“Well, how else do I go home? It’s not like I’m gonna make a scrapbook on Shutterfly and tote it to Back to School Night. ‘Look, Ainsley Perry. Here’s a photo of my sister causing a bar brawl! Here’s a picture of the divorce papers I never went through with! And here’s my summer boyfriend, the man I slept with while my no-longer-to-be-divorced-from husband was home watching my kids!’” Iris forced a small laugh, but inside she felt like she might throw up.
Trish did not laugh. Instead she sat down on the bed, studying Iris in a way that made her want to crawl in the suitcase. “Is that how you really feel about your summer?”
“No. I don’t know. How should you feel about a summer that you love, but that never should have happened?”
Trish listened quietly. “Here’s what I think. I think that this summer was forced on you. Paul started it. Hell, he sent you divorce papers. And you were simply reeling in his wake. You were brave to come up here on your own. If you ask me, I think you found beauty at the bottom of a toilet bowl. You survived it. And so what if you’ve got a pair of sexy shoes to show for it?”
Iris listened in disbelief. She’d been so busy worrying about the kids, about Leah, about Cooper. She’d forgotten that this summer had originally started out as a time when she needed to be worried about herself. And that it had been not only a forgivable indulgence but a necessary one.
“Don’t you feel guilty for a second.” Trish pointed her finger right under Iris’s nose, then pinched it.
“What am I going to do without you?” Iris leaned over and hugged her.
“You won’t have to find out. You’re coming back to visit me. Every month!”
“Trish, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea . . .”
Trish held up her hand. “Fine. Then I will visit you until the dust settles. But you’ll be back.”
Iris smiled sadly; somehow, someday, of course she would.
Together they finished packing, tossing all her stuff into the suitcase. The faded red swimsuit. The designer denim, right on top of the mom jeans Iris confiscated from the trash can. As Iris contemplated the items before her, she realized that each piece told a part of the story. And she didn’t have to choose between them. Yes, she was a mother, who fell behind on coloring her hair, and sometimes forgot to brush her teeth. But she was also still a desirable woman, who, as Trish insisted, could rock a pair of heels. And, more meaningfully, fall down in the tall grass under the stars with a man who had fallen in love with her. She would not be ashamed of any of it, each layer of her in all its complex glory.
Back downstairs, Trish hugged and kissed them all, reserving a cool handshake for Paul, whom Iris understood she would never really forgive. But that was the part of the landscape of friendship.
“I’ll see you in New York in two weeks,” Iris promised.
Trish leaned out her car window before tearing off. “Wearing those heels!”
• • •
Back upstairs, Iris found the kids had packed themselves with more speed and efficiency than their mother had done. “I’m ready, Mom!” Lily announced, dragging her Hello Kitty duffel bag out into the hallway. Iris was almost disappointed to see how eager they were to go home.
Millie was down in the kitchen, feverishly packing turkey sandwiches and slicing up fruit, which she bundled into small bags for each of them. “I put extra mayonnaise on Sadie’s, butter on Jack’s, and nothing on Lily’s,” she said breathlessly. “Just the way they like them.” She did not look up at Iris, who’d stopped beside her at the kitchen island.
“That’s great, Mom. Thanks.”
“And I added a little of that basil cream cheese you like so much on yours.”
“Sounds delicious,” Iris said, watching her mother’s deft hands, which had begun to shake.
“But I’m not sure about Paul. Does he like whole wheat or white?”
Iris reached with both hands across the expanse of countertop and very gently placed them over her mother’s. For the first time Millie looked up, her eyes a watery gray.
“Mom, thank you. For everything.”
Millie nodded brusquely, returning her gaze purposefully to the food. “I just want to send you off full. Can’t drive home on an empty stomach.”
Iris circled the island and opened her arms. And to her surprise Millie fell into them. “Oh, Iris. I just don’t know.”
