“Hallelujah!” he crows, pulling out a heaping dish covered over with foil. “Fiona’s famous Irish stew. I used to dream about this shit when I was in California.”
He removes the foil and portions a couple of ladles into two blue bowls from a cupboard under the island. Once it’s warmed in the microwave for a couple of minutes, he hands me a bowl.
The smell wafting up to greet me is so damn good that I want to dive in right away. I burn my tongue on the first bite, but even that pain isn’t enough to dull the flavor.
“Wow,” I breathe. “You weren’t kidding.” The taste of juicy mutton seeps into my taste buds and I sigh with relief.
“Good, right?”
“Amazing,” I agree. “My compliments to the chef.”
“Good ol’ Fiona. She’s been with the family for decades.”
“I take it your mother didn’t cook much?”
Cillian laughs as though the idea of his mother cooking is the funniest joke he’s heard all day.
“My mother is a mafia wife,” he explains. “She doesn’t cook. She plans and plots and strategizes. She keeps the peace, but prepares for war.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Is that what a mafia wife does?”
“That and so much more,” Cillian says, shoveling a huge spoon of stew into his mouth. “It’s no easy job. You have to juggle a hundred different roles and a thousand different egos. Few women have managed as successfully as Ma.”
“Why do you think that is?”
Cillian shrugs. “Simple. She and Da… they’re a team. While his colleagues spent their nights with mistresses and whores, Da was home with her.”
“A real life love story.”
“You could say that,” Cillian says. “They’ve had their struggles over the years. But they met young. Grew up together.”
“Really?”
“I think they were teenagers when they met.”
I look up at him, and neither of us have to speak to understand what the other one is thinking.
We were teenagers, too…
I can feel his eyes on me, but I don’t want to see the expression on his face. I don’t want to deal with the accusation. With that sense of betrayal I’ve felt from day one of my marriage.
“So, you married him right after I left Dublin?” he asks softly.
I can barely speak. “Yes.”
“Because you were trying to protect your father.”
“I know you don’t understand—”
“I understand that you were doing what you thought you had to,” he says, cutting me off. “And maybe you were right to do so at the time.”
“But you don’t believe that?”
“What I believe doesn’t matter.”
“Stop being so mature,” I snap at him.
He laughs. “You’re right. Very out of character for me. Felt weird.”