Page 42 of The Wandering Season

Two Years Later

Dublin, Ireland

“The bunting is perfect, sweetheart.”

Mom stood next to me on the sidewalk across from the restaurant’s fa?ade where Dad and Niall stood on twin ladders affixing the green, white, and orange Irish flag bunting to commemorate the occasion. Stratton and Callahan’s, the newest restaurant in Dublin, which we hoped would take the culinary world by storm, opened next week, and the soft opening for friends and family was tonight. I’d have been content with less of a fuss, but Niall was determined that if his father was to brave the train from Westport all the way to Dublin for the first time in six years, he was going to make it worthwhile.

“Thanks, Mom. It hardly feels real.”

I leaned my head against hers, taking a moment to let the significance of the day wash over me.

She brushed her lips against my forehead. “You’ve worked hard to make this happen, sweetheart. Your father and I are so proud of you.”

I swallowed hard, feeling close to tears more often than not the last few days. “Thank you for investing in it. It couldn’t have happened otherwise.”

“I’m just glad you let us. And Tara too. It’s what parents do for their children. Give them enough to do something but not enough to do nothing was my dad’s motto.”

“He was a wise man,”

Dad called from across the street, eliciting a smile from Mom.

It was a dream two years in the making. Much longer than that, really, but it had been two years since Niall and I had embarked on our journey to culinary school. We’d decided the old adage “Go big or go home”

applied here, so we enrolled at the école de Cuisine Alain Ducasse for several intensive sessions. We had enough practical experience to forgo a full bachelor’s program, so we each took the core diploma programs in culinary arts and pastry and then supplemented with a few shorter courses in more specialized areas like chocolate work and bread baking. We spent our downtime developing recipes for our future enterprise and eating like restaurant critics whenever the budget stretched to it.

Caitlin managed to get over her disappointment of not going to university in Dublin, finding Paris an acceptable substitute for her original plans. She still had two years to finish her art program and would be returning to France after the restaurant was launched. To appease her parents she took a healthy concentration of courses in graphic and digital design so she could do some corporate work to support herself as she got established in the field.

Molly, and especially Liam, weren’t pleased that she stayed in Paris after we returned, but they knew once she’d flown from the nest, there’d be no getting her back. Ciaran Walsh had begun making frequent trips to Paris to help reassure the Callahans that Caitlin was well, of course. And from what we could tell, she didn’t object to his attentions. He’d gratefully accepted the invitation to the restaurant launch when he heard Caitlin would be making the trip and hadn’t strayed more than a few feet from her since he’d arrived.

Amid peals of laughter, Caitlin, Stephanie, and Avery emerged from the restaurant where they’d been busy perfecting every place setting and centerpiece, Ciaran trailing them. Introducing the three of the largest personalities I knew had been the most exhilarating and vaguely terrifying moment of our early days in France, but thankfully our small Parisian flat had survived the experience. And rather than feeling eclipsed by them, it felt as though they’d come to bask in my light for once. I found I rather enjoyed having a spot in the sun for myself.

Tara and her new boyfriend, Bryce, joined us on the street, followed by Molly and Liam, who passed out glasses of champagne to toast the opening. Tara and I managed to keep up regular emails for months, which evolved into the occasional phone call and FaceTime. We finally decided to meet up again last year, and I had great fun playing tour guide and showing her all our favorite haunts. She even took one of the short cooking courses for tourists and casual cooks that Ducasse offered to help bolster their income, and showed some real talent. I was more than a little proud when the instructor told me in confidence that she was miles ahead of the others in her class.

Mom and Dad had made a habit of coming over every six months or so, and while things would never be quite as they were before that fateful Christmas, I was glad. I was glad because things hadn’t been right for a long time, and owning up to the circumstances of my birth was the only real path to healing. Knowing the full picture of how I’d come to be hadn’t magically freed me from all the complicated feelings I had about it, but every day I felt a bit more comfortable in my own skin. A bit more worthy of love and success.

The bunting secured, Niall and Dad descended their ladders and joined us to admire the display and all it represented, made all the sweeter because our family and friends were able to join us for its opening.

“She’s a right beaut, son,”

Liam pronounced. “And I couldn’t be prouder of you, lad.”

Liam’s color and disposition were brighter for being back at Blackthorn, and Molly seemed happier for having a husband who wasn’t a ghost of himself any longer.

“To Stratton and Callahan’s.”

Caitlin lifted her glass. “The finest eatery in all of Ireland, or soon will be.”

“Hear! Hear!”

the rest chorused.

Niall wrapped an arm around me and kissed my cheek, then whispered low in my ear, “You’re a marvel, you know that?”

“Naturally I am.”

