The Art of Us

Chapter Twenty-three

Ireland

Ireland rested her head against the car’s seat and closed her eyes as they pulled away from the correctional facility. She hadn’t known what to expect, but the nondescript, boxy building had been a little underwhelming.

And overwhelming.

All at the same time.

“You okay?” Jarrod asked.

She didn’t open her eyes. “Sure. Ten degrees of fabulous.”

What had she expected? Did she expect that her dad would tell her how sorry he was for everything and that he had plans to make a real go of being a family as soon as he got out? He had said sorry. But she didn’t think he was sorry as much as he was bored. Yanking on her heartstrings was a convenient way to find entertainment. Beyond wanting to have someone to keep him busy for a short while, he actually did want to borrow money.

She’d informed him that she would not be coming back to visit once she realized that he was conning her. The decision, once made, was easy to stick to, no matter how many different ways he tried to manipulate her into changing her mind. She wished him well. Told him she wanted nothing for him but peace, light, and love—a phrase she’d heard when the gym teacher had them do yoga at the beginning of class for a few weeks.

Ireland told her dad not to call because she didn’t have the money to pay. She said he could email and she might write back, but that was all he could expect. She didn’t give him a mailing address because she didn’t want him knowing where she was living.

Now that she was back in the car heading home, she felt exhausted.

“We should get you signed up for driving lessons,” Jarrod said. He liked to chitchat while he did things like driving.

“That’s expensive,” Ireland said, still not opening her eyes.

“Not expensive at all. Not compared to not having a license. You’ll need to drive. It’s an important skill.”

Ireland found it difficult to not compare the man next to her driving the car to the man she’d just left at the correctional facility. The man at the facility wanted to take from her. The man next to her wanted to give. It made her sad that Jarrod had been a better father to her in the short period of time that she had lived in his house than her real father had been to her in eighteen years’ worth of life.

She was sad but also grateful. Because she did have Jarrod and Grace and Jade and Mara. Maybe they weren’t her forever family to keep, but they were letting her borrow them for a while. Family on loan was better than no family at all.

“Okay. I agree with you about needing to know how to drive. But I’ll pay for the lessons. I’ll work them off with more hours at the restaurant or chores around the house.”

Jarrod didn’t argue. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t argue later on. He liked to do things for people.

At the house, Mara was waiting for Ireland. She greeted her with a hug. Jade squeezed into the embrace too. Jarrod smiled approvingly at his daughters and then went to start making dinner. “So? How did it go?” Mara asked.

“About like one would expect from a guy in jail for grifting some lady in a love con.”

“So what that means is you had to send him a wire transfer for your entire life savings? But it’s okay because you really love him.”

Ireland laughed. Just when she wasn’t sure laughing was something she could ever do again.

“So I need you to hear me out,” Mara said.

“That doesn’t sound ominous at all.”

Jade nodded her head like Ireland should tread carefully. “Every time she says that to me, I end up having to do her dishes.”

“This isn’t anything like that. In fact, it’s better than that because there are no dishes involved for anybody, including me. Tomorrow is your birthday, right?”

“Right.” Funny that Ireland could forget something like that. Tomorrow she would be a legal adult.

Her dad hadn’t even mentioned it. Granted, she had forgotten as well, so how could she expect him to remember?

“I say we celebrate in style. We’ll go to dinner and have some entertainment and party like rock stars. I’m buying.”

A birthday party. Ireland had never had a birthday party before. Her dad would sometimes buy her a donut to celebrate, and once he’d even put a candle in it, but there hadn’t been any matches, so she’d had to pretend to blow the candle out.

“I love birthdays!” Jade said. “Am I invited to the party?”

“Absolutely. But there are a few stipulations attached to your birthday party, Ireland.”

Well, that wasn’t suspicious at all. “Like what?”

“Like we have to go where I want to go.”

“Suspicious,” Jade said.

“That’s what I was thinking.” Ireland agreed. “Where do you want to go?”

Mara fidgeted with her necklace. “Geppetto’s.”

“Right. And Geppetto’s is the celebrating in style that you were talking about?” Ireland walked away so she could put her bag in her room. She knew a setup when she smelled one. Conversation over.

“I’m buying, so we should totally go where I want to go.”

“Because we shouldn’t let the birthday girl decide where she wants to go for dinner.” Ireland had made it to the stairs and took them two at a time to get to her room.

“Kal came by while you were gone. He’s really sorry, Ireland.”

