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brown? By the holy blood of Saint Patrick, to think that I’d live to see the day when the child of my own sainted niece would foreswear her heritage! ’Tis Irish you are, lass. ’Tis in your blood, and no good denyin’ it. Just as it’s no good denyin’ he’s an Englishman at heart—and a wicked, cruel, lyin’ heart it is. Blackguards and seducers, the lot of them. If you’d find yourself a good Irish lad—”
    “It doesn’t matter who Trent’s descended from,” Kathleen said. “It’s the person that counts.”
    Thank you,
Briddey thought.
    “And he’s really hot,” Kathleen went on. “Plus, I love his car.
I’d
go out with him.” Which wasn’t exactly an endorsement given Kathleen’s track record with men.
    Mary Clare immediately pointed that out and added, “I just don’t understand the attraction to a man who insists on brain surgery as some kind of prenuptial. What
is
it you see in him, Briddey?”
    Well, for one thing,
she thought angrily,
he’s an only child, and
his
family never barges in without asking. Or blathers on about a country they’ve never been to. They believe people should mind their own business. And for another, his apartment has electronic locks and a doorman, and after we get engaged, I’ll be able to move in with him and finally have a little privacy. You won’t be able to come bursting in every time you feel like it and tell me what to do.
    But she couldn’t say that—Aunt Oona would have a stroke. And she obviously couldn’t tell them part of the reason she was in love with Trent was that he
wasn’t
Irish.
    He was the exact opposite of the scruffy, ragtag, irresponsible louts Kathleen dated and the past-their-prime, family-ridden “lads” Aunt Oona tried to set her up with—and the exact opposite of the jerks she’d gone out with before. He was neat and well dressed and gainfully employed, and he paid her compliments, took her nice places, sent her flowers. And didn’t sext other people.
    Is it so wrong to want a boyfriend who doesn’t leave you stranded at a convenience store in the middle of the night?
she thought.
And a life where people call before they come over and don’t constantly show up, uninvited, at your office?
    But she couldn’t tell them that either—and even if she tried, no one would hear her. Mary Clare was busy ordering Maeve to turn off her smartphone, Kathleen was saying, “Trent reminds me of someone, but I can’t think who,” and Aunt Oona was relating a premonition she’d had about Briddey having the EED.
    You’re always having premonitions,
Briddey thought, annoyed,
and they’re just as authentic as that brogue of yours.
As far as Briddey could see, Aunt Oona’s psychic ability, which she called “the Sight” and claimed ran in the family, was limited to predicting that Kathleen’s boyfriends were “chancers and cheats,” which was a safe bet, and that the phone was about to ring. “Mary Clare’s goin’ to call,” she’d announce dramatically. “ ’Tis a feeling I have in my bones. It’s worried about Maeve she is.”
    Since Mary Clare was
always
worried about Maeve and called Aunt Oona at least twenty times a day to discuss her fears, this was hardly a feat requiring psychic powers. And the rest of the time her premonitions and “sensings” and feelings of impending doom were dead wrong. Including now. “ ’Tis a bad feelin’ I have about your having this DED, mavourneen,” she said.
    “
E
ED,” Maeve corrected her without looking up from her phone. “ ‘DED’ is when you’re so happy it kills you. Can we
go
now? I’m really hungry.”
    “Of course you are, childeen,” Aunt Oona said. “ ’Tis well past time for tea,” and she suggested they go down to the cafeteria for a “wee bit of nourishment,” which would mean continuing their debate in full earshot of half of Commspan. And Briddey could imagine what Suki and the grapevine would do with that, so she agreed to go to