Iris held her, nodding in silent agreement. “She’s doing great, Mom,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Leah’s going to be fine.”
Millie stepped back to look at Iris. “Leah? Of course she is.” She reached for a piece of Iris’s stray hair and tucked it behind her ear, an uncharacteristically tender gesture. “I was talking about you.”
“Oh.” It was Iris’s turn to hold back tears. “Well, I’m still sort of working on that one.”
The mudroom door swung open and Bill poked his head in. “The kids are waiting, ready to go.”
Outside the afternoon light was the hue of an early peach, yellow and succulent. The late-August sun hung over the rocks on the other side of the lake, glazing the green edges of leaves and the tips of the grass in gold. It was Iris’s favorite time of day, in her favorite season.
“You going to follow us, then?” Paul called to her. He stood awkwardly by the car, his door open. They’d not spoken about next steps yet. Paul and Iris had only discussed some of the practical travel details the night before, at the kitchen counter, long after everyone had gone to bed. The easy details. He’d told her that the kids were ready to go home, and she’d agreed.
He’d heard about her cookbook deal, of course. But this was the first time he’d mentioned it to her alone. “So, you’re really going to do this book thing, huh?”
Iris had bristled a little. “Yes, of course I am. We worked hard at it.”
“I’m sure you did.”
She’d waited for the other shoe to drop, silent.
“But?”
Paul looked surprised. “No buts. I’m just wondering what you’ll do next.”
“Next? You mean after it’s published?” She hadn’t thought past the glory of this book, but somewhere deep down she was pretty sure there would be another. Was certain, in fact.
“This was a nice little diversion for you this summer. But now you’re coming back home, and you’ve got the kids and a house to run.” He looked at her. “Right?”
Diversion? Iris was stunned. Not only at his lack of enthusiasm or pride in her accomplishment but at his complete lack of understanding about what this book represented for her. And about her!
“I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” she allowed, trying to keep her disappointment at bay. She would not lose it this early on. Surely he hadn’t meant to make her book sound so trivial. Paul was just being practical. Just inquiring.
But there was more. “I’ve been thinking. If you want to work that bad, you should approach the agency about getting your old job back,” he told her. “The firm’s doing well, but we’ve got to buckle down. There’s the home equity line. And the driveway needs repaving. Every dollar helps.”
And there it was. The dollars and sense that Paul coffered at every turn. Iris could’ve kicked herself; had one summer away really made her expect something different? Iris had walked out of the kitchen and gone to bed perplexed and angry.
Now, standing in the driveway, Paul waited uncertainly for her reply.
“Yes,” she said finally, around a giant lump in her throat. “I’ll follow you home.” She gestured to the walkway, where her father was approaching with her bags. Paul lurched forward to assist.
“Thanks, Bill. Let me help.” Paul relieved Bill of the bags, but then halted, frowning. “Geez, Iris, what have you got in here?”
She shrugged. “Just the stuff I brought with me. And a few new things I bought in town this summer.”
H
e sighed. “New clothes. How much did you spend?”
“What it cost. I needed those things. And I liked them.”
Trish’s face flashed in her mind as Iris watched Paul impatiently jam the bags into the trunk of the car, but she pushed it away.
She focused instead on the kids, who were hugging their grandmother good-bye.
“Don’t worry, Grandma,” Jack said, peeking into his lunch bag. “We’ll eat our sandwiches before we have dessert.”
Millie enveloped him in one last hug. “Oh, go ahead and eat the brownie first.” She looked at Iris, smiling. “Life is short.”
Iris watched as the kids settled themselves into the back of their father’s car. “If Lily bugs me, I’m riding with you,” Sadie warned her mother.
“You keep your dad company,” Iris said, closing the door and leaning into the open window. She had chosen them. She would follow Paul home, but she needed this last ride to herself.
Before ducking into the car himself, Paul thanked her parents. For what, Iris wasn’t sure. For not throwing him out? For giving him a second chance?
