by Sonja Yoerg
ROBBY: Want to meet up sometime? Daytime’s fine if you’re scared of the dark. (smiley face)
BRYNN: Sounds dope! Maybe I’ll let you know, ok?
Meeting a college boy for who knows what. Her parents would die, but only if they knew.
Brynn got three spoons from a drawer and opened the gelato. “Ice cream’s in here!” She wasn’t about to take orders.
As Iris walked in, followed by Reid, a thought crossed Brynn’s mind. Being pissed off at Iris wasn’t going to do anything. Neither was blaming her parents or Reid. If Brynn wanted to get rid of Iris, she had to make everyone see how a kid like that was never going to fit in here. The social worker could find a different family, or Iris could just take her backpack and slink back into the woods. It didn’t matter to Brynn. What mattered was getting her life back, the one she had a right to. And it might be that the best way to accomplish that would be to make friends with Iris, or at least pretend.
“Iris,” Brynn said sweetly. “Which one of these do you like best?”
The girl gave her a look like she expected to get poisoned. Brynn couldn’t blame her but kept on smiling just the same.
CHAPTER 21
Morning sun angled through the kitchen window as Suzanne made phone calls and wrote emails at the counter. She was not keeping up and spent much of her time apologizing to the other members of the Boosters committee, the carpool moms, school personnel—everyone who had depended on her. No one felt more neglected nor voiced her disapproval more vocally than her mother—with the possible exception of Brynn. Suzanne rued the day she had promised Tinsley help with her charity fund-raiser, for which Suzanne had neither the energy nor the will. How was it that she had never considered refusing her mother or, indeed, the other requests? How automated she had become. She performed duties because she had been asked, or because it seemed to be required of her, a justification of her own relevance necessitated by the privilege she had been born into, a special shiny coating she had never thrown off. Tinsley didn’t seem to suffer from it, and Suzanne envied her that.
She closed her laptop. A wave of despondency and self-pity flowed through her, both unfamiliar emotions. Her hectic schedule had prevented the reflection necessary to breed such feelings, and that was a good thing. Now Suzanne had to be home almost all the time, tutoring and supervising Iris. There were few meetings and no lunches, no one-on-ones over coffee. Suzanne was as busy as before but nevertheless now found time to enter rabbit holes of self-examination and worry. Perhaps it wasn’t time, per se, but being forced to evaluate her life in order to explain it, justify it to Iris.
Suzanne rose, dismissing self-reflection in favor of action. She placed her coffee cup in the dishwasher and went upstairs to Iris’s room. The girl lay on the floor, gazing out the window at the sky. The healthier Iris became, the sadder she seemed. Weren’t the strongest animals at the zoo the ones that seemed to suffer the most? Suzanne had been trying to acclimate Iris to people, traffic, machinery, but progress had been slow, and it was easier most days simply not to bother. Even a walk down their street had the potential to traumatize the girl. A few days ago, a police car had suddenly appeared, lights flashing, siren wailing, and Iris had collapsed into a ball on the sidewalk, where she stayed for half an hour. Still, Suzanne couldn’t give up. They both needed to get out.
“Let’s go for a walk, okay?”
Iris didn’t move. “Walk to where?”
“I thought we’d take a short drive to a park.”
“A park?”
“A place with grass and trees, and no houses.”
“Are there people?”
“Maybe a few. Maybe none.”
Iris shrugged. “If it’s not far.”
The girl’s grudging consent reminded Suzanne of Brynn. How had that happened? She pushed the comparison out of her mind. Iris was insecure and afraid. Brynn, on the other hand, was truly indifferent, except when she was adamant.
They were ready five minutes later and rode in silence during the short drive to Pen Park. Several golfers dotted the fairways and greens visible from the road. Suzanne turned left past the tennis courts, most of which were in use. Farther on, at the parking lot for the trail, there was only one other car, and the adjacent baseball diamond stood empty. Suzanne breathed a sigh of relief.
