True Places

by Sonja Yoerg

  Suzanne put down her fork. “Why?”

  “I called him this morning, just to see if they had any news, and he thought it was time to follow up with her, now that’s she’s better.”

  “You called him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “I think I just said.”

  “If they had news, they would let us know.”

  Whit took a bite of tomato. “Maybe. They’re busy. Doesn’t hurt to follow up. It’s best for Iris to be with family if they can find them. We’re together on that, right?”

  Suzanne blinked at him.

  He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. It was possible she was angry—she wasn’t transparent. “It’s just a conversation, Suzanne. She might remember something.”

  “She might.”

  “Don’t you think it’s odd that she doesn’t seem interested in locating her father?”

  “He disappeared six years ago.”

  “Still.” He studied Suzanne as she ate; she was taking very small bites, pushing her food around. “Aren’t you curious?”

  “About what?”

  “Her father. Her family.”

  “Sure. But forcing the issue isn’t necessarily the way to get answers.” Her fork clattered onto her plate. She picked it up and looked at him. “She’s fragile, you know.” She was making it sound as if he were suggesting waterboarding.

  “I know.” In truth, other than being skinny, Iris didn’t seem fragile to him. Weird. Dissociated. But not fragile. Whit didn’t wish to argue, however, so he attempted to be conciliatory. “The detective said he was planning to follow up anyway. It was on his calendar.”

  Not exactly the truth, but near enough.

  The next evening, after an early dinner, Brynn slipped into Iris’s room.

  Reid’s door opened across the hall, and he followed her in. “What’re you doing in here?”

  Like he was Iris’s security detail. “Don’t rat me out. I only want to listen to the cop grill Iris.”

  Reid twisted his mouth, considering.

  Brynn thought of all the times she and Reid had sneaked into this room to spy on their parents’ conversations.

  “Join me, bro. Just like old times.”

  Her mother had nixed her request to be there while the detective questioned Iris, but that didn’t mean she and Reid had to miss out. She smiled her most innocent smile. Reid rolled his eyes and she knew he was giving in, probably just as curious as she was about Iris. He went out to close his door, then shut Iris’s door behind him. Together they lifted the easy chair out of the corner to expose the heating vent connected to one in the living room ceiling. Brynn slid the lever on the vent, opening the louver all the way. They lay on their stomachs with their heads inches from the vent. Voices rose from below. The detective started with straightforward questions about how Iris was feeling and whether she was settling in. Iris gave one-word answers, as usual.

  “Do you have anything more to tell us about where your house is?”

  “No.”

  “What sort of a house was it?”

  “Wood. One room.” A pause. “About the size of this one.”

  “And the roof?”

  “Wood and metal.”

  “How did you heat it in the winter?”

  “Wood.” Iris sounded exasperated, like no one in the world just cranked up a thermostat when they were cold. “We had a wood stove. We cooked on that. Or outside.”

  “Okay. And there were no roads, you said before. What about trails?”

  “We tried not to make trails. We went different ways, especially below the house.”

  “Why below?”

  “Because that’s where a stranger would probably come from.”

  Brynn whispered to Reid. “Stranger danger.” He elbowed her.

  In the living room, the sound of paper being shuffled.

  “So, Iris. I know your family hunted and trapped for food, but didn’t you need supplies sometimes?”

  A long pause. “Daddy went down three times a year.”

  Their father said, “You never mentioned that.”

  “You never asked me.”

  The detective spoke. “How long was he gone on these trips?”

  “Three or four days.”

  “And he walked to a store and carried it all back?”

  “No. A friend helped him. His friend had a truck.”

  Brynn glanced at Reid and raised her eyebrows. Reid whispered, “They had to get stuff somehow.”

  The detective said, “You don’t happen to know the name of this fellow?”

  “Buck.”

  “Buck. Just Buck?”

  “Yes.”

  “Buck with a truck.” He didn’t sound amused.

  Brynn bit her lip to stop from laughing.

