Mickey - The View From Here PART TWO - Gallavich

Champagne for my Real Friends...

“So, you’ll be around for a while,” Tammy said, doing her best to be friendly with a forced smile. “That’s great.”

Fiona snickered and set her hands on her hips. “Doubt my brothers share that sentiment. Lip’s avoiding me. I think Ian is, too.” Setting her focus on me, she wondered, “how is he? I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to him yet.”

I turned to literally check on my husband as he chatted with a couple of his brothers by the grill. The corners of my lips turned up when I saw him laugh, then I turned back to Fiona. “He’s doin’ great. He’s got this mental health shit under control. You should be proud of him.”

Fiona’s smile softened into something more genuine before evenly replying, “I am. I’m proud of all of them.”

Franny pawed at my arm for attention, so I picked her up, letting her sit in my arms.

Upon seeing Franny’s bright, freckled face, Fiona added, referring to Debbie, “almost all of them. I’m guessin’ she still hasn’t called?”

I shook my head and spoke to Franny. “That’s okay, though. Right, Fran?”

“Yep!” Franny replied with glee before I set her back down so she could run around, annoying poor Liam because he was a better option than her infant cousin, Fred.

“We got it covered,” I assured Fiona.

“Hey, kids are tough,” Fiona laughed. “Trust me. I know.”

I shrugged. “She’s easy.”

Fiona met this statement with disbelief. “You guys are practically still newlyweds. You should be enjoying marital bliss, not cleaning up after Debbie.”

“We don’t really think of it like that.”

“What’s that?” Fiona inquired about Franny’s letter from school.

“Nothing,” I lied before she snatched the letter from my hand.

“Hmm,” she said, reading before handing it back. “I can deal with this. Done it before.”

“Tammy, Mickey, what the fuck?” Lip scolded us as he marched up to the picnic table he'd scavenged for the backyard. “You said you got this.”

Tammy blew a dismissive raspberry his way, her tongue crudely pointing out. “Yeah, if you give us a minute, we'll set it up. Chill the fuck out.”

Balling his fists, Lip took in a deep breath and managed to relinquish some of his stress-fueled need for control. Throwing up his hands, he backed away from the table. “Fine. Take all the goddamn time you want.”

As he walked by, Fiona attempted a kind, “hey, Lip,” but he paid her no mind.

“It’s not personal,” Tammy assured Fiona about Lip. “The last couple years have been tough. He thought he found a way for all of us to be better off, for everyone to be okay. It just didn’t work out. I think he's just kinda lost right now.”

“Meh,” I said. “He coulda done worse. Most of them are happy.”

She sighed. “Yeah, but Liam didn’t get a fair cut. We wanted to set up a college fund for him, but it only has $200 in it. Lip thinks he failed.”

“Well, he didn’t succeed,” I stated before allotting, “but he didn’t fail either. That fucker got us through that housing shit. Fuck, me and Ian probably wouldn’t be married if he hadn’t handled everything for us after my dad burned our venue down. Nah. Lip didn’t fail, he just overestimated a pleasant outcome. Everyone's happy. Yeah, you guys got a small place. At least its bigger than the caravan you three used to live in. And Debbie ain’t his fault. She made her own decisions and abandoned her daughter. Fuckin' good riddance. She was a shit mom anyways.”

“Hey,” both women snapped at me.

“She was a teen mom,” Tammy defended Debbie. “It’s tough to stay on your feet when you’re in her position.”

I rolled my eyes, drawing Fiona's attention.

Knowingly, she stared into me and asked a pointed question. “How's your kid doin', Mickey? How old is he now? Does he live with you and Ian?”

For a fraction of a second, I imagined my fist crashing into her smug, little face. Turning cold, I nodded to the picnic table and Tammy and I got to work. Once it was set up, Tammy eagerly grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the house, giddy to show me something the same way a child would excitedly show off a new toy. We stopped in the kitchen, where she pulled a large bottle of champagne from the fridge. Showing off the bottle with a flourish, Tammy shared that this brand was her favorite. After fetching two champagne flutes from the cupboard, she popped the bottle and poured two glasses.

Proudly, she lifted her glass to toast.

“You aren’t supposed to drink,” I pointed out, scolding her.

“Well, that, my friend, is what we are toasting to,” Tammy declared with relief. Clinking her glass against mine, she said, “to false alarms. Thank fuck I am not pregnant again!”