All the Good Parts

by Loretta Nyhan

  After one quick, apologetic glance in Donal’s direction, Kara answered, “Yes, Your Honor.”

  We exited the courtroom, squinting at the sun as though we barely recognized it.

  “That shouldn’t have got by me,” Kara said. “I’m sorry, Donal. I wish you would have told me about the tax problem.”

  Her mild reprimand seemed insufficient. I wanted to watch my brother-in-law’s eyes bug out of his head while I slowly strangled him with his cheap tie.

  “How in the world could you forget to pay your taxes?” I demanded.

  “I don’t know. I suppose I’ve a lot to be sorry for,” was his response. He’d turned the color of curdled cream. Carly put her arm around his waist as if to hold him up and, to my surprise, didn’t say much of anything at all.

  “Can we go home now?” Donal asked Kara. “I really just want to go home.”

  We didn’t go home right away. Kara asked Carly and Donal for a private meeting, and I stayed with the kids in the car, picking lighthearted songs on the radio, trying to pretend that their little lives hadn’t crashed around their feet. When we returned home, Maura sat in the kitchen, waiting for us.

  “Shit,” she said when she saw Donal’s face.

  “Maura, watch your mouth,” Carly said in warning, but it held no weight. “Family meeting in twenty minutes.”

  Brophy family meetings were taken seriously—no phones, televisions turned to a low hum or off completely, no earphones in the vicinity, and all the kitchen lights were turned on, the bright, almost fluorescent glow making it impossible to fall asleep.

  Maura scowled. Kevin and Patrick kicked each other under the table. Carly’s face was completely void of affect. She stared blankly at Josie, who sat in my lap. Donal looked exactly like he was, a man who was about to get kicked out of the country he’d called home for more than half of his adult life.

  “It’s temporary,” Carly assured them, her face snapping to life. “Kara said Daddy could still mount a defense at the removal hearing. The problem is, the court will make us pay the money we owe on our taxes, and—”

  “We don’t have it,” Donal interrupted, his voice flat.

  Maura screwed up her face. “Removal hearing? They’re going to remove us? Like a stain?”

  Carly glanced at Donal. “Daddy and I have a plan. If we leave of our own accord—”

  “What does that mean?” Kevin said.

  “If we go on our own to Ireland,” she continued, “and work on Daddy’s family farm, then we’ll be able to pay what we owe and come back sooner.”

  “If we don’t?” Maura asked.

  “If we lose at the removal hearing,” Donal said, “we’ll need to wait ten years before we can reapply. And we’ll still owe the tax money.”

  “Kara said her clients always come back,” Carly said, but her voice was weak. She knew it didn’t matter. The going was what mattered. Walking away from the home they’d built together.

  The kids glanced at each other, wide-eyed.

  “Are you kidding me?” Maura cried out. “I finally get a life and you want to rip me away from it?”

  “It’s temporary,” Carly said.

  “How much time are we talking about?” Patrick asked. He looked to Maura, who nodded vigorously in agreement, and at Kevin, whose attention had already wandered to the open window, as if he were desperate for a screen, and any one would do.

  Maura’s lip curled, and I could see Carly mentally prepare herself for the onslaught. “Will it be like a vacation? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Carly remained calm. “Longer than that. Maybe a school year, or two.”

  “This is bullshit,” Maura announced. “I’m not going.”

  Patrick sat straighter. “She’s right. It’s bullshit,” he said, savoring the word. “If she doesn’t have to go, then I’m not going.”

  Donal ignored the curse words. “You’re going.” He put his hand on Carly’s shoulder. “We stay together. Mom and I decided.”

  Maura turned to me. I’d been hiding in the corner, Josie on my lap, an adorable, gurgling shield against any backlash. “I’ll stay with Auntie Lee until you guys get back,” she said, standing as if to shut any argument down. “Perfect solution.”

  I knew I should say something, but I didn’t know what. “It’s not up to, I mean—”

  “Hard to stay with someone you’re not speaking to,” Carly interjected.

