Heal Me

by Grady, D. R.

  “Fine, let me begin,” McCully snapped at him. “I’ll let you live if you share those.”

  Fred’s lips curled up, and Owen cleared his throat. “Why don’t you set those on the table, Fred, and I’ll help Jenna with the sausage. Matthews, you probably know this place better than any of the rest of us. You and Coulihan can set the table.” He jabbed a finger at McCully. “You can make the coffee.” He all but clapped his hands to get everyone moving, but fortunately, Matthews being a really smart and astute man, picked up on the situation and leaped into action.

  Jenna handed a package of bagels to Fred and pointed to the toaster. He grinned at her and she returned the gesture. “No bloodshed on my floor,” she said quietly. Fred put on his best would-I-do-that look. The one that had allowed him to get away with nearly everything in school.

  Fortunately, Jenna didn’t seem fazed by it. She arched an eyebrow at him and placed herself between him and McCully. Owen strode to the stove and inserted himself right beside her. McCully couldn’t leap at his friend quite as well with both him and Jenna between them.

  Once breakfast was on the table, the discussion turned to what everyone planned to do that day.

  “I have a bridal shower to go to,” Jenna said with a sigh.

  “We’re going to a picnic,” Matthews said about his and Coulihan’s plans.

  “I’m working,” Fred said. Owen saw the trouble brewing on the McCully front and quickly added their plans.

  “I’m going with McCully to her family’s annual reunion,” he said quickly, hoping to avoid Fred–McCully trouble.

  “You’re taking O’Maley to your reunion?” Coulihan asked McCully, who was finishing the last of the doughnuts. McCully took a gulp of coffee before replying.

  “My mom’s been after me for ages to bring O’Maley. So, I suckered him into going with me today,” she agreed complacently. It was incredible what copious amounts of coffee and chocolate did for the woman.

  “How many people will be there?” Jenna asked, and Owen leaned forward to hear the answer.

  “I don’t know. Seventy, maybe. Not everybody can make it.” McCully shrugged and started licking the chocolate off her fingers. Owen watched Fred tense as he caught the action from his place across from her at the table.

  “Seventy?” Owen repeated, aghast. “You didn’t tell me there’d be that many people.”

  She glared at him, although the effect was mitigated some by the fact that her finger was in her mouth. “Yes, I did, geekboy. I told you each of those families will also bring at least one dish.”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s right,” he said, finally remembering. He watched McCully suspiciously. “Did your aunt really win a cooking contest with her baked beans?”

  “Yes. And Uncle Herbert’s barbeque sauce wins every contest he enters. He’s in charge of grilling. My Aunt Rachel makes the best chocolate cake I’ve ever tasted. My cousin Michelle makes cookies to rival Emmy Fields, and my mom’s Watergate salad is well worth the effort of going.” She took another gulp of coffee.

  “I still can’t believe you managed to get him to go with you,” Coulihan said from her place beside Mark.

  “Food. The easiest approach was food. There’ll be lots of it,” McCully said complacently as she searched everyone’s plates, probably for leftovers.

  “How can someone as tiny as you eat as much as you do?” Jenna asked with professional interest.

  “High metabolism,” McCully answered at the same time he said, “She’s hyper.”

  McCully glared at him. “We always end up playing two-hand-touch football that usually ends with tackle injuries. Don’t think I won’t bend the rules to suit my purposes,” she threatened.

  Coulihan hooted with laughter. Jenna and Matthews both smiled and Fred looked star-struck. Geez.

  An hour later, when they pulled up outside the pavilion where the family reunion would be held, Owen still wasn’t certain this was a good idea.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea,” he finally voiced.

  “Relax. I’ve already told my mom there’s no way we could ever date. I told her we act more like sister and brother than anything else. And I told her you have the total hots for Dr. Jenna Fields, whom she knows, so she’s not going to expect us to date.”

  “You told her all of that?”

  “Of course. Otherwise she’d be planning our wedding, but now she knows I’ll probably be your best man at your wedding to Jenna, so she’s backed off.”