  “Yes.” Iris drew it out, like she was talking to an idiot.

  “Now, Iris. How did your father pay for these supplies? Did he have a pile of cash in the house?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  Their father said, “Maybe he went to a bank? Had an account to draw from?”

  “If he didn’t want to draw attention to himself,” the detective said, “it’s more likely he picked up a check from a post office box and cashed it.”

  Their mother spoke for the first time. “Like a disability check?”

  “What’s disability?” Iris asked.

  “When someone has an injury or a medical problem of some kind.” Their mom loved to tell Iris about everything, like she was Siri.

  “There was nothing wrong with my father.”

  Defensive much?

  “And one day,” the detective said, “he just left and never came back. Why would he do that, Iris?”

  Silence. Brynn swallowed.

  The detective’s voice was casual. “I’m wondering if maybe he was a veteran.” Obviously Iris had no clue what that was either. “Did your father fight in a war?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I find that hard to believe. Most kids know the basics of their parents’ lives.”

  Iris was getting pissed off. “My parents didn’t talk about the past. They said it was pointless. They were right. My father left six years ago. If he was alive, he would’ve come home. So he’s dead. What’s the point of talking about him?”

  Their mother said, “You can’t know for sure that he isn’t alive, Iris. Even if you think he isn’t, don’t you want to find out for sure?”

  “I do know!”

  Brynn and Reid looked at each other, as shocked by Iris’s outburst as if Vishnu had spoken.

  “Iris.” The detective dropped his voice. Brynn could only just make out the words. “Was there a problem in your house?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did your mother make your father leave?”

  “No!”

  Scuffling sounds. Brynn imagined Iris getting up and pacing, maybe scrabbling at the walls like a hamster in a cage. Brynn wasn’t being mean. She liked hamsters.

  “Please calm down, Iris.” Their mother was trying to smooth things over.

  “Leave me alone!”

  Boy, Brynn thought. Can I ever relate.

  The detective said, “I think that’s enough for now. But, Iris, just so we’re clear. The police have an obligation to try to find your father. We don’t need anyone’s permission.” A long silence. “And that goes for your mother, too. Because unless and until we find her body where you say it is, we can’t really be sure what happened to anyone.”

  Iris screamed, “She fell! I tried to get her out! I tried!”

  Brynn bit her lip. Iris’s quick steps receded from the living room.

  “She’s coming upstairs.”

  Brynn and Reid jumped to their feet, shoved the chair back in place, and ducked into the hall. Iris, her face red and scrunched in pain and anger, was rushing toward them, heading for her room.

  Brynn moved in front of Reid and positioned herself
by Iris’s door while not exactly blocking it. “Oh, Iris.”

  Iris slowed and looked up at her with those anime eyes, welling with tears but also wary. Fair enough.

  Reid said, “It’s gonna be okay.” He lifted his hand to touch her shoulder, then stuck his hand in his pocket instead.

  Their mother appeared at the top of the stairs. Iris spun to face her. Iris’s eyes had darkened to deep violet and her jaw was set.

  “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  Her mother inhaled sharply.

  Brynn stepped closer and put an arm around Iris’s shoulder. The top of the girl’s head didn’t even reach Brynn’s chin. “I don’t blame you,” Brynn whispered. “Come with me.” Iris hesitated for one second before letting Brynn steer her away. When Brynn reached the door to her room, she turned to look over her shoulder.

  “Brynn.” Her mother’s tone was stuffed with warning and mistrust.

  “Mom.” Brynn coated her voice in chocolate. “I got this.”

  “Brynn!”

  Brynn pulled Iris into her room and shut the door before her mother lost it.

  “Sit anywhere.” Brynn hoped Iris wouldn’t choose her bed. She was particular about her bed.

  Iris went to the window seat. Where else?

  Brynn picked up a nearly full Honest Tea—Moroccan mint green tea, her favorite—and handed it to Iris. “Here.” The Stray looked at it like it might explode. “You should always hydrate after crying.”

