"Oh, Catherine, not your house in Pebble Beach. We couldn't!"
Falling back on her now-familiar refrain, Catherine asked, "And why is that?"
"It's just too generous!"
"Offering my completely empty house to you for a few days is too generous? Just how is that, Maeve? The pool is heated every day, the lights come on at dusk, the temperature is set at 69 degrees 24 hours a day. Your visit honestly would not cost me one cent, Maeve. If that is being too generous, you're going to have to explain how, because I don't understand."
With her voice betraying her longing, Maeve said, "I would love to accept, but I'm afraid Martin will think we're taking advantage."
"Maeve, I suggest you accept the Pebble Beach offer. If I have to go to work on Martin, I'm aiming higher. For him, it's my apartment in Milan."
There was a longish silence, then Maeve's warm chuckle traveled along the line. "I would love to see my Marty in Milan." She giggled as the image played out in her mind. "He thinks the Italians are quite mad, you know."
"That's my final offer, Maeve," Catherine threatened. "You go to Pebble Beach for a few days, or it's two weeks in Milan…with first-class airline tickets thrown in."
"My, but you drive a hard bargain," the older woman laughed. "I'll get to work on my fiancé tonight, Catherine. I think my powers of persuasion are up to the task, and if they're not, I'll ask Jamie for a crash course in Italian!"
To Maeve's stunned surprise, Martin was completely amenable to accepting the honeymoon gift from Catherine. He seemed distracted during the discussion, and after they had agreed she asked, "What's on your mind, Marty?"
"Oh," he said, shaking his dark head, "I'm just thinking about my discussion with Father Villarreal this morning." He looked at Maeve and said, "I don't know if it's because he's a younger man, or because of his background, but that fellow knows how to talk to people."
"Tell me more about your talk," Maeve asked. "You didn't have much time this morning."
"I'm not a stupid man," Martin said. "I don't expect these priests to run their own little fiefdom here. I fully understand that they've taken a vow to uphold the teachings of the Church in Rome. But there are ways to enforce the rules and ways to insult and demean, and that young man understands the difference."
"Did you talk about your feelings for the sanctity of Siobhan and Jamie's union?" Maeve asked.
"I did. He said something that impressed me, Maeve. He said that he feels we're in a difficult period right now. Society is changing much more quickly than the Church can or should change. I think the way he put it was that society's going through a revolution, but the Church can only change through evolution. And we all know how long it takes for things to change evolutionarily."
Maeve nodded and said, "I suppose that makes sense. The Church is a very large, very old institution. It wouldn't do for it to change every time the wind blew."
"I agree, Maeve. I really don't want that. All I want is for my local priest to express his private support for my daughter and her relationship before he asks God to bless you and me."
"I take it that Father Villarreal supports Siobhan?"
"He does," Martin nodded. "He said that what matters is that Siobhan has found someone to experience a deep, committed, holy connection with. The fact that the Church wasn't able to recognize the sanctity of it doesn't mean that God doesn't."
"You seem very satisfied with this," Maeve observed.
"I am. I feel better about the Church than I have in months. I'd really like him to perform our ceremony, Maeve. Is that all right with you?"
She smiled and nodded, "I hate to wound Father Pender, Marty, but I agree with you on this. It just wouldn't be right to have him bless us while feeling that our relationship was valid and the girls' was invalid."
"I'm no theologian, Maeve," Martin admitted, "but any God who would disapprove of Siobhan and Jamie's union is a God I have no interest in meeting."
When Ryan opened the door on Tuesday night, she was surprised and pleased to find her aunt sitting on the sofa chatting with Jamie, companionably drinking a cup of tea. "Now this is the kind of surprise I'd like to see every day," Ryan smiled, crossing the room to kiss her aunt. "Why did you decide to make my day so special?"
Turning to Jamie, Maeve rolled her eyes as she asked, "Does she speak to you like this, sweetheart?"
"Constantly," Jamie agreed as Ryan came over to kiss her too. "I don't know why everyone doesn't want a lover who has kissed the Blarney Stone a few times."
"Everyone does," Ryan decided, sitting down next to her partner. "What's up?"
