by Sonja Yoerg
“Okay,” he said. “What’s this project?”
She showed him the notebooks, which had belonged to Iris’s mother and to Iris’s grandmother before that. The pages were filled with information about plants and their uses. Suzanne explained that most of the plants were local to Virginia, but some were found only in mountainous areas farther south and west, suggesting Iris’s mother was from the Smoky Mountains or the Ozarks.
“But that’s not the most interesting part,” Suzanne said. “At least not for me.”
Whit nodded, eager for her to get to the point and yet dreading it.
“While I was at the cabin alone, I realized what I had in my hands.” She weighed the notebooks in her palms. “Not what Iris’s mother or grandmother discovered per se, but what might be discovered using these observations and others like them.”
“Wait,” Whit said. “You were at the cabin alone?”
“Yes. I got there first and stayed there by myself for one night.”
Whit stared at her, stunned.
“I was fine, Whit.” She smiled to reassure him. “Totally fine.”
“How?”
She shrugged. “I was determined to find the cabin, I guess. And to be there for Iris, to help her discover her family’s truth.” She looked down at the notebooks. “And in the process, I think I’ve discovered, or rediscovered, mine.”
Whit had no idea what she was talking about, but her face was so animated, so full of intent, he swallowed his questions. “Okay. Tell me.”
“You probably saw that the property has a house, the barn, a couple of other buildings, plus the cabin, and two hundred and fifty acres, mostly wooded.” He nodded. “I want to buy it.”
“Why? For what?”
“A center for the study of medicinal uses for local plants. Not a quaint museum for amateur herbalists, but a place for scientists to work, for students to learn, for the public to appreciate the complexity of what is growing in their backyards.” She held up one of the notebooks. “There’s so much knowledge in here, but it’s just the beginning.”
Whit tried to digest what his wife was saying, both the ideas she was presenting and the fact that she was having them. Meanwhile, Suzanne kept talking.
“I’ve done some research, just preliminary, but I think I want the focus to be the development of new antibiotics. Remember when Iris had that MRSA infection? Very soon, too soon, we’re going to be defenseless against dangerous bacteria. The drugs doctors have aren’t working anymore, and we’re running out of ideas for new ways to fight them.” She leaned toward him, her eyes bright. “Plants can help. Because they can’t move, they have to defend themselves right where they are against all sorts of attacks, including bacteria.”
“But aren’t people already doing this?”
“A few. It’s pretty new. People are waking up to the antibiotic problem now, but no one has the answer.”
Suzanne looked at him expectantly.
Whit took a deep breath and took a sip of wine. He didn’t know where to begin. This was all so crazy. Their kids—Brynn, mostly—had gotten into trouble, and he hadn’t handled it very well, so Suzanne had gotten angry and taken off. Now she was back with a plan to save the world from deadly bacteria, and somewhere in there, he was pretty sure his marriage was hanging in the balance.
“Look, Suzanne. I know you got upset about what happened on prom night, and I take the blame for not seeing it coming. I’ve admitted that, not just to you, but to Reid and Brynn.”
She frowned. “But not enough to talk to Robert.”
“I didn’t see the point. I still don’t.”
She exhaled sharply and pulled back from him. “I was telling you about my project.”
“I know. But why now? You can’t just cut and run from our life because you came up with this idea.”
Suzanne raised her eyebrows. It wasn’t an expression he was used to seeing on her and it unsettled him. “I’m not cutting and running, Whit. But you are right, absolutely, that I haven’t yet figured out what it might mean for our life together. I honestly haven’t.” Her face softened. “I do know that I can’t go on like before. I was a very organized, efficient zombie. That’s over. I have to do something I care about.”
“What about us? What about the kids? What are we supposed to do while you’re collecting plants in the forest?”
Suzanne sipped her wine, regarding him patiently over the rim of the glass. “I guess we’ll have to figure it out.”
“Figure it out? What does that mean?” His voice was shrill but he couldn’t help it.
“I can’t know everything right now, Whit.”
“Do you love me? Do you know that?”
