Love at Last by Kate Sweeney

Author:Kate Sweeney [Kate Sweeney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Lesbian
ISBN: 9781935216322
Google: s_83YgEACAAJ
Amazon: 1935216325
Publisher: Bella Distribution
Published: 2011-10-18T02:53:06+00:00

Chapter 13

The next day was Christmas. Toni stood by her window looking out at the cold Christmas Eve night and drank her coffee.

Kevin and Lidia were at Mass, then they’d go visit Lidia’s family the next day. Earlier, they all had dinner, which Lidia made, thank God. They laughed and played Christmas music as they opened presents, and Toni once again had that feeling of belonging, of family. She called Matt and Fran and wished them a Merry Christmas and talked for a while, trying to hold on to that feeling.

Now Toni stood in her living room and snuggled around her the new sweater that Kevin and Lidia had given her. She had that restless feeling again; she felt it creeping up on her. She needed to be alone, needed her solitude. This was the feeling she had after her father took out after her in a drunken tirade. As soon as that image came, she quickly dismissed it.

Instead of dwelling on the past, Toni smiled at the thought of Kevin and Lidia finding each other. Kevin Murphy was a good man. She remembered how good he was to her when she was a young girl. Once her father would pass out and Toni saw that everyone was safe, Kevin would come and sit with her mother and the young ones. It was those times when Toni felt restless and closed in, but Kevin would always find her at the coffee house and take care of her. He let her have her time to gather herself, then take her home. Yes, Kevin was a good man. And when she was younger, Toni sometimes wished her father would die so Kevin could marry her mother. It almost happened.

When her father fell from that scaffold, Toni felt a relief she never thought possible. The guilt from this followed for a time, but she was a grown woman by then, and the guilt faded quickly. She was relieved—relieved mostly for her mother who suffered all her life and stayed with a drunk and lived her life as that poet Thoreau said, in quiet desperation.

But Mrs. O’Hara loved her children. Of that, there was no doubt. Toni and the younger ones always felt loved and cared for by their mother, no matter what their father did. She had a maternal instinct that surpassed all her heartache, all her sorrow.

Instantly, Toni thought of Alana and smiled. She took a deep breath and sat by the open fire and watched the flames flicker in the darkness of her living room. Alana, she thought. She loved her children, as well. Lived her life for them and nurtured them, watched them grow into happy, healthy young adults.

She was still smiling when the phone rang. “Hello?”

“Toni, Merry Christmas,” Alana’s happy voice called out through the line.

Toni grinned widely and sat back. “Merry Christmas, Alana.” She heard the Christmas music in the background and the voices of Nick and Jocelyn.

“Now you’re sure you’re busy with family tomorrow?”

“Yep. Between Kevin and Lidia and…everyone, I’m lucky to be home at all tomorrow.

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