Page 72 of The Art of Us

A knock came from the bathroom door. “Stop talking to yourself and go to sleep!”

Great. Mara heard her talking to herself. Could Mara always hear her when she was speaking to herself?

“I’m going to have to wire my jaw shut.” She said that out loud too, but she muttered low enough that she was sure Mara couldn’t hear. She frowned. At least, she hoped Mara couldn’t hear.

Mara was right though. She needed to get some sleep. She rolled over and forced her eyes closed.

The next morning, everything in the house was eerily quiet for a Saturday. Usually, Taylor Swift crooned from the bathroom or Mara’s bedroom. And sounds of activity from either Jarrod or Grace interacting with Jade would float up from downstairs.

But nothing.

Maybe it was early?

Ireland checked her phone, but instead of waking up early, she had slept in. It was 9:10.

She got out of bed and put her ear to the Jack and Jill bathroom. No noise at all. Maybe everybody was gone. Ireland gathered the clothing she planned to wear for the day but then rethought her choices. If she was going to see Kal, she wanted to look her very best.

She stared into her closet for longer than she wanted to admit to anyone. “I really need to hit a thrift store with Grace so she can help me find the good stuff.”

She pulled out a top that looked flattering on her even if it was worn out. Then she got a sweater that matched it close enough. She grabbed the pair of jeans that was in the best shape and called it good.

Now armed with her clothing for the day, Ireland opened her bedroom door to go to the bathroom at the end of the hall. And ran right into paper.

The brown paper spanned the entire opening of her doorway. She stepped back. In bright colorful letters was painted HappyBirthday! Ireland recognized the handwriting to be Mara’s. There were balloons and candles and party hats all painted carefully around the words.

Ireland felt a burn at the back of her throat and behind her eyes. She blinked away the tears that were going to fall no matter how much blinking she did. Mara had given her a birthday present.

She didn’t ever want to take it down, but there was the other problem that she needed to go to the bathroom and had to get through that door somehow. Ireland carefully pried away the tape on one end and slid through the opening she created.

When she opened the door to the bathroom, it was full of actual balloons. The bathroom wasn’t very big, so it wouldn’t have been hard to fill it, but there had to have been at least thirty helium balloons floating at the ceiling with their strings hanging down for Ireland to walk through.

On the mirror was written the words You Can Vote! with pictures of ballots and an American flag surrounding the words.

Ireland dropped her clothes to the floor, hurried to take care of her reason for being there, and left the bathroom to go find Mara.

Downstairs, the dining room table was set with colorful party plates and streamers. There was a chafing dish in the middle of the table to keep whatever was inside warm.

A cake sat next to the chafing dish. A real birthday cake. It was tall and round and frosted with aqua blue and white stripes circling its base while pink frosting drizzled down the sides. It was topped with white roses and aqua blue macarons and eighteen candles. Ireland didn’t have to count them all to know that they were there.

The entire Washington family jumped out from behind the decorator wall and yelled, “Surprise!”

Ireland ugly sobbed. Snot bubbles probably hung out of hernose. She didn’t care, which was a good thing because she couldn’t have stopped crying if she’d wanted to.

“You said she was going to love this.” Jade gave Mara a scandalized glance.

“Those are happy tears, baby girl,” Jarrod said.

Grace wrapped Ireland up in a hug. “Happy birthday, sweetheart. When Mara said you guys were going out for dinner, we figured we could do a birthday breakfast instead.”

“This is amazing. Idolove it.” She looked at Jade to make sure Jade heard that part. “Thank you.”

Jarrod looked pleased. “Mara did most of it. But I made the cake.”

“And I made the pancakes!” Jade said.

Grace shrugged. “I set the table. Figured there was no reason to be poisoning you on your birthday with my cooking.”

Everyone sat down and ate pancakes together. Then they lit the candles and sang and waited for Ireland to blow the candles out so that they could cheer. Celebrating Ireland. Celebrating family. Celebrating together.

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