The Parting Glass

“So you’re doing all this for him.” Casey got to her feet and started toward the closet to get her own dress. “Congratulations. That makes you a martyr. The church reserves a special place in heaven for people like you.”

Megan waited silently as her sister shed her shorts and T-shirt and slid into a slip and panty hose. Then Casey slid her matron-of-honor dress over her head and presented her back. “Zip this, will you?”

Megan did. The fiery copper-colored silk almost matched Casey’s hair, normally a long mass of curls but today tamed in an intricate French braid woven with silk baby’s breath.

The three Donaghue sisters shared red in their hair, but there was little else that physically tied them together. Peggy, with her oval face and dark amber eyes, was beautiful by anybody’s standards. She had softer features than her sisters and a womanly body that had ripened even further during her pregnancy.

Casey was more interesting than pretty, but she made full use of her irregular features, bright hair and angular model’s body by choosing dramatic, quirky clothing and makeup. Casey always made a splash.

Then there was Megan. Sensible, cut-the-fuss Megan who felt perfectly at home in khakis and an emerald-green polo shirt running the family saloon. Today she felt like a little girl playing dress-up. A particularly awkward little girl.

“Here’s the problem,” Megan said. “I’m not doing this just for Nick. I believe in marriage, too. At least theoretically.”

“When we were growing up you didn’t see too many happy marriages up close. You were too busy raising us to pay much attention.”

“Mom and Rooney were happy at times.”

“Well, sure, when he wasn’t hallucinating. Then Mom died, and Rooney flipped his wig altogether and took off for parts unknown. And you were left to carry on.”

“There are plenty of happy marriages in the family. Look at Aunt Deirdre and Uncle Frank.”

Casey went to the dresser mirror to check her makeup. “You were too busy protecting your turf to pay much attention, Megan.”

Megan supposed Casey was right. Their father, Rooney, had abandoned the family when Megan was only fourteen. She had spent the next years trying to do everything a teenager could to keep the family saloon in operation and her sisters together. And she had been scarred by her father’s desertion. At first Niccolo had paid the price.

“I know I was affected by those early years,” Megan said. “But I’m over the worst of that. Now I’m a big girl. I understand why Rooney left. I’m just glad to have him back—more or less back, anyway. I know he did the best he could.”

Casey faced her. “If everybody without mental illness tried as hard as Rooney does, the world would be a pretty spectacular place.”

“It’s not seeing enough good marriages that scares me. It’s seeing one. Yours,” Megan said bluntly. “Lately, that’s what worries me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You and Jon. I don’t know how you do it. The two of you are happier together than you ever were apart. You make it look effortless.”

“Jon and I were friends in high school.” Casey tugged one shoulder of Megan’s dress lower, then slapped her sister’s hand when she tried to pull it back up. “But what does that have to do with you? You love Nick. You like Nick. What’s the problem? You have what you need, don’t you?”

“You make it look easy, and it’s not. I don’t know how to just fall into marriage the way you and Jon did. Nothing’s ever easy for me, Case. I don’t know about easy. I don’t think Nick does, either.”

“Everybody has to work at being married. Maybe Jon and I make it look easy, but I can tell you there’ve been a few great fights.” Casey’s eyes shone. “And some great make-up sex.”

“What if I give it my all and it turns out I’m not good enough?” Megan turned. “You do marriage counseling sometimes, right?”

Casey, who was the brand-new director of a charitable organization that delivered social services to West Side residents, shrugged. “It’s not my field of expertise.”

“Is this anxiety natural?” Megan bit her lip, then remembered she was wearing lipstick. “For two cents I’d bolt for the door and just keep going.”

“And what if you did? What’s waiting out there that’s so tempting?”

“I don’t want to fail.”

“What would happen if you did?”

Megan considered, but not for long. “I’d die. I can’t screw this up. If I get married, I want it to last. And what if I can’t figure out how to make that happen?”

Casey crossed the room and rested her hands on her sister’s shoulders. “Megan, you don’t have to carry the weight alone. Remember? There are two of you, and I’ve never known two more capable people. You’ll be a roaring success. Someday you’ll be kicking yourself for telling me all this.”

Footsteps sounded in the hallway, and the door burst open.

“Oh, Megan, you look gorgeous!” Peggy flung herself through the doorway. “Spectacular. Oh, I’m going to cry.”

“You’d better not. Don’t you dare.”

“I’ve got to get dressed.” Peggy headed for the closet. “I had to give the baby-sitter instructions, so I’m late. I didn’t have time to get my hair done, and in this wind it wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. But if I pull the top part back and fasten the fancy combs I bought in it, I’ll pass. Besides, everybody’s going to be looking at Megan.”

“Oh, God, I’m getting married.” Megan’s hands flew to her cheeks. “Look, one of you do it instead, okay?”

Peggy pulled her dress from Casey’s closet. It was the same simple design as Casey’s, but in forest green. “I’ll gladly marry Nick. Think he’ll notice the difference?” She slipped off her T-shirt and let the dress slither over her arms and bodice. “I’ll just tell him you changed your mind. He won’t care.”

“Or I could do it,” Casey said. “Then he and Jon can duel for nights in my bed.”

Megan thought if she took one more deep breath she would hyperventilate. “I’ll live through this, right?”

“If you don’t, the Plain Dealer will have one whopping story.” Peggy presented herself to Casey to be zipped. “Any word from Rooney?” she asked Megan.

Understanding and accepting her father’s illness had taken Megan a long time. At some point in the two years since he had returned to his family, she had thrown away the need for an easy diagnosis and settled for the fact that Rooney was not like other men. He had battled hard for sanity, but the years and a dependence on alcohol had taken a permanent toll.

Still, Rooney was no longer homeless, as he had been since Megan’s adolescence. Every night he returned to eat dinner and sleep at Niccolo’s house in Ohio City, a West Side Cleveland neighborhood. He no longer drank, and he took medication that helped him think more clearly. He was sometimes confused, but rarely confused about who his daughters were. He had missed a large chunk of their lives, but he was learning to know them again on his own terms.

“I reminded him about the wedding this morning,” Megan said. “He was up early.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing that made much sense, but he didn’t seem surprised, like maybe he’d remembered already. Will he get there, do you think?”

“He knows where St. Brigid’s is,” Peggy said. “He can find his way anywhere.”

“Megan, let it be enough that he remembered, okay?” Casey said. “He remembers you. This morning he remembered you were getting married. He wants to be there, even if he doesn’t quite make it. A year ago, when I married Jon, he had trouble remembering my name.”

Megan knew that if they searched for and found their father, corralled him and herded him into a car, he would panic. She considered, instead, the one thing she could control. “There’s still time for me to head for Botswana or the Canary Islands. I don’t care which.”

Peggy joined her, leaning down to kiss her sister on the cheek. She stepped back and wiped away a faint smudge of lipstick. “How about the church, instead? You don’t have a passport.”

“Yes, I do. I made sure of it.”

“You don’t have a ticket.”

“There must be planes to Botswana every hour on the hour.”