I pick up the glass and take a sip. The sip turns into a gulp and before I know it, I’ve drained half the glass.
“Wow,” I gasp, looking at the juice with interest. “That’s delicious.”
“Freshly squeezed,” she explains. “Orange, lime, and mint.”
I smile and take another sip. “It’s brilliant. The best thing I’ve ever tasted.”
“No need to butter me up, love,” she says, but I can tell she’s pleased by the compliment. A pair of dimples wink on her cheeks.
“I’m Saoirse.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
She gives me a look that’s hard to decipher. It contains so much. “Everyone knows about you,” she says.
Her smile takes most of the sting out of her words, but it’s not exactly easy to hear all the same. She notices my expression at the last moment.
“Oh, dear, I phrased that awfully harshly. No one blames you.”
I glance up. “I’m not sure that’s true.”
“Master Cillian has always been stubborn,” she replies. “He’s always acted first and thought later. You couldn’t have stopped him even if you tried.”
“He lost his family and his country over me,” I say softly.
“I think you’ll find that some things are impossible to lose,” she says sagely, “if they mean enough.”
I smile. “I don’t know your name.”
“Oh silly me, going on and on without so much as introducing myself. I’m Fiona.”
“Fiona!” I say as I remember what Cillian told me the other night. “The famous Fiona. Your stew was amazing. Have you worked for the O’Sullivans long?”
“A couple of decades now,” she explains. “I joined the family a few years after Quinn.”
I lower my voice instinctively. “Is he really as scary as he seems? I swear he’s a vampire.”
Fiona chuckles. “Sometimes, he’s even scarier,” she says. “But like I said, you get used to him.”
“Well, I don’t have to get used to him,” I reply. “I won’t be here for long.”
Fiona doesn’t respond to that, apart from raising her eyebrows.
Instead, she turns to the stove and starts flipping something that smells like heaven.
I watch as she works with unhurried efficiency. Before I know it, she’s shoving a heavy plate into my hands, piled high with a mountain of food.
“Eat, child,” she says with a kind of maternal fondness that I haven’t heard in almost thirty years. “There’ll be time for talk after.”
* * *
I spend two hours in the kitchen with Fiona.
I eat while she talks. And I realize that I’m actually enjoying myself.
The moment that realization hits me, guilt quickly follows. I’m allowing myself to push back the weight of my responsibilities.