He wanted her to smile, a big smile that made her eyes shine. He wanted her to tip her head sideways a little when she did it.
Instead she simply said, “Yes.”
Whit realized he had asked the wrong question. She loved him because she wasn’t the sort of person for whom love was a game. Suzanne’s love was solid. But Whit not only loved Suzanne, he adored her. He cherished her. Suzanne’s love for him might be exactly the sort of love that could persist, unaltered, in the transition from marriage to separation to divorce. She could love him that way forever. This wasn’t news. It was simply news he’d never wanted to hear. As long as Suzanne was at home, tending to their lives, the nuances of his love and her love hardly mattered. Now they did. It dawned on Whit that the woman sitting across from him, as familiar as she seemed, was quite possibly someone he did not know well at all. He wondered if he loved that woman as much. And now that she wasn’t driven by fear, would she still need him?
“What are you thinking?” Suzanne asked.
Whit got up and refilled their glasses to give himself something to do.
“It’s a lot to take in.”
She nodded. No rush.
Whit said, “I wonder if you blame me.”
“For what?”
“For helping make you a zombie.” She smiled a little but said nothing. “I mean, you’ve always been, what, philosophical , looking at us from the outside. I discouraged that sort of talk, relationship philosophy. Hell, I didn’t even know what you meant most of the time. If that was you waving the signal flag of your dissatisfaction, then I’m guilty of ignoring it, or worse.”
She reached for his hand. “Maybe you didn’t understand me for a reason, Whit. Maybe we want different things.”
His heart surged painfully. “Don’t say that.”
“Even if it’s true?”
He wanted to say yes, because it would hurt too much otherwise. He closed his eyes and pressed his lips together.
Suzanne squeezed his hand. “This is what we have to figure out.”
He nodded but kept his eyes shut, waiting for the pain to subside.
The next morning, Suzanne stopped at the nursery on her way to see her parents and purchased a Mother’s Day present, a striking architectural display of grasses and succulents presented in a rectangular planter, vaguely Moroccan in design. The echeveria, with their rosette shape and pink-to-lavender-to-blue leaves, reminded Suzanne of her mother: smooth and stunning, with a sharp spike at the tip of each leaf.
Tinsley answered the door, and Suzanne showed her the planter, which she had left at the foot of the steps.
“Happy Mother’s Day, a bit early.” She kissed Tinsley on the cheek. “I figured it would be easier for you not to have to lug it from my house.”
Tinsley peered at the display and smiled. “Thoughtful on both counts. Thank you.”
She ushered Suzanne inside, clicking along the travertine floor with energy and purpose, rattling off her commitments for the day. Suzanne registered none of them. Her father was waiting in the living room, reading the Wall Street Journal . He folded it and set it aside.
“Good morning, Suzanne. Welcome back from your travels.” His tone was neutral, but his point hit home nevertheless.
“Thanks.” She sat in a white leather wingbac
k. Her mother settled herself on the couch next to Anson. “I know you’re both busy, so I’ll get right to the point.”
Suzanne outlined her plans. To appeal to her father’s entrepreneurial interests, she emphasized the uniqueness of the project and the potential for scientific discovery. For her mother, Suzanne described her plans to restore the old brick farmhouse and to create a teaching garden.
“Three brothers inherited the land. The eldest was living there when Iris’s parents first came—he probably knew them somehow—but he died several years ago. According to the Realtor who knows the family, the surviving brothers have been thinking of selling but are attached to the place. She thought my project might be just the thing to encourage them to sell.”
“Especially if the price is right,” Anson said.
“Sure.”
“And that’s why you’re here,” Tinsley said.
“Yes.”
“Really, Suzanne. I’m surprised at you. This, this project, will take you away from your husband, from your children. And you expect us to fund it?”
Suzanne had anticipated this response. “Whit and I are putting up some of the money, but it’s not enough. And I’m asking for an advance on my inheritance. I know it’s not mine to ask for, but doesn’t it make sense to use the money to do something positive, something important?” Her father bristled. She appealed to him directly. “I know it’s invested now and that you’ve worked hard to make it grow. I’m just hoping I can make something grow, too, in my own way.” Her father met her gaze, considering.
