“Hello, Ireland, I brought someone here to meet you. This is—”
Ireland’s eyes widened for a second with happiness and then with hurt. “I know who you are. You’re Aaron Skkye, my dad and I used to watch basketball together all the time. He used to tell me about you.”
I thought that drills made my heart race, a game in overtime weighed on me, but nothing compared to this . . . she was beautiful. Her dark brown hair was wavy just like mine, but her bright blue eyes were all Maisy.
“Hi, Ireland.” Moving nearer, I pulled a chair up next to her and took a seat. “What else do you know about me?”
“I know that you’re my birth father, but you gave me up for adoption. My parents wanted me. I want my parents.” Ireland started crying.
“Can you leave us for a few minutes?” I asked Karen, and she patted my shoulder like some older mother figure.
“I’ve got calls to make. I’ll be back in that conference room if you need me, okay?” I nodded and she left.
“I know you do, I’m so sorry this has happened to you.”
“Really? Then why wasn’t it you? You didn’t want me in the first place, they did. You gave me up. Now you’re here, and they’re gone, and I have no one. It isn’t fair.” Ireland wailed. She wasn’t wanting for me to say anything, so I stayed silent. “What’s going to happen to me? My mom and dad were all I had.” Her tears were falling hard as she tried with a valiant effort to pull herself together, but she just couldn’t. “I want my parents!” Ireland shouted.
“That’s why I’m here.”
Ireland shook her head, “No, that’s my problem; I want my mom, not you. Please, get my mom for me, she’s at home, she’s waiting for me, I know she is. My dad is just at work, that’s all, he’s at work, he’ll be home soon. Tell me this was all a nightmare, please, please.”
I fought my own urge to cry as I listened to her go through every possibility until she finally accepted the truth about what had happened. It didn’t matter, I was going to be here for her, never again would she be alone.
“I’m going home.” Ireland moved the covers back but winced at the pain.
“Stop Ireland, you have to stay here a little longer.”
“But I’m alone here.”
“I’ll stay with you as long as you want.”
“I don’t want you. You don’t want me,” Ireland lashed out.
“Yes, I do, I want you with all of my soul.” It was true, I really did want her, she had always held a special place in my heart.
“Why? You didn’t want me when I was born. It was why you gave me away.”
I trailed one hand down my sleep-deprived face. “That isn’t true. I’ve always wanted you, but sometimes, it is more important to think of others than it is to think of yourself.”
“I don’t even know what to call you, what are you to me besides my biological father? I’m not going to call you that.”
“How about Aaron, you call me Aaron, and I’ll call you Ireland.”
Ireland stared at me. “Are you being forced to take me now, you know, because I’m all alone?”
I grabbed a chair and pulled it up so I could sit next to her bed. I held her uninjured hand in mine, and it was tiny compared to my giant one. “I’ve always wanted you. I’ve thought about you every day. On September nineteenth—”
“Hey, that’s my birthday.”
“I know, and every year on that date, all I can think about is you and what type of person you’re growing up to be. I wonder if you’re happy and if you love your life as much as I hoped you would. Every day, I regret that I wasn’t able to be the parent you needed me to be back then, but I also know that your parents loved you and were able to give you the life I couldn’t have.”
“Really?”
“Really. It was what was best for you, and you were the only thing that mattered to me. I was just a kid, I hadn’t graduated high school, and I didn’t have a good home to go to.”
“Why?”
“I will tell you about that another time, okay?”
Ireland nodded.
“What about my biological mom?”
“Her name was Maisy, you have the same exact eyes as her, they’re beautiful. Maisy wasn’t happy giving up her teenage years.”
“In this same hospital, right?” Ireland asked.
“Yep, you were born in this very hospital.” I took a deep breath and recomposed myself. “I followed the nurses. I thought you were the most beautiful thing ever in the world. You were amazing, you had ten fingers and ten toes. I couldn’t believe that you were just perfect.” Ireland smiled brightly at my words. “By the time I made my way back down to Maisy’s room, she was gone.”
“What do you mean gone? Where did she go?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Don’t know. The security guards pulled up the video from the cameras that showed her leaving, but no one has seen or heard from her again. She just disappeared.” Ireland sat quietly, absorbing everything I had just told her. “That’s why I decided it was best to give you to the Lacys; they wanted a baby so bad and would be so good to you. It was just me, and I had no way to take care of you. As much as it broke my heart—and I mean broke, smashed it to pieces—I signed the papers because it was best for you. And you were the only one who mattered to me.
Ireland closed her eyes. I waited and waited. When she didn’t reopen them, I found it a great time to go find Karen.
I walked
