The biggest item, of course, was telling him that she was engaged to Kerry, and his sole response was, “great, when can I meet her and when is the wedding?” He really was an adult.
Kerry was over the moon. Getting a connection with her brother was huge. Suze had finished the call while Kerry was out but waited until she heard Kerry return to come up. As they walked, she sent Annie a text asking her to join her down the block, and Annie jogged down a minute later.
“What’s up?” Annie knew Suzanne’s baby brother but not well because he was really just a baby to her. She was thrilled, too, hearing that he would be coming east, and the three walked back to the house, with Suze taking Mary and Betty aside to fill them in.
The Doyles had no idea what was going on, but they recognized the high spirits the others displayed as they sat down for dinner. The ten chairs made for a tight fit but they managed. Eileen asked Tom to speak, and he was brief and to the point, saying how blessed and thankful he felt being with everyone and that, with a nod to his children (and Jennie) he hoped and believed he spoke for the Doyle clan in doing so, a sentiment to which they readily agreed. And the toast was had and white and dark meat from the carved bird with an assortment of vegetables, including stuffing properly cooked inside the bird, and gravy and cranberries was passed around with a not insignificant amount of wine and the room echoed with happy and increasingly stuffed voices.
Shortly before the plates, some used multiple times, were cleared, Andi stood.
“My father truly spoke for the rest of us. I want to add something. I am so happy today to have met all of you and I hope that over time we can be part of your family—and I realize that the Nelsons and the Neallys are just one, growing family—and that you can be part of ours. And thank you for all of the effort and love that you put into this meal. To the Nelsons and the Neallys,” and Tom and James and Jennie, and Annie, raised their glasses and beat (except for Annie) everyone else in getting up to clear the dishes and begin the process of cleaning the table and the kitchen.
Until Kerry dragged Tom out to sit with “the adults” so she, Suze, and Annie could bump into the others as they all, with tremendous inefficiency, restored the kitchen to its pre-holiday condition.
Chicago
It was raining when the flight landed in Chicago on a Tuesday night unseasonably warm for mid-December. Eileen was attending a two-day national banking conference. It was an annual event she looked forward to, a chance to catch up with colleagues she’d met in prior years. She would be on a morning flight on Friday home. After checking into her hotel and calling Tommy and Kerry, she ordered room service and settled in for the night. She slept well and was ready for the conference to begin at 9:30, in the hotel where she was staying.
The panels and presentations were well handled and went swiftly by and she enjoyed the luncheon each day, finding herself with bankers she knew from prior conferences and some she did not. She felt much more relaxed socially than she ever felt at one of these events. After the final panel of each day, at about 5:30, Eileen joined four or five other attendees for dinner at a nearby restaurant, Italian on Wednesday and a high-end steakhouse on Thursday.
When she thought about it later, Eileen believed it was in response to all that was bubbling away insider her. The flight to O’Hare gave her time to think and to think about how well things had been going for her. Whatever held her back in recent years on a personal level seemed to be gone. Kerry had found someone she loved and who loved her. Even more, things were moving well with Tommy and more generally and since meeting Mary and Betty she felt much more comfortable with other people on social occasions.
But whatever the reason, at the steakhouse, the conference over, when the waiter went around the table taking drinks orders and got to her, with little thought she asked for a gin-and-tonic and when it came she barely gave it a thought when she took the first sip and it tasted so good that she gave no thought to the second sip. Or the third. Or for the rest of the glass. Or for the glasses of red wine she had with dinner.
She recalled little of what else happened. It was a blank when she woke up on Friday morning, feeling a little nauseous. It could have been, she figured, from the richness of the meal as much as from the alcohol; it was no big deal. And she convinced herself of this on the two-hour flight back to LaGuardia, where she took a cab home.
She had the house to herself. It was not yet dark so she walked into town and when she got there she figured a bottle of gin couldn’t hurt and then realizing that she had no tonic she stopped into the market and got a bottle and walked home. She had not thought twice about any of this and she did not think twice as she got a glass, put ice in it, and then added gin and some tonic and knowing that it’d be a while until Kerry was home because she tried to meet Suzanne’s train at 125th Street. Eileen savored her G&T on the sofa in the living room while she browsed on her laptop.
She was so relaxed, recovering from the flight, that she did not think twice about making herself a second G&T and savoring it on the sofa while she browsed her laptop.
The next thing Eileen heard was Kerry’s voice screaming into her phone—to Suzanne she presumed—begging her to come over, that she did not know what to do, that she needed help. Eileen wondered what could be bothering Kerry so much.