The Parting Glass. Emilie Richards

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СКАЧАТЬ left. I’m just glad to have him back—more or less back, anyway. I know he did the best he could.”

      Casey faced her. “If everybody without mental illness tried as hard as Rooney does, the world would be a pretty spectacular place.”

      “It’s not seeing enough good marriages that scares me. It’s seeing one. Yours,” Megan said bluntly. “Lately, that’s what worries me.”

      “What are you talking about?”

      “You and Jon. I don’t know how you do it. The two of you are happier together than you ever were apart. You make it look effortless.”

      “Jon and I were friends in high school.” Casey tugged one shoulder of Megan’s dress lower, then slapped her sister’s hand when she tried to pull it back up. “But what does that have to do with you? You love Nick. You like Nick. What’s the problem? You have what you need, don’t you?”

      “You make it look easy, and it’s not. I don’t know how to just fall into marriage the way you and Jon did. Nothing’s ever easy for me, Case. I don’t know about easy. I don’t think Nick does, either.”

      “Everybody has to work at being married. Maybe Jon and I make it look easy, but I can tell you there’ve been a few great fights.” Casey’s eyes shone. “And some great make-up sex.”

      “What if I give it my all and it turns out I’m not good enough?” Megan turned. “You do marriage counseling sometimes, right?”

      Casey, who was the brand-new director of a charitable organization that delivered social services to West Side residents, shrugged. “It’s not my field of expertise.”

      “Is this anxiety natural?” Megan bit her lip, then remembered she was wearing lipstick. “For two cents I’d bolt for the door and just keep going.”

      “And what if you did? What’s waiting out there that’s so tempting?”

      “I don’t want to fail.”

      “What would happen if you did?”

      Megan considered, but not for long. “I’d die. I can’t screw this up. If I get married, I want it to last. And what if I can’t figure out how to make that happen?”

      Casey crossed the room and rested her hands on her sister’s shoulders. “Megan, you don’t have to carry the weight alone. Remember? There are two of you, and I’ve never known two more capable people. You’ll be a roaring success. Someday you’ll be kicking yourself for telling me all this.”

      Footsteps sounded in the hallway, and the door burst open.

      “Oh, Megan, you look gorgeous!” Peggy flung herself through the doorway. “Spectacular. Oh, I’m going to cry.”

      “You’d better not. Don’t you dare.”

      “I’ve got to get dressed.” Peggy headed for the closet. “I had to give the baby-sitter instructions, so I’m late. I didn’t have time to get my hair done, and in this wind it wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. But if I pull the top part back and fasten the fancy combs I bought in it, I’ll pass. Besides, everybody’s going to be looking at Megan.”

      “Oh, God, I’m getting married.” Megan’s hands flew to her cheeks. “Look, one of you do it instead, okay?”

      Peggy pulled her dress from Casey’s closet. It was the same simple design as Casey’s, but in forest green. “I’ll gladly marry Nick. Think he’ll notice the difference?” She slipped off her T-shirt and let the dress slither over her arms and bodice. “I’ll just tell him you changed your mind. He won’t care.”

      “Or I could do it,” Casey said. “Then he and Jon can duel for nights in my bed.”

      Megan thought if she took one more deep breath she would hyperventilate. “I’ll live through this, right?”

      “If you don’t, the Plain Dealer will have one whopping story.” Peggy presented herself to Casey to be zipped. “Any word from Rooney?” she asked Megan.

      Understanding and accepting her father’s illness had taken Megan a long time. At some point in the two years since he had returned to his family, she had thrown away the need for an easy diagnosis and settled for the fact that Rooney was not like other men. He had battled hard for sanity, but the years and a dependence on alcohol had taken a permanent toll.

      Still, Rooney was no longer homeless, as he had been since Megan’s adolescence. Every night he returned to eat dinner and sleep at Niccolo’s house in Ohio City, a West Side Cleveland neighborhood. He no longer drank, and he took medication that helped him think more clearly. He was sometimes confused, but rarely confused about who his daughters were. He had missed a large chunk of their lives, but he was learning to know them again on his own terms.

      “I reminded him about the wedding this morning,” Megan said. “He was up early.”

      “What did he say?”

      “Nothing that made much sense, but he didn’t seem surprised, like maybe he’d remembered already. Will he get there, do you think?”

      “He knows where St. Brigid’s is,” Peggy said. “He can find his way anywhere.”

      “Megan, let it be enough that he remembered, okay?” Casey said. “He remembers you. This morning he remembered you were getting married. He wants to be there, even if he doesn’t quite make it. A year ago, when I married Jon, he had trouble remembering my name.”

      Megan knew that if they searched for and found their father, corralled him and herded him into a car, he would panic. She considered, instead, the one thing she could control. “There’s still time for me to head for Botswana or the Canary Islands. I don’t care which.”

      Peggy joined her, leaning down to kiss her sister on the cheek. She stepped back and wiped away a faint smudge of lipstick. “How about the church, instead? You don’t have a passport.”

      “Yes, I do. I made sure of it.”

      “You don’t have a ticket.”

      “There must be planes to Botswana every hour on the hour.”

      “From Hopkins? You’d be lucky to hop a jet to Newark.”

      “That would do.” Megan straightened her spine. “You think I’m kidding.”

      “I think you’re terrified,” Casey said, joining them. “I never thought I’d live to see the day you owned up to it. Now, are we going to church, or do I let everybody know you’re a pitiful coward?”

      “That’s a stupid question.” Megan whirled and took one final look at herself in the mirror. Actually, the view wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. She looked like…a bride. “Let’s go.”

      Casey shrugged. “You’re so darned predictable.”

      chapter 2

      Niccolo was glad Megan hadn’t chosen a formal wedding gown, because then he would have to wear a tux, and he was already afraid his seldom СКАЧАТЬ