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Saoirse

 

 

 

Then—Dublin, Ireland

 

 

It was my birthday.

Usually I didn’t care about my birthday. It was just like every other day of the year. But this year… This year, I had Diarmuid.

I practically ran to the truck to meet Diarmuid that morning, a spring in my step. I knew he was watching me closely as he helped me into the truck.

“You look happy,” he commented as he pulled away from the sidewalk.

“Of course,” I said, and waited for the penny to drop for him. He had my file. He knew it was my birthday. I even kinda maybe dropped a hint about it, a week ago, so as not to be obvious.

He wouldn’t forget, would he?

It wasn’t like I was expecting anything big. I didn’t even expect a present. Or a card. Just a happy birthday from his beautiful lips.

But he said nothing about it.

Not even that afternoon when he came to pick me up from school and drop me off at home.

“Saoirse,” he called out at me through the open window of his truck.

My hopes soared into my cheeks, lifting them up. I spun on my heel to face him, grinning at me with that devastating grin.

He remembered. He remembered.

“Yes?” I asked, my heart beating like a hummingbird as I stood on the sidewalk outside my building.

“See ya tomorrow,” he called out before he drove off.

I watched the back of his truck disappear around the corner, the dust he was kicking up feeling like it was coating my lungs, making it hard to breathe.

He forgot.

He totally forgot.

No one ever remembered my birthday. Well, except for Moina. But I’d thought that Diarmuid might. I just wanted him to remember. Something to indicate that he cared.

I trudged up the grey concrete steps to my apartment, cursing myself for being so upset over this. I knew Diarmuid cared. He already took me to school and shouted me breakfast.

That’s his job. You’re just a job, Saoirse. Remembering your birthday is not part of his job.

“Hey, Saoirse,” Moina called out from the stairwell as I stuck my key into the apartment door. “You wanna drop your stuff, change and come down in about twenty minutes?”

I nodded, forcing a smile to my face. At least Moina remembered. She probably had a small cupcake there for me. Moina didn’t have much money either but she always had something small for me every year on my birthday since she moved in a few years ago.

See, someone did remember. Moina did. So why was I still sad?

’Cause I wanted Diarmuid to remember. I didn’t want to be just part of his job.

In the apartment, my ma was sitting on the couch in a vest and her underwear, ratty grey slippers on her feet. She was only in her mid-thirties but she looked ten years older, the skin on her thighs already sagging, crinkles all around her thin lips and yellowed eyes.

“Hey, ma.”

“I feel like fockin’ shite. Like a truck ran over me.”

Maybe if you stopped inviting assholes who beat you into your bed and stopped doing drugs you’d feel better. But I said nothing. I knew better. The times I’d actually said something I just ended up with her hand across my face.

I walked into my room and changed into my best pair of jeans. I only had two. This pair was denim washed, with diamanté on the hip. My ma had bought them for me from a secondhand store on a mother-daughter shopping day. It had been during one of the rare times my mother was sober. She’d just gotten paid her benefits so she was feeling flush and generous. Usually the jeans hung off me but lately, I’d been filling them out more.

I pulled on a shirt and cringed as I accidentally knocked my chest. My breasts were tender. My chest had been flat but now my boobs had started growing and fast. I’d need a bra soon. Hopefully Moina would take me. I couldn’t rely on Ma to do it.

I left my room and walked past my ma, still moaning on the couch.

“Saoirse, honey.”

I turned around to look at her. Would it be too much to ask that she remembered that she gave birth to me fourteen years ago?

My ma looked at me with dead eyes and held out a hand, a folded twenty-euro bill between her fingers. My heart flipped. She actually remembered. Twenty euro! Was this my birthday present?

“Be a doll and grab me a pack of smokes, will ya?” She waved the note at me.

Not my birthday present, then. I snatched the money off her and backed up to the door.

“Smoking will kill ya. How ’bout I get some food with this money instead?”

