William Sr. loved the boys as if they were his own grandchildren, and he was very adamant about paying for my parents to fly in to visit them often. Which was nice for the boys, but it made it hard to come up with what the club was actually up to. Business was good and the talk of expansion became more and more prevalent. After the birth of our third son Charles, Charlie for short after my dad, it became more than talk. Retaliation from the IRA was happening more often than we were buying milk. Aside from Mulligan, we also lost two of our prospects and three members from the Dublin chapter to retaliations.
So a vote was made and it was unanimous that we would be heading to the States as a club. We said our teary goodbyes and a few months later we were packed up and moving to Coker Creek, a sleepy little town in Tennessee. I was happy to be back home, but a part of me would always miss Ireland. My parents and sister were close to us now and they loved being able to spend time with the boys. The club got off to a rocky start, running into a local MC that had already been calling Tennessee home for quite a while. The guys tried their best to smooth things over with the local club, but there always seemed to be some kind of tension.
I watched as all the boys I once knew started growing into men. Men who were leading us into the right direction and making sound decisions and not just off the fly. Jameson and I had dropped the boys off with family and headed to Knox’s cabin when we ran into Butcher and one of the club lays Chloe. She wasn’t my favorite, but I was an adult now and after spending a day wrangling three rowdy boys and their father, I didn’t have the energy to care. But later that night Knox and Rage arrived, both with beautiful women on their arms. I couldn’t help but blush in excitement for Knox and the fact that maybe he’d actually found a girl that would be around for a while.
I had known Knox long enough to know that he wasn’t into the random hook-ups. So when I saw him doting on Ani like he was, I knew that it was the real thing. I smile looking back, watching as Ani came into the room, flustered and blushing. She was the same girl I once was when I first came out of the hotel doors in Ireland and saw Jameson for the first time. Sometimes you just know when something is right. It doesn’t always have to be love, it just has to be right and if it is, love will come later.
We all fight our battles, its part of living in the club life. You have to be strong enough to not let it get you down. If I had given in every time the shit got deep, I wouldn’t be standing where I am right now, surrounded by three beautiful children and a husband who has supported me in ways I could never have imagined. The demons get us all. They aren’t prejudice, they don’t pick and choose, if you’re breathing, you’re fair game. But you have to look inside of you and figure out what kind of person you are. I stand here now, surrounded by my friends and family as one of our own lays in a casket in the next room. I have watched Ani every day for the past week, watching the demons eating away at her. She is carrying a weight on her shoulders that would break any other person. But I see that same fighting spirit in her eyes that are in my own. It’s going to be hard, and there will be times that she wants to give up, but we won’t let her. We will stand united with her as a family and help her through it until the end.
The day I was picked to do a report on Ireland, was the day that changed my life. I met the man I would love until the day I die, became family to people I had never imagined I would be close with, I’ve held the hand of my husband when we thought we would lose our first born child, and laid some good people to rest, but having been through all that I know that there is nothing that this world can put me through that I can’t overcome. When you have good people by your side, people who will always pick you up when you fall down, you can make it through anything. And though these next few months may look dark, I know that if we stick together, we will find the light at the end of the tunnel.
“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life.” – Richard Bach