But one thing none of them had ever done was have a woman who was not a wife in bed with them under the same roof with their mother.
“I’m thirty-eight years old and I’ve been to war four times,” he said to himself, pacing in his small living room, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. “This is my house and she is a guest. She can disapprove all she wants, work her rosary until she has blisters on her hands, but this is not up to her.”
Okay, then she’ll tell everything, was his next thought. Every little thing about me from the time I was five, every young lady she’d had high hopes for, every indiscretion, my night in jail, my very naked fling with the high-school vice-principal’s daughter… Everything from speeding tickets to romances. Because that’s the way the typical dysfunctional Irish family worked—they bartered in secrets. He could either behave the way his mother expected, which she considered proper and gentlemanly and he considered tight-assed and useless, or he could throw caution to the wind, do things his way, and explain all his mother’s stories to Shelby later. Including the story about Felicia.
It really didn’t make sense for Luke to expect his mother to be a prude. She was obviously much too with it for that. She was a beautiful, statuesque sixty-one-year-old woman who’d been widowed at fifty-three when Luke was only thirty, and remained single and devoted to her military sons. She still had her hair dyed the flaming red of her youth. With some ambivalence, he sometimes wished his mother would find a romantic interest that would take her mind off her boys and their personal lives.
Maureen Riordan was smart, energetic and funny. She was fearless; despite her commitment to her Catholic faith, she had some rebellious ideas. After five sons in ten years, the priest had told her to keep the faith and reject birth control, and she had told him to do something to himself that was never again repeated. But there hadn’t been a sixth child. Getting down to it, she didn’t have that many flaws—just this rigid set of principles she could be coerced into being quiet about if her demands were met. And there was her relentless dissatisfaction with her sons’ inability to marry successfully and bring her grandchildren. That was getting real old.
The boys ranked thusly: Luke, Colin, Aiden, Sean, Patrick. Ages thirty-eight to thirty, down the line. All bachelors. Maureen might be getting a little bewildered and desperate.
As it stood, they had a firm family law that had evolved through bitter fights—no one told embarrassing or family secrets to newcomers without paying, and paying dearly. Frankly, Luke thought the story about his mother standing up to the priest about birth control was hilarious—but she didn’t find it funny. And a trade was a trade. He could keep her quiet by respecting her principles and not telling stories on her. He could keep his mother’s mouth shut by not sleeping with Shelby while she was in town. For five nights.
He was going to have to kill Sean.
“Shelby?” Luke began while she relaxed in his arms in the aftermath of yet another amazing sexual experience. “There’s a complication with Thanksgiving.”
“Hmm?” she asked sleepily.
He took a breath. “My brother Sean is coming. And bringing my mother.”
She lifted her head. “Wonderful,” she said, smiling, lying back down.
“It’s not wonderful,” he said miserably.
She laughed. “What’s the matter, Luke? That’s not bad news. I’d be so happy to meet your mother.”
“Yeah, but… See, she’s a little on the rigid side…”
Shelby laughed again. “Okay. Like Uncle Walt doesn’t get a little stiff? We’ll just set two more places. It could be fun. Stiff Uncle Walt and rigid… What’s your mom’s name?”
“It’s Maureen, but we’re not going to do that. We’re not getting them all together, like one big happy family. You know how I feel about stuff like that. I don’t like setting up those kind of expectations… This isn’t… This can’t be…”
She laughed some more. “Will you please stop being so paranoid? It’s not an engagement party, it’s Thanksgiving. We bring together people who are important to us. You’re also bringing Art—and he certainly doesn’t complicate the whole family thing. My God, Luke. Lighten up.”
“It screws up my head, thinking about getting our families together. Maybe you’ve accepted me the way I am, but I’m not convinced your uncle has. And I know my mother hasn’t.”