“Am I the proper confessor?”
“I don’t know,” Iris answered honestly. “Probably not. But right now you’re the only one I feel I can tell without—without completely breaking down.”
“You seem decidedly calm,” Bess noted.
“It’s a facade. And not a very strong one at that.”
“All right. Confess.”
“Ben came to see me yesterday,” Iris said. “At the studio. He wanted to know the real reason I left him right after my mother passed. I said a bunch of ridiculous things. And then I told him to go away and leave me alone.”
Bess considered before speaking. “Okay,” she said finally. “There are an awful lot of holes in that brief story. And why do I think I haven’t heard the real confession yet?”
Iris took a deep breath. “Because you haven’t heard the real confession. Here it is. My mother wanted me to marry Ben before she died. That’s all. It wasn’t anything outrageous she asked of me. Ben and I were going to be married at some point, anyway. But I denied her request. I knew she was dying but I didn’t want to know that. I thought . . . It was ridiculous. I thought that if Ben and I put off getting married she could put off dying. My God, I was an adult but I was thinking like a selfish child! And now I can’t get past the guilt.”
“Poor Iris.” Bess sighed. “And you still haven’t told this to Ben?”
“No. I just—I just lied and acted horribly.”
“ ‘Needles of rain pierce the flinching soil
with a lack of mercy that is stunning,
but nothing, oh, nothing
is as cruel as the lack of mercy
a woman affords her self.’ ”
“Who was that?” Iris asked, though she had no real interest in the answer.
“Lines from a poem I wrote once, all about guilt. If I do say so myself, it’s quite good. I suggest you read it in its entirety.”
“I could write my own poem about guilt,” Iris muttered. “And it would be a long one. Homer and Milton would have nothing on me.”
“Be that as it may, I suggest you tell Ben the truth. If he’ll see you. If he won’t see you, try sending him an old-fashioned letter. Stay away from any public venue like e-mail or for God’s sake, Twitter.”
“He won’t want to see me, not willingly. But we’ll run into each other again and we’ll nod and look away and . . .” Iris found her grip on the book in her lap had tightened. “God, Bess, what have I done to my life?”
“I wish I knew how to make things all better,” Bess said soothingly. “I really do.”
“You were right all along, you know.”
“About what?” Bess asked.
“About my being unhappy deep down. Marilyn told me that you were worried about me.”
“Ah. Well, yes, I was worried. I am worried. Tell me. What do you want to happen now? Between you and Ben, I mean.”
Iris thought about that before answering. “I want him to do what I asked him to. I want him to move on with his life. He deserves far, far better than me.”
“That’s something you might want to let him decide,” Bess said.
“I don’t understand,” Iris said with an exasperated laugh. “How could I possibly be good for him, at this point?”
“Don’t try to make other people’s decisions for them, Iris,” Bess advised. “That’s playing God and it’s certain to end in disaster. Now, I’m going to make us some tea.”
Too late, Iris answered silently, when Bess had gone to the kitchen. Disaster has already struck.
Chapter 24
“It’s me.”
Iris jumped. She hadn’t heard his footsteps coming down the hall. “Oh,” she said. “Hi.”
Alec came into the studio. “No confetti and trumpets? No fanfare at all?”
Iris smiled lamely. “Sorry. It is good to see you.”
“Why so glum?”
“Oh, nothing really . . .”
“Iris.”
Well, why not tell him, Iris thought. It doesn’t matter either way. “It’s just that Ben and I had a—a bad conversation. I said things . . .”
Alec frowned. “What sort of things?”
“Stupid things. Things I really didn’t mean.”
“Why?” Alec asked. “And don’t say that you don’t know. That excuse doesn’t cut it after you’re thirty.”
He’s right, she thought. “Okay. I was afraid that if I told Ben the truth about—about what he wanted to know—then . . .”
“What did he want to know?”
“Why I left him right after my mother died.” And Iris told Alec in the clearest possible way all that had happened three years earlier.
When she had completed her story, Alec whistled. “You’re really a screwed up girl, you know that?”
“Woman. I’m a screwed up woman.”
“Whatever. All I’m saying is that you might want to do something about that before it’s too late and you find yourself old and bitter and wearing underwear as a hat.”
Iris smiled feebly. “Only drunk frat boys do that.”
Alec didn’t smile back. “I wouldn’t run the risk, Iris. Really.”
“You’re not joking, are you?”
“No. I’m not.”
Iris felt a thread of fear snake through her. Alec was rarely serious for several minutes on end. His concern touched and worried her.
“On an entirely different note,” he said suddenly, “I’m here to buy a Christmas present for Tricia. I don’t know why I didn’t buy something at your open house, but I’ve been kind of swamped with a new project. I guess I lost track of time.”
“Tricia hasn’t been hinting at what she wants you to get her?” Iris asked.
“No.” Alec shrugged. “Why would she do that?”
“No reason. Okay. So, what were you thinking of?”
“Well, she’s really mad for purple. Got anything purple?”
Iris actually laughed. “You know nothing about gems, do you?”
“Nope.”
