True Places

by Sonja Yoerg

  “People came.”

  “You were all alone, and when people showed up at the house, you took off into the woods.”

  “The house was already in the woods.”

  “Iris.” He leaned back, the chair complaining under his weight. “Help me understand.”

  “Why? Why do I have to explain everything to you?”

  “Because you’re a minor. A child. And we have to know what happened—your mother’s death, your father disappearing—and help you find some family.”

  “I don’t know them.”

  “But they’re still family.” He paused, waiting for her to agree. Iris didn’t see how it mattered. “Don’t you want to help us find your father?”

  She looked out at the mountains, purple in the long-shadowed afternoon. She knew Daddy was dead, because otherwise he’d have come back. But how could she explain that?

  Detective said, “Why did you run away from the house, Iris?”

  “People. People want to know things about you. People want you to follow rules. People put chemicals in the water, and ruin good food and hurt animals and waste things that are precious. People won’t let you live a simple, good life.” She faced him. “I don’t need people, and I don’t want them.”

  He was quiet for several moments. “Well, you’re in with people now, and you’re right about the rules. Maybe once you get used to it, you won’t see things quite the same way.” He reached inside his jacket, pulled out a folded map, and spread it on the foot of the bed. He said the green parts were public forest, where anyone could go. The lines were roads and the circles were towns. He pointed out the circle labeled CHARLOTTESVILLE , where they were now, and slid his finger along a gray line into a green space to where he said Suzanne had found her.

  “Now, where do you think your house was?”

  Iris studied the map. “Are there woods that aren’t public forest?”

  “Plenty.”

  “So there’s more woods than what’s green on here.”

  “That’s right. Any of the towns sound familiar, say, from a sign you read?”

  She shook her head. Her eyes scanned south. There was plenty of space with no roads and towns. She could’ve been anywhere. Her bearing had been northerly, pretty much, but it wasn’t as though she’d been heading anywhere in particular. She’d followed her instincts about where the wildest parts lay, circling back to stay in them but never trying to go back home. Detective didn’t need to know where the house was even if she could figure it out, and her parents wouldn’t have wanted her to tell.

  Iris pushed the map away. “I don’t know where I was.”

  He folded the map and put it back in his jacket. “You were lucky Mrs. Blakemore found you. I reckon you wouldn’t have survived much longer.” He stood and adjusted his belt. His face went soft. “So maybe in the end it did matter where you were.”

  Her nose stung with tears. She turned to the window again, the mountains deep indigo against a rose sky.

  Detective was right. She was here in this terrible place, and she didn’t know what she should do or what she even wanted. She’d come out of the woods and left behind who she was.

  CHAPTER 7

  Suzanne racewalked across the polished floors of the hospital lobby toward the elevators and punched the up button. Several people were waiting, including two men in scrubs, but no one seemed as rushed as she was. Her life seemed ludicrous to her at times. She didn’t dwell on it—it was futile—but she did occasionally entertain the notion that her activities and duties did not add up to a satisfying or even useful existence. Only the inescapable normality of her life stopped her from questioning it more often. Everyone was very busy.

  She exhaled completely to relax herself, then checked her phone. Two missed calls and two texts during the last five minutes. Although she had planned her day carefully, she was running more than an hour behind. Brynn’s orthodontist made them wait twenty minutes; then Brynn insisted on picking up a sushi lunch to take back with her to school, claiming Suzanne had agreed to the plan that morning. Suzanne had no recollection of the conversation, but it was infinitely easier to capitulate than to confront Brynn’s inevitable disappointment and anger. What had the preschool teachers said to her and Whit about dealing with children with strong personalities? “Exercise their disappointment muscles.” Brynn’s had become decidedly flabby, but Suzanne did not have the emotional bandwidth to reinstate a regimen now. Like so many of her decisions, an artfully designed twenty-dollar lunch was just another stopgap.

