by Sienna Blake
"I love Michael O'Sullivan! I love Michael O'Sullivan!" I shouted all the way down.
Michael ran after me, our footsteps pounding along with our hearts, but I ran faster. My shouts echoed back to me a thousand times so my voice was inescapable. Good. That's how I wanted him to feel: that my love was inescapable. It was like the very air itself. One couldn't earn air, pay for it, deserve it, win an award for it. It was just there, everywhere. I wanted to be everywhere for Michael.
Michael didn't catch me till after I'd sprinted across the dark, empty lobby, voice soaring to the tall ceilings, and pushed open the doors into the rain. He grabbed for my wrists, but the downpour made his fingers slip away.
"Michael O'Sullivan, I love you!" I screamed at the top of my lungs over the honks of car horns as I darted out into rush hour traffic.
"Abbi, you're going to get yourself killed!" he called after me.
It felt good to run and shout and pour out a heart I'd forced into a tidy box for so many years. I'd hid myself, my true self, from the world, from Zara, because I thought I was doing the right thing, doing the responsible thing. But as the downpour soaked through my shirt, I wanted Zara to see me now: exposed, vulnerable, out of control, loud.
"I love Michael O'Sullivan!" I shouted as I jumped onto a park bench and threw my arms up into the air, laughing. "I love Michael O'Sullivan!"
People hidden beneath black umbrellas hurried faster past me, certain I was just another crazy person. And I was! And I never wanted to be anything else than a crazy person for the man and child I loved. I threw my head back, water splashing against my face and shouted as loud as I could.
"I love Michael O—"
I yelped as Michael pulled me down into his arms and covered my lips with his in a fierce, passionate kiss. He tasted like rain and distant mountains and red wine in a crammed linen closet. I was left gasping when he pulled away.
"I hear you," he whispered as the rain pounded around us.
He held me tight and I wrapped my arms around his neck. He rested his forehead against mine.
"I hear you," he whispered again.
I brushed his wet hair from his eyes and then stroked his cheek.
"But do you believe me, Michael?"
Michael
I still couldn't quite believe her. I wanted to. Fuck, I wanted to. But I just… I still couldn't believe it was that easy.
I felt like I'd been told the sky was actually green, but there I was, still standing beneath a dome of what I could only see as blue. No matter how hard I tried to squint, no matter how I tilted my head, no matter how long I stood there, I just couldn't see the green.
Could it have been that simple for my father? Could his lonely, empty, lifeless existence in Albuquerque all have been avoided just by…just by staying? I thought to avoid the life he'd been reduced to I had to do more, give more. I had to fight tooth and nail to prove myself. I had to day after day show that I was good enough for Abbi and Zara and their love. I understood that way of thinking. I even liked it.
It meant I was in control. It meant my fate was in my hands. It meant if I just worked hard enough, like everything else I'd achieved in life, I'd get what I wanted eventually, my way.
But what Abbi was trying to tell me—that there was nothing I could do but accept their love freely given—well, that scared the hell out of me. Because I wasn't in control. And I never would be.
Maybe that was what my father wanted after all. When he left, maybe it wasn't for more money or more success or more square footage; maybe it was for more control. If that’s what he found in his full bottles of beer in his empty kitchen, then I wanted nothing to do with control.
But saying that was certainly harder than living it. I was still missing something. I was there at the edge, ready to jump, but it was a long way down, a life without control, a life with love I did nothing to earn, and I needed one last push.
I wanted to talk to Abbi about it when we landed back in Denver on Tuesday morning, but as we stepped off the plane her phone went crazy with missed messages.
"Everything alright?" I asked as the phone nearly vibrated out of her fingers.
Abbi's eyes scanned the screen and she frowned.
"It's Zara."
An hour later Abbi and I sat on either side of Zara in her principal's office, crammed in with our suitcases straight from the airport. Zara was already there when we rushed in. She hadn't looked up when we sank into the chairs next to her. She sat there with her face curtained by her blonde hair, head tucked into her chest and arms crossed.
