Page 42 of Steadfast

Saoirse met my eyes over the top of the car. “Got everything?”

“I’m going to do one more run-through,” I told her. “Wait with the littles.”

She nodded.

“I’m going to grab everyone’s pillows,” Cian said as we headed back into the house. “I grabbed Aisling’s ibuprofen—you forgot it on the banister. I grabbed our toiletries, too. I wasn’t sure whose was whose, so I just threw all the makeup and shit in a grocery bag.”

“Fuck,” I mumbled. What else had I forgotten about?

“Be right back.”

“Grab the crocheted blankets off our beds, too,” I called out as he jogged up the stairs. Mom had made them when each of us were born. They weren’t big enough to cover a bed, but all of us had kept them folded on the ends of our beds for as long as I could remember.

I walked around the house, looking at everything we were leaving behind. We’d moved in while Mom was pregnant with Cian. All the kids except me had come home from the hospital to this house. It held every memory, every treasure, every piece of our lives.

I paused at Saoirse’s school bag and pulled out a spiral notebook and pen then brought them over to the kitchen table. My stomach churned with nausea as I started to write.

Mom,

Call you when we get there.

Love you!

Aoife

I left the note on the table in case anyone came into the house looking for us.

“A little help here?” Cian called, stumbling down the stairs.

I grabbed a couple of the blankets. “You couldn’t have folded these?”

“In a hurry, right?”

“You have your phone?”

“Yeah.”

“Still have minutes?”

“I’ve barely turned it on.”

“Good. Go get in the car,” I ordered. “I’ll lock up.”

I followed him out of the house, pausing only once to pull a family photo off the wall. Carefully, I pulled the nail out, too, and scrubbed my finger over the tiny hole to hide that it had ever been there.

We were driving down our street less than a minute later, the neighborhood passing outside our windows as if nothing was different, even though we knew everything was.

“Just let me fold these,” Saoirse bitched in the back seat.

“Why is mine in the trunk?” Ronan argued. “Why do you get yours?”

“They won’t all fit up here,” Saoirse snapped. “We already have the coolers up here. I can’t even put my feet down.”

“Didn’t think that through,” Cian said, glancing at the back seat.

“When we stop at my work we can rearrange it. Can one of the coolers fit in the trunk?”

“It’s gettin’ tight back there, but I’ll make it work.”

---