She gave me a sour look. “You little shite, you have no idea what I’ve been through. That’s me last bit of money ’til next Tuesday.”

Of course she’d buy stupid cigarettes with her last slip of cash. I slipped out of the apartment before she could throw an ashtray or something at me.

“I’ll be back later,” I called.

“Ungrateful little shite,” she yelled as I locked the door on her, muting her yells. “You come back here.”

I ran down the stairs to the level below us. I listened out for her footsteps but heard nothing. She didn’t follow. I took a deep breath outside Moina’s door to calm myself, tucking the twenty into my back pocket. I’d buy her stupid smokes later. If there was any money left, I’d get some basic groceries.

I knocked on Moina’s door. Moina’s head appeared through the crack. I was about to unleash my frustration over my ma to her—she’d heard it all before but she always let me rant—when she flung open the door and stepped aside.

“Surprise!”

I blinked. Her tiny apartment was decorated with colourful streamers and balloons, bowls of chips, bottles of soda and boxes of pizza stacked on her dining table. And standing in her living room was Diarmuid, a huge grin on his face, holding a cake in his hands, fourteen candles circling the thick icing on top.

He bought a cake for me. With actual birthday candles.

He remembered my birthday.

He was just pretending not to.

He cared.

Tears pricked the backs of my eyes. My throat closed, trapping the happiness swelling in my chest, like a tiny sun had bloomed. I thought I might burst from it.

“Are you gonna just stand there with your mouth open? Come in, girl.” Moina grabbed my arm and tugged me inside the apartment, closing the door behind me.

“You…you did this for me?” I asked, blinking, still unable to believe it.

“It was all Diarmuid’s idea,” Moina said, beaming.

I looked up at Diarmuid, grinning at me in a way that made me want to reach out and touch his face.

“I thought you’d forgotten,” I said quietly.

He winked at me. “All the better to surprise you.”

It was my first real birthday cake. The biggest chocolate cake I’d ever seen. It must have been at least a foot wide with Happy Birthday written across it in thick white icing and edible stars creating a universe across the top, candy roses brushed with silver dust decorating the base. He didn’t buy this from the bakery section at Aldi. No way. This cake was too special. He must have bought it from an actual bakery. Jesus, how much did he spend?

Diarmuid and Moina closed around me as they burst into a rendition of “Happy Birthday”. Moina could sing, she had a voice of an angel. But Diarmuid couldn’t, his voice slightly off-key, but it didn’t dampen his enthusiasm or his smile. It was beautiful. He was beautiful. I couldn’t take my eyes off him as the candlelight brushed a warm glow on his cheeks.

Their voices trailed off as they finished their song. I found myself clapping and laughing even though I felt like I was going to cry.

“Go on, Saoirse,” Diarmuid said, holding the cake underneath my nose. “Blow out your candles.”

“Don’t forget to make a wish,” Moina added.

I glanced once more at Diarmuid. Even when I squeezed my eyes shut, I could still see Diarmuid’s face in front of me. I smiled, inhaled and blew.

I wish you were mine, Diarmuid.

I heard clapping and opened my eyes in time to catch the wisps of smoke rising from my candles, caressing Diarmuid’s neck and face.

He set the cake down on the dining table and grabbed something with his left hand. Before I could see what it was, he picked me up around my waist and lifted me over his shoulder to spin me like a helicopter. Diarmuid was so strong.

I let out a squeal as the apartment and all the colourful decorations blurred around me in a vibrant whirl, Moina laughing in the background. He put me down and presented me with a gift wrapped in purple and gold.

I blinked. “For…me?”

He nodded and kissed the top of my head. “Happy birthday.” My scalp tingled where his lips touched me.

I took the present and lowered it to the dining table, Diarmuid and Moina crowding around me. It had been properly wrapped, with a bow and everything.

I pulled the ribbon open first and unwound it from the rectangular gift and studied it in my fingers. It was like a silky strip of gold that shone as the light caught it.