“I’ll be behind you,” Iris told him. “After I make a few last good-byes.”
Whether he understood or not, Paul did not press. Instead he offered a short “Drive safe.”
And then they were gone.
Millie, who had never liked good-byes, pecked Iris quickly on the cheek and scurried back inside. Only Bill stood in the driveway, watching as Iris put the last of her things in the Jeep.
“You know you can always come back when you want to,” he told her.
“I know, Daddy.” And then she hugged him good-bye. “You’re so good to me.”
Bill chuckled softly in her ear as they hugged, his voice warm and comforting. “Take your time,” he told her.
“I will.”
He held the car door as she stepped in. “Just remember one thing, for your old man, all right?”
“What’s that?”
“There’s more than one road leading home.”
Thirty-Nine
The gravel crunched beneath her tires as she pulled away from the house and up onto the dirt driveway leading out of the farm. The red barn loomed before her, and Iris scanned the grassy hillside. There was no sign of him.
She left the engine running. The barn was empty, the sliding door swung wide open as if expecting her. Inside, the air was cool and dark. Dust motes floated lazily on the sun shafts that spilled through the paned windows. Iris stood on the threshold, letting her eyes roam across the barn’s expanse, past the horse stalls in the rear. Over the dents she’d made with the shovel that first afternoon, still fresh on the old stall door. And above, to the beams that she’d helped restore during those long, hard early days. She studied the evenly spaced chestnut beams running across the ceiling, each so square and solid. It seemed years ago that Cooper had first passed her a hammer, joking that she’d best put that arm to use. And even longer ago that he’d held her, pressing his lips to her forehead, in this very spot as the whole summer stilled outside the windows.
When would she be back here? She could not imagine letting time pass, as she had before, without returning. No, the kids had had their first real taste of the farm and the lake. They’d be eager to return. And someday, so would she.
It had been a good summer. One that had shaped each of them in a way that would stay with them. Despite its pain, she wouldn’t have changed any of it. Like the beams she’d supported in the barn ceiling that summer, it came down to sistering. “You’ve got to sister the beams, Iris,” Cooper had explained. “You don’t need to tear down the old ones. It’s part of the history. All it needs is to be sistered.”
“Good-bye, barn,” Iris said out loud. She walked to the center of the dirt floor and looked up at their work, craning her neck to take it all in. As if under a cathedral, she turned in a slow circle. Then another, a little faster until the beams spun lazily overhead. The same dizziness that had filled her limbs when Cooper kissed her began to alter her balance, and soon the whole barn flew past. The stalls, walls, and open door tumbled by as she spun, until suddenly a dark figure filled the doorway.
Iris halted, swaying on unsteady legs, and stumbled forward. “Cooper?”
The figure stepped forward and Iris blinked.
It was Ernesto. “Sorry, Iris. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
She stood, trying to catch her balance. “You didn’t.”
He pointed to a pile of wood stacked in the corner, left over from her barn project with Cooper. “Your mother asked me to clean up. That okay?”
Iris watched as Ernesto dragged the leftover plywood and timbers and carried them outside to his truck. He was cleaning up. Tossing out the debris of her summer project. Salvaging the good remnants. It was time to go.
Iris retrieved her tool belt from the corner, the weight of it heavy in her hands. She looked at the engraving: Iris, Summer 2013
“Are you sure Cooper doesn’t want any of this?” she asked.
Ernesto paused. “Mr. Cooper finished his work here. He is done.”
Iris shook her head. “But—the smokehouse. It’s not complete.”
Ernesto shook his head. “He quit. Gave the job to me to finish. Mr. Cooper went to Vermont.”
Iris’s voice caught. “Cooper quit? Do you know when?”
Ernesto shrugged. “This morning.”
• • •
Iris navigated the hilly roads of Hampstead carefully. The evergreen trees were dense along the lakefront outside her window, and the terrain rose and fell around her. But she scarcely noticed the views. Cooper had left before she did.