Ireland turned slowly on the stairs. “I just walked away from one man I can’t trust. I didn’t do it so I could run to the arms of another one.” She continued up the stairs until she reached the top and then headed to her bedroom. But Mara stayed right on her heels. Jade did too.

“You told me you were going there today to forgive your dad.”

“And I do forgive him. That doesn’t mean I’m going to go hang out with him anymore. That was just today. You’re the one who said it was okay to cut toxic people out of your life.” She went into her room and tried to shut the door, but Mara put her foot in before Ireland could get it closed.

Mara bumped the door open the rest of the way with her hip. “It is okay to cut toxic people out of your life. But come on. You know that Kal doesn’t qualify as toxic. He’s just a nice guy with a little bit of a Superman complex. But can you blame him? His name is literally Kal-El. He probably uses kryptonite for deodorant.”

“Superman can’t use kryptonite because it weakens him.” Ireland considered leaving the room, but she knew that Mara would just follow her. So she pulled off her socks and fell onto the bed. Jade sat next to her.

“That doesn’t make any sense. Why does he use it if it weakens him?”

“I know what movies I’m going to make you watch.”

“Whatever. The point is that Kal is a good person. And if you can forgive your dad for abandoning you, but not Kal for breaking a promise, then I’m a little repulsed by you.”

“That’s a little strong, don’t you think?”

“Not strong enough. Just let me take you out for your birthday. Let me celebrate you. Kal will be onstage for the majority of the time, anyway, so it’s not like you’re going to have to really talk to him very much if you don’t want to. In fact, you won’t have to talk to him at all if you don’t want to. I’ll respect that. But if you at least let yourself see him, then maybe you can move into that forgiveness part that you said was so good for you and me.”

“I already told him that I forgave him.”

“You obviously didn’t mean it, or you wouldn’t be so freaky about me taking you to get food on your birthday.”

Ireland huffed. Then she puffed out her cheeks and huffed some more. She was starting to feel like the big bad wolf.

“I like pizza.” Jade’s quiet, innocent voice was the linchpin in Mara’s argument.

“Fine. You win. But if I decide that I’m not happy in that situation and I want to leave, you have to respect me, and we get to leave as soon as I say.”

Mara jumped up and down clapping her hands. “I love it when I win. It’s my favorite.”

Jade gave Ireland a flat look. “You might think she’s joking. But Mara loves to win more than anybody. It’s why she always gets her way.”

“Trust me. I didn’t think she was joking.”

After Mara and Jade vacated her room and left her alone, Ireland wanted to call them back. Loneliness wriggled uncomfortably inside her belly.

“Why am I so unwilling to forgive him?” she asked herself.

A knock came from the bathroom door. “Stop talking to yourself and go to sleep!”

Great. Mara heard her talking to herself. Could Mara always hear her when she was speaking to herself?

“I’m going to have to wire my jaw shut.” She said that out loud too, but she muttered low enough that she was sure Mara couldn’t hear. She frowned. At least, she hoped Mara couldn’t hear.

Mara was right though. She needed to get some sleep. She rolled over and forced her eyes closed.

The next morning, everything in the house was eerily quiet for a Saturday. Usually, Taylor Swift crooned from the bathroom or Mara’s bedroom. And sounds of activity from either Jarrod or Grace interacting with Jade would float up from downstairs.

But nothing.

Maybe it was early?

Ireland checked her phone, but instead of waking up early, she had slept in. It was 9:10.

She got out of bed and put her ear to the Jack and Jill bathroom. No noise at all. Maybe everybody was gone. Ireland gathered the clothing she planned to wear for the day but then rethought her choices. If she was going to see Kal, she wanted to look her very best.

She stared into her closet for longer than she wanted to admit to anyone. “I really need to hit a thrift store with Grace so she can help me find the good stuff.”

She pulled out a top that looked flattering on her even if it was worn out. Then she got a sweater that matched it close enough. She grabbed the pair of jeans that was in the best shape and called it good.

Now armed with her clothing for the day, Ireland opened her bedroom door to go to the bathroom at the end of the hall. And ran right into paper.

The brown paper spanned the entire opening of her doorway. She stepped back. In bright colorful letters was painted Happy Birthday! Ireland recognized the handwriting to be Mara’s. There were balloons and candles and party hats all painted carefully around the words.

