Never Ask Me

by Abbott, Jeff

  Very little on the kind of person she was. On the secrets she kept.

  There is a mention that her teenage son and a friend found her. No mention of Julia by name. Small mercies.

  Iris opens the neighborhood Faceplace page. The fear and panic are unabated. Iris reads each post, each comment. People are scared. Jumping at shadows, devolving into arguments about how to best protect themselves, one group still promising to wander the neighborhood like an unofficial patrol and others objecting to the whole idea, and it all gives Iris a headache.

  She starts to write STOP IT ALL OF YOU in all caps in a comment bubble and then stops herself. Deletes it. She cannot get involved in this fray. She must stay above it. Instead she posts a link to the dinner schedule for Mike, Peter, and Ned, asking that if anyone else wants to volunteer, they should sign up, and to please read what others on consecutive nights are bringing so the guys don’t get fajitas or spaghetti three nights in a row. Like they would care. But she still says it, because the idea of it done wrong bothers her. She doesn’t say anything regarding Danielle, Ned, or her daughter. She does say that there may be a separate dinner list once Gordon Frimpong, Ned’s father, arrives from London. She’ll find out where he’s staying. She doesn’t think it’s likely he’ll stay with Mike and Peter; surely by then the police will let Ned return to his mother’s house.

  Iris pours herself a large mug of coffee. She answers the emails and texts she’s gotten, in order, systematically. She writes some empty, reassuring phrases, using them again and again, cutting and pasting, being careful though to always have the recipient’s name right.

  When she’s done, she listens to the silence in the house, and then there’s a knock at the front door. She peers through the peephole. It’s Mike Horvath. She knew she would have to see him, but she didn’t expect it this soon. And why wouldn’t he call first? Because they’re grieving and shaken and not thinking straight, she tells herself.

  She pulls her terry-cloth robe tight around her, reties the belt to keep it snug, and opens the door.

  “Mike. Come in. I am so, so sorry.”

  They hug. She can feel Mike trembling a little. He steps back from her.

  “Thank you,” he says. “Ned is sleeping, finally. He did not sleep all night. I could hear him pacing the floor, watching television. Finally he slept. I cannot stay long, I want to be there whenever he wakes up.”

  “Let me get you some coffee.”

  He follows her into the kitchen and sits at the granite island when she gestures toward a barstool there. Mike’s a big man, six three, broad shouldered, built like a rugby player, not conventionally handsome—not like Kyle—but with an appealing face. His accent—he grew up in Slovakia, and then his family moved to Canada when he was a teenager—is one she has always found charming. He arrived in Austin two years ago as an investor in start-up technology companies, a recent widower, bought a house in the neighborhood because he liked the greenbelt and the quiet and the high school for his son, Peter, who Iris considers an antisocial oddball but a basically good kid.

  And then he met Danielle, and they seemed well suited for each other.

  “I am sorry to bother you so early,” he says in his deep voice. “Especially after what you and Julia went through yesterday. How is she?”

  Iris loves Mike a little for asking How is she? instead of Is she OK? because no, she’s not OK, she won’t be, not for a while, and that is part of the awfulness of this. “She’s not great. But she’s mostly worried about Ned. And you. How are you? And Peter?” She wonders if Peter ever noticed his father was dating someone and chides herself for her unkindness.

  She sets the coffee down in front of Mike.

  “Iris,” Mike says, “I have loved twice in my life and both times she has died.” He says her name I-ris, a very clear break between the syllables, the I always longer than it needs to be. It irritates her usually, but not now. He looks very directly at her, as if she will have an answer to his grief. “I should know what to do, right? I don’t.”

  She takes Mike’s hand. “I am so sorry.”

  “To lose her this way…I cannot understand it.”

  “They’ll find who did it.”

  “I can’t worry about myself right now.” He sips at the coffee. “I wanted to see how you all were, but I need your help with Ned.”

  “What?”

