“Hello, Peggy,” Martin said to the open, empty doorway.
“I swear I’m going to call it off.” Peggy was speaking to no one, to everyone. “I’m going to call off the whole thing—oh, hello!” She’d expected only Rosemary and the girls, but here was a big redhead and another fellow who looked like a smaller version of Martin. “Oops, I’ve barged in,” she said, pulling at the fingers of her gloves; gloves, even in this heat. “I’m so sorry—but you will not believe what it’s like over there. I had to make a getaway!” She tossed her gloves on the table, narrowly avoiding the gravy boat, and flopped into Martin’s chair.
Rosemary shot her a look of concern. “Who else canceled?”
“It’s not that,” Peggy said. “It’s just Mother. And it’s Daddy. I’m not going to waste another minute thinking about it.”
At the sight of Auntie Peggy, Kate started announcing the details of a donnybrook she had witnessed in church that morning: a boy in the pew in front of them had punched his younger brother during the kiss of peace, and the younger boy cried so much that his father had to carry him out of the church. Kate had been telling the story all day—twice already to Michael. Her voice had only one volume, and she was a champion hand-waver. “The Italian,” her grandfather called her.
Francis stood and offered his hand. Peggy looked like she had stepped from the screen of a Hollywood movie—one of those wholesome American exports where the daughters smile and speak their mind and wear shimmery tops that hint at the shapes of their brassieres. Her hair was a long blond swoop that curled up just above her shoulders, and her cheeks were still flushed from her rapid ascent of the stairs.
Martin brought a chair from the kitchen and as he returned to the dining room was struck by how right and comfortable this was: Rosemary and Peggy and Francis gabbing away, the pantomimed introductions with Michael, Peggy rising from her seat to take Michael’s hand between her own, Francis laughing and insisting on a hug rather than a handshake, Kate telling the story—was it the tenth time today?—about the boy in the church, then telling it again, Rosemary leaning over to give the baby another spoonful and the baby smiling a two-tooth smile and sputtering over the soft mashed carrots and the soggy crust of bread from the Italian bakery. This was family, his family. He had been a part of Rosemary’s family for four years, but it had never been a snug fit, and sure, he and Rosemary had their own family inside these walls. But here now were the Dempsey boys brought back together, and here were Rosemary and Kate and Evie. His first family—his original family—getting acquainted with his new family, the one he had made for himself.
Francis tried a man’s patience, but with Rosemary and Peggy for an audience, he showed that he had charm to burn, and if Michael was silent he was still sweet and he really seemed to be making an effort. Perhaps his brain was intact, and that was a good sign. And then Rosemary. She shone. She was the girl he had fallen in love with, full of bright humor and as quick and sharp a talker as any of the boys. Even Peggy, who could be a piece of work, brought a jolt to the room. Francis and Michael were full of smiles whenever she rolled her eyes and flipped her hair and talked in that way where every thought was a chore and a joke rolled into one. Having two women in the room was just the spark the night needed. They had all been a bit too formal; the ratio had been all wrong, and there were still so many questions surrounding the sudden appearance of the Irish relations. But Peggy’s presence made those conversations impossible, and that seemed to put everyone at ease. With her in the mix, the night took on a sudden gabby energy.
Francis loosened his tie, then unbuttoned that ridiculous plaid waistcoat. Before long all of the men were in shirtsleeves, their cuffs rolled to the elbows and their plates doubling as ashtrays until Rosemary said, in a florid, stage-Irish brogue, “What’s wrong with the lot of you, were you raised in a barn?” Martin scooted to the living room and returned with two thick ashtrays, a his-and-hers wedding gift from one of Rosemary’s myriad aunts. The room filled with a sweet blue haze and the champagne kept flowing. The bottle seemed to have no end.
So there was dinner and then dessert—a chocolate cake, in honor of the reunion of the Dempsey brothers—and then tea, and when that was done Rosemary told Kate to say good night to her father and her aunt and her uncles and she scooped up the baby and brought the girls into their bedroom. Martin reached into the cabinet for the bottle of good whiskey. He brought two glasses back to the table and poured a short one for himself and one for Francis, but before he could cap the bottle, Michael claimed Martin’s glass for his own.
Martin started to speak, but Francis cut him off. “Let him have it,” he said. “I can’t see that a glass is going to do him any harm.”
Martin brought another glass from the kitchen, but when he poured his drink Peggy snatched it and raised the glass in a toast to Martin.
Francis cheered her on: “Good for you! That will show the whiskey miser!”
It was something out of the Marx Brothers and on another night it might have been enough to set off Martin’s temper, but everything about this night was moving so nicely and he didn’t want to do anything to wreck it. “You’re devils.” He said it with a smile and rose to get a fourth glass from the cabinet.
When Rosemary returned from the girls’ bedroom, she found Martin, Francis, and Peggy laughing and talking, with the last of the whiskey pooled in the bottom of the bottle.
Michael’s eyes were bright and alive as he tried to imagine the course of the conversation. Without the distraction of voices and laughter, he was able to count how often Francis snuck a look at the nape of Peggy’s neck, at the tightness of her blouse. He saw too how Peggy let her gaze linger a little too long on Francis, how she batted at his arm with her brightly polished nails.