  The elevator doors opened. Suzanne pressed the sixth-floor button and stepped to the side as the others filed in. She checked the time on her phone, returned it to her bag, and stared at the closing doors, mentally reorganizing her remaining errands: order the gluten-free rolls and desserts the auction caterer would not provide; shop for the client dinner Whit had asked her to host tomorrow evening; buy green body paint, glitter, and shamrock decals for Brynn’s Saint Patrick’s Day swim team party (not at their house, thank God); and pick up Whit’s restrung tennis racket. She’d already rescheduled her tennis lesson—without resentment. She kept up her game at Whit’s behest because he liked teaming up with her for mixed doubles during the summer. Suzanne preferred to practice her strokes using the ball machine, which asked nothing of her whatsoever, not even a mild suggestion for more topspin on her backhand. But she and Whit had few shared activities, so she acquiesced to the lessons. In any case, the rescheduling had righted her day until she remembered she had to purchase Reid’s SAT prep books so he could complete practice tests over the weekend. She stopped at Barnes & Noble after dropping Brynn at school, and it was there she had paused at a display of coloring books, enticed by the vibrant covers and intricate designs. When the children were small, she had laid huge sheets of newsprint on the floor, and the three of them had spent hours drawing designs with chunky crayons for the others to color in. Her confidence in how to be a mother had been absolute. She didn’t know everything—she made mistakes—but she had the basics right and most of the details. Remembering herself as a confident mother evoked a feeling akin to grasping at the vestiges of a wonderful dream. The futility of the attempt only served to emphasize the magnitude of the loss.

  Suzanne exited the elevator and checked in at the nurses’ station. A nurse whose badge identified her as Lani entered Suzanne’s name into the computer and pointed down the corridor.

  “Fourth on the right.”

  “Is she doing okay?”

  Lani rocked her hand back and forth. “Physically, she’s improving. But the poor kid really doesn’t want to be here.”

  Suzanne showed the nurse the tote bag she was carrying. “I brought her some things. Hope that’s okay.”

  “As long as it’s nothing dangerous, you’re fine.”

  Suzanne made her way along the corridor, winding past wheelchairs, stretchers, and a crash cart. She’d been concerned about Iris since the police had called yesterday with an update. How could that tiny girl have survived for so long in the woods all by herself? And why would her parents have chosen to raise her without any contact with civilization? The detective had sounded skeptical, and Suzanne could see why. Then again, many parents had done stranger, more damaging things to their children, and at least Iris’s parents seemed to have been adhering to some sort of philosophy. Suzanne was the first to admit she had no parenting philosophy she could articulate. There didn’t seem to be time for top-down thinking; it was a minor miracle to arrive at the close of the day without significant mishap, take a deep breath, down a glass of wine, and get ready to do it all over again the next day. She had been disturbed to hear from the detective that Iris had tried to run out of the hospital. Suzanne had wanted to ask what would happen to Iris once she didn’t need hospital care, but realized she knew the answer: either a family member would turn up, or the girl would go into foster care.

  Iris was hunched in a ball on the bed with her arms around her shins and her cheek resting on a kn
ee, facing the window.

  “Iris.” Suzanne spoke quietly. “It’s me, Suzanne.” She came to stand at the foot of the bed.

  The girl’s tidy appearance surprised Suzanne, although she should have expected it. With the dirt gone, the myriad scars and scratches on her limbs were obvious. A half-moon of white circled the lower edge of her left kneecap; another sliced across her right thumb, and the pinky toe on her right foot was gone. Her bones protruded everywhere, as if trying to escape the bonds of her skin. A wave of pity flowed through Suzanne.

  “Do you mind if I stay a little while?”

  Iris turned to her. Her eyes were beautiful but brimmed with sadness. “No. I don’t mind.”

  Suzanne took a seat on the couch under the window and placed the bag at her feet. “You might not know this, but you’re not the only one who doesn’t like hospitals.”

  Iris blinked at her.

  “Actually, most people can’t stand them.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, first of all, it’s boring. Unless you love watching television, there’s nothing to do.”

  Iris nodded.

  Suzanne opened her tote. “I brought you these.” She handed Iris a coloring book and a box of colored pencils. “Did you color when you were small?”

  “A little.”

  “These are for adults. It’s supposed to be relaxing.”

  Iris opened the coloring book and leafed through it, frowning. Maybe she didn’t understand what it was for, or maybe it seemed pointless. Pointlessness was its attraction, but how could Suzanne explain that?

  Iris closed the book and ran her finger across the half-colored-in cover. “Do you color?”

  Suzanne laughed. “Me? God no. I haven’t got time.” She dug in her bag again. “The other problem with this place is it’s never quiet, is it? Machines, people talking, doors closing . . .” She pulled a cell phone out of the bag and explained what it was.

  Iris said, “Everyone seems to have one.”