  Iris wiped her eyes with the hem of her shirt. Brynn caught a glimpse of her belly, what there was of it. God, she was scrawny. Iris sipped the drink tentatively and handed it back to Brynn.

  “Keep it.”

  Brynn cast about her room for something of interest to Iris, something to calm her down. Unfortunately, nature was little in evidence. But maybe that was the wrong approach. Maybe Iris needed to see how fun it could be to not run around in the woods and eat rabbits. Brynn’s mom had been trying to teach Iris all sorts of things, very gradually—too gradually if you asked Brynn, which no one did—but none of Iris’s lessons could remotely be considered fun, except eating normal food, and Iris had the hang of that. No, if Brynn was going to get this weirdo out of her house and get her life back to normal, she’d have to do it her way.

  Brynn carried a spare chair to her desk and waved Iris over. Iris perched on the edge of the chair. Brynn woke her laptop and clicked to a Facebook page. “Check this out. Prom is soon. That’s a dance where everyone gets super dressed up. No one cares about the dancing. It’s all about the dresses, the shoes, and all the rest. Want to see?”

  Iris nodded carefully, as if she were an anthropologist being invited to dinner by cannibals.

  Brynn scrolled through some photos, all of girls in formal dresses. “So these are my classmates. Not necessarily my friends. Everyone posts their dresses here. Tell me which ones you like, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Brynn stopped on one of a girl in a hot-pink strapless sheath, very tight and skanky short. “Well?”

  Iris said, “Is she your friend?”

  “As if. I mean, no.”

  “I don’t like the dress.”

  “Why not?”

  Iris considered. “Mostly the color.”

  Brynn nodded. “Good call.”

  They reviewed several more dresses together. Iris preferred simple designs and natural colors. What a shock.

  “Tell you what,” Brynn said. “If you want, we can take some photos together before prom.”

  “Why?”

  Brynn ignored this. Where would she start? “You’d have to dress up.”

  Iris frowned. “I don’t understand why you do this. Not just for this prom, but every day.”

  “It’s fun. It’s decorating yourself, making yourself look good.”

  “So people will like your photo on the computer?”

  Maybe she wasn’t so dense. “Yes. So people, the right people, pay attention to you.”

  Iris blushed. “I don’t think I want that.”

  “Oh, I think you do.” Brynn picked up her phone from the desk and swiped a few times until she found Sam’s profile pic and showed it to Iris. “Well?”

  “This boy is your friend?”

  “Yup.”

  Iris thought for a moment. “And he likes you because a lot of people pay attention to how you look in your photos?”

  “Right.” Not that she would ever put it that way. She pointed at Sam’s photo. “Plus, he’s hot.”

  “Hot?”

  “Oh boy.” Brynn got up, flopped onto the bed with her arms splayed, and spoke to the ceiling. “We have so much work to do, Iris. So much work.”

  CHAPTER 23

  All five of them climbed into the Navigator. Iris was in the middle seat in the back and Whit drove. Suzanne was unused to being a passenger in her own vehicle and fiddled with the seat controls. Whit turned on the radio, clicking through her presets twice before settling on a station.

  She was skeptical of the wisdom of the entire family, including Iris, having dinner at her parents’ house, and had said as much to Tinsley and Anson, and to Whit. In fact, she was more than skeptical; she knew it was a terrible idea, especially since only two days had passed since Iris’s interrogation by the detective, two days during which Iris had been quiet and withdrawn, even for her. Perhaps Iris had assumed the reappearance of the detective was Suzanne’s idea, or that she had at least been complicit. Either way, Suzanne wouldn’t point a finger at Whit even though she was disappointed in him. Parents should present a united front even when it turned out they weren’t as united as they ought to be.