  “Hi, Auntie Lee,” Maura said to me before turning back to her mother. “See? I’m talking to her again. Problem solved.”

  “Not going to happen,” Carly countered. “Auntie Lee is coming with us.”

  “You are?” Maura kicked at her chair.

  I froze. Josie reached up and touched my cheek, a gentle, exploratory caress. Could I say goodbye to her? To Maura and Kevin and Patrick? To Carly, who looked as though her entire life depended on my answer? To Donal, whose eyes shone with gratefulness that I’d even consider it?

  “It’s time for Josie’s nap,” I muttered, wrapping the baby’s arm around my neck. “We’ll talk about this later.”

  Upstairs, I lay down on Maura’s twin bed, Josie curled against my side, and closed my eyes to the world.

  “You can’t avoid me in this house,” Carly said, sitting at the end of Maura’s bed.

  “Shush, you’ll wake her.” Josie’s small body felt warm and comforting beside me. I’d fallen asleep just like her, dropping into it hard and fast, and coming back to wakefulness felt like getting out of a warm shower and realizing I’d forgotten a towel.

  “She’s already up, aren’t you, my little elf?” Carly took Josie into her arms, who snuggled into her mother’s embrace. Carly closed her eyes and inhaled the soothing scent of baby. “I have to tell you something,” she said quietly.

  “Have you decided to stay in Chicago?”

  “No, of course not,” Carly said sharply. “Especially not now.”

  “Why not now?”

  Her hand trembled as she rubbed a circle on Josie’s back. “Can I tell you something without you judging me?”

  “Of course,” I said, which, in sister language, meant, I will judge you, but silently.

  Carly took another deep breath. “It was me, okay? I forgot to pay the taxes. Donal put me in charge because he was worried about doing a bad job.”

  I said something in the proximity of “Oh.” A squeak to acknowledge I’d heard what she said, but I had no response to my sister actually fucking up. The tiny part of my brain housing bitterness and unresolved anger piped up, but I shoved it back into place when she continued, unshed tears rasping her voice.

  “We probably wouldn’t have to worry about this at all if I hadn’t messed up. I feel sick about it. Like I might throw up everything inside until I’m this empty, hollow sack.”

  “You made a mistake,” I said slowly.

  “Three times is not a mistake, it’s a habit.”

  “Why would you do something like that?”

  Carly held Josie tighter. “I decided not to pay quarterly because I couldn’t work it into the budget. The first year I did fill out an extension form, but then we always had a bill to pay and I knew we owed money. After the first time, nothing really happened, so it was easy to do it again. I figured by the time the government came after us, I’d have the money to settle up.”

  I groaned. “You’re lucky that judge didn’t send you to jail.” I lifted myself up onto my elbow. “I have a few thousand dollars in a savings account. You are welcome to all of it.”

  A tear escaped from Carly’s eye, and she swiped at it. “I love you,” she said. “Very much. But I’m not taking your money.”

  “I love you and I want you to have it. You need it.”

  She sighed. “I know you love me, Lee.”

  “Donal loves you, too,” I added, “with all his heart. He should have been railing at you until your ears were seeping blood. I would have. Instead, he holds your hand. You know how rare that is, right?”


  “That’s why I’m going with him to Ireland.” We were quiet for a moment, and then she nudged my arm. “You’re going to come with, aren’t you? We can’t live halfway around the world without you, and I don’t think you want to be alone. Why didn’t you say yes downstairs?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t stand putting more disappointment on those little faces if the answer was no. Why did you put me on the spot?”

  “I had to. You always need a nudge.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Is it Garrett? Do you hope something is starting with him?” She placed Josie on the floor and lined up some blocks in front of her.

  “I asked him,” I said, and instantly felt weird about it, like I was also confessing something shameful. “Actually, Maura asked him, and he said he’d help me out.”

  “Oh.” Carly worried at her lower lip. I did that, destroying myself in small bits, biting at my lip or cuticles, picking at my face, overplucking things that didn’t need plucking. But she didn’t.