“I have a lovely amethyst I was going to set in a pendant. But I could set it in a ring if you think Tricia would prefer that.”
Alec shrugged again. “I don’t know. I think she’d like both. Why don’t you decide? But it’s got to be fantastic.”
“Alec. Have you ever known me to make anything less than fantastic?”
“I don’t really get jewelry, Iris. You know that. So, how much is this going to cost me?” he asked.
“Depends. There are materials, time—and there’s not a lot of that left—and labor. But there’s also the friends and family discount. What’s your budget?”
Alec blushed furiously and mumbled a number that caused Iris to slap her hand over her mouth. “I am so in the wrong business!” she said, finally.
“It’s just money. Besides, Tricia is worth it.”
“Does Tricia have any idea of the kind of money you make?” Iris asked. The girl might seem nice but deep down maybe she was a gold digger and if so, someone had to save Alec from her clutches!
“Of course not,” Alec said. “Why would she care? So, can you help me out?”
“I’ll have a piece to you on Christmas Eve day. How’s that?”
“Thanks, Iris. And do me a favor. Remember what I said earlier. About not winding up a batty old woman all alone in the world due to her own stubbornness or scaredy-catness or whatever it is that’s making you miserable.”
Iris smiled but tears pricked at her eyes. “Okay,” she said. “I promise to try.”
Alec waved and loped out of the studio.
Tricia, Iris thought, is one lucky woman to have the love of a man like Alec. And if she hurts him, she added, I am going to have to hurt her back.
Chapter 25
Friday was far from over. It was only two forty-five in the afternoon, but already it seemed like the longest day of Iris’s life. And one of the worst.
Witness what had happened that morning. She had been walking up Congress Stree
t from the bank when she saw Ben ahead of her, coming out of Yes! Books, a fat volume tucked under one arm. Without thinking she had turned around and run back in the direction of the bank, sliding badly on a patch of black ice and only narrowly escaping a fall. Now her right knee and thigh ached and a bit of the heel of her right boot had come off. She had wrapped the knee in an Ace bandage and taken a few ibuprofen, but the boot situation would have to wait until after Christmas.
Iris was sitting at the pine table in the kitchen, toying with a cup of cooling tea. It had been three weeks since she had first seen Ben across the crowd at the museum’s tree lighting. Three weeks during which her heart had begun to reopen and then had snapped violently shut again. Three weeks during which she had struggled both to remember and not to remember. Three weeks of anxiety, punctuated by tiny moments of a glimpsed joy.
Her doorbell rang. Iris got up and looked out the living room window. A mail truck was parked below. With a sigh, Iris headed downstairs. She assumed the mail carrier had a package for one of the other condo owners, Maeve or the guy on the first floor. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had sent her a package at home.
But she was wrong. The mail carrier, a pleasant middle-aged man named Scott, held out a box for her to take. “A Christmas present, I guess,” he said. “Hope it’s something you’ve been wishing for.”
Iris forced a smile as she accepted the package. It was about the size of a large shoe box, wrapped in brown paper, and tied with twine. Even if she hadn’t seen her father’s bold writing on the top of the package, she would have known it was from him. Brown paper and twine had been his signature wrapping for as long as Iris could remember, and probably for a long time before that.
After wishing Scott a happy holiday, Iris climbed the stairs back to her apartment, knee aching with each step. She put the box on the kitchen table. She considered letting it remain unopened for a day, maybe more. She considered ignoring it entirely. That could be done. God knew she was an expert at ignoring what should not be ignored.
And then, realizing that whatever was inside couldn’t possibly make her feel any more miserable than she already felt, Iris took a scissors from a drawer by the sink and snipped open the string, sliced off the brown paper, and cut open the packing tape beneath. On top of wads of tissue paper was a white business envelope. Iris turned it over and saw her father’s business logo and the words Karr Representation.
She hesitated only a moment before opening the envelope to find a handwritten letter. She read it slowly through twice.
Dear Iris:
It occurred to me that the best Christmas present I could give you this year was a small collection of your mother’s possessions. They are yours now to do with as you see fit. I only ask that you treat them with the respect they deserve.
I know that to date you’ve refused—yes, Iris, I use that word consciously—that you’ve refused to have any of your mother’s works with you in your new life in Portland. I can’t pretend that I entirely understand your reasoning or your desire, but I think that I’ve come closer to accepting that you need to live the way in which you need to live. You’re my child but also an adult so I have to believe you know your own mind.
Merry Christmas, Iris. I love you.
Dad
Iris refolded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope. What do I feel, she asked herself. I resent his intrusion. I’m afraid. I’m ashamed. But I’m also curious.
Carefully, she extracted from the box three small tissue paper bundles. Her father—or perhaps Jean—had carefully tied each bundle with a narrow piece of blue ribbon. Iris began to unwrap the first one. She thought of all those years back in Wakefield, sitting cross-legged by the tree on Christmas morning, opening gifts with her parents. What an enormous difference time had wrought.
The first bundle contained a handblown, nineteenth-century glass Christmas ornament that Bonnie had bought on a trip she and Iris’s father had taken to Vienna before their marriage. Iris traced the delicate, rosy-colored form with her finger and remembered how her mother had trusted her to hang it on the tree each year. Gently, she returned the ornament to its wrapping.