"Zara," Mrs Hamilton started. "Would you like to tell your mother and…"
She looked to Abbi for explanation as to who the hell I was, but I interjected before she could answer.
"Her father."
Mrs Hamilton glanced toward Abbi to check for any protest from her and then returned her attention to Zara.
"Zara," she repeated, "would you like to tell your mother and…father what you did during Geography class, during your national parks presentation?"
I looked over Zara's head at Abbi, who looked just as bewildered as I felt. Zara wasn't a get-in-trouble kind of kid, or at least neither of us had thought she was. Abbi placed her hand on Zara's arm and leaned forward to see past her defensive curtain of hair.
"Zara, baby, what's all this about?"
But Zara remained stoic in her chair, not moving at all, save the tiniest swing of her shoelaces where her feet didn't quite reach the floor. Mrs Hamilton eyed Zara and then adjusted her half-moon glasses with a sigh.
"From what I understand from Mr Phillips, Zara and the rest of her classmates were tasked with giving a PowerPoint presentation about the national parks," Mrs Hamilton explained.
Abbi and I both nodded; we'd each seen her working tirelessly on her project over the past weeks. Mrs Hamilton again tried to tug words from Zara's lips, but it seemed that would require the use of a pry bar.
"Abbi," Mrs Hamilton said, "had you seen Zara's presentation?"
Abbi's cheeks turned a sheepish red as she scratched the back of her neck.
"I've been working a lot of overtime recently," she explained. "But I know Zara's been working on it. There's no reason that she shouldn't have finished on time to present."
Mrs Hamilton shook her head. "Oh, Zara, did present."
Again Abbi and I exchanged confused looks.
" I don't understand," I said. "What's the problem here then?"
Mrs Hamilton opened a laptop and spun it around to face us. "The problem is what she presented."
I watched as the principal clicked through the slides Zara had presented as part of her national parks project. It was immediately clear what was wrong. They were all pictures taken during our road trip to see the Grand Canyon and Moab and Arches, but none of the pictures were really about the parks themselves: they were about us.
There was a picture of Abbi and me sitting on the hood of the car drinking gas station coffee. There was a picture of Zara and me asleep in the back of the car, her head on my shoulder, my cheek atop her head. There was a picture of the three of us at the Four Corners. Picture after picture it was us, smiling, laughing, faces stuffed full of food, cheeks smeared with chocolate, lips red from popsicles, dusty and tanned from hiking.
The grand national parks behind us were nothing but a backdrop, something to fill the small corners and even smaller gaps between Abbi and Zara and me. For most of the pictures it was nearly impossible to even tell that we were there—at the Grand Canyon or beside the largest ball of twine in the world. There was really nothing but us.
The slideshow ended with a blank “works cited” page. I thought of all the library books Zara had checked out, read through, took diligent notes from. It was hours upon hours of work. And yet she used not a single piece of it.
I glanced down at Zara, whose silent stillness was almost imperceptibly starting to break down. Through her golden hair I caught her biting her lip nervously, and a tiny tap, tap, tap of her sneakers bumping t
ogether filled the quiet office. Mrs Hamilton was apparently the fuse for her building explosion.
"This clearly does not fulfil the requirements laid out in the syllabus by Mr Phillips and—"
"Yes, it does!"' burst from her.
"Zara!" Mrs Hamilton objected.
I think both Abbi and I were surprised when Zara hopped down from her chair and passionately exclaimed, "The requirements were to show in a report the importance of our national parks. Well, they were important to me because they brought my mom and my dad together. When we were at the national parks we were a family, a real family, and that's the most important thing of all! So I did do what I was supposed to do. Those pictures show how the parks are important to me."
I was too stunned by Zara's outburst to do anything but stare at her with wide, unblinking eyes as Mrs Hamilton chastised her.
"Ms Zara Miller," she hissed angrily, "you will sit down right this instance and show some respect. I don't know what has gotten into you, but you have become a very loud young lady who bucks the rules as you see fit."
