Nineteen Eighty: The Seven, #7

Nineteen Eighty

THE SEVEN BOOK EVEN

SARAH M. CRADIT

Copyright © 2019 Sarah M. Cradit

All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, at Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover Design by Sarah M. Cradit

Editing by Lawrence Editing

First Edition

ISBN: 9781698362427

Publisher Contact:

sarah@sarahmcradit.com

www.sarahmcradit.com

Contents

Preface

Also by Sarah M. Cradit

The Seven in 1980

Spring 1980

Prologue: Irish Colleen and the Seven

1. Comfortably Numb

2. Ready or Not

3. You

4. In Our Own Way

5. Four Daughters

Summer 1980

6. Dreams

7. The Accident

8. Dust in the Wind

9. Goodbye Blue Sky

10. Love Will Tear Us Apart

Fall 1980

11. Just What I Needed

12. Unfinished Business

13. Everything, Eventually

14. Another One Bites the Dust

15. Never Going Back Again

Winter 1980

16. As It Always Was

17. Second Chances

18. Free Will

19. The Heir

20. So This is Christmas

Epilogue: Irish Colleen and the Seven

Beyond the Seven

Also by Sarah M. Cradit

Crimson & Clover Connections

About the Author

Preface

If you’re here, you’ve made your way through the preceding six books in the series, traversing through the seventies alongside the Deschanel siblings as they stepped into the people they’d become.

1980 is the end of the road. When I mapped this series out, carefully deciding which years mattered most, I kept coming back to 1980 as the natural end point for these particular stories. Not only the bookend of the decade in which the series began, but a pivot point for the world. For culture and music, for politics and belief systems. It was also the year I was born.

Although the series ends as these pages end, these characters lives go on, to varying degrees of happiness and success. At the end of the book, I’ve included a section titled Beyond The Seven, where, if you so choose, you can read about some of these experiences in what I consider the bridge period between this series and the next chronological one, The House of Crimson & Clover, which begins almost three decades later. At some point, I may explore these intervening years, but as of this publication, there still exists a quiet gap between the seventies and the aughts, at least where the Deschanels are concerned.

I hope you find the conclusion to this series satisfying, and if it leaves you wanting more, I’ve left some natural navigation points for you at the end.

Thank you for taking this journey with Charles, Augustus, Colleen, Madeline, Evangeline, Maureen, and Elizabeth.

Also by Sarah M. Cradit

KINGDOM OF THE WHITE SEA

Kingdom of the White Sea Trilogy

The Kingless Crown

The Broken Realm

The Hidden Kingdom

The Book of All Things

The Raven and the Rush

The Sylvan and the Sand

The Altruist and the Assassin

The Melody and the Master

The Claw and the Crowned

THE SAGA OF CRIMSON & CLOVER

The House of Crimson and Clover Series

The Storm and the Darkness

Shattered

The Illusions of Eventide

Bound

Midnight Dynasty

Asunder

Empire of Shadows

Myths of Midwinter

The Hinterland Veil

The Secrets Amongst the Cypress

Within the Garden of Twilight

House of Dusk, House of Dawn

Midnight Dynasty Series

A Tempest of Discovery

A Storm of Revelations

A Torrent of Deceit

The Seven Series

1970

1972

1973

1974

1975

1976

1980

Vampires of the Merovingi Series

The Island

and more

The Dusk Trilogy

St. Charles at Dusk: The Story of Oz and Adrienne

Flourish: The Story of Anne Fontaine

Banshee: The Story of Giselle Deschanel

Crimson & Clover Stories

Surrender: The Story of Oz and Ana

Shame: The Story of Jonathan St. Andrews

Fire & Ice: The Story of Remy & Fleur

Dark Blessing: The Landry Triplets

Pandora's Box: The Story of Jasper & Pandora

The Menagerie: Oriana’s Den of Iniquities

A Band of Heather: The Story of Colleen and Noah

The Ephemeral: The Story of Autumn & Gabriel

Bayou’s Edge: The Landry Triplets

For more information, and exciting bonus material, visit www.sarahmcradit.com

The Seven in 1980

Children of

August Deschanel (deceased) &

Colleen Irish Colleen Brady

Charles August Deschanel, Aged 30

Augustus Charles Deschanel, Aged 29

Colleen Amelia Deschanel, Aged 28

Madeline Colleen Deschanel, Deceased

Evangeline Julianne Deschanel, Aged 26

Maureen Amelia Deschanel, Aged 24

Elizabeth Jeanne Deschanel, Aged 22

For Lizzy

SPRING 1980

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA

VACHERIE, LOUISIANA

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

Prologue: Irish Colleen and the Seven

Colleen Deschanel, known as Irish Colleen to her family and friends, walked past the faces of her seven children and nine grandchildren, as she did every night of her life. There were more grandchildren on the way, and she sensed the next decade would bring even more. If Irish Colleen had whispered hope back into the Deschanel family with her blessed fertility, then her children had delivered the long, comfortable exhale of relief.

