Susan embraced her son at the airport. “It’s so good to see you!” she said.
“You too, Mom,” said Kieran.
Kieran had been gone ten days, which was the longest they’d ever been separated. He’d texted her every day, and they’d talked on the phone, but that wasn’t the same as seeing him in person.
She kept looking at him as they walked through New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. He looked different: older, more serious. Had his visit to Ireland changed him that much?
“So, how was your time in the old country?” she asked him, when they got in the car to drive home to Brooklyn. ‘The old country,’ that’s how her parents always referred to Ireland, the country where she was born.
She would have loved to have gone with her son, to see her relatives6 and visit the town where she’d lived until she was thirteen – the same age as he was now – when her family had relocated to the US. But life in New York was expensive and she couldn’t afford to be away for that long.
“It was good,” said Kieran.
“Good, that’s it?”
Kieran said nothing. He just stared out the window in silence. Susan frowned. Had it been a bad idea to permit him to go to Ireland? He’d been asking to go there for years, and at thirteen, she’d thought he was old enough to travel.
He was a teenager, she reminded herself, and teenagers were known to be moody.
Perhaps she was overthinking things. She would wait until he was ready to talk.
It was later that night, when Kieran was looking at photos on his phone that he finally opened up to her.
“Look how beautiful it is,” he said, showing her a photo of the Lakes of Killarney, near Killarney in Co. Kerry, the town where she’d grown up and where he’d stayed with his cousin Conor.
“Oh, I know,” said Susan, feeling encouraged.
“And the family were really nice,” said Kieran. “But…”
“What is it, Kieran?” What was he trying to tell her?
“They were strange, too.”
“Strange?” Susan had never thought her relatives were strange.
“You mean Conor?” she asked, referring to his cousin, who was the same age as Kieran.
“Yeah, Conor in particular. So, you know I went to school with him one day.”
“Yes,” said Susan, who’d thought it would be a great way for her son to experience the local culture.
“Well, Conor told me that his teacher was always giving out to him and his friends when they were bold. The teacher arrived in the classroom before I could ask Conor what she gave out, but I thought it must be candy or gold stars or something. I’m a bit old for things like that, but I thought it would be a nice souvenir to show my classmates, when I tell them about my visit to Ireland. So, I decided to be really bold and speak up in class, even though I felt intimidated. And the teacher was nice to me but she didn’t give me anything. And later, I asked Conor about this and he just laughed at me and said, “You’re gas!” Gas? Was he saying I’d broken wind or that I had bad body odor? It wasn’t very nice.”
Susan had to bite her tongue to stop herself from laughing, because she didn’t want to interrupt her son.
“But then, things got even stranger when Conor introduced me to his friends after class. I think they’re all drug addicts, because the first thing one of them said to him was, “Any crack?” And later, Conor told his friends that I was only “there for the crack,” like I’d gone to Ireland to buy crack cocaine.”
Susan couldn’t control herself any longer and she exploded in laughter. Her son looked at her like she was insane, making her laugh harder.
“Oh, son, I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry, oh but…” And she began laughing again.
“You think it’s funny that Conor is a drug addict?” said Kieran.
“No, oh no.” Susan finally got control of herself. “No, I’m sorry. Oh, Kieran. You misunderstood. I should have told you. Irish people have their own language.”
“Yeah,” said Kieran. “Gaelic. I know. So what?”
“No, but they also have their own dialects of English, called Hiberno-English. And in Hiberno-English, some words have different meanings than they do in American English. ‘Giving out’ means ‘reprimanding’; ‘bold’ means ‘naughty’, not ‘brave’; and ‘gas’ means ‘funny’.”
“Oh.” Kieran looked mortified. “But what about the references to crack cocaine?”
“Oh, honey,” said Susan, “it’s not ‘c-r-a-c-k’, it’s ‘c-r-a-i-c’. ‘Any craic?’ means ‘anything going on?’ and ‘there for the craic’ means ‘there for the fun’. They weren’t talking about drugs at all.”
Kieran groaned. “They probably think I’m strange because of how I reacted to everything. I didn’t understand what they were saying.”
“It’s okay,” said Susan. We’ll call them tomorrow and explain. I’m sure they’ll think it’s funny too.”
Kieran laughed. “I feel like such an idiot.”
“Eejit,” said Susan and explained, “‘eejit’ means ‘idiot’ in Hiberno-English.”