By the time she pulled onto Route 7, Iris’s throat was tight. It didn’t surprise her. She’d not slept well, and she was probably well on her way to catching a cold. As the signs for Interstate 91 began to dot the roadside, her nose began to run and she had to reach over and fumble in the glove box for a wadded-up tissue.
Suddenly Iris’s phone chimed in her purse, and she plucked it out, her heart stopping. Was it him?
Instead, Paul flashed across her screen. “Yes? Hello?”
“Hi, Mommy.” It was Lily. “We’re stopping for doughnuts. Do you want to meet us?”
Iris blinked, her vision suddenly blurred, and she realized her eyes were welling.
“You guys go ahead. I’ll meet you at home, honey.”
The tears began to stream down her cheeks, a steady flow that caused her to let go of the wheel for a second to swipe them away.
“Mommy, are you there?” The final sign for Interstate 91 loomed before her, and for a moment Iris hesitated: which way was home, east or west? Her mind blanked in confusion. At the last second, Iris swerved left onto the western entrance, nearly sideswiping a car pulling up the entrance ramp beside her. The car blared its horn and she slowed, letting it pass. “I’m here!” She shook her head, willing clarity. What was the matter with her?
Iris checked her side mirror carefully this time and merged onto the highway. Forty-two miles to Boston, the big green sign read. She leaned back in her seat, breathing hard. “Honey, I better go. I love you. I’ll see you at home.”
Home. Where her bedroom, with its antique canopy bed, probably unmade since she’d left it, awaited her. Where she’d unpack her bags and look around, wondering where to begin. All of it right back where she’d left it, nothing having changed. But she had changed.
The first few miles went by quickly enough, but the tears did not abate. If anything they fell faster, and before she knew it Iris was crying openly, her chest racking with each sob. What was happening?
She wondered what Leah was doing right now, even thought of calling her. But no, it was her first day at the rehab center. She was probably exhausted. Iris knew she had several grueling weeks of therapy to get through. But at least she had Stephen.
What did Iris have? As soon as she wrapped up that “cute little project” that was her book, what next? She shuddered. It was the end of summer, which suddenly felt like the end of her.
Iris gripped the steering wheel and fought to catch her breath. “Boston 30 Miles,” the next sign said. But Iris did not think she’d make it another second. Up ahead, a rest stop loomed on her right and Iris flipped her signal on and swerved into the exit lane. “Gas. Food. Lodging.” Her vision blurred as she followed the signs. She had to get out of the car. To get air. But just as the exit ramp roared up on her right, her eyes rested on another sign.
“91 East to Vermont.”
She gasped. What was it her father said about roads leading home? Reflexively, Iris flicked off her turning signal. Sailing past the rest stop exit ramp, she leaned back into her seat and steered straight.
The tears stopped.
• • •
For the next twenty miles Iris did not think. She scarcely breathed. But somehow the car continued in its lane. She did not have a plan and she would not allow herself to try to think of one.
Iris knew Cooper’s cabin was just off Route 7, in the village of Stowe. She did not know the exact address. Or whether it was listed under his name or his father’s. But she did have an idea of where the little roadside café was. The café that he stopped at each time he made the trip. The very place he’d wanted to take her when he’d invited her to make the lumber run all those weeks ago. She checked the clock. It was already one thirty. Past lunch. Hell, Cooper had left Hampstead that morning, according to Ernesto. He would’ve beaten her to Vermont at least two hours ago, if he’d stopped by the café at all. But it was all she had to go on, and so she went.
Miles later, she entered Stowe village and slowed the car, craning her neck as she passed through downtown. A bookstore. A ski shop. An inn, and a hardware store. Once the village fell away, she pulled into the lot of a stately white New England church and rolled down her window. Up here the air was crisp, the sky an impossible blue. She could swear she almost smelled fall coming.
The Lake Season Page 35