Ireland felt a burn at the back of her throat and behind her eyes. She blinked away the tears that were going to fall no matter how much blinking she did. Mara had given her a birthday present.

She didn’t ever want to take it down, but there was the other problem that she needed to go to the bathroom and had to get through that door somehow. Ireland carefully pried away the tape on one end and slid through the opening she created.

When she opened the door to the bathroom, it was full of actual balloons. The bathroom wasn’t very big, so it wouldn’t have been hard to fill it, but there had to have been at least thirty helium balloons floating at the ceiling with their strings hanging down for Ireland to walk through.

On the mirror was written the words You Can Vote! with pictures of ballots and an American flag surrounding the words.

Ireland dropped her clothes to the floor, hurried to take care of her reason for being there, and left the bathroom to go find Mara.

Downstairs, the dining room table was set with colorful party plates and streamers. There was a chafing dish in the middle of the table to keep whatever was inside warm.

A cake sat next to the chafing dish. A real birthday cake. It was tall and round and frosted with aqua blue and white stripes circling its base while pink frosting drizzled down the sides. It was topped with white roses and aqua blue macarons and eighteen candles. Ireland didn’t have to count them all to know that they were there.

The entire Washington family jumped out from behind the decorator wall and yelled, “Surprise!”

Ireland ugly sobbed. Snot bubbles probably hung out of her nose. She didn’t care, which was a good thing because she couldn’t have stopped crying if she’d wanted to.

“You said she was going to love this.” Jade gave Mara a scandalized glance.

“Those are happy tears, baby girl,” Jarrod said.

Grace wrapped Ireland up in a hug. “Happy birthday, sweetheart. When Mara said you guys were going out for dinner, we figured we could do a birthday breakfast instead.”

“This is amazing. I do love it.” She looked at Jade to make sure Jade heard that part. “Thank you.”

Jarrod looked pleased. “Mara did most of it. But I made the cake.”

“And I made the pancakes!” Jade said.

Grace shrugged. “I set the table. Figured there was no reason to be poisoning you on your birthday with my cooking.”

Everyone sat down and ate pancakes together. Then they lit the candles and sang and waited for Ireland to blow the candles out so that they could cheer. Celebrating Ireland. Celebrating family. Celebrating together.

While they were eating the lemon raspberry confection perfection that was Ireland’s birthday cake, Mara left the table and brought in a box with a big bow on it.

“But you’ve already done so much.” Ireland would not let herself start ugly sobbing again. She’d just stopped, for crying out loud!

“Open it!” Jade insisted.

Ireland pulled off the bow and took off the lid so she could peer inside the box. Clothing. Brand-new with tags clothing. The only new item of clothing Ireland had ever owned was a free T-shirt a bank was giving away at the grocery store to try to get people to open accounts.

In the box, there were a new pair of jeans, a tee printed with a giraffe that was wearing sunglasses, a patchwork sweater in shades of blue and green, and two pairs of shoes—one flat and casual and the other heels. “This is so much. I don’t know what to say! Thank you.”

“That’s not all!” Jade said.

Jarrod brought out one more box from under the table. “This is a special one,” he said.

It was overwhelming to have received so much all at once, but Ireland eagerly opened the new box and gasped.

She reached out a hand to touch the delicate, sky-blue, lacy fabric before pulling the dress from the box. Ireland stood and held it up to her. The midi-length dress had a swing skirt that made Ireland want to rock back and forth just to see it swish. “It’s beautiful! Thank you!”

“We wanted to stick to shades of blue to match your incredible eyes,” Grace said with a smile, clearly pleased with her choices and with Ireland’s reactions to the presents.

From there, the day was filled with a casual hanging-out vibe. Jarrod had to run into one of the bakeries because someone was sick, but other than that, it was chill.

Ireland’s insides, on the other hand, felt anything but chill.

When it came time to get ready to go to Geppetto’s, Mara insisted Ireland wear the blue dress, even though it was far too bougie for a pizza place.

Mara did Ireland’s hair, but Ireland put her foot down when it came to the makeup. She wasn’t really a makeup kind of person.

Then they were off.

“And you promise I can leave anytime I want to?” Ireland asked.

“Of course. You’re not a prisoner. This is going to be fun. It’s pizza. And music. And looking at a seriously beautiful boy singing from a stage. What can be bad about that?”

“Only that I’m in a fight with that same beautiful boy.”

Mara pulled into the parking lot. “What does that even mean? In a fight? It’s not like the two of you are actively boxing. Why don’t they ever call it ‘in a silence’?”