  “What? Say it.”

  “Do you really think using him is a good idea?”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I’m the last person to be lecturing you about risk . . .” She paused, waiting for me to agree with her assessment and shut her down. When I did nothing, she went on. “You don’t know his . . . history.”

  “He’s from the South. Smart. Polite. Not at the top of his game right now, but who is?”

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said quietly.

  Oh. Yeah. I got it. Garrett could be a walking petri dish of STDs and a vast array of antiquated communicable diseases that crop up in those who regularly sleep in alleys and shelter dormitories. He could have a raging drug habit, or an untreated mental disorder, or even a treated one, chaos residing just under the skin, kept from breaking free by a cocktail of unpronounceable drugs provided by the state. I’d be a liar if I claimed the unknown didn’t bother me, but I’d weighed these possibilities against what I knew about him without the shadows of any doubts. Garrett was a good person, straight through. I didn’t always trust my instincts, but this I knew.

  “He’s certainly good enough to tutor your daughter for bargain-basement prices.”

  “Don’t get nasty,” Carly snapped. “That’s different and you know it.”

  “A few blood tests,” I said. “That’s all we really need.”

  “Well, if that’s all you need . . .”

  “You understand what I mean. Garrett doesn’t want to be a dad, but he wants to help me out. It’s exactly the scenario I was hoping for in a donor situation.” Carly examined my face, and I worked to hide the strange sense of unease I felt. Garrett was what I was looking for. If a fling came along with it—or even love—all the better for me, but it wasn’t necessary. If we were smart about it, I’d have good memories of my child’s father. I could look at the situation that way. I could do what needed to be done. I really could. “He’s working hard at improving his life. The job interview later this week is a start. I’m driving him.”

  “It’s not going to be that way,” she said. “The way you want it.”

  “So, it should be the way you want it, then?”

  “I want you to be happy. A baby doesn’t have to be how you achieve that state. Moving could do it. Might be the best thing that ever happened to you,” she said, her voice growing more confident. “A few years in Ireland. Green grass; corner pubs; hot, widowed farmers.”

  “I’ll be lost there,” I whispered.

  “You’ll be distracted by activity. By newness. Maybe you’re just looking for adventure.”

  “Time will pass too quickly. I’ll come back and be in the same place.”

  Carly shook her head. “The experience will change you. It’ll put you in a better place. Well, different at least. What do you have to lose, really?”

  I had something to lose. Something big, but just outside my ability to define it. It was there, though. Solid and waiting.

  “Think about it for a few days,” she said, knowing full well I’d be up all night, unable to do much else. “Make one of your famous pro-con lists.” She placed Josie back at my side. “Remember, you already have people in the world who love you. Even if you never added anyone else to that group, if it remained the six of us who love you unconditionally, that’s more than a lot of people can say. It could be enough.”

  I didn’t know how to explain myself without insulting her, but I’d known for a long while that enough only matters with tangible things. Love should grow and evolve. Enough meant a relationship had reached its end. I always loved my father, but the reasons I did changed as he did. It meant something, to fall in love with the same person, again and again, in different ways. It deepened everything. It took something ordinary and made it transcendent. It was the God I believed in.

  Carly was still waiting for my response. “Maybe,” I said as Josie curled her small fingers around my thumb. “Maybe.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Rizer Technologies occupied a few acres off Highway 88, the science and technology corridor of northern Illinois, home to Fermilab and Motorola and companies like Rizer, established enough to build a campus but new enough to fill it only halfway. The parking lot was vast and only partially populated. I parked near a small, man-made lake surrounded by empty benches, though it was nearly noon. I supposed tech geeks ate their lunches in front of computer screens.

  “There’s a train that stops in Aurora,” Garrett said, nerves constricting his words so much I worried his tie was too tight. “They’ve got a shuttle to pick us up. I won’t need a car.”

  “Another plus,” I said brightly. I placed my hand on his knee and felt like his aged aunt sending him off to summer camp. “You’re going to do great. Even if you don’t remember everything we practiced, your resume speaks for itself.”

