When Irish Eyes Are Sparkling

by Tom Collins

  “Was it?” Gabe mused. His tone had changed; it was very thoughtful now.

  “Nothing about him had anything to do with—with what happened. It was all my problem. I will…give him a chance to say to me whatever he wants to say.”

  If he’s still speaking to me. Christ. There went my chin trembling, and my eyes welling. I turned my head away.

  Gabe sighed. “Yeah, I bet you will, and if Liam decides to blast you out of the water, I bet you’ll stand there and take it. You won’t try to defend yourself, you won’t try to apologize, you’ll do like you did our first week together; take it as deserved and try to survive it. Christ on a cracker, did I ever fuck up with you! It’s ‘cause you come across as older than you are.”

  I didn’t quite laugh. “That’s what my step-mom always says. Every birthday it’s, sixteen going on forty, twenty going on forty. I can’t seem to act my age. I always act like I’m going on forty.”

  “But you’re not forty,” he said flatly. “Are ya?”

  I went still. Shit.

  “You’re twenty-two,” he pointed out quietly, firmly. “Only twenty-two.”

  Young and stupid, he meant. I cringed. “Yes, sir.”

  “That was the first thing I missed. How damn young you are. The second was recognizing your type,” Gabe relentlessly went on. “I’ve seen it in a few other EMTs, but I didn’t catch it in you, not right away. You hide it well. You’re the type that’s focused enough to be a doctor, but that’s not for you, is it? You’re one of those who’d get attached to a patient if you had to care for them long term, and then you start to feel for them. Feel their pain, feel what their loved ones are going through, feel every minute of their treatment.”

  His green eyes were burrowing right through me, like X-rays. “An’ you can’t bear that, can you? ‘Cause you’re soft, Sutton, soft as room-temperature butter.”

  My gut knotted and I broke into a cold, terrified sweat. Absolutely true. I was a fucking marshmallow and yes, I tried to hide it. You bet your ass. I should have known better than to think I could keep it from laser-eyed Gabriel O’Shaughnessy. God help me, when he was done with me, there wasn’t going to be enough left to sweep into the dust bin.

  “Which,” he went on with a sigh, “is why I want to say—”

  Here it came.

  “—that I’m sorry.”

  I blinked. “Come again?”

  “I’m sorry that I got things so wrong.” He glanced away from me as if troubled. “See, Liam reminds me a lot of my baby brother, the one I told you about. Joel’s a sensitive sort like you, and I saw all the shit he went through to find someone, and how hurt he got along the way. I didn’t want that for Liam.

  “Thing is, though, Liam’s not as much like my little brother as I thought. Oh, he looks enough like Joel to be his son, and he’s just as romantic, but Joel was cautious, and when he got rejected, he went into mourning for…hell, years. Liam’s…reckless. He’s willing to put himself out there, again and again. Give his heart away, even let it be smashed then pick up the pieces and put ‘em back together just so he can hand it to someone else.”

  Gabe shook his head with wonder. “The boy’s a masochist, sure, but he’s strong. There’s steel in him, more in him, truth to tell, than maybe in any other member of our family save my mam.”

  He leaned on the metal railing of my hospital bed, close enough for me to finally see the sympathy in his gaze. “I should have told Liam that if he hurt my partner, I’d kill him, not the other way around, because if you and he split you’re the one who won’t be able to pick up the pieces. Look at yourself right here and now. Ready to leave the program, surrender all you’ve worked for and dreamed of doing, even ready to give up Liam—and why? Because you think you’ve disappointed us and him.”

  I turned away because I was going to break down crying and I really didn’t want him to see it. I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. “I did something unforgiveable, Gabe,” I whispered.

  “Oh, Sutton,” he sighed, and to my shock and almost my undoing, he ruffled my hair, gently and fondly, as if I were his son. “Just tell me this—when you went to that part of town, did you do anything?”

  “No sir,” I murmured.

  “Were you going to do anything?”

  “No! I mean…subconsciously, maybe. But I couldn’t. I’m with Liam. I mean—”

  He was smirking. “I know what ya mean. I’d better get out of here.” He made for the door. “If Vera learns I got past her watchdogs, she’ll skin me alive—and then skin them.”