  “His father is coming from London. An investor friend of mine with a private jet there is getting him here this morning.”

  Iris tries not to make a face. She dislikes Danielle’s first husband, Gordon, a man she met once or twice, briefly, when he came to Austin to visit his son. He’s a banker, as well, with an international practice covering Europe and Africa. Iris does not understand how he could have a child and leave him behind in another country, put his job before his kid. It’s beyond her. But right now she tells herself to be generous. Of course Gordon is coming here. He must.

  “Does he need a place to stay?”

  “No. He will stay at Danielle’s house. But he wants to take Ned back to London.”

  She hadn’t even thought of that in the insanity of the last twenty-four hours. Ned can’t just live alone in his dead mother’s house. The house will have to be sold. Presumably, being a lawyer, Danielle had a will. She thinks how Julia will react. “Of course Gordon does,” she says.

  “Yes, and I am sure Gordon means well, but Ned is in no emotional shape to leave everyone he loves and knows. He is upset.”

  “What does he want to do?”

  “He tells me that Julia has invited him to live with you. We could not sleep last night and he told me this.”

  “Oh. Well. He has another year of school. Sure,” Iris says, trying not to think of what she’s agreeing to, trying to keep her voice steady, while another voice in her head, a screeching howl that is ugly and unkind, says, No, no, no, no. You cannot endure that.

  “Well, so you offered?” Mike asks.

  “Well, honestly, we hadn’t discussed it with Julia.”

  “So I thought.” Mike clears his throat. “I am willing to be appointed his guardian until he’s eighteen. I don’t know how American law works on this front, though. And Gordon has to agree.”

  “Gordon is his dad. I’m not sure any court is going to interfere with his rights as a father.”

  Mike takes a long sip of coffee, his gaze steady on her. “Well, perhaps we can reason with Gordon. He is trying to do what he thinks is right.”

  “Maybe he’s right.”

  “Let’s be honest. Ned barely knows Gordon and has been to London only a few times.”

  “That’s a lot of change, but kids are resilient.”

  “Yes. Look at Grant, adjusting from Russia to Lakehaven. That must have seemed a million miles apart.”

  “He doesn’t remember Russia,” she says.

  They are quiet for a moment, Mike sipping coffee. Iris says: “The ugly truth is now this neighborhood will always be, for Ned, where his mother died. Not just died, but was killed. He might do better with a fresh start.”

  “He is very concerned about leaving his friends.”

  “And he’d miss out on in-state tuition for a public university if he leaves. I think he wants to go to UT or A&M.”

  Mike lets ten seconds pass, studying his coffee. “I am not sure he has thought about his college career much in the past hours, Iris. And Gordon will want him to go to university in Britain now, I would think.”

  “Oh.” She’s done it again, said something thoughtless when she didn’t mean to. “You’re right, of course. We’re so focused on Julia’s college applications for this year that I’m stuck in that mode. I’m sorry.” She is talking about college applications to a man whose girlfriend died yesterday. She wants to crawl under a table and stay there. “I don’t know what to say. I think we’re all in shock.”

  “You never know. That issue about university is a good point and perhaps one that will sway Gordon,” Mike says diplomatically. “A banker
understands costs.”

  “I’ll talk to Kyle and see what we can do to convince Gordon.” She squeezes his hand again.

  He puts his hand atop hers. “Thank you. I thought you might give the eulogy at the memorial service.”

  Iris wants to say You did not just suggest that to me. Instead she keeps her expression blank.

  “You just knew her for so long. Friend and neighbor. And she made such an impact in your life with Grant.”

  “I might not be able to keep my composure,” she says slowly.

  “But you are a poet, with your songs. And you speak to groups of parents all the time.”

  “It’s not the same. You should. She loved you.” Did Danielle love him? Iris doesn’t know. She hopes she did. That there was happiness, and contentment, between Danielle and this gentle bear of a man.

