Page 65 of Home Free

“What’s her name?” Beth asked Declan when they were done hugging and crying.

“Kathleen Rose Murphy-Walsh.”

Finn fought back tears. Kathleen had been their mother’s name. Another murmur rolled through the family, and Finn was almost positive even Ronan’s eyes were damp.

“Well, I think this calls for a celebration,” Finn’s dad said, reaching into his pocket.

“Dad, they don’t let you smoke in here, not even cigars,” Nick said, looking nervously at his baby daughter.

“Who said anything about cigars?” Thomas Murphy said with a grin. He withdrew a bag of lollipops and started handing them out.

Elise took a pink one and handed Ronan a green one. They tapped them together before popping them in their mouths.

Finn looked at the faces of his family. Something swelled in his chest, something almost too big to be encompassed by the word love, although there was certainly that.

This felt like gratitude, like an understanding with the universe that life still wouldn’t be perfect — and neither would they — but there would always be happiness. There would always be joy, if he was patient enough to look for it.

He’d wrestled with his demons, they all had, but they’d come out the other side together, and looking around at the people he loved most in the world, he knew that was the key.

He’d felt alone all those years on the road, but that had been a lie. His family had been there, waiting for him to take their hand. Having them in his life had meant facing their shared trauma, it had meant being around for the hard stuff, but it turned out that was the only way through to the good stuff.

Elise had been out there too, the universe lining everything up for them to stumble upon each other at just the right time.

She looked up at him. “Happy?”

He lowered his lips to kiss her. “Happy.”

It was too simple a word for how he felt — and also the most perfect word of all. Finn had looked his monster in the eye, had slayed his demons, but he knew they wouldn’t be his last. Life would keep throwing them at him, at all of them.

It was the nature of the beast.

But now he knew that it didn’t just give you demons — it gave you people to stand by your side and fight them too, if only you were willing to ask.

He was.

Epilogue

Elise looked out the window as they approached the airport, excitement and nervousness rising like champagne bubbles in her stomach. She and Finn had said their goodbyes the night before, knowing they planned to leave while it was still dark the next morning, but Julia and Ronan had been up to see them off anyway.

Elise had cried her eyes out saying goodbye to her sister. There had been a time when they hadn’t been close, but the last couple of years had changed that. Julia had been more than her big sister — she’d been Elise’s champion and protector, the one person Elise could count on when she hadn’t had anyone else.

She didn’t know what the future held for her sister, but the truth was, she didn’t know what the future held for any of them. She hadn’t learned to embrace it yet, but she was learning to live with it.

“Ready for this?” Finn asked next to her in the back seat.

Elise looked out the window at the waiting jet and nodded. Ronan had insisted they take the MIS plane to their first destination, even though they didn’t know where that would be. Their indecision meant they’d have to wait while the pilot filed a flight plan, but they were in no hurry.

The car stopped and Finn thanked the driver before getting out. Elise did the same, then met Finn at the trunk where she took her backpack from his hands. It was heavy, but she could handle it.

They approached the plane together and stopped at the bottom of the steps.

“So?” Finn asked. “Where are we going?”

Elise bit her lip and considered the possibilities. She didn’t know where they would go. Wherever it was, it would probably be unfamiliar at first, even a little bit scary.

But she’d survived unfamiliar and scary before, although she hadn’t done it alone.

And that was really the important part. It was okay to be scared, to take healing at her own pace, but there was no badge of honor, no gold star, for suffering alone when there were so many people who loved her and wanted to help her.

She didn’t have to perfect for them. She didn’t have to be fearless. She just had to love them the same way they loved her — unconditionally and in all their messy, complicated glory.

Looking up at Finn, it was a bargain she was happy to strike. They would continue to heal and grow. They would do it together.

She smiled up at him as an idea took hold in her mind.

“Come on,” she said. “I’ll tell you at the top of the stairs where we’re going.”

She took his hand and they started climbing. In the end, it didn’t really matter where they went. All that mattered was that he would be by her side.

And that meant she would be home.