  “You told her Jenna and I were getting married?” he choked out.

  “Of course not. I just told her when you finally got around to asking the good doctor to marry you, I’d probably be standing up there with you, or acting as an usher.”

  “You’d probably look cute in a tuxedo,” Owen commented tongue-in-cheek. “Especially standing beside Fred.”

  She snarled at him, but he was saved by a woman who could only be her mother. The woman looked exactly like her, only older. It was uncanny.

  “Two McCullys,” he groaned.

  His partner had just enough time to shoot him down with a death glare before the car door on her side yanked open and she was pulled into the whirlwind’s arms.

  Owen blinked in bemusement at the two women together as he climbed from the car. He shivered, as though a goose had just walked over his grave.

  “It’s a bit scary, isn’t it?” a deep voice inquired solemnly beside him.

  He whipped around and stared at a man nearly his height with a head full of liberally silver streaked dark hair. The eyes were a deep brown and the man smiling at his bemusement extended his hand. Laugh lines creased his face. “I’m TJ’s father,” he said as they shook hands.

  “Hello, TJ’s father. I’m Owen O’Maley.”

  “So you must be. I’m Geoff. You’re dating the doctor?” McCully’s father asked politely.

  “Trying to,” Owen began, only to be interrupted by his partner’s snort. She had slid into her father’s arms and squeezed him tight.

  “I finally got them to go out on a date. They’re crazy about each other, and would have continued to drive me crazy if I hadn’t coaxed them into a date.”

  Owen narrowed his eyes at her. “Coaxed? I think strong-armed is a better definition.”

  “Hey, you went out on a date, right? You should be thanking me.”

  “We’ll see.”

  McCully’s mom extended her hand, saying, “Hi, I’m TJ’s mom, Cynthia. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

  He noted Cynthia McCully possessed manners her daughter currently lacked, but she had the same bright green eyes and laughing smile. He doubted the woman behaved, either. Like mother, like daughter.

  “I had no idea your daughter could pass as your twin.”

  “Oh, no, that’s Aunt Rachel,” McCully said.

  “What?” Owen asked, feeling he’d lost the thread of the conversation.

  “Mom’s twin is Aunt Rachel, not me,” she said slowly, as though to a five-year-old.

  He turned abruptly back to Cynthia, “You have a twin?” Horror of horrors, there were three McCullys?

  His partner’s laughing eyes met his, but her father answered. “Brace yourself, son, yes there are three of them running around. And here comes the third.”

  The woman, who looked exactly like McCully’s mother, strode up to them, caught a glimpse of him and did a double take. Her eyes widened before flooding with tears.

  McCully stared at them, a frown between her brows. “What’s wrong Aunt Rachel?” she asked. Her father stared, too, but her mom teared up with her sister.

  “Oh, Rachel, it’s possible, isn’t it?” Cynthia whispered. “No wonder he seemed so familiar to me.”

  “What’s possible?” he and McCully asked together.

  Rachel took a deep breath before responding. “What are your parents’ names, Owen?”

  Were strangers allowed to ask such a personal question? “I don’t have parents. They’re both dead.”

 
; He looked askance at McCully, who stared right back at him. Her Aunt Rachel and mother continued to cry, and sent knowing looks between them.

  “Perhaps not,” Cynthia said and sniffed. Rachel added a watery nod.

  “Mom, what are you talking about?” McCully asked brusquely. Even Geoff looked confused.

  “We’re sorry, love,” her aunt said. She patted McCully before turning to him. “Was your father’s last name O’Maley?”

  “I don’t know, my only family was my Aunt Isabel,” he said. Had he just been dropped into another dimension? One where absolutely nothing made sense and women cried when they looked at him?

  “When is your birthday?”

  The twins both choked on sobs when he answered with the day and month. They stared at each other. “So it was Aunt Isabel who took you,” Cynthia McCully spat out. Her sister sucked in several breaths.

  “Took me? She said I was given to her because my parents were both dead.”