Tinsley jumped in. “But what about Whit and the children? And your work at the school and your other responsibilities?”
“Reid and Brynn are nearly grown. I’m not abandoning them. The property is only an hour and a half away. I’m carving out a life for myself, something I care about.”
“That’s selfish.”
“Maybe. But maybe it’s not a terrible thing for my children to see that a woman can do more than serve the family.” Tinsley’s eyebrows shot up. “I’ve done that, and now I’d like to try something different.” What she wanted to say was that she felt her family had been misguided and, indeed, broken, for many years, but sharing that with Tinsley would be pointless. Her mother expected families to be broken, and Suzanne had come to believe her mother was invested in Suzanne’s staying that way.
Anson said, “Well, I don’t see anything wrong with the idea on the face of it. God knows we’ve wasted money on worse ideas.”
Tinsley began to protest.
“Mother,” Suzanne said, “I’d be happy for your help.”
“I’m not keen on forests.”
“I meant with the house, for starters.”
Her mother glanced at her husband with a mixture of resignation and annoyance.
Anson pressed his hands against his knees and stood. “Draw up a proposal, Suzanne. With numbers. Then we’ll talk again.” He extended his hand.
Suzanne rose and shook it. In that moment she caught something of what had transpired, or failed to, between Whit and Reid. She understood what it meant to have been granted approval by a successful man to whom you belonged, whether you admired the man or not, whether the bargain struck was mutually agreeable or only a truce.
CHAPTER 45
The first time Iris went to see her father, he was standing by the window of the visiting room, looking outside as if he expected her to fly by the glass. Detective DeCelle had tracked him down to a drug abuse treatment center in Durham, North Carolina, about three hours away from the brick house in Buchanan. The outline of his story came to Iris through Suzanne, who heard it from the detective. Nearly two years ago, after Iris’s father had written the note and left the cabin, he’d given up caring what happened to him. He got tangled up with some hard types and started taking drugs, painkillers, mostly, although the kind of pain he had wasn’t physical. No one knew how he ended up in North Carolina, least of all him. The detective had discovered a quilt in the cabin with “M. Colton” sewn in one corner—Iris’s mother’s maiden name—and a search for James Colton had led to Iris’s father, James Smith, who had given the false name at the treatment center, afraid of being arrested again.
Iris hadn’t wanted to be the one to tell her father about how Mama had died, so Detective DeCelle took care of it and told her father what had happened to Iris, too. Her side of the story was all filled in before she made the trip to see him, giving him plenty of time to think how to explain himself, if he could.
Iris entered the visiting room, and Suzanne hovered behind. Iris’s father’s clothes hung loosely on him—she remembered him big and strong—but it was his face that alarmed her the most. He looked old and so tired she wondered how he managed to stay standing. She stopped as soon as she saw him, her feet rooted into the floor. He turned as if someone had tapped him on the shoulder and noticed her. His face changed, going soft all at once, like someone had let the air out of him; then he smiled, his blue eyes shining. He stretched out his arms.
Iris could feel Suzanne behind her and almost turned back. It would’ve been easy. But the man was her daddy, and there was nothing she could do except step forward, like walking on black ice, and let him hold her. There was nothing else she could’ve done. Once he had his arms around her, she remembered how she loved him. It welled up in her and spread out from her chest so fast she couldn’t breathe.
They sat at a little table. Suzanne, too, all three of them wiping their eyes. He asked if Iris wanted to know the story. She said she did. He told her about carrying Ash down off the mountain and hitching a ride into Roanoke, to the hospital. They had taken Ash in, but asked too many questions he didn’t want to answer. He told Iris that her mother would never have forgiven him if he’d revealed where they lived and ruined the life they’d made. Iris recognized this was true. Mama would never come out of the woods. She said she would rather die, and that was her solemn promise. So once Daddy was sure the nurses and doctors were taking care of Ash, he’d slipped out. But he couldn’t stay away, and when he came back late that night, he told a nurse he was Ash’s uncle, that the boy’s father had gone missing. The nurse told him Ash had died.
