by Hadley Finn
“Mrs. O’Shaughnessy, how are you feeling?”
“Would be better if I hadn’t cut my hand.”
Dr. Brennan looks a little confused, but sees Clara and nods once.
“I agree. The lacerations did some damage. I told your husband here that I would find a good orthopedic surgeon for you to consult.”
Sirona’s head whips around and she shows feisty humor at the doctor’s words. She turns to the doctor and asks, “Any permanent damage?”
“Only time will tell. We”—she looks at Clara and then back at Sirona, hesitating— “were able to save the tissue and reattached the tendons. The damage was significant and a good orthopedist will be able to save function.”
She’s speaking clinically but saying what she can say without being graphic in front of Clara.
“What’s ‘fuxshun’?” Clara asks.
“It means we think your mom will be able to wave and wiggle her fingers after she heals.”
“She’s a good baker. Her cupcakes are delicious! Do you like cupcakes?”
“I do,” replies Dr. Brennan.
“What’s your favorite?”
“Chocolate.”
“Chocolate with what?”
Dr. Brennan thinks a while and replies, “Hazelnut.”
Clara scrunches her face in confusion and repeats the word under her breath.
“I don’t know that one.” She turns to Sirona. “Mommy, what’s hazelnut?”
“It’s what’s in Nutella.”
“Oh!” Clara turns back to the doctor. “I like Nutella, too. I help Mommy when she bakes.”
“Well, just be careful with knives. Don’t want to see you in here because of an accident, okay?”
She glances at Sirona knowingly. She knows something doesn’t add up, but she doesn’t know why.
“We’re going to keep you overnight and you can go home tomorrow, so long as you continue progressing as you have been.”
“Thank you.”
As the doctor turns to leave, I follow her through the door.
“Doctor, thank you! I—”
“Mr. O’Shaughnessy, I don’t know how your wife cut her hand, but that wasn’t a pastry wound. And she had to be sedated in recovery due to panic.”
I nod but don’t confirm.
“She will need extensive therapy and could lose feeling or movement in her fingers and hand, almost to her wrist. I suggest she not bake” — she holds my gaze while emphasizing the word—“for a while.”
I nod again.
“Thank you for not being graphic in front of Clara.”
She nods this time and looks meaningfully at the door before turning and walking down the hall. The rubber soles of her shoes whine against the waxed floors as she walks away.
I reenter the room.
“I was worried, Mommy.”
“Why, baby?”
“Because PawPaw said we need to come here and that you were hurt.” She begins to cry and Sirona looks over her head meaningfully at me, holding my gaze. A single tear runs down her cheek.
I’m sorry, she mouths.
“And I remember how sad you were when your mommy was at the hospital.” She burrows into her mother and chokes out a sob. “I was scared.”
I drop my head. This hurts to watch. My girl, afraid of losing her mom.
“Oh, this is so different.” She looks into Clara’s eyes.
“Couple of things you need to know, my precious girl. One, I’m okay. You don’t have to be scared. I’m not going anywhere.”
Clara nods and sniffles.
“Two, and this is a bit of a grown-up lesson, okay?”
Clara nods.
“Everything has a risk. Every time I cook, every time you play with Hagrid, every time Poppa gets on the treadmill, there’s a risk. Most of those things have a low risk and are worth it. Remember when I’d ask you to hold my hand and look both ways when we were in New Orleans? I wanted to make sure you were safe. Everything has a risk, baby girl. You just have to decide what’s worth it.”
“Was it?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Sirona looks up at me and continues, “It was definitely worth it.”
“You aren’t scared to bake again?”
“Nope. I’ve cut myself before. It’ll happen again. But I really hope it’ll never be this bad.”
“What if I don’t want you to do it?” Clara whispers.
“We can talk about that. But I’d bet you’d miss my pink cupcakes, and my scones, and my doberge cake, and my pies, and my cookies.”
With each mention, Clara’s nod gets a little bit bigger, her eyes a little wider.
“I’m not ready to bake tomorrow, but I will be by your birthday. Think if I’m safe, it’ll be worth it?”
I sit here amazed.
Sirona has taken what has been the scariest day I can remember, fraught with the unknown, a life-and-death fight, with a terrified daughter, and taught her something I would’ve never even considered.
Clara stares a long time at Sirona’s heavily bandaged hand. Her eyes trail to the IV in her left arm and then the hospital gown. She looks at the monitors and the spiking waves on the screens that tell Sirona’s heartbeat. Finally, she looks at her eye and slowly reaches and out gently runs one finger down the bruise.
“I don’t know” she finally says and snuggles in, fighting her eyes that want to close.
Killian calls just as visiting hours are drawing to a close.
“How’s Sirona?”
“Same. Better knowing that Clara is okay and we’re safe.”
“How’re you, lad?”
“Holding it together.”
“I cleaned up. I did what I could. Your kitchen smells like bleach and you need a new mop. Yours got burnt. Oh, and I have Hagrid for the night.”
“I owe you.”
“You owe nothing of the sort. Family, remember?”
“Love you, Killian.”
“Aye.”
A click says the call has been disconnected.