She stashed her handbag under the seat, grabbed a water bottle from the console, locked the car, and slipped the keys into the pocket of her jean jacket. Had she been with anyone else, she would have commented on the perfect day: fresh April air, leaves beginning to unfurl on the early-blooming trees, the scent of grassy warmth in the air. But Iris preferred silence and Suzanne respected her wishes. Small talk was just that, after all.
Somewhere in the nearby trees, a pileated woodpecker sang out its stuttering laugh of a call. Suzanne glanced over the hood of the Navigator to where Iris was waiting. The girl was listening for the call to repeat, and when it did, she smiled.
The beginning of the trail was a fitness course. The trail was paved and offered exercise stations every few hundred yards. If Iris was curious about these, she didn’t let on. She peered intently into the surrounding woods and strayed off the pavement onto the grass verge peppered with violets. Suzanne thought to direct her back to the trail but didn’t have the heart to break the silence for yet another rule about life in civilization. Stepping on a few violets didn’t seem so egregious. In any case, Iris seemed to instinctively avoid treading on the flowers. Her small feet hardly made an impression at all.
After a quarter of a mile, Suzanne pointed left to a dirt path. “This way, Iris.” The nature trail ran for a mile and a half through a swath of woods between the Rivanna River and the golf course.
Suzanne had supposed Iris would walk beside her now that the trail was not paved, but she continued on the verge, staying slightly ahead of Suzanne, and allowing her hand to brush across the understory plants. Suzanne was about to remind Iris to be cognizant of poison ivy, but Iris undoubtedly knew more about plants than she did. Suzanne resolved to stop worrying about Iris and enjoy the walk, a rare unscheduled slice of freedom in her day. She half closed her eyes, feeling the sun on her face and relishing the quiet.
A rustling noise startled her. She caught a glimpse of Iris’s white shirt disappearing into the shrubby edge of the woods and bounded after her.
“Iris!”
The girl was moving so fast Suzanne thought she was hallucinating. The white shirt darted between trees, the low branches seeming to part for her.
“Iris! Wait!”
Suzanne pushed her way through clumps of dense bushes, stepping over downed logs and casting off thorny brambles that caught her clothing. Iris had disappeared, but Suzanne could hear her ahead and pressed on. What was the girl doing? Running away? She could’ve done that from home.
Suzanne ran, panting and winded from the effort of squeezing through narrow gaps between trees and disentangling herself from the clinging, strangling growth. She called for Iris again and again. She stopped to catch her breath and listen. A squirrel scurried across branches above her head. A mourning dove cooed.
She turned around, half expecting Iris to materialize behind her, instead of in front, the way she’d gone, but there was nothing but woods, thick and green and moist. Suzanne spun slowly in a circle, once around, twice, three times, searching, listening, hoping. With each turn, her breath quickened. During the third turn, all she could hear was her heart thundering in her chest. Sweat trickled down her back. Her hands were ice cold.
“Iris!”
Suzanne fell to the ground, clutching her heart, the pain in her chest exploding. Fear dove through her like a stooping hawk, talons piercing her skin.
The path confounded Iris. The hard surface was an affront to the woods crouching on either side, almost as wrong as the trees in town given only a small square of earth to grow out of, roots pushing up from below, cracking and buckling the sidewalk, teaching a lesson no one seemed to hear. The dirt path was be
tter, but Iris couldn’t be adjacent to the woods, running her hand along the supple leaves and spiky stems. It wasn’t enough. She had to go inside.
As soon as she did, Ash called to her. Hurry up, you slowpoke!
So she ran after him, her legs springing with pent-up energy, her lungs sucking in air that smelled of violets and beginnings. As she bounded through the woods, among the trees, with the trees, the quiet power of the seasons, all four, but especially spring, was inside her again. She couldn’t feel it staring out a window, or reading about birds in a book, or even climbing a tall maple. She had to be enveloped in green to feel the buzz of her own life.