  “I twitch a little when I get nervous. I haven’t told you that.”

  “Everyone has some kind of tell that they’re uncomfortable.” I leaned forward and was hit with the pepperminty smell of Garrett’s mouthwash. His eyes flashed to mine, panicked and wide, and I kissed him swiftly. “Someone taught me something once, when I got nervous speaking in front of groups.”

  He groaned. “Are you going to tell me to picture them naked?”

  “No,” I said, laughing. “That never worked for me. Too distracting. Once, an instructor told me to clench my butt muscles while I spoke. It takes the tension off of everything else.”

  That got a laugh, albeit a short, barky huff of breath. “Really? Well, that’s one I’ve never heard before.” He smiled weakly, like someone who’d just been sick. “Can we forget about all this butt clenching and run away together?”

  “As tempting as that sounds, you need to do this, Garrett.” I smoothed down an errant lock of hair that had fallen from his ponytail. I was glad he hadn’t cut it for the interview. With his gray suit, shined shoes, and bright red tie, he looked like the front man for an alternative rock band or the college professor whose classes were always full to the limit. “You look great and you’re smart and they’d be lucky to have you. If for some reason they’re blind to how wonderful you are, then that’s their shortcoming.”

  “I’m not sure everyone sees me the way you do.”

  “Well, if this doesn’t work out, then it’s been good practice for when it does. In an hour or so, we’ll be on the highway and this whole thing will be behind us. We’ll get a slice of pizza and walk around for a while, and by tonight, you’ll forget why you were so worried in the first place.”

  He nodded, but the fear still squatted behind his eyes, fat and immovable. I didn’t know how long I could keep building him up without getting out of the car and walking him into the building perched on my shoulders, so I picked up the leather bag I’d found in my father’s things and thrust it at his chest. “Go before you talk yourself out of reality,” I said. “You’re exactly what they’re looking for. They wouldn’t have called you if that
wasn’t true. Remember that.”

  He leaned across the gearshift and put his icy hand to my cheek. Blue eyes met hazel, and there was a moment between us. I felt a pull, like he needed more from me, and I didn’t know what it was, and suddenly I was frantic to give it to him, like a good luck charm he couldn’t do without. “You can ask,” I whispered. “Whatever it is.”

  Garrett closed his eyes for a moment to survey the internal battle he was fighting. “I want to do this for you,” he finally said. “I really do.”

  Before I could respond, before I could tell him to do it for himself, he’d exited the car and walked into the main door of Rizer Tech, his gray suit blending into the interior, making him invisible.

  “He’s still inside.”

  I’d read every article in my copy of Vanity Fair—twice—jotted a statistical outline for the breast-feeding survey I’d gathered for Darryl and my Community Health class, and listened to a podcast about some coal miners who were saved from an imploding mine in West Virginia. Still, Garrett hadn’t walked out of the glass double doors, so in desperation, I called Carly.

  “That’s a good sign,” she said. “Maybe they gave him a second interview. Maybe he’s getting a tour of the facility.”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “He’s hot,” Carly said flippantly. “Hot people always get hired.”

  “What about homeless people? Do they?”

  “How would they know?”

  “He seems so innocent to me sometimes, like he’d offer his private self up on a platter.”

  Carly was silent a moment, which she only did when I had a point. “You’re worried he forgot about you,” she said after a moment, her voice careful now. “That he doesn’t need you anymore.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I muttered, but Carly always knew how to articulate the fears I’d worked so hard to camouflage, the ones I’d managed to hide from myself.

  My worry began the minute Garrett walked into the double glass doors of Rizer. It was like he’d been casually walking down the street, only to fall into an open manhole, swallowed up and sent to another world, one I couldn’t easily reach unless I jumped into the darkness after him. It was selfish and narcissistic, but fear of abandonment, always a shadowy presence in my life, had stepped forward since news of Donal’s possible deportment, and shown its ugly face.