“You are so weird.” Ireland took a deep breath, smoothed her hands over the uneven hem of the dress, and said, “Let’s get this over with.”

Mara laughed. “Should I have my feelings hurt that you sound so fatalistic right now?”

They went into Geppetto’s. Kal’s band was already in the middle of a song. It was one of the ones that Asha had written—fun and punchy. The crowd was loving it.

As soon as Ireland entered, Kal’s eyes were on her. He skipped a few words in the song, then picked things up again.

Kal never looked away from her, maintaining eye contact the entire time. When the song was over, Kal gripped the microphone and said into it, “Thank you all for being with us tonight. It’s kind of a special day. It’s a very special birthday for somebody who’s pretty amazing.”

People followed his eyeline to Ireland, and there were a few catcalls and woo-hoo s from the audience. Mara scooted Ireland to the table in the center front of the restaurant. Kal’s eyes stayed on her. She wanted to adjust her clothing or her hair.

He smiled, but it was a sad smile. “So I’m going to tell a little story. I hope you’ll all bear with me. I had a friend a while back, and we drifted apart. She fell into a bad crowd who made bad choices, and I wasn’t there to help her. And then I couldn’t help her because it was too late. Those choices took her life. I told myself I would never stand by and not do something to help when I was able to ever again. It seemed like an easy promise to make to myself.

“But then, in the name of doing the right thing, I broke a promise to someone else and ended up breaking the something special that I had with that someone. I never meant to hurt her. And I’d do anything to fix it. So this song is for her.”

There were a few more catcalls, but then the crowd quieted along with the gentle strum on the guitar.

Kal began to sing.

Through the worst day’s howling winds

You taught me to howl out loud

To stand up on my tripping feet

Stand above the cruelest crowd

I like it when you laugh

I like it when you don’t

I guess I like you ... however you want to ... be—except alone

You are my North Star

I’m anchored to your shore.

You tell me to leave but how can I

Ever sail from your world

When you are everything

Everything. Everything

To me

I asked you to be honest

To share the storms you’ve known

We’ll heal each other’s wounds

In each other, we’ll find home

I like it when you laugh

I like it when you don’t

I’m sayin’ I love you ... however you want to ... be—except alone

You are my North Star

I’m anchored to your shore.

You tell me to leave but how can I

Ever sail from your world

When you are everything

Everything. Everything

To me

Perfectly imperfect me

I’m a wandering soul in tatters.

Stumbling rejection—self-reflection

You’re the only thing that matters.

I like it when you laugh

I like it when you don’t

I’m howlin’ I love you ... however you want to ... be—except alone

You are my North Star

I’m anchored to your shore.

You tell me to leave but how can I

Ever sail from your world

When you are everything

Everything. Everything

To me

The last chords played and the crowd went crazy. “Happy Birthday, Ireland,” Kal said into the mic.

As Kal got down from the stage, the crowd broke out into an impromptu song of “Happy Birthday.” Tears streamed down Ireland’s face, and she briefly thought how glad she was that she hadn’t let Mara put makeup on her.

Kal stood in front of her. “I’m really sorry.”

There was no tell. No facial tic revealing a lie. Kal was truly sorry. It was wrong for her to hold him accountable for all the wrongs and lies of her father. He had his reasons for trying to find help. She had been incredibly shortsighted not to see his point of view. “I’m sorry too.” She then reached up and hugged him tightly. “Thank you for giving me some time to figure it out.”

People in the crowd started a chant of “kiss her, kiss her!”

The tightness that had been in Ireland’s chest had finally gone, and she could see Kal clearly, better than she ever had before. She leaned toward him, pulled by his gravity. She tilted her head up. His eyes dropped down to her mouth before locking onto her gaze.

“Seems a shame to disappoint them on my birthday,” she said.

Kal barked a laugh at her words. “I would never disagree with that.”

Ireland looked up into his beautiful brown eyes and thought how appropriate his lyrics had been. But he was wrong about one thing. She was not his North Star. He was hers.

She tugged lightly on his shirt and pulled him down into a kiss. Not because the crowd wanted her to, but because she wanted to.

The world seemed to melt away until there was nothing but the notes of Kal’s song ringing in her ears and the warmth of his mouth on hers. She could feel his heart beating a steady rhythm under the palm of her hand on his chest. Everything was going to be okay. She was home.