Page 28 of Irish Legacy

They pulled together.

The tarpaulin slid away, dropping to the damp grass in a heavy heap to reveal two boys cast in bronze. They had their arms slung around each other’s necks, mud carved into their knees and a football gripped in Anthony’s hands.

Trish knew that photograph. Quinn had pulled a battered print of it from her bag in the bedroom late last night, tracing the edges with her thumb before the world had narrowed down to just the two of them.

The bronze held the same easy grin her father wore in every story he’d ever told about those years. They were so young, shoulders knocked together and mid-laugh, frozen in the last sweet stretch of time before one of them left for America and the other stayed behind the bar.

Beside her, Quinn let out a quiet exhale. The movement vibrated through their connected shoulders. Quinn recognized it too.

Margaret kept talking. “Tony Fallon made a name for himself in Hollywood, but to us he’ll always be Anthony Fallon. And outside of Kilvolan no one will know the name Séamus O’Shea, but I think I can speak on behalf of everyone in this village when I say these are two legends that deserve to be remembered. We have the next generation here, carrying on their family names. Quinn followed in her grandfather’s footsteps in Hollywood, and Trish has kept O’Shea’s at the heart of this village.”

Margaret looked out over the crowd. “Séamus always said Anthony’ll be home one day. I think he liked the idea of the two of them growing old together here. He used to say he should have gone over himself, but sure, with the pub he never thought he could get away.”

Trish’s chest seized. The sentence hit too close. She was walking the exact same road her father had walked. This pub was all she would ever have. Quinn would fly back to Los Angeles in a few days. Trish would still be pulling pints at fifty-five, at sixty, at seventy if her knees held out. The panic lodged thick in her throat.

“They wrote to each other all their lives. But I think the hope was always that they’d stand in the same room again.” Margaret paused. “Please God they’ve found each other now.”

Trish blinked hard. She had never gone through all of her father’s things, always telling herself she wasn’t ready and leaving the task for a someday that had turned into never. She hadn’t known a single thing about the letters.

Margaret finished in Irish. “Ní bheidh a leithéid arís ann.”

There will never be the likes of them again.

The crowd clapped around them. The first tear slipped down Trish’s cheek before she could stop it, tracking warm over her cold skin. She didn’t wipe it away. She couldn’t bring herself to move.

Quinn turned toward her. Their shoulders were still touching. Quinn lifted her bare hand and brushed the tear off Trish’s cheek with her thumb. The touch was careful, almost reverent. No one in the crowd would read anything into it except kindness. But the steady pressure of that thumb anchored Trish to the ground.

Then Quinn stepped forward to speak. Her voice sounded steady, but a slight roughness caught on the syllables.

“I have to say that this is such a wonderful surprise. I’d only just learned of Tony and Séamus’s friendship.” Quinn looked at the statue. Her eyes shone, holding back her own tears. “I had a speech prepared about my grandfather, but I think Margaret’s words were far better than anything I might say. This is a shared story. One worth remembering. A friendship that never faded despite time and thousands of miles.”

Quinn turned and looked straight at Trish.

Trish met the look, feeling the heavy weight behind it. The hours they had spent tangled together in the dark. The way Quinn had looked at her like she was the only woman in the room.

Trish swallowed once and stepped up beside her. “Thank you to everyone behind this. I can’t imagine the hard work that went into it.” A murmur of agreement went through the crowd. “And I have no idea how ye managed to keep this from me for however many months. Years?”

Chuckles spread through the crowd. It gave her a second to breathe.

“It’s a proud day for me. I still miss my father every single day, as I know most of you do too. I’m glad that he won’t be forgotten anytime soon.”

They clapped again. She meant every word, even as the ache in her chest swelled, too big for the years that had passed.

“I’d like to invite everyone back to O’Shea’s to celebrate.”

She looked at Quinn as the clapping continued. Quinn looked right past the polite smile to the mess underneath.

The crowd started moving toward the street. Their hands didn’t touch, but the space between them pulled taut. Emma and Natalie waited at the edge of the green. Emma’s face showed quiet satisfaction, and Natalie gave Quinn a small nod of understanding.

20

Quinn leaned against the worn edge of the bar and watched the last handful of locals shrug into coats. Last call had come and gone twenty minutes ago, but nobody seemed in a hurry to leave O’Shea’s tonight. The peat fire burned low, throwing soft orange light across the stone floor she had helped mop only a week earlier. Her shoulders ached in the best way. A full day of smiling, shaking hands, and answering the same three questions had left her drained yet oddly light inside her chest.

She let her gaze drift across the room. Jack wiped down the far end of the counter with slow strokes. A couple of older men lingered near the door, still arguing about the statue in low voices. The air smelled of spilled stout and wet wool. Quinn rolled her neck once. Her muscles pulled tight, stiff from a morning spent wrapped around Trish.

They ended up in the shower together, water beating hot against Trish’s back while Quinn dropped to her knees on the wet tile. A slow pulse beat through her belly even now. Breakfast was rushed after that. Toast snatched between kisses that kept threatening to pull them back to bed.

Then the green. The statue. The absolute shock of seeing two bronze boys instead of one. Her grandfather and Séamus O’Shea, arms slung around each other like they hadn’t been apart.