All the Good Parts (21 page)

“My future is a jumble of possibilities and potential failures,” Garrett continued, “and the thought of it scares me deep. Living moment to moment is the only way I can live right now. I’d like to give you something you want, because you’re a good person, and because I’m mystified by why you’d choose someone like me. It feels good to be chosen, and it feels good to kiss you, and that’s all I can think about without my nervous system smashing every thought in my head into a million pieces I’ve got to scramble to put back together, frantic and miserable.”

He took a ragged breath. “What it comes down to is, you’ve helped me and I’d like to help you, and those are good impulses and that’s what I’d like my life to be about right now. That’s what I can handle.”

“You’re not upset at all?” I sat up to look him squarely in the eye. “Getting to know you—getting to like you—was separate from the baby idea. I want you to understand that.”

He smiled. “The thing is, it doesn’t bother me one way or the other. When Maura said what you wanted, I felt so flattered. This whole thing has been so flattering.”

I ignored the disappointment gnawing at the back of my brain. Flattering? My thirty-nine years to his twenty-seven. Of course he’d use that word. Of course. But this was what I wanted. This would work out. “We’ll talk about it after your interview, okay? You let me help you, and then we’ll talk about how you can help me.”

“For right now,” he said, urging me back into his arms, “can we kiss for a while longer?”

“Yes,” I said, lips tingling in anticipation, head leaning toward his.

But I never got my kiss, because all we heard was the scream.

“Maura,” I said, and we both bolted up the stairs. She screamed again, the sound piercing the air, dropping onto our heads like stones. I made it to the upstairs landing first. Maura stood in front of the bathroom, bathed in the cold afternoon light slanting in from the half-closed blinds, striping her milky skin. Her eyes were round, hands clenched into fists.

“What is it?” I said through the beats of my pounding heart. “Are you hurt?”

It was then I noticed her expression, resplendent and satisfied, curling her lips into something I hadn’t seen in a long time—a confident smile.

She grabbed my hand and pulled me into the bathroom. I noticed the maxipad wrapper curling on the counter. “Oh, my God,” I whispered.

“Nature is my bitch, Auntie Lee,” Maura said triumphantly. “I’m an official woman!”

“Nature is a goddess, not a bitch,” I scolded, pulling her into a fierce hug. “Are you okay? Do you need help with anything?”

“I’m a little crampy,” she said into my ear. “Not bad, though. I was scared to use a tampon.”

“Everyone is at first,” I assured her. “Did you tell your mother?”

“I will,” she said, disentangling herself from my arms. “I just need a minute before she turns this into the biggest deal ever.”

“But it is a big deal!”

“I know, but . . .”

“I understand,” I said. “Do you want me to stay here with you, or would you rather be alone?”

“Stay, please.”

I stuck my head into the hallway. Garrett stood on the landing, looking terrified. “Everything all right?” he asked.

“Perfectly fine. I might be a minute. You can wait if you want.”

“I’ll wait right here,” he said, obviously relieved I wasn’t ordering him back to the party.

I closed the door and sat myself on the rim of the tub. Maura put the toilet seat down and sat across from me. “Are you mad at me?” she asked.

“Why would I be mad?”

“I figured Garrett told you that I opened my big mouth.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “I wish you’d asked me, but I don’t mind that you took matters into your own hands. It might just work out, and I’ll have you to thank for it.”

Maura grinned broadly. “Will you name the baby after me?”

“Actually, I was thinking of going with Kale, or maybe Broccoli. What would you think about having a little cousin called Brussels Sprouts? We could call him BS for short.”

She stuck her tongue out at me. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“Maybe.”

“You’re funny, Auntie Lee. I hope the baby gets your sense of humor.”

I thought of the genetic squares. Big
F
for (F)unny. Little
f
for (f)earful. Or (f)ailure. Or maybe, just maybe, for (f)uture.

“You know, I can have a baby now,” Maura said, interrupting my thoughts, her tone growing serious. “There was a girl in eighth grade last year who did. I knew who she was.”