  McCully’s Aunt Rachel patted his arm. “Aunt Isabel stole you from your crib when you were only weeks old.”

  “How do you know that?” This was definitely a different dimension. A weird one.

  “Because we suspect you’re my son because I had a baby boy on your exact birthday.” She went on to also give the year of his birth.

  The women both dissolved into more tears while he spun into a confusion spiral like he’d never experienced before. Fortunately Mr. McCully took over. He tugged the twins to a nearby SUV. The woman who claimed she was his mother wrapped a hand around his arm and hauled him behind her. McCully received the same treatment from her mother. Geoff McCully used a remote entry fob to open the doors and they all piled into the monster truck.

  His head still spinning, Owen stared at McCully. She stared at him. As though they’d never seen each other before. Her aunt crawled in right behind him and held onto him as though afraid he might run away, which for the first time in many years, he seriously contemplated. He’d run right to Jenna. The only things anchoring him to the seat right now were McCully and her aunt’s hands.

  The woman claiming to be his mother stared at him, her eyes devouring every part of him. “You look so much like him,” she murmured, tears streaming down her face.

  “Like who?” Owen asked, perplexed.

  “Your father. If you are my son you’re nearly an exact replica of him.”

  “What happened to him?” he asked through a tight throat.

  “He was killed in the war,” she answered sadly.

  “Aunt Isabel stole me?” Owen couldn’t help asking. A sense of betrayal washed through him. Isabel had taken him from a parent who was still living if all this was true.

  “That’s what we’ve always suspected. Isabel kidnapped you soon after we got word that Orrin had died. Rachel’s despair gave Isabel the right moment to take you,” Cynthia McCully answered for her sister.

  “I was so upset after hearing your father died. You’d only just been born, and I still wasn’t fully recovered from that. I not only lost him, but I lost you as well.”

  “Didn’t you look for me?”

  “We tried,” Cynthia inserted. “We exhausted every possibility. You vanished at the same time as Isabel.”

  “We looked for Owen Michael Finnigan, because your father and I weren’t married yet. Of course Isabel knew that. She probably changed your name to O’Maley because we’d have never thought to look for you under that name.”

  “What’s the significance of O’Maley?” he questioned, not certain he was following the conversation. He noticed that McCully grasped his left hand really hard. It helped to keep him grounded. His mother clutched his right one.

  “Your father’s name was Orrin Michael O’Maley.” And he felt as though someone or something had kicked him in the stomach. Hard. He finally knew his father’s full name. For the first time in his life, he had a name for the man who gave him life. He stared at the woman holding his right hand, trying to see himself in her features. Now he had a face for the woman who had also significantly contributed to his existence.

  “You look so much like him,” she repeated, her eyes continuing to search his face. As though she sought to memorize his every feature. He had never hoped to know this woman. If she was indeed his mother.

  “He even has the same build. Holds himself the same way. They even walk alike, don’t they?” Cynthia observed from the front passenger seat. Owen noticed they’d stopped in front of a large rambling house in town, resplendent in flower boxes, neatly clipped shrubs, and towering trees. The McCully family piled out of the vehicle, so he followed the woman who retained a painful clutch on his hand.

  Fortunately, McCully released his other one, but as soon they clattered onto the porch, she reclaimed it. For some reason, he was very grateful for that small hand gripping his so tightly. They entered a tall room that looked much like what he’d always thought of as a parlor, and McCully tugged him down on the sofa. Nearly as soon as he sat, a photo album was plopped into his lap.

  McCully’s Aunt Rachel sat on his other side, and both women nearly perched in his lap. McCully’s mom disappeared with her husband down a long hall to the back of the house.

  Owen became captivated by a black and white picture of a man who looked remarkably like him. “Your father had dark hair, you probably got your red hair from me, just like TJ got it from her mother,” his mother informed him as he flipped pictures.

  The women in the photos looked like McCully, dressed up in retro clothes. Except these women weren’t McCully, they were Cynthia and Rachel in the clothing of their youth. The man with them looked exactly like him other than the red hair. They had the same build, the same face, same hands even. It was like staring in the mirror at a stranger who looked exactly like you.