  Instead Whit had minimized the aftermath of the interrogation and used the incident as evidence that Suzanne was coddling the girl. Iris needed to be challenged; otherwise, how would she ever adapt to the real world, as he put it? He had a point, but it wasn’t as if Suzanne had not been encouraging Iris to gradually try, if not embrace, the trappings of modern life. Iris had mastered several apps on her phone, although she failed to see the point of them, and could tolerate longer rides in the car and more people in stores and public places for short periods. She enjoyed the occasional television show if the topic was nature, geography, or science. Whit had suggested she try cartoons, but they did not hold Iris’s attention. She said nothing looked real and objected to animals acting like people.

  “She’s not a little girl,” Suzanne had reminded him. And yet in many ways Iris was a little girl. There was so much she didn’t understand. But the longer Suzanne spent teaching her those things, the less important the lessons seemed. What happiness or insight into her own existence would Iris gain from navigating the aisles of a supermarket, mastering the controls of the microwave, or learning what an extended-care facility was? Iris, it seemed possible now, was hardly naive at all.

  Suzanne worried about her anyway. Brynn, for reasons opaque to Suzanne, had suddenly softened to Iris. Suzanne hated herself for being suspicious and avoided being caught checking up on them. Reid had spent most of the last two days with Alex, which Suzanne couldn’t help but interpret as relinquishing Iris to Brynn, or even as a commentary on the whole family. They didn’t seem capable of being happy at the same time; that was the crux of it. Suzanne, the puppet master, was weary of untangling the strings and wondered if she’d done Iris any favors bringing her into the Blakemore puppet theater.

  They had left Charlottesville behind. The landscape opened, revealing pastures, patches of woods, and farms with their backs to the hills. The setting sun shot rays of light between the trees. Suzanne shielded her eyes.

  In truth, she didn’t feel much like a puppet master. She wasn’t in control, not anymore, not for a long time. Maybe the theater was in her believing she “ran” her family. She did things for her children, for their school, for their sports and activities, for the community, for Whit, for his business associates, for her mother and, indirectly, for her father, giving the illusion that she was the hub. Iris was one more s
poke on the wheel. But the hub does not turn the wheel. The hub is the small, hard knot in the center, a place of convergence. The spokes were vectors, directed outward. She was in the middle, immobile, bearing the centripetal force.

  No wonder she was exhausted. And frustrated.

  Suzanne twisted in her seat to speak to Iris. “Are you feeling all right?”

  The girl nodded. Brynn rolled her eyes without looking away from her phone.

  They entered the paved drive through an ornate iron gate bordered by forsythia whose arching branches were heavy with blooms. A springhouse straddled a narrow creek choked with watercress. Hickory Hill stood above them, its Georgian stateliness commanding the broad hilltop. Two sets of dual fireplaces and windows oversize for the period spoke of a long history of deep pockets. A carriage house flanked the right side and an elegant red barn the left, both separated from the house by a wide lawn. Shade trees—two-hundred-year-old walnut and black oak—confirmed the estate’s longevity. It was beautiful, she had to admit.

  “Suzanne’s childhood home, Iris.” Whit’s tone was reverent.

  Iris did not respond. Suzanne could guess at her reaction and had no desire to see it. She was always embarrassed to bring people here but never more than today.

  Anson greeted them at the door, gin in hand.

  “Welcome! Find the place all right, did you?”

  A dig about not visiting more often. Suzanne introduced Iris, then walked past him with the peonies she was carrying. “I’ll just bring these to Mother.”

  Suzanne found Tinsley in the dining room arranging platters on the sideboard. She wore a full skirt covered in blue flowers and a crisp white shirt. Suzanne felt underdressed in jeans and her favorite black T-shirt, but that was nothing new.

  “Suzanne.” Tinsley gave her a once-over.

  “Hi, Mother. Everything looks delicious.” She noticed the table was set. “I’m surprised we’re not eating on the patio. It’s lovely out.”

  “I was worried about Iris running away!”

  “We could tether her to a chair.”

  Her mother’s eyes widened as if she were considering this proposal, then registered Suzanne’s sarcasm. “I was only thinking of the girl.”