  He paused, his hand on the latch. “What happens with you and Liam ain’t my business, much as I’d like to make it mine, but how you do in this last part of your paramedic training is my business, especially as it reflects on me. You quit the program this close to getting your license and I will be disappointed,” his green gaze found me, hard and unforgiving, “and I will kill you.”

  With a smile that was anything but friendly, he left.

  Chapter Eleven

  *Liam*

  Uncle Gabriel dropped us off at our apartment building from the hospital and I went straight to my room, carrying the set of scrub bottoms I’d nicked from Oliver’s pajama drawer. Brendan followed me in and I let him coax me over to the double bed in the corner. He thought I should lie down and get some rest.

  “Things will look better in the morning,” he promised.

  I didn’t want to sleep; I wanted to paint. “Wanted,” wasn’t strong enough a word, I needed to, but Bren was in comforting mode and I knew the easiest thing was to give in. I didn’t have the emotional reserves to argue about it. He would fall asleep soon enough and I’d be able to slip out of bed and get some work done.

  That’s what I did, too; waited for him to drop off into deep sleep and slithered free of his embrace. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel the need for his support, but having him asleep in the room while I slapped pigment on canvas was comfort enough. First, I changed into Oliver’s scrubs, leaving the rest of me bare to the fan blowing cooler air in from the open window. I’d taken them because of an irrational, or at least uncontrollable, need to have something of him with me. Later I would dig up a pair of scissors and trim them into shorts, to keep cooler still, but right now, I just needed to apply myself to something mindless and consuming.

  I was putting the final touches on the figure chained in the background of the Ollie the Barbarian painting—an indistinct figure whose gender depended upon the viewer’s subconscious expectations—as I heard the first birdcalls of morning. A songbird perched on the railing of the fire escape outside my window, singing to me through the box fan. Brendan muttered something about, “not the fluffernutters,” smacked his lips a couple of times, rolled onto his stomach and grew quiet once more. Amused, I wondered what he was dreaming.

  Hanging the finished acrylic on an empty nail to dry, I picked out a blank canvas and set it on one of my easels, a smaller one, since this canvas was only two foot by three. This would be an acrylic as well, and I got down to it, slathering on the deep, cool greens of shaded leaves. I was deep into the process of creating the Orange Weaver bird nest—a construct of pine needles that looked like a wicker-work ball with an entrance woven in the side—when Brendan breathed deep, as one sometimes will upon waking, and rolled onto his back, morning wood saluting the long-since risen sun. He rubbed sleep from his eyes.

  “You got up early.” His voice was fuzzy with sleep.

  “Yeah, felt inspired.” That’s when he noticed I was sitting at my easel and he did a groggy double take.

  “You’re painting?” Incredulous.

  I nodded, while loading golden hay-colored ocher on my brush and blocking in pixie Oliver’s hair. Brendan went to the bathroom and by the time he got back I’d gotten pretty good definition on the form and was working on the diaphanous wings that would be little more than a suggestion in the dimly lit, commandeered, bird’s nest.

  He stood behind me for a while, watching the fin
e details emerge. He said it was like watching a magic show. I knew what he meant, of course, because that’s what it felt like when I watched him play. What he did with a plucked instrument—touching strings and music happening—was so implausible to me at times, and the way he could meld himself with other people to make anything other than racket never ceased to amaze me.

  I spent the next six days painting until I was too exhausted to continue, crashing for a few hours, only to start all over again when I got up. I was compelled, like never before, and certainly not after a relationship has just collapsed. The norm would be for me to be constipated, creatively speaking.

  My sister, Molly, was kind enough to take over my shift at the pub so I could “recover my equilibrium.” Whatever that meant. I did go out Monday, while everyone else was at work. I made a supply run to Michael’s because I was out of several colors in both acrylic and oil. I grabbed a few pre-stretched canvases while I was at it. I didn’t like using them because they were so generic, but I begrudged the time it took to prepare new ones and I was down to my last. Spotting an unusual size, six foot by three, lightening struck my brain. The people on the subway were going to love me.