"I came to ask you to do me a great favor, Ryan, and I wanted to ask you in person."
Ryan's face took on a concerned look, even though her aunt gave no signs of distress. "Whatever it is, my answer is yes," Ryan said, her clear blue eyes reflecting her confidence in her answer.
"It might involve getting dressed up," her aunt cautioned.
"I'd wear an evening gown with a tiara if you asked me to, Aunt Maeve. Now give me the bad news. Where am I going, and how dressed up do I have to be?"
"Well," Maeve smiled, "tradition requires the maid of honor to wear a gown of some sort, but I frankly wouldn't mind if you wore your volleyball uniform. All that matters is that you're at my side when I marry your father, Ryan." She got her entire statement out, but the last few words were a little shaky. Her own watery eyes were soon matched by those of her niece, who went over and sat right next to her, wrapping her in a fond hug.
"Of course I'll do it. Of course." She held her tight for a long while, with Jamie finding herself a little teary even though Maeve had let the cat out of the bag before Ryan had returned. "I'll happily don a dress…I'll even wear heels, Aunt Maeve, and you know how I feel about them."
"Oh, sweetheart, I hate to have you go against your principles," she laughed. "Besides, with heels you'd be so much taller than I, we wouldn't fit in the same photos."
"I have an idea," Jamie piped up. "Ryan, since you don't have anything dressy to wear to the symphony or out to dinner..."
"Yes, I do," Ryan interrupted. "I have that outfit you bought for me in Pebble Beach."
"Honey, that is an unlined silk tank top and pants. You can't wear that in San Francisco in November! It might be fifty degrees out."
"I could wear a coat over it," she suggested. "It's always warm inside, anyway."
Jamie ran through Ryan's inventory and decided that a casual, summer-weight outfit with a motorcycle jacket topping it was really not the type of thing for the wedding. Not wanting to insult her partner, she allowed, "Yes, you could, but it might be just a little too casual, honey. I'd love to buy you a nice dark suit…a pantsuit, of course. You could wear flats with that and look absolutely perfect."
"I just don't think I'd wear it very often," Ryan sulked mildly.
"We'll get you something understated and very simple, honey. You'd be able to wear it for years and years."
"If I say okay, will you not try to get me to buy any more nice clothes for a few years?" she asked. "I'll have two nice outfits then, a winter and a summer."
Jamie wanted to remind her that she wasn't in the military, but decided that Ryan wouldn't appreciate that. "It's a deal. We'll get you something elegant and dark, and I won't bug you to buy anything new until our kids get married."
"Now you're talking!" Ryan beamed, pleased to have won a major concession in the ongoing skirmish.
The ringing phone had chirped five times when Mia pulled herself away from the torrid embrace that Jordan had her wrapped in. "Be right back," she murmured, as she tried to focus enough to find the phone. "Hello?"
"Hi, this is Brendan O'Flaherty. Is Ryan home?"
"Hi, Brendan, it's Mia. I thought they were home, but they didn't pick up. Let me go check." She straightened her shirt and slipped the bra that Jordan had just unhooked through the sleeve. Her smirk was firmly fixed on the long, lean, blonde who relaxed on the bed, trying to look innocent. "I thought
you had to study," she whispered, shaking a finger at her lover.
"I was studying you," she blinked.
Mia shook her head at the playful woman and went into the hall. "Ryan?" she called out. There was no reply, and she walked down the hall and poked her head in her roommates' open door. "Ryan?"
The tall woman was lying on the loveseat, her head on a cushion, her very long legs dangling from the knee over the opposite arm. "Are you thinking?" she asked as she approached, familiar with her roommate's odd habits.
When Ryan didn't reply, she touched her shoulder, still getting no response. A mild shake didn't work either, which puzzled her, since Ryan was notorious for her ability to wake at the smallest noise. It took a rather rough shake, which Mia hated to do, to finally pull Ryan from her sleep. "Hey," Mia said, squatting down so she was at eye level, "your brother Brendan is on the phone. Do you want to talk to him?"