  “I can’t do it,” Mike says. “I don’t want to lose it in front of Ned and Peter. If you cannot, then perhaps Kyle.”

  This keeps getting worse. “Doesn’t Danielle have family?”

  “Her dad left them when she was young, and her mother died about eight years ago. Cancer.”

  “Oh. Yes.” She’d sent flowers; it was the decent thing to do.

  “And she was an only child and not close to any other relatives. All of us here in Winding Creek were her family.”

  “Of course,” Iris hears herself say.

  “If you’ll talk to Kyle about the eulogy and about Ned’s situation, I would appreciate it.”

  “Yes.”

  “And, Iris?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you have any idea who would have wanted to hurt her?” His voice is a low rumble, and she hears a cold threat in it. Not to her. But he’s mad. He’s hurt. He wants to hurt whoever did this. She understands.

  She meets his gaze. She’s never been afraid of Mike, but now she is, a little. A smart, capable man with a good cause can be a dangerous thing. “I can’t think of anyone who wished her ill. Surely this has to be random. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “I wonder,” he says. “The police questioned me. I understand why. I was fishing with Peter, yes, but she could have been killed before we went out on the lake. As if…as if I could kill her and then go spend time with my son.” Now she sees how close to losing it he is.

  “Oh, Mike.”

  “We did not spend the night together. I was at my house, since I was going to get up early to fish, and she was at hers.”

  “Mike, I know you couldn’t hurt her,” she says, because it’s what one says, she supposes, in this situation.

  “We don’t know what people are capable of. You, or me, or Kyle,” he says. “In Czechoslovakia, under the heel of the Soviets, children informed on their parents. Parents on each other.” He meets her gaze again. “People are good until they are not.”

  Iris swallows past the lump in her throat. She hears footsteps on the stairs and sees Grant coming down in his old pajama pants and last year’s Austin City Limits Festival shirt that Kyle bought him, worn and thin. For the first time since he found out about Danielle, Grant smiles, for just a moment, and comes down and hugs Mike, who awkwardly hugs him back.

  “Chlapec,” Mike calls him, a Slovak word for “boy” or “lad,” his hearty nickname for Grant. “How are you? You taking good care of your sister and mama?”

  Grant nods. “I am so sorry about Danielle,” he says quietly. “I know how much you loved her. I loved her, too. I wouldn’t have my family without her.”

  Mike leans down, puts a hand on his shoulder. Iris can see tears in his eyes. “You know she loved you, yes? She helped bring you to this better life. Your happiness was a reminder of the good job she did.”

  Grant starts to cry, and Iris’s heart shifts in her chest. But she stands there frozen while Mike pats her son’s shoulder and comforts him.

  “What are you going to do now?” Grant asks.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you going to go back to Canada?”

  “I will stay here. This is my home now.” He looks up at Iris. “My friends are here, the ones I like to see every day. Like you.”

  Grant wipes the tears from his face.

  “Don’t cry, chlapec. When we are feeling better, we will go fishing, OK?”

  Grant nods.

  “I did not mean to upset you. I’m going to go check on Ned, but maybe I’ll see you later. I just want to know you are all right. And Julia, and your mom and dad.”

  Grant nods again. Mike is better with him than Kyle is, Iris thinks, and then she shoves the thought away because it feels deeply disloyal. But it’s true.

  “We’re bringing you dinner tonight,” Iris says. “What do you and the boys want?”

  “Anything is fine. We don’t feel like eating so much. We appreciate everyone helping with the dinner schedule.”

  “I’ll bring some wine, too.”

  Mike says, “If I get drunk, I’ll break all the windows.” His voice has gone low and soft again. “I want to find who did this.”

  Grant is silent, and he glances at his mother.

  “That’s what the police are for,” she says.

  “Why does someone take a woman’s life like it is nothing, when it is everything?”

  His words silence them.

  Mike rubs the top of Grant’s bedhead hair and gives Iris a quick hug. “I don’t want to be gone if Ned wakes up,” he says. “I’ll see you both later, yeah?”