Daddy said, “I ran off. I don’t remember where, but I ended up at a bar.” He hung his head and clasped his hands together to stop them shaking. “Some guy said the wrong thing. I don’t even know what. I was blind.”
Iris nodded. She already knew what had happened next from the police, but she let him talk. He’d gotten into a fight and knifed a man. When the police showed up, he fought them, too, and ended up in prison. That’s why he didn’t come back to the cabin. He couldn’t, not for four years.
“I went to the cabin as soon as I could, but I was on probation and couldn’t stay. You and your mama were gone, but I kept coming back. I almost ended it a couple times, I’m ashamed to say.” He turned away from her. “When I finally got off probation, I went back up and stayed, but you were long gone by then.” He reached out and took Iris’s hand in his. He looked her in the eye, struggling to hold himself there against the weight of regret. “I’m sorry.”
That was all he said about the past. He asked questions about Iris and Suzanne, steering away from the time Iris had spent alone in the woods. She understood his guilt was too large for him to tolerate too much of the truth at once, and it wasn’t at all clear to her how much fault lay at his feet in any case.
Iris visited her father twice more during the summer. He’d have to leave the treatment center before long and find work, make some sort of life. It wasn’t that different from what Iris herself had to do. They talked, sometimes about the time before Ash got sick, sometimes about afterward, easing toward a reckoning of the past the two of them might be able to bear. It wasn’t something that could be hurried, Suzanne said, or something Iris was required to do at all. And yet she felt she did.
He was her daddy. She’d always loved him and couldn’t find a reason to stop now. Maybe he should’ve taken Ash to the hospital soon
er. Maybe he should’ve tried harder to find her. Maybe he should’ve been stronger.
Iris knew being strong wasn’t enough, because life could weigh more than you ever imagined. You had to bend, like a branch laden with snow, arcing toward the earth. Daddy had been folded in half until he could no longer see the sky, knees forced to the ground. It seemed to Iris he deserved less weight, not more. Along with Mama, he’d given her what she treasured most: the woods, the streams, and the mountain breezes. Iris held those gifts in her heart, where there was also room for him.
CHAPTER 46
In the light-filled room that served as her office, Suzanne pored over the plans spread out on the massive oak table. Andreas Thierry, the architect, would be arriving after lunch to discuss the final revisions for the barn conversion. She’d chosen Thierry for his experience in laboratory design, but she wanted the space to be both functional and beautiful. The barn and the rest of the property were too special to turn into an industrial park, so she was making use of the existing buildings and striving to retain their character. The house would be her residence when she wasn’t in Charlottesville and would eventually also have reception and meeting rooms. The barn would contain the lab, the storage facility for specimens, and a library. The garage, which at one time had been a carriage house, was destined to become a bunkhouse with its own kitchen. Once the center was established, she would consider adding other facilities, but for now the plans in front of her were sufficiently ambitious.
Rivulets of condensation streaked the glass of iced tea at her elbow. The brick walls, three courses thick, kept the house somewhat cooler than outside, but even so it was warm on this humid August day. Suzanne jotted notes on a pad, then straightened her back, tight from leaning over the drawings, and surveyed the room. Tinsley, Suzanne had to admit, had done a stellar job with this room and the other parts of the house restored thus far—two bedrooms, one bath, and the kitchen. Suzanne had asked for a minimalist approach; the last thing she wanted in her work life was clutter. Tinsley had selected natural materials—wood, sisal, linen—in natural colors, giving the rooms a feeling of having been borrowed from the landscape. In fact, Suzanne was so impressed with her mother’s ability to translate Suzanne’s wishes into reality that she’d encouraged Tinsley to consider interior design more seriously. Tinsley had waved away the suggestion. “We don’t all need to follow you into the ranks of working mothers, my dear.” And yet Suzanne sensed her mother hadn’t dismissed the idea out of hand.
