Cavanaugh Reunion by Marie Ferrarella Page A

You, too, Rose.”
    Rose dropped onto the counter stool beside her husband. “I think I’d better. Is this where you tell me I’m married to someone who’s descended from the Romanovs?” she asked, clearly trying very hard to lighten the somber mood that was encompassing them.
    Maybe he should have done this years ago, after their parents were both gone. But he’d always felt it wasn’t his secret to share. And he’d been so young when it was all going down. There were times he had almost talked himself into believing it had all been just a dream.
    “No, love.” He felt her slip her fingers through his, as if silently offering him her support, no matter what was ahead. God, he loved this woman. “This is where Itell Brian that there were actually four Cavanaugh boys, not three.”
    None of this was making any sense to Brian, and it was only getting murkier. And if this Sean person was supposedly dead, who was it that he had seen walking into the Crystal Penguin on Friday?
    “So where is this Sean?” he asked, struggling with a wave of angry confusion that was totally foreign to him. “Did Mom and Dad decide they could only afford to keep three of us and made us draw straws to see who’d stay and who’d go? And why haven’t I heard anything about this before?”
    Andrew chose his words very carefully. “Because Sean died before he was a year old.” He backtracked a little to give Brian a more concise picture. “He was born between Mike and you.” Andrew closed his eyes, remembering the anguish on his mother’s face. Everything about the day had left an indelible impression on his young mind. “One morning, Mom got up all sunny because Sean had slept through the night for the first time. She went into the nursery to get him and then I heard her start screaming.” As he spoke, it all came back to him in vivid color. “I remember Dad rushing in and then coming out with the baby in his arms, trying desperately to revive him. But it was too late to save him. He was blue. Sean’d died somewhere in the middle of the night.” He felt Rose tighten her grasp on his hand. “They called it crib death back then.”
    “SIDS,” Rose murmured. “Sudden infant death syndrome.”
    Andrew nodded. He noted that Brian still looked confused, and unconvinced.
    “So this is what?” Brian pressed. “Sean’s ghost walking the earth?”
    “No,” Andrew answered patiently. “But when she first brought Sean home from the hospital, I’d see Mom staring at him, shaking her head. Saying that she felt there’d been a mix-up in the hospital. That this baby didn’t feel like her baby.” He took a deep breath. “After Sean died, Dad told me that maybe some inherent, unconscious defense mechanism had made Mom find reasons not to get close to Sean. He said it was as if she’d subconsciously known that Sean wasn’t going to live long.
    “The very thought of losing Sean upset her so much, Dad told everyone at the time, including me, that we weren’t to talk about Sean anymore.” He looked at his youngest brother. “You were born less than a year after that. She went a little overboard and completely doted on you,” he reminded Brian.
    Brian shrugged, trying to lighten the moment for both his brother and himself. “I always thought it was because I was so adorable.”
    Andrew laughed shortly and snorted. “Not damn likely.”
    “So now what?” Rose prodded gently, looking from her husband to her brother-in-law and back again.
    “Now,” Andrew answered, “we go and find out who this guy who looks like me is—”
    “And more important, exactly where and when he was born,” Brian interjected. “That includes the name of the hospital.”
    Rose sighed. Shaking her head, she rose from the stool. “I’ve got a very strong feeling that I’m going tohave to be buying more dishes soon.” She looked at the table in the next room. “Not to mention more chairs.”
    Andrew laughed and gave her a one-arm hug while