I walk back into Sirona’s room from her en suite bathroom where I took the call to avoid waking Clara. I lift my chin toward Clara. “She out?”
Sirona nods and pats the bed by her side. She winces when she does because she used her left hand.
“You need something for pain?”
She shakes her head. “Not yet. I’ve been waiting to say this. I’m sorry.”
“You already said that.”
“Sean. I need you to accept my apology. You’ve never been anything but honest with me. I owe you this.”
“Owe me what, love?”
“My mom.” She pauses and stares away, seemingly looking into the past. “My mom wasn’t killed because of you.”
I quickly look to Sirona, relieved she doesn’t see me as a monster.
“Baby…” I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to rehash this. Don’t want to lose her.
I’m angry and I’m relieved. I want to scream and I want to hope again. I didn’t hurt her, but my father did, a-fucking-gain, and that feeling simmers in me that I thought died with the man himself.
“Sean? Basically, it was all my dad’s fault. The debt, the shop, Enzo’s involvement, Rocco, Mom. All of it. Gambling debt gone wrong and he made a mess of everything. I’m mad — mad as hell at my dad — and I still miss him. Even if he was trying to make it right, I’m pissed as hell that his bad decisions fell on me and Clara and my dream of Petites Fleurs. I’m livid that his selfishness took my mom away from me. And I’m enraged that all of that led that man to our doorstep where our family should be safe, where Clara should never worry. To where it was him or me.”
“Baby—”
“Need to finish this, Sean.”
I nod and wait, holding her eyes.
“I’m so mad, but I forgive him. It doesn’t make sense and I think it’s reasonable if I never fully understand, but I still forgive him. I can’t live with the anger and bitterness that fuel some people. Can�
�t be hell-bent on vengeance my whole life for wrongs my dad didn’t mean to inflict.”
“Okay, baby. I’ve always seen your heart, but this…” I trail off, lost in her words, lost in memories.
“You’re missing it,” she says and waits until my eyes meet her again. “If I can forgive him for all of that, I can forgive you for none of that.”
I tilt my head, questioning.
“None of this was your fault. Yet, time and time again you’ve moved to save me, protect me, to fall on the sword for our family, for Clara. You are everything your father could never have been.”
I look her in the eyes and lay all my cards on the table.
“I’m in love with you, baby, and I don’t want to lose you. I won’t lose you. I want you in my life, want Clara in my life. But you’re safe now. No threats. You can have whatever money you need to make a good life for yourself and our girl. You can have your freedom—you always did. I don’t want to let you go—won’t let you go. But you’re finally free, and I can’t cage you knowing that.”
Her eyes well with tears. “I don’t want to go. I love you.”
Holding her eyes, I take her mouth, plunging my tongue in deep, tasting medicine and metal.
“Love you too, baby.”
I drop my forehead to hers and relief courses through my veins.
Forty-Six
Hours pass as we wait for Sirona to be discharged. Nurses, doctors, administrators; and paperwork, prescriptions, instructions, and scheduled follow-ups and consults last longer than I have patience for.
I slept sitting in a too-small chair. We were awakened every sixty minutes to be checked on by someone who meant well, but for whom subtlety had missed its mark. Clara, as active in sleep as she is awake, twisted and turned and kicked and woke Sirona.
Sirona took this better than I did and slept only after staring at Clara, rubbing her face or cheek or studying her eyelashes. It was like she was seeing her almost-five-year-old for the first time again. I wish that didn’t make my gut churn. She knows just how damn close she came to either losing Clara or losing her own life.
The clarity it took to send Clara to Killian’s only to face down a brutal maniac capable of killing—of traveling across the globe to do so—must be borne in a mother’s veins.
“He mumbled something about losing everything, about disbarment, or forfeiting enterprises. He was babbling believing I’d never live to repeat it,” she tells me at three in the morning.
“I finagled that.”
Her eyes fly to mine. “Why?”
“Because the alternative was to order a hit on him. I’ve spent decades trying not be Patrick O’Shaughnessy only to become him anyway. And I didn’t want to be that guy. In retrospect, I should’ve been that guy.”
“That’s not who you are, though.”
I shake my head. “Knowing what I know now…” Life would’ve been so much easier had I just taken the path my father would’ve taken. But then I’d be just like him. Both options were untenable.
But, now, we wait. We’ve been promised that it’s just ‘a few more minutes,’ but we’ve been promised that for more than an hour now.
“Well, we have another problem.” I say, nonchalantly.
“What’s that?” She’s dressed in scrubs and sitting in a wheelchair. Yesterday’s clothes are in a bag at her feet.
“See, I have a ring I want to give you. It’s been in my pocket for a while. And that hand needs to heal so you can wear it.”
Her gasp snags Clara’s attention.
“What is it, Mommy? You okay?”
“Better than okay, baby girl.” She lifts her head from Clara to me, her eyes brimming with tears. “What?”
“You already know I’m in love with you and this beautiful girl. You’re my family and I want to make it official. What do you say? Be my wife?”
A vivacious smile bursts through her face. “Yes. Of course.”
I reach into my pocket, but pause, and look to Clara, “Beautiful girl, I want to marry your mommy and be your daddy. Would that be okay with you?”