As I continued to stare at Zara I saw Abbi, the tangled blonde hair, the clenched fists, the fire in her soul as her chest heaved. I saw Abbi the way I knew her: a very loud young lady who bucks the rules as she sees fit.
Mrs Hamilton continued, "You used to be so polite and reserved, Zara, but lately you have grown increasingly rude and disrespectful and arrogant."
I laughed, because I couldn't stop myself. I'd thought—hoped, even—that Zara took exclusively after Abbi, but that was me, all me: increasingly rude and disrespectful and arrogant. Zara was my daughter; she was mine. I knew right then and there I loved her and would love her, no matter what.
I laughed because this was the last place in the world I expected to get that push I'd been waiting for—a principal's office. But seeing Zara's presentation, the pictures she took and cherished, and seeing her stand up for their importance to her, that did it.
Because I did nothing to deserve that kind of love and devotion from my daughter. Hell, when she gave her presentation in class, all she knew was that I was gone from her life. But she loved me.
And I loved her.
It really was that goddamn simple.
"Do you find something humorous, sir?"
I shook my head and waved my hand. "No, no, sorry."
"Maybe instead of laughing you'd like to correct the behaviour of your daughter?" Mrs Hamilton asked, assessing me with irritated eyes over her half-moon glasses.
I looked at the back of Zara's head and then at Abbi. Then I shook my head.
"No," I said, "no, thank you, but I don't think I will do that."
Zara finally turned her head toward me. She peeked at me with one green eye just visible past her curtain of wild blonde hair. I winked at her as Mrs Hamilton bristled as she adjusted herself in her chair.
"Zara was rude to her teacher, to me, to this institution," she said. "We do not allow that kind of behaviour here."
I bridged my fingers and grinned wickedly at the principal.
"Well, I say fuck any 'institution' that doesn't see what a brilliant student Zara is."
Mrs Hamilton nearly choked. Zara's lips cracked into a smile as she watched me. Abbi's mouth was hanging open as she stared at me.
"Excuse me?" Mrs Hamilton said, clutching at her imaginary pearls around her throat.
"I can repeat myself if you didn't hear me, ma'am," I said, the shark awakening inside of me, for once for something I actually gave a damn about. "I don't see a goddamn thing wrong with what my daughter did, and what's more, I’m proud as hell of her."
"You are a very crass man," Mrs Hamilton said, aghast. "Very rude. I suppose you are where Zara gets that from."
I grinned wickedly and leaned forward. "I sure fucking hope so, love."
"I think it goes without saying that neither you nor Zara are welcome back at this institution."
I nodded and stood. "Yes, I rather expected that."
Mrs Hamilton arranged her papers as I took Zara's hand and she smiled up at me.
"I hope all that was worth it," she said.
Abbi was looking at me as she replied, "I think it was more than worth it."
She took Zara's other hand and we walked out together, the three of us. Out in the hallway, at first the only sound was the echoing of our footsteps on the marble floors.
Then Zara glanced up at me.
"You said I was your daughter," she said, her words simple, her meaning not.
Abbi and I locked eyes before I looked down at Zara.
"And you said I was your dad," I told her.
She nodded and that was all that needed to be said between us: I was promising to always be there for her and she was promising to always believe that I was going to be there for her.
It was as simple as that.
Because we loved each other.
Abbi looked over at me and there were tears in her eyes.
After another stretch of silence, Zara asked, "So where am I going to go to school?"
Abbi sniffled and wiped her hand under her nose. "Um, I've been looking at this one really good school."
I frowned at her. Had she predicted that I would essentially get Zara kicked out of school?
"Really?" I asked her. "Where is it?"
We pushed open the doors and all three of us blinked against the blinding afternoon sunlight, golden and pure. Abbi's hair glowed like an endless field of wheat dancing in the wind as she smiled at me.
"Dublin."
Epilogue
Abbi
I wondered how long it would take him to notice.
