Claiming Serenity(35)

“For my blood, yours too, all of ours. For the country who birthed us. I don’t live here because my father pays my way. I could go anywhere and he’d support me. I live here because it’s where my people have lived for a hundred years, same as yours. I live here because I’m proud to be Irish, I’m proud of the mother land, just as proud, maybe more so, than I am of this one. This flag reminds me who I was born to be. Who I’ll be when I die. Erin go Bragh, Layla. It’s who we are, who our people will always be.”

She’d caught the meaning, the importance of it all. She and Donovan, like most of their friends, had been born American, as had their parents and grandparents before them. But Cavanagh was a proud place. It was a town that had not forgotten the struggles of their ancestors or the importance of their traditions. Unlike most foreigner—built settlements in America, Cavanagh had not been diluted by the country, by the lax belief that who America’s citizens were, where they had come from, made up the beautiful melting pot that the country had grown from. To the townsfolk in Cavanagh, that pot was important, but it was not more important than the deep wells of culture and pride and tradition of Ireland. Nothing ever would be. It was like her father always said; they were Americans, sure, but they were Irish first.

But it wasn’t that flag Layla stared at as she nodded her understanding. Her focus was on those words, the ones she knew didn’t have anything to do with ancestral pride. She moved her chin toward his chest, catching Donovan’s gaze. “And the words?”

Sighing, Donovan fell back against the mattress, resting his head on his arms. “You remember that year we went to Mardi Gras? I think I was eighteen and you were almost the same age.”

“Yeah. My cousins in New Orleans have an apartment right on Bourbon Street. Balcony and all. That was the last time our dads spoke.” Mr. Donley and her father had been friends for decades, more like brothers than poker buddies. It had always been an annoying factor for Layla since Donovan had decided at twelve it would be his life’s work to piss her off. That teasing and torture didn’t stop when their families barbequed together or took weekend trips to Georgia. “It wasn’t long after that weekend that Daddy stopped mentioning your dad and we stopped doing much with each other. When he announced we were all going to a ball during carnival and your dad and mom were coming with us, well… I didn’t want to go.”

“Why?” She cocked an eyebrow at him and he laughed. “Because of me?”

“Because the week before you poured mustard into my gym bag when I was in the showers after P.E. I had to walk to the principal’s office in Lost and Found clothes.” Donovan cackled out a laugh and she slapped his chest, not amused by the memory or how funny he’d seemed to find it. “Shut up. God, you’re such an ass.”

“Never denied that.” The laughter stopped just then and Donovan looked up at her, not smiling, raking his fingers through her hair as though another memory had taken apart the humor at her humiliation. “This isn’t about any of that,” he’d said, pointing to the words. “It’s about my father and the stupid shit he did when he was drinking. And, it’s about… Jolie.”

Layla frowned. “Jolie?”

He’d nodded, looked away from her. “Jolie Keller, Layla. Your cousin.”

Layla could only blink at Donovan and that worry of what he’d explain to her came back full throttle. Jolie was her first cousin. She was five years older than Layla and a vain, spoiled girl who always made stupid choices. But Jolie and Donovan? It hadn’t made any sense at all to her. “I don’t…”

“She wore that red mask, remember?” he’d interrupted, eyes closing as he spoke and the softness of his voice, with the way that the edge in his words cooled the longer he’d spoken had Layla sitting up, covering her naked chest with the sheet.

She remembered that ball. Her mask had been purple and Layla had spent the night listening to the hypnotizing sounds of the horns and music below on Bourbon Street. She wanted to stay there, hidden under that mask, pretending to be someone no one knew; desperate to keep back from her parents, her brother, the Donleys all the things that would out her as a simple, boring seventeen year old from Cavanagh.

Donovan had blinked, exhaled slow and when he’d spoken again, that softness covering his words was gone completely. “She was beautiful and smelled like wildflowers. I danced with her for two hours straight, then I kissed her on the balcony of the Royal Sonesta hotel after the ball. I thought I loved her. Stupid, right? Four hours knowing someone and,” Donovan’s fingers snapping had broken the quiet in the room, “just like that, my stupid eighteen year old brain thinks I’m in love.”