Page 58 of It's a Love Story

“Let’s just hope for quick,” he says. He makes his way to the stage and lines up with his brothers. Reenie and Cormack are radiant with joy just seeing them all up there. The music starts, and they sing “Loves Me Like a Rock.” Dan is truly the outlier. His brothers make a big show of fighting for the microphone to sing about how their mama loves them, as if they’re fighting for her attention and that’s part of the joke. Dan hangs back, and Brian puts his arm around him and pulls him to the mic. I see firsthand how much Dan’s brothers don’t want him to be different. They’re a pack and they want him to fold in. And as Dan stands there, arms around Brian and Finn, letting them sway him to the music but not singing a single word, I understand why he doesn’t live here. I understand how he loves them all fiercely, but needs space to be who he is. He doesn’t want to be mistaken for someone he’s not. He matters too much.

The crowd erupts with applause. Reenie has tears in her eyes, and Cormack has his arm around her. What a thing it must be to stay together for forty years. I wonder if there was ever a moment where they wanted to call it, walk away. I like thinking there was and that they stuck it out to get to here anyway.

Brian has the mic. “I want to wish our parents a happy fortieth wedding anniversary.” Cheers all around. “We’ve written a little poem for you guys, just to prove once and for all that we all know how to read.” Laughs. He starts with his stanza, then Finn, then Connor. I see Dan’s face go serious when Aidan takes the mic. I’m standing off to the side by the bar, and I move toward the center of the crowd. Aidan hands him the mic and he doesn’t say anything. When his eyes find me in the crowd, they lock on me. I put my hand on my heart. He nods and takes a breath, then smiles at his parents. “My parents are people I aspire to be like. And I hope to find love like theirs one day.” The room is quiet and he turns to his brothers. “And, you guys, we’re too old to rhyme,” he says, and everyone laughs, raucous surprised laughs. My smile is so big that I have to cover it with my hand. Dan got up with his brothers, but didn’t blend in. I love that he’s used my joke. A bubbly kind of happiness floods my body as I watch him laugh with his brothers onstage. It feels good to want something for someone else, something that has nothing to do with you, just because you care about them. And I wonder if this is what love is. I rest my hand on my heart to feel if it’s changed. I think it has. I have.

The music starts playing and the party resumes, people moving toward the bar, toward the bathrooms, to find a seat. I lose track of Dan as soon as he’s off the stage. I’m just standing there alone with a giant grin on my face, so I make my way to the back booth to check on Sammy. It feels like fresh air being at the back of the room, far from the music. Sammy is lying on his back with his arms over his head, sleeping the sleep of the gods. I lean on the booth and take a breath, wanting to see Dan.

Just as I think this, he’s walking out of the crowd toward me. He hands me a beer and says, “It was okay, right?” He’s smiling too and I can tell he’s a little revved up.

“You were great,” I say. “Even a little joke at the end.” We clink our beers and take a sip.

“I wasn’t even trying to make a joke, but I remembered you said that and it’s true, so I said it. And they laughed. I can see why you like that. I mean, the singing was horrible.” He takes a sip of his beer. “But the laugh was okay.”

“It was perfect,” I say.

“Thank you.” He’s looking down at me and his face is wide open. He is feeling something and he doesn’t care if I know. He wants me to know. He’s just laying it out there, right in his eyes. I would like to be that person for one day, just to see what it feels like.This is who I am,Dan says in everything he does. The power of that is overwhelming. I want to be able to take it in without changing the subject when I get nervous or scared. I reach out and take his hand, and he takes a step toward me.

A little hand tugs on mine, and I look down to see Ruby staring up at me. She’s in an orange sundress and she’s made a cape out of a white napkin.

I squat down to her without letting go of Dan’s hand. “Love the cape,” I say.

“It’s time,” she says. “For my dance. On the stage.”

“Oh,” I say. “I’ve seen you practicing.”

“I wanted to. But I’m shy now.” Her navy eyes fall. I look up at Dan for direction, but he hasn’t heard any of this.

“How can I help?” I ask.

“I need the right music, and I don’t know how to tell the man.” She’s on the verge of tears—that’s the only thing here that’s entirely clear to me.

“Okay, let’s go together,” I say and squeeze her hand. I stand up into Dan’s personal space. We are once again too close, and the effect is not wearing off. My eyes go to his lips, which have parted the tiniest bit. “We need to go do something,” I tell his mouth. “Ruby and me.”

Ruby drags me through the crowd up to the stage where the guitar player is on a break. Ruby grabs my eyes and motions to him with her head.

“Hi,” I say. “This is Ruby. And she has a song request, she’s going to do a dance.”

He smiles at her like she’s the most adorable thing ever, which for sure she is. “Okay, great, let’s see if I know it.”

She whispers something we can’t hear, so I squat down and give her my ear. “‘Let It Go,’” she whispers again. This is a problem. There is no way this guy with a single guitar is going to be able to pull off that song.

I stand and act more hopeful than I am. “Any chance you know ‘Let It Go’? Like fromFrozen?

He laughs. “Not on my song list. Sorry.”

I look down at Ruby, who is definitely going to cry. I can picture her now waving her arms at the potato fields in the exact rhythm of that song. It’s clear that the breaststroke motions she was making to cut through the air in front of her are timed to the chorus. I imagine Reenie and Cormack in a state of complete heart explosion watching her dance on their special night.

“What if I download it on my phone? Can you connect it to your speakers?”

“Finn probably can,” he says. “I’m going on a break anyway.”

I nod at Ruby and give her hand a squeeze.

When Finn’s hooked my phone up to the speakers, it’s just Ruby and me on the stage. “So introduce us,” she says. Her voice falters, and she is worrying the knot of her napkin cape. I know that she’s very close to backing out, so I do it.

I take the microphone. “Everyone?” I say. “Hello?” The crowd quiets and turns my way. Dan is leaning on the bar with Brooke by his side, but I’m the one he’s smiling at. “I’m Jane. We have a real treat for Reenie and Cormack tonight. An original dance choreographed and performed by their granddaughter Ruby.” The crowd cheers, and she looks up at me, expression still shaky.

I put the microphone back in the stand and cue up the song. I squat down to her and whisper, “Ready?”

---