Installment Eighteen

Deborah is in love!

The moment she walked through the restaurant door last night for an evening of quality mother-daughter time I knew something was up.

"You are in love, my darling daughter!" And I am ready to burst with your happiness after so many days of being so gloomy.

"What are you Mom, a witch?"

"Is that any way to talk to your mother?"

"Seriously, Mom, this reminds me of when you knew I had lost my virginity just from looking at me! How do you do that?"

"A mother just knows, sweetheart. Right now, your entire being screams love, from the way you walked in here tonight to the look in your eyes. So, who is he? And please do not tell me you met him on line."

All had thankfully been quiet on the stalking front these last few days. AFG must have finally got laid somewhere else or Brian had really and truly threatened him.

In my self-absorption, I had not been paying attention to the fact that Deborah was busy having a very good life lately from the glow in her face.

The object of her affection was not a Canadian. As she had grown up mostly overseas, I just assumed all along that one day she would introduce us (when there still was an 'us') to the man of her dreams and that he would probably hail from another country.

"His name is Sean O'Sullivan."

Clearly, he did come from away. I gasped, though, when I heard his last name. Thankfully, it was different from that of my own childhood Irish crush.

"With a name like that, I'm assuming he's of Irish descent?"

"He sure is...He has the lilting accent, black hair and blues eyes, and all. Gorgeous! And nice too! I met him a few months ago when I was out having drinks with some friends. I just didn't want to say anything about it yet."

Sean O’Sullivan, it turns out, works at the Irish Embassy in Ottawa on his first overseas assignment.

"Is his family a diplomatic one?"

"They were one up until about ten years ago when Sean's mother unfortunately died. His father didn't take it very well at all. Blamed his own government for not med-evacuating them from their post when she fell ill."

"How terribly sad."

"Turns out it was an aggressive cancer and the delay in treatment probably was not helpful. Unfortunately, Sean's father resigned his post and then abandoned his family in his grief. Sean helped raise his younger sister and hasn't spoken to his father in a very long time."

"It seems the two of you have something in common. You're both global nomads and have absent fathers."

"I never thought about it that way."

"Never mind. Now, tell me more about this Sean O’Sullivan so I can live vicariously through you."

The rest of her life is just beginning. I'm postively bursting at the seams with gratitude to be able to watch it all unfold.

Now if I could just get a grandchild out of this...