  Friday rolled around, a week of intense creation for me, and intense worry for Brendan. I knew how troubled he was, but I didn’t know what to do for him. I tried to explain what had happened between Oliver and I in the parking lot, and while I could convey the sense of what was said, I couldn’t begin to express all the things that hadn’t been said. I felt his fretting keenly, as if it were my own. It was like a bee buzzing behind my head, always in my blind spot. Losing myself in a world of colorful paste smears blocked it out.

  I sat on my padded stool, applying yet another thin layer of caramel-syrup pigmented oil paint on the eyes. They were the only thing in the painting with color. The rest was black, white and uncounted shades of grey between. The last step would be a light wash of oil with just enough of a tint to leave behind a sepia tone over the whole. The difference between the sepia wash, and the way I was doing the eyes was the shade I was using for the eyes was darker and a little more opaque, but it was paint I’d thinned with linseed oil. I’d turned it into a sort of glaze and was using the technique they use on cars of applying dozens of whisper-thin layers to give the feeling of looking into deep, cognac-filled pools. Between a few of these layers, I detailed the folds of the iris muscle, adding all the beautiful striations that gave Oliver’s eyes such stunning up-close character.

  Stepping back, I surveyed the effect and was pleased, it only remained to let it dry and then I could give it the sepia stain. I paused to study the whole before moving it to a safe spot for drying. I’d translated the first sketch I did of Oliver on our first morning together into oils. I’d used the six-by-three canvas to blow it up to almost life size. In an experimental mood, I’d tried blending two disparate styles. The background—the bed, room a bit of window and the sheet draping Oliver’s nude form—mimicked Van Gogh’s short, choppy strokes, almost jabs at the canvas sometimes, with a heavily loaded brush.

  The foreground, however—Oliver—echoed the realistic and hyper-smooth style of Michelangelo. The effect was a visual calm spot centered on the figure, while the rest was a hyper-busy, ordered chaos. The chaos drew the gaze out to flit over the thick textures of the room, but it always came back to rest on the tranquil eye in the storm. That was assuming you could tear your eyes away from his, which seemed to follow you, inviting you to join him.

  It wasn’t an abrupt change between the two styles as if Oliver were a Michelangelo cutout pasted into a Van Gogh scene. It was variegation from one extreme at the edge of the canvas to another in the center.

  This was the best thing I’d ever done.

  I took it over and hung it on the stud-sunk nails I’d put up days ago just for it. I’d cleared an entire wall for this piece. I smiled, thinking how Bren and Jill had insisted on putting everything I’d taken down this last week through the rest of the place. It seemed the whole apartment was papered in sketches, and what wasn’t had a canvas on it.

  I scanned the walls, looking over the new paintings I’d done this week, some in acrylic and others in oil. Ollie the Barbarian hung over the head of my bed, complete save for a clear sealing coat. Pixie Oliver in the weaverbird’s nest, wearing a cheeky grin, hung next to the first, its oil slowly curing.

  Lastly, though it was my second favorite, hung another acrylic, which was also in need of sealant. This one depicted Oliver as a Sylvan elf, with all the appropriate tattoos wandering over nearly every inch of exposed flesh, even his face and the moon of skin left bare by his loincloth and leggings. What skin wasn’t brightly patterned in flowers, vines and animals was a mellow mahogany color. He crouched next to a thin trickle of water in cool, deep woods. The viewer could tell he’d been drinking a moment before as water dribbled from his still cupped hand. Now, however, he was alert, head cocked and the delicate points of his ears almost seemed to twitch, like a cougar sensing danger. I was proud of this one because the tattooing had come out so perfectly.

  My iPhone bleeped at me from the dresser, alerting me that the battery was low. Tangling my feet in the huge pile of clean laundry I was standing next to, I went to plug it in. Bren had brought it home with him Sunday night, clicking off the sound, and docking it. I hadn’t used it since, except for the other day to order pizza then I’d forgotten about it again.