  Iris walks him to the door and watches him go, heading down the road and turning into a cul-de-sac. He doesn’t look back.

  “Oh. I forgot to tell him. Peter is coming over later to help me with a project,” Grant says. “For computer science.”

  “Peter probably needs to be with his dad. Why would you ask him for help now?”

  “I had asked him before,” Grant says. “He said he’d still help me. He needs to take his mind off Danielle.”

  “All right, but if he changes his mind, don’t make a big deal about it,” Iris says. She glances in the pantry to make sure she has enough for an impromptu lunch or snack. Teenagers eat constantly. She needs to go to the store anyway, and now she dreads it. It’s a running joke that anytime she goes to the grocery she will see five people she knows. But they’re running low on peanut butter, and she needs to get the makings for the dinner she’s promised for Mike and the boys. “All right,” she says. “When is Peter coming over?”

  “Around ten this morning, if that’s all right.”

  “Don’t talk about Danielle,” she says. “Unless Peter wants to.”

  “I don’t think he will.”

  Iris hugs her son. “I know you’re worried about Mike. He’ll be fine.”

  She feels Grant tense under her grip. Whatever she says right now seems wrong, but silence feels worse, so she keeps talking. “What do you want for breakfast?”

  “Mom, I love you,” he says into her shoulder.

  “I love you, too, baby,” she whispers.

  “You aren’t going to leave me, are you?”

  She knows what he means. She won’t die. “No, no, no,” she says, like a spell, like a wish, like a promise.

  17

  From Iris Pollitt’s “From Russia with Love” Adoption Journal

  It was a long flight to Russia. I imagined, sitting on the plane, the miles of land and water and ice we were flying over to come to you. To find you. To make you ours.

  We didn’t bring your sister. She was too young, it was too cold—early December—and we would have our hands full with you. We didn’t get to bring you home this trip. That would require a second trip. Julia stayed with your dad’s parents.

  Danielle was with us. Not sitting with us on the plane. She was back in economy. (I booked us first class, since we weren’t traveling with a kiddo this time, even though Kyle said it was a waste of money that we could use to bribe whomever we have to bribe in Russia.) I felt bad we were in first and she was in economy, but she said she was fine.
Not every consultant does this, but Francie told me this was the extra service that made her work special. She must have buried this cost in her fees, because we weren’t billed for her ticket. Which I guess means she worked on other adoptions while we were there, which is fine. I knew she was staying a few days beyond us coming back to America. It would be great to have her there with us. It would make things go easier.

  Kyle read during the flight and listened to an instructional audio on beginning Russian. We’d already been cautioned repeatedly on what we can say and what we can’t say. We’d been warned especially to speak English and let the translator do her work in Russian so there are no gaffes or misunderstandings. Kyle told Danielle he was studying Russian, just to use at the hotel, and she smiled and told him practically everyone at our hotel would have a command of English. He murmured softly to himself, repeating the words he learned. I put on my own headphones to block him out and listened to the last three albums by an artist who asked me to write a song for him, thinking of you. Of writing a song for my new baby, just like I did for your sister.

  We changed planes in London—it was about a four-hour flight to Moscow. We had a short layover. Kyle studied his Russian. Danielle was on her phone a lot, looking worried. Was something wrong? Maybe she was trying to iron out some detail. Maybe it had nothing to do with us but with another client. I was constantly telling myself to calm down. I was calmer giving birth to Julia, which makes no sense—birth is way harder than this.

  I got up to go to the restroom, and when I was washing my hands, a woman stepped up next to me at the sink.

  She looked at me in the mirror. Our gazes locked.

  “Go home,” she said in lightly accented English. Quietly. It was a whisper.

  This was not what anyone expects to hear from someone at an airport sink. I said, “What?” I thought she must be talking to someone on the phone. You know, with an earpiece in.