She no longer felt like the young mother who’d been challenged with the upbringing of unusual children. All her babies were grown, and no longer needed her, if they ever truly had. Irish Colleen, only two birthdays from her fiftieth, wondered where the years had gone. Not because her life had not been filled with memories worth making, but because she couldn’t recall exactly when she’d begun to feel old.

Forty-eight, going on eighty.

Irish Colleen had hardly been more than a girl when she married a man who was already looking down the barrel of his own twilight, giving him that which he both needed and wanted most: heirs. Seven who lived to maturity, but more pregnancies than she liked to recall now, when it no longer mattered. She’d brought the promise of a future back to the Deschanels at a time when the hope had all but winked out, and for that, she was a hero among them, but that didn’t make her one of them. She would always be Irish Colleen, never just Colleen. Always the help August married, and never August’s wife. She’d stumbled, faltered, many times along the way, but by the grace of God, she’d reared the children he so desperately needed, and now they were each living their own lives, most rearing their own babes.

Charles was thirty now and about to become father to his fifth child. The last four, all girls, all of what he’d wanted most. Irish Colleen believed he loved Nicolas, but Charles had always been driven more by his passions than his loves, and his need of daughters, as she saw it, came from a well that had two pockets. They reminded him of his own perceived failures as an older brother to five sisters, and also of the daughter he would never know, because Irish Colleen had seen to it that his dalliance with a teenager didn’t ruin his life. She’d never know if that decision had been the right one, but she was certain he’d have none of these babies if the first had lived.

If she had one regret, it was forcing him into a marriage with Cordelia. His misery traveled the only way it could when it rolled off his icy wife, toward his son. And while Irish Colleen had offered, many times, to raise Nicolas herself… to give him the nurturing he deserved, and that, perhaps, she hadn’t given enough of to Charles… while she’d made this offer in earnest, he’d refused it in equal seriousness. Nicolas was his son, and the sooner he learned to harden himself, the more capable he’d be of existing in an unfair world.

She wanted to ask Charles, her spoiled, tempestuous baby, what he could know of an unfair world, born with gold spoons hanging from his pouty lips, but she understood that he’d seen his own share of pain. Some invited, some not.

Augustus thrived as a father. As time went on, he learned to wade in deeper waters, to take more risks. To let Ana fall and scrape her knees, and sting herself on the beautiful roses in his garden. She was a lovely child, full of life, but also so much like her father. Quiet, introspective. But Elizabeth couldn’t help him forever. She had her own life to lead, and Augustus’ careful balance of work and fatherhood hinged on the constancy of her presence over the past five years.

Irish Colleen had an idea of how she could help her son, but he would need to come to her first. There was a question only he could ask. He’d never appreciated, or followed, unsolicited advice.

And he would. Come to her. This she knew, in her own unique form of magic known as mother’s intuition.

Unlike Charles, who seemed thrilled by the idea that his mistress might continue to produce child after child to please him, Augustus insisted one was all he’d ever want. Charles’ quest for joy and perfection was never-ending. In Ana, Augustus had found his absolution alongside his happiness.

Colleen had, more and more, been talking about moving back to New Orleans. Her little family unit, now five strong, had thrived in the damp lowlands of Scotland, but the frequent travel home to oversee the Deschanel Magi Collective was taxing, and Amelia would be going into pre-school soon. Noah was preparing to defend his doctoral thesis, and Colleen had a decision to make, about where she’d pursue hers.

While Irish Colleen had been eager to see her namesake run off into the world to find herself, as a woman separate of the family she seemed determined to live and die for, she was just as eager to have her coming back home now. Home, where she could love on her grandbabies, Amelia, Benjamin, and little Ashley. Where, perhaps, she could even have tea with her daughter, woman to woman, and enjoy their relationship in a way age and circumstances had never previously allowed.

Evangeline, in her typical fashion, had quietly finished her graduate program, and just as quietly decided not to return home. She said she was entertaining job offers, but hadn’t landed on one, and had nothing pushing her to do so with expediency. Over the years, Irish Colleen had learned to interpret her daughter’s calm lack of enthusiasm for something other than apathy, but it didn’t mean she understood it. It didn’t mean she understood Evangeline, her only child who had not met someone to settle down with. At twenty-six, she seemed in no hurry to do so, despite that her best childbearing years were behind and not ahead.

She’d brought that woman home last Christmas. Cassie. Irish Colleen knew Cassie was just a friend, but she also knew there were other women that Evangeline had dated and even loved. This flew in the face of what Irish Colleen believed to be right and true, but she was less concerned with the sin and more with the possibility Evangeline might never carry her unusual way with the world down to others.

Irish Colleen had spent years not understanding Evangeline, but only now was she beginning to accept that she didn’t need to. She wanted only to be a part of her child’s life, not to mandate the path.

Maureen was finally pregnant with her second child, but that didn’t warm Irish Colleen’s heart. Not at all. To the opposite, Irish Colleen was quite sure her daughter hadn’t renewed her husband’s interest in the marital bed, so it could only mean one thing.

There’d been rumors, of course, over the years. She’d heard the name LaViolette bandied about, but never more than a whisper, and Edouard, despite his many faults, had been a good father to Olivia, who had just celebrated her sixth birthday and was every bit the ball of fire her mother had been at that age. He doted on her, even if he neglected her mother. And to hear him talk about the coming child, one would never know it wasn’t his.