Hurry up, Iris!
Ash was here. Everything was all right now. She ran headlong into the wide joy of it. Running, running, running.
She came to a stop beside a walnut tree. Her scalp tingled and her muscles hummed. She wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, feeling alive for the first time since she’d left the woods. But this was only a park, and she didn’t know exactly what that meant.
She asked Ash, How big are these woods anyway?
Instead of Ash’s voice, which was completely different from any voice or any sound, Iris heard her name, a shout coming from behind her, far behind. She held her breath and listened.
Again, her name. It was Suzanne. And there was terror in the sound.
Dread descended on her like a sudden downpour. She put a finger to her mouth and bit the nail.
Ash! I don’t want to go.
He didn’t answer.
Ash!
All the joy she had felt leaked out of her, and she banged her fists on her thighs in frustration. Her eyes welled with tears. “I don’t want to go,” she said out loud, and laid her cheek against the rough bark of the tree.
She stood there a moment more, then ran back the way she had come, feeling the weight in her legs and the pull in her heart with each stride. What had been untethered flight became effort, tied to the earth. She heard Suzanne whimpering. Iris pushed aside the branches of a small sumac and saw Suzanne, crouched, her jaw muscles tensed, her hands gripping her knees, white knuckled.
Iris squatted beside her. “What’s wrong?”
Suzanne’s shoulders trembled like the haunches of a rabbit caught in the open. Iris thought to lay a hand on her back, but she had never touched Suzanne and didn’t know if it was the right thing to do, considering her state. Suzanne lifted her head. Her face was gray. She pitched forward onto her hands and vomited. Suzanne retched again and again until there was nothing left. Iris breathed more easily; in her experience, vomiting was restorative. If only she had some mountain mint to give Suzanne. She would feel better right away.
Suzanne wiped her mouth on her sleeve and pushed herself to her feet.
“What’s wrong?” Iris said.
Suzanne’s eyes were wet and red. “It’s just something that happens. Not often.”
Iris nodded but didn’t understand at all.
Suzanne smoothed her hair, licked her lips, and adjusted her jacket. She was pulling herself together now. Her body and her mind were sewing up the hole that had been ripped open. She spoke softly. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
“Okay.”
“Not even Whit.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not asking you to lie.”
Iris nodded, unsure what sort of lie the not telling might become. It was one of the most confusing things about living with the Blakemores, all the things people didn’t say or only half said. She tried to remember if her family had been like that, when they were all together. It was so long ago, she wasn’t sure, but she couldn’t think of anything they would have to lie about. She and Ash would try to duck out of chores now and again, say they’d checked a trapline or a nest when they hadn’t, but they didn’t do it often. If they did, they all might starve.
Suzanne said, “Let’s go back,” and started off.
“It’s this way.” Iris pointed northeast.
Suzanne fell in behind Iris, who made sure to go slowly until they emerged from the woods and rejoined the trail.
The air around Suzanne was heavy with thoughts. Finally, she said, “You ran off.”
It was a statement, a question, and a complaint.
Iris shrugged. It was the easiest thing to do when she had done something wrong or wasn’t sure.
“I came back.”
They returned along the trail to the car without talking. As they drove out of the park, back into the noisy, busy world, Suzanne said, “What was it like being alone all that time?”
“What do you mean?” Iris was stalling, not sure if Ash counted. He counted to Iris, more than anything, but if she was learning anything in living with the Blakemores, it was that the things that mattered to Iris didn’t matter to them.
“Were you lonely?”
“Sometimes. I got used to it.”
“That makes sense. People can get used to just about anything.”
Iris doubted that was true. People put up with things, but that wasn’t the same as being used to them. Maybe Suzanne was talking about herself.
Suzanne said, “When you were lonely, did you ever think about leaving the woods?”
“Not really.”
“Not even when you were cold and hungry?”