Ryan was blinking so slowly that Mia wasn't sure if she knew what she was saying. She smacked her dry lips together a few times and nodded, mumbling something that Mia couldn't distinguish. Tossing her legs from the furniture she got to her feet, grasping Mia's offered hand for stability. "Tell him I'll be there in a sec," she said as she walked into the bath.
Mia picked up the phone next to the bed and relayed the message, then went into her room to hang up. She spotted Jamie coming up the stairs and crooked a finger, inviting her into her room. "What's up with Ryan?" she asked after hanging up the extension phone.
"I don't know. What is up with her?" Jamie took a seat on the bed, sharing the surface with Jordan, who had taken a book out and was idly looking at it.
"She was nearly unconscious when I went to tell her that her brother was on the phone. I've never seen her sleep that soundly."
Jamie shook her head and said, "She just hasn't let herself recover fully from the flu. I actually called my doctor, just to ask how long it might take for her to be normal again, and she said it might take a month or more-and that's if Ryan was really babying herself. With the way she runs herself down, it'll probably be twice that long."
"She seems fine at practice," Jordan piped up. "And her play in games has been phenomenal."
"Yeah, I agree," Jamie said. "It's like she uses all of her energy to play her sport, and then collapses at the end of the day. I'm sure she's fine, but she could use a lot more sleep."
"Doesn't help that we have our Oregon trip this week," Jordan supplied. "That one's always a bitch because of the travel situation. Lots of time on a bus."
"Are you going, Jamie?" Mia asked.
"Hmm…I thought about it, and I know that Ryan likes it when I go with her, but I honestly think she goes to bed earlier when I'm not there."
"I can vouch for that, Jamie," Jordan agreed. "She normally doesn't even join us for the team meal. She goes right to bed as soon as the game's over."
Jamie nodded. "Well, there's that, too. I make her eat better when I'm with her. Plus, Saturday is her birthday, and I'd really like to be with her at midnight." She looked at her friends and shrugged her shoulders, "Silly, huh?"
"No, sweet," Mia insisted, sharing a smile with Jordan.
"But if I was with her I'm sure she'd sleep less-especially since we'd probably want to see her birthday in with a little celebration." Her eyebrows waggled a little, making Jordan, who had never seen her version of the expression, giggle. "I just wish I could be sure she'd eat right. Then I wouldn't worry about her."
"Make you a deal," Jordan suggested. "If you don't want to come, I'll go back to the room with her and make sure she eats something before she goes to bed."
"Would you really do that?" Jamie asked, smiling at their friend.
"Sure. I care about her, Jamie, and I know that she tends to ignore her body's signals."
"It's a deal," Jamie said. "I'll go to the store right now and buy some granola and some fresh fruit. That's her favorite bedtime snack."
"I'll force-feed her if I have to," Jordan assured her as Jamie left the room.
"You're such a nice person," Mia said, as she brushed the fine blonde hair back from Jordan's face. "Generosity turns me on," she whispered, climbing astride her partner's hips.
"I'll brush her teeth when she finishes her cereal," Jordan teased, smiling gently as Mia pushed her to the bed and gave her a well-deserved reward for her consideration.
"Hi, Bren," Ryan said after splashing some cold water on her face and giving her teeth a quick brush.
"Am I bothering you, Sis?"
"No, I just fell asleep studying. You saved me from getting a horrible crick in my neck."
"You sure? I can call back another time. This isn't vital."
"I'm sure, Brendan, now what's up?"
"I wanted to talk to you about Maggie," he said, with just a note of hesitation in his voice.
"Sure. Is everything okay?"
"Oh yeah. Everything's great. That's part of the reason that I think I need to make some decisions. It's only going to get harder from this point on."
"I was tracking you until the everything's great part," she said. "Then you lost me."
He sighed and said, "I'm a little frazzled, to tell you the truth. I feel like we're really getting close, Ryan, closer than we were in law school. If this continues, I'm going to ask her to marry me."
"That's great, Bren!" she exclaimed. "I think she'd be a great partner for you."
"Yeah, I'm sure she'll fit into the family." He paused for a second and added, "That's not that easy for some people to do, ya know."