  Now, I finally unlocked it and noticed the red highlighted number by the green phone symbol. I’d gotten a load of calls. I tapped the icon to bring up came the voicemail list. There were messages from Uncle Gabe and Gram, my father, mother and Molly. Also Uncle Dev of all people. Only one name, however, kept my attention; the first on the list.

  An auditory flashback of Oliver’s ring tone coming from my locker Friday night after the parking lot fiasco made me hesitate to check it. Who was I kidding? There was no way in Hell I could not check it. I selected it and listened, heart in throat.

  “Liam,” came Oliver’s voice, as if startled by something, “please, don’t erase this. You don’t have to listen to it now, in fact you probably won’t want to listen to it for a long time, but don’t…please…let me…I’m sorry.” I twitched in surprise at the apology. It didn’t make sense. Why would he apologize in a voice mail then refuse to see me?

  “I’ve never done anything so awful to anyone,” he said, voice trembling on the edge of tears. My own eyes welled in sympathy. “Forcing myself on you that way….”

  Air gushed from my lungs as if George Foreman had gut-punched me. What was he talking about, forced himself on me? How could he think that when I was participating, touching him and kissing him back?

  “I’ve n-no excuse. I ju—” his voice caught and tears spilled down my cheeks. “just—I—” he hesitated, thinking perhaps, and I heard a distant voice ask him for a light. He ignored the inquiry, saying into the phone, to me, “I…messed up…”

  “You sure?” I heard the other voice again, closer this time. I actually heard the sound of grit under Oliver’s shoe as he turned, possibly to face the irritant. He growled under his breath, a soft sound of anger that made the hairs on the back of my neck lift.

  Please, don’t let me hear what I think I’m about to hear! I prayed to the universe at large, as he hissed, “No,” at the young-sounding voice. The last thing in the entire world I ever wanted to hear came through the earpiece just a second later, Oliver screaming in pain. There was a kind of whooshing of air, as if a wind had come up out of nowhere and the sound of splintering plastic. Amazingly, the sounds didn’t cut off until one of the assailants stepped on the phone, whether by accident or design, I couldn’t say.

  Rushing out to the living room to have Brendan listen, I remembered it was Friday evening and he would be pulling my double shift tonight. I was tempted to dress and rush over to the pub. I couldn’t be alone with the sound of Oliver’s cries echoing in my mind.

  A knock at the front door scared me almost out of my s
kin. I was a bit freaked out by the message, so I checked through the peephole before opening the door.

  “Uncle Joel? What’re you doing here?” I asked holding the door open wide to let him in.

  He strolled in, casual as you please. He had a lawyer’s air, even in his street clothes, which made him seem as if he were in an under-privileged client’s apartment for a meeting. He glanced around, taking in the art-covered walls and scattered dishes. Looking at him, one almost felt you could see the powder of an Irish solicitor’s wig dusting his shoulders. I’d grown up admiring his natural poise and wondering how someone so shy in courting could be so bold in court. He was a dichotomic personality, to be sure.

  “Well, I tell you truthfully, Li, I’m not at all sure what I’m doing here. That is, I know why I’m here; I just have no idea what I’m supposed to do. Dev and I were having supper at the pub and I asked your brother why he was waiting tables instead of you. Next thing I know he’s talked me into coming here to talk to you, so, here I am. Unfortunately, I have no game plan.”

  “I’m sorry, Bren shouldn’t have bothered you. It’s just he’s been so worried—”

  “No kidding,” he interjected with a grin.

  “I don’t know what to do for him. Nothing I say helps.”

  A look of mystification crossed his smooth features.

  “Brendan seems to think it’s you who needs helping, not him. He says you’ve been closeted in your room since last Friday night painting like a man under a geis—may I?” He hooked his thumb toward the hall.

  “Sure,” I replied, thinking he needed the toilet.

  He went down the hall saying, “Allegedly, this fact, when combined with an apparent dire lack of David Bowie playing morning, noon and night, signals a near complete breakdown of your mental facilities.”

  He walked past the bathroom and Brendan’s room and right into mine. I hurried after him, not expecting this.