“I chose gold because it matches your hair,” Diarmuid said.

My throat felt thick, like I’d swallowed part of a ribbon. I folded the gold ribbon and slipped it carefully into my back pocket. Using my fingers, I worked the tabs of sticky tape on the ends of the present.

“Oh, go on, just tear it,” Moina said.

“Nah, let her open it however she wants,” Diarmuid said.

I ignored them, my sole focus on the present he gave me and making sure I didn’t tear the beautiful purple paper with gold stars on it. I wanted to stick it on my wall later like a painting, to cover up a little of the grimy walls opposite my bed so I could wake up and it’d be the first thing I saw, reminding me of this amazing day.

Finally, I peeled the last sticky tape off and the wrapping paper fell open to reveal a black journal decorated with formulas in what looked like white chalk. Chemistry formulas. I ran my fingers over the thick cover.

It was beautiful.

“Everyone needs someone to tell their secrets to,” Diarmuid said quietly. “You can write them down in here. Don’t miss my note inside.”

I opened the journal. A hundred-euro bill fell out and flittered to the floor. I picked it up and frowned. Was this meant to be in the journal? He must have accidentally dropped it into the gift. I held it out to Diarmuid.

He shook his head and pushed my hand back towards me. “I thought you could use the money to buy yourself something…nice.” He looked sheepish. “I admit I don’t have the first clue what women like to buy.”

He gave me a hundred euro. That’s more money than I’d ever seen in my life.

I could get a bra.

A new backpack.

I could save the rest and put it towards my dream of moving out of my ma’s place on my own one day.

I clutched the note to my chest. “Why…?”

He shrugged. “I wanted to.”

Written on the first page, on thick, luxurious cream paper, was this in his scratchy bold handwriting:

 

Dear Saoirse,

Never forget how special you are.

Love, Diarmuid

 

My throat closed up.

He said “love”. He signed “Love, Diarmuid”.

No one had ever said that word to me. No one had ever claimed to. That single word jumbled around inside me. I felt like I might scream or burst or cry. Or all of the above.

I slammed against Diarmuid, wrapping my arms around his waist, my body shaking as I tried to control my tears.

“Best present ever,” I mumbled into his shirt, which smelled like his grown-up cologne. He was the best-smelling man in the world. He never smelled of stale beer or cigarettes.

His arms closed around me. “You deserve it, little rebel. You deserve it.”

It was late by the time I’d left Moina’s, drunk on cola and high on the best chocolate cake I’d ever tasted. I’d only remembered about the twenty euro and my ma’s smokes when I reached my door. The local shop would be closed by now. It was too late to go buy them. Fuck. She’d be fuming.

I worried my lip with my teeth, glancing down the stairs. I could go back to Moina’s and beg to sleep on her couch. She’d let me. She’d let me before when my ma brought home a very bad man who stared at me with a glossy sickness in his eyes, who made me feel dirty even before he touched me under my shirt. Luckily my ma woke up then and came looking for him. He snatched his hand off me and I was able to run out of the apartment.

I could stay with Moina tonight. But I didn’t have any clothes with me for school tomorrow. No toothbrush. Nothing. I pressed my ear to the door and listened. Maybe Ma was passed out. Maybe I’d get lucky.

I couldn’t hear anyone moving in there. At least, I didn’t think I could hear anything…

I unlocked the door as quietly as I could and slipped inside and kept the light off, letting the moon filtering in from the window be my guide. Thank God. Ma wasn’t home, the living room silent and soggy with the scent of stale beer and unwashed bodies. I slipped into my room and locked my door using the latch inside.

I got ready for bed and took my hundred euro present and slipped it between the pages of my old math textbook in my tiny bookcase. By the dim light of my old bedside lamp, I wrote my first journal entry before I fell asleep clutching my journal and thinking of a certain gentle, dark-haired giant.