The next little package held an elaborate ivory hair comb that had been passed down in Bonnie’s family for generations. Iris held the piece in the palm of her hand, feeling how cool and smooth it was. She could remember just about every single occasion on which her mother had worn it, her glossy dark hair swept up for an opening night at a gallery in New York, a New Year’s Eve party at the Plaza in Boston, a special concert at the Museum of Fine Arts. Iris carefully rewrapped the comb, wondering if she would ever feel right wearing it.
Iris gasped as her fingers uncovered the item in the third bundle of tissue. It was the ring she had made for her mother—the one Bonnie had worn every day until her fingers became too thin and she risked losing it—the ring Iris wondered if her father had had buried with her mother’s body.
The band was eighteen-carat gold, with a prong-set, small but very good brilliant cut ruby. Iris thought of the ruby she had shattered the other day. She hesitated and then slipped the ring on the fourth finger of her right hand. It fit perfectly.
Iris breathed deeply. She felt a pleasant tingle run through her body.
There was one more thing in the box, another sealed white business envelope with a yellow sticky note attached to it. In her father’s writing were the words “Iris—Somehow, in the aftermath of your mother’s passing, this got lost. I’m sorry. Dad.”
Inside was another, smaller envelope. Iris recognized it right away as her mother’s signature stationery. And in her mother’s precise and graceful handwriting were the words “For Iris.”
With trembling fingers she opened the envelope, careful not to tear the flap. Inside was a single sheet of pale dove gray paper.
Her heart was beating rapidly. She feared her mother’s anger and more, her disappointment, but she knew that she deserved it all. Slowly, Iris opened the sheet of paper. At the top, printed in purple, was the familiar outline of an iris. The date printed just below was given as less than a month before her mother’s passing.
She began to read.
My dear daughter:
I’ll be gone when you read this, but, I hope, not forgotten.
How dramatic! That was silly of me. I know you will never forget me, as I will never forget you.
Something has been on my mind since we spoke about your marrying Ben. Well, since I suggested it was something you should do in the not so distant future. I was intensely aware of how uncomfortable my request made you and I’ve given it all a great deal of thought.
Iris, I am so sorry for making such a selfish request—demand?—of you. Of course I want you to be happy in whatever form that happiness takes. But I also want you to be happy in your own time. I think I understand your response. In fact, I know that I do.
I hope with all my heart that you’ll forgive me and do whatever it is you need to do to be blissfully happy when you’re ready to accept that happiness.
All my love, from wherever I am in
this fantastical Universe,
Mom
Iris stared down at the single sheet of paper, at her mother’s familiar handwriting. She began to read the letter through again, this time aloud, and as she did she heard her mother’s rich voice speaking the words, as if she were standing right there by her side.
When Iris had finished reading she placed the letter on the table. She felt different than she had a moment ago. She felt cleansed, reborn. She felt oddly happy, hugely sad, and very, very tired.
The fact she had known so many years ago and had then so carefully set aside was staring her in the face once again. Grief was loud and messy and almost psychedelic in its intensity. It was hot and obvious and strong. It was a living thing, not to be ignored.
Iris slid into a chair at the old pine table, and laid a protective hand over her mother’s letter. She let the tears come, and with them, the joy.
Chapter 26
As she was leaving her building late morning on Christmas Eve day, Iris slipped a card under her second-floor neighbor’s door. She felt bad for having waited this long to deliver it. Maeve had told her that she was leaving on the twenty-first to spend the holiday with her family at their home in Bath. Still, Iris thought, there would be a greeting for her upon her return. That was something. Iris felt ashamed that she had never made a real gesture of friendship to her neighbor—it had been selfish of her—and vowed to correct her behavior in the new year. Whether Maeve wanted Iris’s friendship was yet to be seen.
Iris tramped down to the first floor, her injured knee throbbing. The guy who owned that condo had been in town for a mere day between business trips before jetting off to spend the holidays in Tortola with some buddies. She knew this because she had run into him while getting her mail a few days earlier. He admitted he had forgotten her first name before loping down the front steps to his awaiting cab.
So, the building had been entirely empty but for Iris for the past few days. She had felt unnerved being the sole occupant, but why she couldn’t say. It was a safe neighborhood, and she hardly ever saw Maeve and Tom in the first place. She wished she had kept the few Christmas cards she had received instead of having tossed them immediately into the recycling bin. The cards might have been some form of company.
The air was bitterly cold but, except for occasional flurries, the snow mostly held off. Iris made her way down Cumberland Street to one of the city’s many homeless shelters. She had volunteered at this particular shelter since coming to Portland. It was true that the best way to take your mind off your own worries was to focus on the needs of others. But Iris wasn’t sure how effectively she was meeting the needs of anyone this day. She felt miles removed from the boisterous conversations around her.
When the main course had been served and the guests were relaxing before dessert, Iris slipped into the hall off the shelter’s central room. She sank into a metal folding chair, put her head in her hands, and let the tears come, fast and furious.
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