I thought of that girl and the anxiety she must have felt, the dread. I hated to think of Maura in that position. “I’d like to say you’re too young to even think about pregnancy, but that’s not realistic,” I said. “Just know you can talk to your mom or me about anything. We’ll listen. We might be annoying or not agree with you, but we’ll do our best to help you make good choices. I wish there was a cooler way to say that, but there isn’t.”

Maura nodded, her expression serious. “Thanks,” she murmured.

“Do you have any questions right now, or would you rather wait for your mom?”

Maura fished her phone out of her pocket. “Will you take a picture of me? I want to remember this day. Does that sound stupid?”

I took the phone from her. “No, not at all.” She held up the maxipad wrapper and smiled. “You’re not going to post this on Instagram or one of those sites,” I said before snapping the shot.

“Are you kidding? Of course I am. This changes everything, and I want everyone to know.”

“Aren’t some things meant to be private?”

“Why?” Maura said, looking completely perplexed. “Now, hold the phone up a little so you can get the best angle.”

She smiled again, broader this time. I thought of the photo I took of her when she got her first haircut, when she lost her front tooth, when we all followed her to the mall last year to watch her get her ears pierced. “Fine. One photo. Say gigglefart!”

“Oh, Auntie Lee.”

I took it and passed the phone over for her approval. Maura couldn’t stop staring at the photographic evidence of her transformation to womanhood. “Wow,” she said. “I kind of do look different. I thought it would never happen.”

“Are you ready to tell your mom now?”

She nodded and reached for my hand. “Thanks for not being annoying.”

“You had better be thankful. When you’re my age, it’s very hard work to avoid being annoying.”

Laughing, we opened the door and headed back to the party, which Maura claimed had turned “epic” while we were gone. The keg emptied, the food disappeared, and there were sparklers, much to Garrett’s delight. When Maura spoke to Carly, her tipsy mother insisted we toast to the two major Brophy milestones, and we raised a glass to birthdays and becoming-a-woman days.

It was almost too easy to forget our troubles, and for one beautiful fall night, that’s exactly what we did.

CHAPTER 24

Our familial bliss didn’t last very long.

“I hate you!”

“You have a right to be angry,” Carly said to the door Maura had just slammed in our faces.

“I hope they put you in jail!”

“It’s not that kind of court, Maur,” Donal said soothingly.

“It should be!”

Carly nudged my shoulder. “Say something. Maybe she’ll listen to you.”

“You should have told them yesterday, like you’d planned,” I hissed. “You shouldn’t have waited until the last minute.”

“
You’re
going to lecture me on procrastination? Seriously?”

She had a point. I knocked lightly on Maura’s door. “Sweetie? It’s Auntie Lee. Let’s fight this thing as a family, okay? We need you.”

The door opened so quickly I nearly tumbled into Maura’s room. She glared at me, eyes wild and accusatory. “
You!
You’re the worst! You are a
betrayer
.”

“It wasn’t my right to tell you.”

“Who cares about rights? You all obviously don’t!” Maura took off her ballet flats and tossed them into the hall. “I am not going to any court. I’m old enough to stay here and you can’t make me go.” She turned to me and spat, “You said you would help me make good choices. How can I trust you when you make such bad ones?”

“That’s enough, Maur—” Donal started.

“If she wants to stay home, she can stay home,” Carly interjected. “If she doesn’t want to take her role in this family to defend our right to stay in this home that we built together, then fine. She can turn her back on us.”

“Guilt only works when I’m wrong,” Maura said with a smirk. “And I’m not wrong. This is your fault! This is all your faults!”

We didn’t even jump when she slammed the door. We expected it.

“I’ll pull the van around,” Donal said dejectedly.

“I’ll get Josie,” I said.

Carly thought for a moment. “I’ll bring the whiskey.”

Kara Svenson, immigration attorney, cleaned up well. She wore a stylish gray wool suit to the proceedings, her blonde hair pulled back into a smooth chignon, heels low and black, a strand of pearls circling her neck. Tortoiseshell glasses completed the ensemble. If Grace Kelly and Atticus Finch had a child, Kara would be her.

