us decided the best thing for everyone would be for your mother and I to raise you here in America, where we could more easily put the past behind us, start fresh.”

  “We were hoping to spare you the pain and confusion knowing this would cause you,” Ma said.

  I wanted to fault her for that, to tell her it was just plain wrong to lie to your child. But how could I when I was doing the same thing, on a lesser scale, with Riley, trying to spare him the pain of knowing his dog could die?

  “If we’d stayed in Cork City,” Dad said, “the scandal would have been unbearable for all of us. Dunphy included.”

  “Does the rest of the family know?”

  Ma gave me a weary smile. “Occasionally one of your brothers or sisters would ask why you looked so different-”

  “And I told them a little Leprechaun left you on the doorstep,” Dad finished for her.

  My heart skittered in my chest. So far, what Seamus had told me had proven true. But that whole Irish faerie business . . . could that actually be true, too? I looked from Dad’s face to Ma’s. “Was Dunphy a . . . Leprechaun?”

  My dad chuckled. “’Course not, hon. There’s no such thing as Leprechauns.”

  I turned to Ma but she’d averted her gaze, quietly looking out the window with a dreamy, faraway look in her eyes.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  RAISING MY SPIRITS

  “Erin,” Brendan said upon opening his door and finding me on his doorstep. “This is a nice surprise.”

  Behind him, Seamus lay sprawled on the couch, taking up only half the length even with his legs stretched out. An empty pizza box lay open on the trunk in front of him, as well as two empty bottles of Guinness. The place looked like a regular bachelor pad.

  Seam looked up and spotted me in the doorway. Our eyes met and he gave me a nod.

  As I walked inside, Brendan’s gaze roamed my face, taking in my red-rimmed eyes and tear-stained cheeks. “You okay, Erin?”

  “Not really. I could use a glass of wine. Got any?”

  “I’m a Catholic priest, aren’t I?”

  As I slung my jacket over the back of a kitchen chair, Brendan pulled a bottle of blush wine from the cabinet. Tonight’s selection featured a screw top and a pink flamingo on the label.

  He poured a glass and held it out to me. Instead, I grabbed the bottle from the counter and gulped straight from it. The stuff tasted like glorified fruit punch, the type of cheap wine Tammy and I drank back in high school. She had a sister who was six years older than us and more than happy to contribute to our delinquency for bribes or baubles. Still, if not classy, the light stuff was refreshing and fruity, like punch with a kick.

  Seamus slid off the couch and walked into the kitchen. “You two need some privacy. I’ll head over to the pub, visit Tammy for a bit.”

  “She’ll be glad to see you.”

  Seamus paused at the door. “She will?”

  I nodded. She’d called my cell as I’d driven over and babbled on and on about how cute Seamus was, how funny, how clever, how sexy. She hadn’t let me get a word in edgewise, but it was just as well. I’d only be a downer. Besides, I wanted to work things through with Brendan first. Tammy was a great friend, the first one I ran to for fashion tips, to bitch about life’s petty annoyances, for girl talk. But for deep issues, Brendan was my go-to guy. And finding out my entire life had been a sham definitely constituted a deep issue.

  Brendan pulled his keys from his pocket and held them out Seamus. “Take my truck if you’d like.”

  Seamus took the
keys. “Got a phone book?”

  I slipped out of my shoes. “Need to call someone?”

  “No,” Seamus said. “It’s the only way I can see over the dashboard.”

  Brendan retrieved the phone book from a kitchen cabinet and handed it to Seamus.

  “I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” Seamus said. He waggled his red brows. “Or maybe in the morning.”

  “Tammy’s not that easy,” I said.

  “Damn. None of the ones worth having are.” With that, the little man trotted out the door.

  Leaving me and Brendan alone.

  “Any bank robbers or axe murderers at confession today?” I asked Brendan, running through our all-too-familiar exchange as I followed him to the couch with the wine bottle still clutched in my hand.

  “Sadly, no.” He took a sip from the wineglass, cringing when the excessively sweet liquid hit his taste buds.

  I set the bottle of wine on the trunk and flopped down in my usual spot. I turned to face him. “My mother confessed something to me today. Something big.”

  “Something big, huh? Let me guess. She tried to use an expired coupon?” He covered his mouth with his hands in feigned shock.

  I shook my head, too upset to acknowledge his joke. “Nope. It’s a little more serious than that.” I took a deep breath. “She confessed to committing adultery.”

  “What?” Brendan shook his head once as if trying to clear his ears. He sat up straight and leaned toward me. “Did I hear you right? Did you say ‘adultery?’”

  “Yep.” I threw back my head and downed another gulp of wine. “I’m her secret love child.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “Jakers!”

  “Jakers indeed.”

  Half an hour later, I’d spilled both my guts and dozens more tears. My voice trembled. “I don’t know who I am, Bren.”

  He took me by the shoulders and looked me in the eye. “Sure, you do. You are Erin Flaherty. Daughter of Grace and Cormac Flaherty. And Dermot Dunphy.”

  Three parents. That would look really odd on a wedding invitation, wouldn’t it? Then again, in these days of blended families, surrogate mothers, and sperm banks, maybe it wasn’t so unusual.