  “I haven’t seen these pictures since I was a kid,” McCully murmured, gazing at the pictures with him.

  “He has your profile, Rachel,” Cynthia stated as she entered the room. Her husband followed, carrying a tray. The delicious scent of coffee trailed into the room with them. Something familiar, finally, since even McCully was beginning to resemble an alien. He gratefully accepted the delicate mug of caffeine and a plate of the best smelling chocolate cake ever.

  Eating and drinking were things he could do. Familiar things. He looked at McCully and was heartened to see her digging into her slice of cake. That was normal. As were the covetous glances she kept sending toward his portion. “This is mine, keep your eyes off it,” he warned before he remembered he should probably be on his best behavior.

  McCully smacked her lips and sent him a familiar chocolate grin. “If I get mine done first, yours is fair game.”

  “They already act like cousins,” Cynthia breathed.

  “Yes, they do,” her husband agreed.

  His mother just beamed at him. At him and McCully. Tears continued to flow down her cheeks.

  They spent an hour catching up on the details, but they all agreed some DNA tests were a necessity. Owen didn’t doubt his mother’s certainty he was hers.

  His hand hovering over the photo album, he asked, “Do you mind if I take a picture?”

  “Of course not, love. Actually, you can take an entire album. I have several,” his mother offered, dragging an even bigger book from the bottom of the coffee table. She hefted it into his arms and he held on tightly. This was his past. Where yesterday he’d only had his Aunt Isabel, today he had a mother, a late father, and eons of cousins, TJ McCully included.

  “Let’s go back to the picnic. The family is going to be wondering where we are,” Cynthia said.

  “Yes, and they’ll all want to meet my son. Finally,” his mother said, gripping his hand. He held his arms open for her and she launched into them. The only thing that would make this moment better would be to have Jenna with him. He couldn’t wait to flip through the new tome with her. Wanting desperately to see more pictures of his parents.

  Yesterday, he didn’t have a mother. Today he did.
/>   He followed the McCully troop out to the SUV, slightly dazed, and blinking rapidly, wondering what tomorrow might bring.

  “He’s Aunt Rachel’s son?” After hearing this all day, Owen no longer paid attention to the question. He had sort of met all three of McCully’s brothers, or at least waved at them. The oldest looked exactly like her, with the same red hair and green eyes. The middle son was an exact replica of their father, while the youngest had his father’s dark hair and build, but his mother’s green eyes. It was obvious all four were siblings, yet he could have easily fit into the group. Her oldest brother and him could almost pass as twins.

  Owen met so many aunts, uncles, and cousins his head began to hurt.

  McCully saved the day by pulling out some of Jenna’s cold tablets from her pocket. She shared them with him, and he was very grateful. This had been a traumatic enough day. That he was still fighting a nasty virus didn’t help.

  “So, what do you think of all this?” he asked her.

  “I’m amazed, happy, and saddened.” She snagged a cookie.

  “Saddened?”

  “Yes, for all the years you and Aunt Rachel could have had together. For all the years we’ve lost as cousins. You could have grown up in a huge, loving family if not for this Isabel woman who took you from us,” she explained between mouthfuls.

  He idly broke off a piece of her cookie and chewed it. “It would have been sadder if we’d have never met up at all.” The cookie was good so he helped himself to a full one.

  “True,” she answered, her lips pursued.

  “You promised me food, and I’m hungry,” he mentioned and McCully rolled her eyes and stole half his cookie.

  When they returned to Jenna’s that night, he was solemn and holding McCully’s hand. Fred’s eyebrows winged into his hairline. Even Jenna seemed a bit dazed by their closeness. Owen was certain she didn’t miss the sheen of tears in McCully’s eyes. And possibly in his own.

  Coulihan entered the kitchen with Matthews behind her and was the first to mention their clasped hands. “Yo, I thought you two were partners, not a couple,” she commented.