  “Right. But you don’t need to worry about everything it can do. I brought it so you could listen with these.” She held up a set of noise-canceling headphones.

  “Listen to what?”

  “Whatever you want. There’s music on here, all sorts. But I also loaded it with some nature sound clips, sounds from the woods.”

  Iris beckoned with her hand. “Show me.”

  Suzanne sat on the edge of the bed and demonstrated how to operate the phone. The girl was reluctant at first; perhaps she’d been told technology was evil. Suzanne helped her find the nature clips, then watched Iris’s face as she listened. The girl closed her eyes and leaned against the pillow.

  Suzanne returned to the couch and studied the girl. Iris was so strange, so dislocated from the world in which she now found herself. Suzanne was curious about what she was experiencing, what she knew and felt, and how she would adjust to the flood of information impinging on her. Clearly Iris was frightened and overwhelmed. Who wouldn’t be? And she was alone. She was used to it, Suzanne reasoned, but being used to something is not the same as wanting it. A person can avoid something—in the case of Iris and her parents, the civilized world—and in doing so make it “other” and inherently terrifying. Suzanne understood this all too well. She could not be alone, had not been able to be alone since she was twenty-two, not without the risk of a panic attack. Avoidance reinforces itself.

  Suzanne twisted to look across the treetops and roofs to the rolling hills and the mountains beyond. She imagined Iris wandering along the ridges, drinking from the streams, searching for food, sleeping on the forest floor, untethered and unaccountable to anyone but herself. Now Suzanne imagined not Iris but herself, alone in the woods. The thought made her heart beat faster, and for an instant she wasn’t certain whether it was from fear or excitement.

  Iris pressed the button to lower the volume. Water gurgled through a riverbed, a bright, clear sound. When she closed her eyes, she could see the water sliding over rocks and catching starbursts of sunlight as it fell. The water paused in small eddies and gathered quietly in the shallows where skimmers twitched on the surface and mayflies dipped and rose in undulating patterns. She lowered a bare foot into the flow, her toes grazing the slick surfaces of the stones. A jay called, brash and sure, and flew off, calling again, the sound trailing it like a wake. A towhee sang from a low branch, three husky notes, then drink your teeeeee, drink your teeeeee . The towhee sang for a long time, the stream flowing softly underneath the notes.

  Iris let out a long breath. She felt someone come up beside her, familiar, like the stream.

  Ash?

  You remember pretending to be one, a towhee?

  He came around in front of her, quick like always. He crouched a little, elbows pinned to his sides like wings, and jumped forward with both feet, barely touching down before leaping back low, scraping his feet along the ground, like the bird would do to scratch away the leaf cover. He grinned at her, eyes alive with river sparkle, and did it again.

  Ash, where have you been?

  He spread his arms. Right here. Where else would I be?

  I thought I’d lost you.

  He held out his hand. Come on, let’s see if that wood pigeon has laid her eggs.

  They picked their way along the stream’s edge, feet light, legs strong, lungs full of morning’s cool air.

  The sound of the stream followed them. Sunlight glanced off their shoulders, and the woods rang with the call of the jay, the song of the towhee, and the hollow rap rap rap of a woodpecker hammering an old black oak.

  Iris listened to the stream, the birds, the laughter of her brother. She listened, so fully entering the world made by the sounds that it seemed sound was all she needed and all there was. For a time she was there, and Ash was there, too, and she wanted nothing more than to feel those eggs in her hand, smooth and warm and white. Two eggs, one laid in the morning, one at night. One for her and one for Ash.

  A touch on her hand. “Iris.”

  She opened her eyes, confused. A woman stood by the bed. She knew it was Suzanne, but for an instant she had mistaken her for her mother. They didn’t resemble each other, except for hair the color of meadow grass in the fall. That and something in her expression.

  Iris took off the headphones. Crestfallen at having to leave the woods and Ash, she felt herself spiraling down into a bottomless hole. She placed her palm flat on the bed to steady herself.

  “I have to go now.” Suzanne tucked her own phone into her bag. “But I can come back, if you’d like.”

  Iris pressed her lips together, holding back, holding herself in.

  “I’ll bring you something decent to eat.”

  Iris nodded.

  Something decent. That was what her mother said to Ash and her when they’d gorged on berries. You need to eat something decent.