"I know. Tracy Stewart would be your sister-in-law if she had loved all of you guys." She frowned at the thought that she could have missed out on the opportunity to love Jamie, and she had to force herself to concentrate on Brendan again.
His next statement shocked her right back into the conversation. "Ryan, do you think Da would have married Mama if he knew she would die young?"
"Brendan! Does Maggie have…cancer?"
"No! Thank God, no!" He shivered from head to toe just to consider the thought. "She's not even sure that she has this, Ryan, but Huntington's disease runs in her family. Her father has it now-he's in very bad shape."
"Oh, Brendan, that's so sad," she empathized. She knew quite a lot about the degenerative brain disease, having studied it in one of her genetics classes. "Has Maggie been tested to see if she carries the gene?"
"No. That's part of the problem, Ryan. I'd like her to get tested-I think it would help her make decisions about childbearing-and if she doesn't have it, I think it would really free her up."
"But she doesn't want to?"
"No. Several of her siblings have been tested, and only her oldest brother has it. She says it's thrown him into a depression that she's afraid he'll never come out of. He broke up with his girlfriend because of it-now he says he'll never marry because he doesn't want to be a burden."
Ryan sighed, letting out a deep breath. "I don't know, Bren. I might feel like Maggie does. When there's no cure…no real treatment…do you really want to know?"
"I can see that, Ryan, but there's a 50-50 chance that she doesn't carry the gene. That seems like it's worth the risk to me."
"That's to you, Bren. Obviously not to her." She paused as she thought for a minute. "How old was her father when he developed symptoms?"
"Not very old. He's been affected most of Maggie's life. He became bedridden just last year." Brendan considered the timing and said, "I think that's one of the reasons she decided to come out here, to tell you the truth. It just kills her to watch him deteriorate. They had to put him in a nursing facility because he's unable to swallow anymore. He has to be watched constantly, and her mom just couldn't do it."
"Wow," Ryan said quietly. "Doesn't her family need her for support?" She knew the question was a little impertinent, but she wanted to know what kind of person Maggie really was.
"Her mom is the one who urged her to go," Brendan revealed. "Maggie was really close with her dad, and when he lost his ability to recog
nize her, she had a very, very tough time of it. In a way, it's hard for her to be away, but in another way, it's easier to not have to be surrounded by it. I think it was the right decision for her-even though she still has her doubts."
"How many other sibs does she have?"
"Oh, she has a full baseball team," he chuckled. "She's the fifth of nine. Her oldest brother and the two youngest aren't married. The rest are-and they all live in the Chicago area. Her mom has a lot of support."
"Wow," Ryan said again, feeling slightly overwhelmed by the information. "This must have ruined them financially."
"Yeah. Her dad was a cop, so he has good medical benefits, and he was able to hang in until he qualified for his pension, but they aren't very well off. Maggie pays for all of her dad's care that insurance doesn't cover. He's in the best facility available-I think she does that as her penance for not being there," he admitted.
"So that brings us back to your original question," Ryan reminded him. "Would Da have married Mama if he knew?"
"Yeah. What do you think, Ryan?"
"I can't answer for him, Bren, but I'd be with Jamie if I knew we didn't even have a year together. If you can walk away from Maggie because of this-you should." She knew that her words were rather harsh, but she wanted Bren to abandon his logical way of thinking and listen to his heart.
The silence carried on a little longer than she was comfortable with, and she was afraid she had deeply offended him, but he finally said, "I can't, Ryan. I won't. I love her-no matter what's in store for us-I love her."
She sniffed away the tears that were forming and said, "I had a feeling you'd say that, Bren. I love you, too."
"Thanks, Ryan," he said softly. "I guess we'll just have to work out the details as time goes on."
"Hey, Bren?" Ryan recalled a detail from an earlier conversation, and wanted to follow up on it. "Did this have anything to do with her previous boyfriend breaking up with her?"
He sighed and admitted. "Yep. It was the whole problem. He wanted to be with her, but he didn't want to have kids together. He refused to even consider adopting. I think he was just scared."
Journeys - SF10 Page 3