I returned the kiss, nuzzling his neck before meeting his gaze. “Shall we get on with the show?”

His eyes sparkled with anticipation, and he raised his voice to call everyone to attention. “Let’s get inside, shall we? I hear the chefs have quite the meal simmering for you.”

This was met with enthusiasm from our gathering, who reentered the restaurant that we’d spent six months restoring from near ruin. We’d restained the peeling wood paneling and battered wood floors, repainted every surface, and polished everything until it glistened to the standard of the watchful eye of a Michelin-guide inspector. Not that we were ready for one of those, but hopefully someday before long we would be.

We’d brought in the waitstaff and the kitchen staff to give the family the full experience. The servers circulated, refilling champagne and passing amuse-bouches, each with truffles from the same farm we’d loved so well in Périgueux. The business card swapping in the markets had been a great use of time, as some of them became our regular vendors.

While everyone mingled merrily, Niall and I snuck into the kitchens and slipped into the back office that was still a jumble of boxes and invoices we’d have to sort later. “Are you ready, my love?”

His voice was low, just above a whisper. He brushed his lips over mine and took me in his arms for a long moment, savoring slowly the beauty of all we’d built.

“More than ready. Stall them for five minutes, will you?”

“The way the first course is going over, I’d wager you have ten. Take your time.”

He grabbed a short garment bag with his suit jacket that he’d stashed in the kitchen, closer to the dining room.

When he left, I unzipped my own longer garment bag and removed the simple Ordaithe candle-glow lace dress. When I returned to Dublin, it had still been waiting in the thrift store I’d visited my very first day. I happened upon the shop completely at random, having largely forgotten about the place, the very day after Niall had proposed during a quiet candlelit dinner at home.

The shopkeeper recognized me right away, her face splitting into a grin as if I were the prodigal daughter returned. Before I opened my mouth beyond a simple greeting, she’d dashed to the rack and thrust the garment bag into my hands, insisting I try it on. “I do believe your time has come, dearie. I knew you’d be back.”

It was long and fashioned of the finest cream lace, without frills and fuss. It clung to my curves in all the right places before gently flowing into a slender A-line skirt that brushed the floor, leaving a small sweep train in its wake. No alteration was needed, as though the gown was bespoken for me long before I was in need.

I liked to think it was.

When I admired myself in the mirror, she pronounced, “She’s the very one for you, my dear. I’m so very glad of it.”

She wouldn’t accept more than five euro for the dress and a bit more for an emerald-green ribbon sash with a bit of beading at the middle that added a lovely touch of color and definition to the waist.

That day my only jewelry was the silver medallion of Kilkenny silver Niall had given me before we’d left for France, my trademark emerald earrings, and the warrior’s cuff I’d worn each day since Dublin. I’d been dressed for a party, with hair, makeup, underpinnings, and shoes to suit, so all I had to do was exchange my floral afternoon dress for the lace antique I’d found the day I met Niall.

I hadn’t had another vision since the last one in New York, and while I didn’t miss them, I did wish I could know more about what had happened to Aoife, Imogène, Carlotta, and Donatella. I mused over my vision of young Tara. Stephanie had deduced they’d all ended up on the East Coast. Aoife married and had children. Imogène gave birth to the baby she was expecting and went on to have more with a new husband. As it turned out, Carlotta, rather than Donatella, was my direct ancestor. Carlotta and Vincente were married shortly after their arrival in the States and had two children, one of whom was my great-to-some-degree-grandmother. Donatella never married, preferring to spend her days in the peace and quiet of her mother and stepfather’s farmhouse in upstate New York. I didn’t know about the blonde Danish woman, and it was fine if she remained a mystery lost to time. Some questions were all the lovelier for not having answers.

I didn’t know if my ancestors lived happily ever after, but I do know they lived. Each was given a second chance at happiness, at life, and she took it in the New World. And knowing that had given me the courage to do the same in the Old.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the cockeyed office mirror. I slid the beaded headband in my hair, ensured the sash was straight, and picked up the dainty bouquet of cream roses interspersed with iris, lilies, daisies, and little sprigs of shamrock—the flowers of France, Italy, Denmark, and Ireland—as a remembrance for the women who had left all they knew for the hope of better things.

I took in a deep breath and crossed the kitchen, where Niall was waiting with the good-humored priest he’d snuck in the back door. Father O’Malley said a quick, quiet blessing over our heads before exiting the kitchen to ask that our friends and family be seated. They had no idea they’d come for a wedding as well as the christening of our restaurant, but all would see how the two events could never be truly distinct in our hearts.

Niall offered me his arm and we entered the dining room to the next chapter of our adventure together. And as we regarded a roomful of beaming faces, it felt that, with the love of Niall and our family and friends, I had finally wandered home.