It was a year later and the whole family was up in the Glendalough Mountains for the very same Celtic festival Michael and I stumbled into when we tripped, like drunken fools, into love. The sun danced on the lake exactly the way I remembered it: like a field of glistening diamonds. The breeze swept the same sweet scent of the pines over us like a favourite perfume and the grasses brushed against our bare, tanned legs like an old dog, happy to see us return. My heart pounded with the familiar rhythm of the drums, because I had that same feeling as ten years ago: the feeling that something wonderful and frightening—and exhilarating and beautiful and precious—was starting.
Ma was the first to notice.
All fifteen or so of us arrived by the same rickety old bus with the same grouchy old driver who shooed us all off without waiting long enough to fully brake; neither Michael nor I told our family we might have a teeny bit of an idea why the driver was less than accommodating toward us. For the children we got hot chocolates and for the adults, Irish coffees. I offered to add the Irish part and Ma's sharp eyes noticed I skipped a cup: mine. She moved in close to me after I passed out the drinks to everyone.
"Who else knows?" she whispered.
I grinned at her and whispered back, "Knows what?"
Ma then winked at me and pulled my head down to press a kiss to my forehead. She patted my cheek. "We're so happy to have you in the family, love."
I grabbed her hand and squeezed it. "You know it's meant the world to me," I said and I meant every word. "To me and Zara."
With Michael and with the O'Sullivans we'd finally found a home. All those years I'd told Zara it was just her and me, like we'd alone survived some apocalypse and there was no one else on earth. I'd thought that was the way it had to be, the way it'd have to be to be safe, to not get hurt. But I finally saw that I'd locked both of us in a bunker. There was no pain, but there was also no joy, no love, no life.
It was still hard for me, sometimes, to let go, to be vulnerable, to open myself up with my new family. But the O'Sullivans had a way of stubbornly prying that shell open, whether you wanted it pried open or not.
The wind was suddenly knocked from my lungs when Eoin's bear paw of an arm came crashing down over my shoulders.
"Come on, Abbi," he bellowed. "It's time for shots."
Ma was with Zara and the other kids at the face painting station,
so I let Eoin guide me over to a bar where Michael was passing out shots of Poitín.
"Isn't it a little early for this?" Duffy asked, eyeing the glasses.
Aubrey picked one up and sniffed it with a scowl. "It's like 10 a.m.," she said.
I saw my opportunity and grabbed Kayleigh's hand.
"I think us ladies will start off with something more refined," I said, dragging Kayleigh who dragged Aubrey who dragged Duffy.
"What am I supposed to do with all these shots?" Michael called after me.
I grinned at him over my shoulder. "I'm sure you'll find some use for them."
As we girls arrived at a booth offering mimosas, we heard a chorus of loud shouts and saw the boys double up on shots before coughing and pounding their chests with more howls. I ordered as the girls laughed.
"Three mimosas and one orange juice."
"No champagne?" Aubrey asked as the bartender passed over her drink.
I shook my head and grinned over the lip of my champagne-less champagne glass. Duffy and Kayleigh exchanged glances.
"Because champagne gives you headaches?" Duffy asked.
I shook my head and my grin widened.
"Because champagne is high in sugar?" Kayleigh asked.
"Nope."
Aubrey's eyes widened as she excitedly asked, "Because you just had whiskey in your coffee and you're moderating your drinks unlike us immature adults?"
I checked over my shoulder to make sure Michael was out of earshot, and then I leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, "Who said I had whiskey in my coffee?"
Kayleigh gasped and Aubrey slammed down her drink and Duffy shrieked before I could clamp a hand over her mouth.
"Holy shit," she cried between my fingers as I laughed. "You're—"
"Shh!" I hissed. "Michael doesn't know."
Just then the boys arrived, armed with freshly poured pints of beer.
"What are you all doing over here?" Noah asked. "We heard shouting."
I gave the girls a covert wink before grabbing my champagne glass.
"We're drinking," I said. "Just like you."