But he knew. Everyone knew.

Irish Colleen began her descent down the stairs of Magnolia Grace. They’d had Olivia’s party there earlier, and she decided to stay the night. She told Augustus she’d take Anasofiya to Montessori in the morning.

Nana?

At the top of the stairs, Irish Colleen saw a shock of red hair running rampant around a pale face. What are you still doing up, sweetheart? You have school tomorrow.

What are you still doing up, Nana?

I’m old, and old people sometimes forget to go to bed.

Ana scrunched her face. "You’re not that old. You don’t have wrinkly wrinkles, or… or…"

Irish Colleen didn’t have the slightest idea where her granddaughter was going with this, so instead she swept Ana into her arms and peppered her cheeks with kisses, set to the sweet sound of the little one’s giggles. She was tall for her age, but otherwise reminded Irish Colleen of her deceased mother, Ekatherina. Lean. Beautiful. Haunted.

Yet, she also looked like her great-grandmother, a woman she’d never know. Irish Colleen’s mother, Enid, who was long gone, but now lived on behind the eyes of a smiling child who was four and a half, going on forty.

Want me to read you a story?

Ana shook her head. I can read my own stories now.

Oh! Irish Colleen pretended to be surprised. Can you now? You’re such a big girl. My apologies.

Ana shrugged against her chest, yawning. It’s okay.

I’m going to take you back to bed. Is that all right?

I suppose.

You sure you don’t want me to read to you? Irish Colleen asked as she settled Ana back under the pile of plush covers.

Ana’s soft face spread into a grin. Okay, Nana, maybe just one. She rolled her eyes to the ceiling, thinking. Across the room, Augustus had set up a bookshelf with hundreds of books, and Ana knew every last one by heart. The one about the cow who can drive, but is really bad at it and runs over everything.

Irish Colleen laughed. Not so unlike your nana!

Thirty minutes later, Irish Colleen, exhausted but contented, left her granddaughter’s room. She passed by Augustus’, but his door was closed and his soft snores carried into the hall. Farther down was the room Elizabeth and Connor shared on the nights they still stayed at Magnolia Grace, but Connor had gone home to feed their puppy, Atticus.

Elizabeth wasn’t in her room, though. She stood at the end of the hall, looking out the big circular stained glass window that often reminded Irish Colleen of a Catherine wheel.

Lizzy?

Mama, she replied without turning.

What are you doing?

Thinking.

About? Irish Colleen approached carefully. A damp chill passed through her as she recalled that it was about the right time of year for their annual tradition. The one that invariably drove a deeper wedge between them, but also, somehow, drew them closer together. Silent conspirators in a dangerous game.

The usual, she replied, in the voice of a woman. She was almost twenty-two, and had she gone to college with Connor, she’d be receiving her degree this spring.

Anything you want to share?

Irish Colleen winced, expecting a dose of Elizabeth’s cutting sarcasm as she whipped around to deliver it. Instead, she turned and smiled. There was little joy in the gesture, but there wasn’t as much pain as she was used to seeing, either. Connor wants us to pick a date. He has his heart set on a big wedding.

You don’t. It wasn’t a question.

Elizabeth shook her head. She leaned back on the small desk nestled in the nook below the window. "I wish I could wave a magic wand and have it be done. For all our magic, this would actually be useful…"

Lizzy. Irish Colleen chose her words carefully. You know I’d love to see you in a beautiful gown, surrounded by your favorite flowers, and all our loved ones, and—

Mama—

But more than that, I wish for your happiness. Why not go before the judge?

Elizabeth’s smile faded from surprise. You’d disown me.

I suggested it, didn’t I?

Connor has a big Catholic family, too. They have expectations.

Heavens, dear, are you marrying Connor or are you marrying five hundred Sullivans?

Elizabeth dropped her gaze to the floor with a small laugh. Her dark blond hair fell around her bony shoulders. She’d lost more weight than Irish Colleen was comfortable with, and the effect made her seem taller, older.

Ten years ago, perhaps on this very day, you told me one of the seven would die, Irish Colleen ventured. Her voice hitched. In those ten years, so much has changed. You’ve changed.

So have you, Elizabeth replied.

Yes, Irish Colleen answered. I have. We all have. And we’ve had good and bad years in between, but I never want another one like 1970, Lizzy. If that means you never tell me again what you’ve seen…

Elizabeth tucked her hair behind one ear. You won’t lose a child this year, Mama. Not that I’ve seen.

Irish Colleen nearly sagged from the relief of this, and until Elizabeth said the words, she hadn’t realized her own had been a question.

But the relief was short-lived, for she could never turn back time to a point where she hadn’t overheard sweet Elizabeth tell her sister Colleen that she, Lizzy, would die young. She’d not said when, or how, but that fear would linger over Irish Colleen for the rest of her days, whatever God saw fit to give her. The fear, also, that she might not live to try and prevent it.

Elizabeth did something surprising then. She leaned in to embrace her mother.