“She looks good,” Carly murmured to me. “Professional. Appearances count.”

Unfortunately for us. We looked like a gang of gypsies next to Kara. Donal’s navy, double-breasted suit was made of cheap material that bunched and wrinkled. Carly attempted the hairstyle Kara had mastered, but her curls, flattened by too much hair spray, sprang out of her head like the spokes on a broken bicycle wheel. The boys wore their too-tight Communion suits, and Josie spit up all over her dress during the ride downtown. No one remembered a backup outfit, so I changed her into striped footie pajamas after we’d parked.

“This is really only a prehearing, so it should be pretty quick,” Kara said after shaking our hands. She looked from Carly to me, confused for a moment.

“I’m the wife,” Carly said quickly. “Can you submit this as Exhibit A?” She handed a bag to Kara. “It might help.”

The night before, Carly and I had stayed up to create a photo album of Donal’s personal Patriot Act party, using some never-before-touched scrapbooking materials we found in the storage part of the basement. It wasn’t great, but it told a definite story, and we thought the judge might see us as more than just a bunch of rule breakers.

Kara quickly flipped through the pages. “This is lovely,” she said, and I tried very hard to ignore the pity I saw in her eyes. “I’ll see if the judge will allow it.”

When Judge Randall Hargreave took his vaulted place on the bench, nodding curtly at Kara and ignoring Donal and the rest of us, I had a hard time picturing him laughing delightedly at Donal dressed as Captain America, smooshing a red, white, and blue cupcake in his mouth. It was freezing in the courtroom, but I began to sweat through my dress.

“Ms. Svenson,” Judge Hargreave said, his tone a mixture of boredom and impatience.

Kara pleaded for the mercy of the court. She painted Donal exactly as I would have—a hardworking, loving family man who’d made a simple mistake.

Carly and Donal clutched hands. She motioned to me, and I stretched to give her mine, but what she really wanted was Josie. I passed the baby over, and she buried her face in Carly’s neck. Patrick and Kevin scooted over to their parents, pressing their bodies as close as they could.

The judge fixed his gaze on Kara. “Are you done, Ms. Svenson?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“And Mr. Miller? Is the government ready?”

The prosecutor stood and asked to approach the bench. He dropped some papers in front of the judge, who crooked his finger at Kara.

“I wasn’t aware of this complication,” she said after reading them, her voice wavering slightly. “I need to discuss this with my client.”

“I will grant you that,” the judge stated. “Lying on the green card application was grounds enough to begin the removal process. Mr. Brophy’s failure to pay his taxes simply worsens the situation.”

White-faced, Kara returned to her seat. She sat very still until the judge asked everyone to rise.

“Mr. Brophy,” the judge began, addressing Donal for the first time. “I can understand a man making an honest mistake. It happens to us all. But I’m not convinced your mistake was all that honest. I also can’t condone cheating this government out of its tax revenue. That money is used to educate those children of yours, to pave the roads you drive on, to fill your library with books, and to keep officers patrolling the streets of the tony suburb you live in. You haven’t paid your taxes in three years. Can you write Uncle Sam a check for twelve thousand?”

“Dollars?” Donal swallowed audibly. Desperate, he turned to Carly for help.

She hugged Josie so tightly the baby yelped. “We can try, Your Honor—”

“That’s not how the system works, Mrs. Brophy,” the judge interrupted. “Living here means abiding by the law.”

Donal put a hand on her arm. “Yes, sir. Of course.”

He gave Donal a hard look. “Do you have the money to pay your tax bill?”

“No, sir,” he said quietly. “Not at the moment.”

“Were you working for Jimmy’s Contracting Service when you sent in your green card application?”

“No, sir. I wasn’t.”

The judge pushed his chair away from the bench and addressed Kara Svenson. “Counsel, I assume you’ll use the time until the next hearing to mount a better defense for your client.”

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.