  Suzanne was at the door when she stopped. “Tomorrow, Iris. I’ll come by tomorrow.”

  “Okay.”

  The nurse came in, checked Iris’s pulse and blood pressure, talking the whole time. As soon as she left, Iris put the headphones on and pressed play.

  CHAPTER 8

  Suzanne transferred the pan holding two roast chickens from the wall oven to the granite island and tented the chickens with foil.

  Mia Stone slid onto a bar stool, propped her elbow on the counter, and took a long sip of red wine. “That’s so like you. Why cook one chicken perfectly when you can cook two? In fact, why stop there?”

  “Oven space. There’s always room in my life for leftover chicken.” She peeked at the fennel-and-potato gratin on the lower rack and closed the oven door. “I don’t want guests disappointed when they can’t get their first choice of cut.”

  “What are they going to do? Not leave a tip? Plus, two of those people are Malcolm and me.” Mia refilled their wineglasses even though Suzanne had hardly touched hers. “I don’t give a damn which parts I get. And we all know Malcolm is a breast man. I’m pretty sure he’s breast certified.”
She tucked her chin to examine her modest chest. “More’s the pity.”

  Suzanne laughed, but it was dutiful. Her friend’s marriage problems were real—real enough for Mia to habitually employ humor as a cover. Suzanne had never understood how Mia and Malcolm Stone had stayed together as long as they had. They didn’t seem to agree on anything, and both had personalities too forceful to put disagreements to the side.

  Mia studied Suzanne over the top of her glass. “You really need to have a more complex relationship with Whit. What will you fight about when the kids are gone?”

  “Nothing like thinking ahead.” Suzanne glanced at the oven clock and picked up her glass. “Ten minutes until we sit down. Let’s join the party.”

  Mia followed her, glass in hand. “Since when did six people eating chicken on a Saturday night constitute a party?”

  “If you’re here, Mia, it’s a party.” Suzanne meant it.

  As they walked through the dining room, Suzanne reflexively checked the place settings. Everything looked fine; no surprise, considering Tinsley was responsible. Her mother had style and the nerve to impose it on her daughter without asking. The napkins were a case in point. Suzanne had always used a set of white jacquard ones someone had given her years ago, but three days after Tinsley saw her daughter had paired them with bone china and crystal, a package arrived containing rustic oatmeal-colored napkins. A note inside said: MIX CASUAL WITH FORMAL SO IT LOOKS FRESH . LOVE , M . Fresh? Suzanne thought. The napkins looked more like dishcloths. But these stylistic changes her mother wrought drew compliments, whether they were to table settings, throw pillows, or Suzanne’s own wardrobe, and Suzanne was indifferent to all of it, so she let her mother have her way.

  Suzanne and Mia entered the living room. Whit greeted them with that glorious smile of his, lavished equally on both women in acknowledgment of their friendship. Suzanne slipped into the space beside him on the couch. Mia took an armless chair, sitting sideways with her long legs crossed at the knee. Her husband, Malcolm, was deep in conversation with Chad Beecham. Malcolm’s dark, wavy hair was swept back from his forehead, accentuating his angular features. His shirt was hand tailored, his shoes supple Italian leather, and his demeanor calm and confident. Suzanne had never felt comfortable around him and wasn’t sure she liked him. It was easy to take Mia’s side in their disputes. Chad Beecham was a small, bald man with a hawklike beak and darting eyes. Suzanne found his appearance alarming, especially in contrast to that of his wife, Steena, a pastor’s daughter true to type. The Beechams had recently moved to Charlottesville and had joined the country club to which the Blakemores and Stones belonged: Birdwood, part of the Boar’s Head complex owned by the university. The dinner was ostensibly a welcoming gesture but had more to do with Chad Beecham’s work as a hedge fund manager. Property development never happened without a great deal of money, and networking with potential investors was essential to Whit’s job. Suzanne didn’t enjoy schmoozing, so Mia’s company served as compensation, giving Suzanne someone to talk to, at least in the kitchen. Malcolm helped grease the conversation. Because the Blakemores and the Stones were established friends, anyone invited into their company would be inclined to perceive the evening as less about business and more about friendship. Suzanne found such evenings tiresome but unavoidable and undemanding. All that was required of her was an hour of cooking and a few more of conversation, in which she took a back seat. Whit had insisted a cleaning service take care of the mess the next day, so Suzanne could hardly complain.