I assume it’s a yes when she flings herself at me. But ever-verbose Clara makes sure I understand. “I’ve never had a daddy and I really wanted one and I want you to be him, Poppa. Do I call you Poppa or do I call you Daddy and when can I do that? I’m so excited!” She whips around to Sirona, her ponytail raking my ear in the process. “Mommy, Poppa is going to be my daddy and we get to be a real family! Isn’t that fantastic?”
Sirona is crying and laughing, all the while nodding her head, waving her good hand up and down. Legally, this has already all been signed, sealed, and delivered, but having Clara’s agreement is important.
“Yes, baby! I’m so happy for you and for us! What do you think?”
“I love it! I really, really love it!”
I’ve effectively been relegated to the third wheel in this conversation but it’s still one of the best moments of my life, the location notwithstanding. I step back into the conversation.
“Beautiful girl, sit right here for me?” I move her to a chair near where I’d sat. She does, expectant.
I take one knee.
“I know you said yes, but we should do this right. Sirona, will you do me the honor of being my wife?” I thumb open the lid on a two-carat ruby with two rows of sparkling diamonds surrounding it, and meet her eyes.
Her mouth pops open and her eyes bug. Guess I did okay.
I take her right hand and slide the ring below her knuckle and raise my eyebrows. I want to hear yes again, just for my own affirmation. She nods and I push it home. Still on my knee, I swivel to Clara and hold out another box. It’s a smaller ring, though one she can grow into and keep forever.
“Can I be your daddy?”
I almost miss the sob behind me with the shrill “Yes!” that pours from Clara’s lips when her hand is thrust out into my face. I laugh. That’s my girl!
I slide a ring on her little finger and show her how it has a piece underneath it to make it fit for now. She flings her hand down as if I need to kiss the top of it over and over and over and over again.
I lean into Sirona’s ear and whisper, “Name the time and place and we’ll make it official.” I feel her nod and I kiss her amidst humming lights, sanitized smells, and Clara’s flinging hand.
Epilogue
If you would have told me at fifteen or twenty-five or thirty-five that my life at forty-five would be this good, I’d have told you that you had a rich fantasy life and that it was cruel for including me in it.
But I’d have been so very wrong.
Today, on my forty-fifth birthday, I wake in our Knockferry home. I smell blueberry pancakes and hot chocolate that have become my birthday breakfast tradition. I also hear the arguing of my girls. All of my girls.
My Sirona, who loves me better than I deserve, has for almost a decade. She’s the yin to my yang, the sun to my moon, the joy in my life.
She married me on July Fourth—less than three months after she saved our family from Hal Staunchley, less than a year after I saved our family from Enzo Calabrese—on the bluff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Independence Day. Killian officiated after getting ordained online and Clara stood as our witness. We celebrate every year with fireworks and hamburgers and blueberry and raspberry tarts.
My Clara Bell, daughter number one, the owner of my heart, the little one who made me a daddy without even having to try. She chose me and that was that. Legally, we made it official but, in my heart, there was no need. I would lay down in front of a train for her. She knows this. Even at almost fifteen and full of hormones when no parent can be cool or do anything right, she’s still my girl. It annoys the piss out of her mom, but I don’t care even a little bit.
Our daughter, Elizabeth, now nine was given the name that means “Gift from God” and I see that as wholly true. She is her mom’s mini-me, down to her culinary gifts, which her mother and I foster—her mother by countless hours in the kitchen discussin
g the science and art of baking and trips to Paris to learn from the masters. I donate my time and effort by eating her creations, the delicious and the avant garde (read, not so delicious).
Twin daughters, Annalisa and Amelia, followed not long after Elizabeth and convinced me that the surgery I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d need, much less have, was a high priority. They are amazing and as different as night and day. How their mother and I came together and created their DNA will escape me all the days of my life. They are wonderful and creative and brilliant.
With five estrogen-carriers in my life, I’ve doubled down on the dogs. Hagrid is still kicking, although, he is a little slower in his old age. We added Satchmo, a mutt with some unmistakable wolfhound in him, and he keeps me company on my runs because of Elizabeth’s skills, and avoiding the five bouts of estrogen-mania that are likely to erupt at any point in our home.
Rolling out of bed, I hit the bathroom and look at the crow’s feet around my eyes. They’re deeper than they used to be. The gray at my temples has set in as well. I celebrate them both. The gray because I survived what amounted to a suicide mission of my own choosing—one of vengeance and malice. My wrinkles because they’re proof that I smile and laugh.
A lot.
I have more joy and laughter in my life than I ever could have dreamed. I have a beautiful life. And all because one little girl called me silly and her mom smiled at me when she did.
Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed Sean and Sirona, I would appreciate a review on Amazon.
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Acknowledgments
To acknowledge the people who contributed to this book is to open my heart and share with you the people who, in doing so, made my dream come true.
To Brynne Asher, Victoria Paige and Taryn Rivers, who laughed, cried, plotted, sprinted with me, who gave business guidance and creative thoughts, and who pointed out places this book could be made stronger. More so, you are lifelong friends and dreamers: there are no words, only love. No thank you’s would be enough. My cup overflows.