“When I was cold and hungry, I wanted to be warm and full. That’s different.”
Suzanne was quiet a moment. “I’ve never been hungry. Not the way you were.”
“How would you know?”
She sighed. “I guess I wouldn’t. Just like I don’t know what it’s like to be alone. Not really.”
Iris turned to look out the window. They were on the street where the Blakemores lived, just like that. One minute she was running through the woods with Ash, her hopeful mind convincing her she was free somehow, and the next she was being locked back in her cage.
What Suzanne didn’t understand and what Iris didn’t think she could explain was that being alone was different for her. She hadn’t wanted to be found, not that anyone had been looking for her. No one knew she existed, not one single person in the whole world except her and Ash. She wasn’t alone. She was free.
CHAPTER 22
Whit came through the door at six thirty and found Suzanne bustling around the kitchen at a frenetic pace, collecting dishes from various surfaces and ferrying them to the dishwasher. She answered his greeting with a quick “Hi!” and grazed his cheek with a kiss on her way back from the pantry. She paused to gather papers from the counter and straighten them.
“Sorry. I meant to do this earlier. The day got away from me.”
He exhaled and went to the wine fridge. “Well, I had a tough day, too.”
Suzanne was stuffing the papers into her laptop case. Her hands stilled, and Whit thought she must have something important on her mind. Well, she’d tell him when she was ready. First things first. He bent over the door of the wine fridge and selected a bottle of Viognier. Something crisp. And with a screw cap. What a marvelous invention that was.
He reached into a cupboard for a glass. “You want some?”
“Sure. Good idea.”
Whit poured two glasses, handed his wife hers, and glanced over her shoulder at the oven. The digital display showed only the time.
Suzanne followed his gaze. “I didn’t have a moment. Plus, Brynn is at Kendall’s and Reid is at Alex’s. I thought I’d make a salad for us.”
“What about Iris?”
“She said she’ll have something later. She had some exercise today.” Her eyes skated to the side. “Won’t take ten minutes.”
He really didn’t want to be that husband, the Ozzie to her Harriet. He knew it was neither fair of him nor good for their marriage. He kept up his end of the bargain better than most men he knew, who complained about aspects of family life he took in stride: exorbitant expenditures, no downtime, frequent and interminable school and sporting events, most of which interested him not at all. Whit cheerfull
y accepted most of it, but disorder and uncertainty were like slivers under his skin; he could not relax. As much as Suzanne denied it, Iris was the agent of this mess.
Suzanne touched her wineglass to his. “Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
Whit took a long drink, nearly draining it. “Back in a flash.” He went upstairs and changed into sweats and a T-shirt, doing his best to ignore the overflowing laundry basket in the closet and the image of the utter disaster he knew lay beyond the closed door of his son’s room. On his way down the hall, he considered sticking his head into Iris’s room but could not think of what he would say to her. After two weeks he was not comfortable around her. Her manner was too odd and she was far too quiet, leaving him to ramble on to fill in the gaps.
Suzanne had set two places in the dining room. He refilled the glasses while Suzanne composed the salads—an artful arrangement of tomatoes, marinated artichokes, goat cheese, and cold salmon over arugula.
“Looks beautiful, darling.”
She smiled and his heart warmed.
As they ate, he related the broad strokes of his day—a series of hitches in the major deal he was putting together. She listened with her usual attention, but Whit couldn’t help but feel she was making an effort in doing so. Her face looked drawn.
“Is anything wrong, Suzanne?”
“What? No.” She stabbed a piece of salmon. “I’m fine.”
He studied her a moment longer. What more could he do than ask? He had been married long enough to know she would tell him what was on her mind eventually—if he needed to know. He had never expected full disclosure. There wasn’t time for that. They both had to curate their confidences. There was, however, something he was compelled to disclose.
“By the way, Detective DeCelle wants to stop by to talk to Iris tomorrow evening.”
