The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

painted with fragrance.
    Nature had decided Midsummer’s Eve would be one of her triumphs.
    All Jude could think as she watched and listened and absorbed was that there was music playing in her living room, bouncing in it. Soaring through it. There were people crowded together in her house, dancing and laughing.
    Nature’s triumph, she thought, was nothing against her own.
    Already more than half of her ham had been devoured.
    No one seemed to show any ill effects because of it. She’d managed a bite or two herself, but for the most part was too excited to do more than nibble, or sip now and then from her glass of wine.
    Couples were dancing in her hallway, in the kitchen, or out in the yard. Others juggled babies or just cozied in for a gossip. She’d tried to play hostess for the first hour, moving from group to group to make certain everyone had a glass or a plate. But no one seemed to need her to do anything in particular. They all helped themselves to the banquet of dishes jammed into the kitchen or set out on theboard stretched across sawhorses that some clever soul had set up in the side yard.
    There were children racing around or tucked onto laps. A baby might fuss for some milk or attention, and both were cheerfully provided. More than half the faces that passed through were strange to her.
    She finally did what she realized she’d never tried at one of her own parties. She sat down and enjoyed it.
    She was jammed up between Mollie and Kathy Duffy, half listening to the conversation and forgetting the slice of cake on a plate in her lap.
    Shawn was playing a fiddle, bright, hot licks that made her wish desperately she knew how to dance. Darcy, radiant in the borrowed red dress, teased out notes on a flute while Aidan pumped music from a small accordion. Every now and again, they switched instruments, or brought out another. Pennywhistles, a bodham drum, a knee harp, slipping from hand to hand without a break in rhythm.
    She liked it best when they added their voices, producing such intricate, intimate harmony it made her heart ache.
    When Aidan sang of young Willie MacBride being forever nineteen, Jude thought of Maude’s lost Johnnie, and didn’t care that she shed tears in public.
    They moved from the heartbreaking to the foot-stomping, never letting the pace flag. Each time Aidan would catch her eye or send her that slow smile, she was as starstruck as a teenager.
    When Brenna settled down at Jude’s feet and rested her head against her mother’s leg, Jude passed her down the plate of cake.
    “He’s a way with him when he’s into his music,” Brenna murmured. “Makes you forget—nearly—he’s a bonehead.”
    “They’re wonderful. They should record. They shouldbe doing this onstage, not in a living room.”
    “Shawn plays for his own pleasure. If ambition came up and knocked him on the head with a hammer, it wouldn’t make a dent.”
    “Not everyone wants to do everything at one time,” Mollie said mildly. But she stroked Brenna’s hair. “Like you and your father.”
    “The more you do, the more gets done.”
    “Ah, you’re Mick through and through. Why aren’t you dancing like your sisters instead of brooding? Lord, girl, you’re O’Toole to the bone.”
    “Oh, I’ve some Logan in me.” Brightening, Brenna leaped up and grabbed her mother’s hand. “Come on, then, Ma, unless you’re feeling too old and feeble.”
    “I can dance you breathless.”
    A cheer went up as Mollie began a quick, complicated series of steps. Other dancers gave way with claps and whistles.
    “Mollie was a champion step dancer in her day,” Kathy told Jude. “And she passed it along to her daughters. They’re a pretty lot, aren’t they?”
    “Yes. Oh, just look at them!”
    One by one, Mollie’s girls joined in until they were three by three facing each other. They were six small women, a mix of the fair-haired and the bright, with hands sassily on hips and legs flying. The faster the music, the faster their feet until Jude was out of breath just from watching.
    It wasn’t just the skill and the dazzle, Jude thought, that caught at her throat with both envy and admiration. It was the connection. Female to female, sister to sister, mother to daughter. The music was just one more bond.
    It wasn’t only legends and myths that made up the traditions of a culture. Aidan had been right, she realized. She couldn’t forget the music when she wrote of Ireland.
    War drums and pub songs,