Marian agreed, sounding too tired to argue, and Iris hung up, relieved she was going to be able to avoid Outback Cottage.
The restaurant was busy on a Thursday evening, the celebrating sports teams replaced by families with young children. Angel accepted a placemat with a scene to color and a cupful of crayons. They both ordered burgers and fries before Marian walked in, wearing a slight frown and an air of weariness. Iris waved. Angel leaped up to greet her nana with a hug. “We saw meerkats. I think their babies should be called meerkittens.” She giggled.
“You look tired,” Iris observed.
“I am.” Marian ran a hand through her short gray hair and sat. “It’s a long drive.”
The psychic distance from freedom to caged was even further, Iris thought. “Food might help.” She beckoned the server and waited while Marian ordered a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup.
“So, what happened?” she asked, dipping a fry in ketchup and taking a bite. “How’s Dad?”
Marian moved her head slowly from side to side. “You’ve got his hopes up, Iris. He thinks you’re going to get him out, but I don’t see how. Cade took us round and round about that night, but it always came out the same: We were together at the house, cleaning up after dinner, until Neil went to check on you. When you weren’t in your room, he stormed out without telling me where he was headed. But I knew. It was only minutes later that the ambulance went past—he didn’t have time to do … what was done to Pastor Matt.” She shook her head again.
Making sure Angel was focused on her coloring, Iris asked, “Where was Noah? Surely he could testify that—”
“He spent the night at Tony Gray’s, went over there before dinner.”
Iris and her mother sat in silence for a moment, pondering the difficulty of freeing Neil Asher and watching Angel color. Finally, her mother said, “Cade gave us some time alone. We read the Bible together for a long time, and prayed. ‘Find rest O my soul in God alone; my hope comes from him. He alone is my rock and salvation; he is my fortress; I will not be shaken. My salvation and honor depend on God.’” Marian fell silent, her gaze on Angel, but Iris didn’t think her mother really saw the girl. “My hope comes from Jesus,” she almost whispered, “but days like this it’s thinner than air.”
Caught by something in her mother’s voice, Iris studied her face. What must it be like to be married but alone, to have a husband who shared his days and his thoughts with inmates who had killed and swindled and battered, rather than you? She was living a type of widowhood, but with her husband still alive and without the option of remarrying. Iris hadn’t thought she could feel sorry for her mother, but she did. “I’m sorry, Mom,” she said.
Marian reached a hand halfway across the table, but then let it fall. “Our Lord Jesus is with Neil,” she said.
“I’m going to visit him again before I go.”
Pushing aside her half-eaten sandwich, Marian asked, “Are you … have you found out anything about that night? Anything that might allow Cade to make a case for Neil, to get the conviction over-turned?” Although she tried to sound casual, Iris heard the piano wire tautness in her voice.
“Nothing definitive.” Iris hated to admit it. “No one has a real alibi for the whole time. I knocked on the Brozeks’ door but left before anyone answered. I didn’t see anyone. Jolene was at their house briefly, and heard Zach arguing with Pastor Matt. She saw Cade’s car. Zach admits the argument but says he left to find Jolene. They never hooked up, so technically they’re both unaccounted for. Obviously, I don’t know where Mrs. Brozek was or what she was doing. Esther was in the church. Cade was in the house long enough to belt Pastor Matt—”
“What!”
“He wanted revenge for my sake.” Iris kept her voice level, but hoped her mother heard the unspoken, “Someone believed me.”
“He must be responsible,” Marian said, latching onto the idea of Cade’s guilt with the relief of a drowning swimmer grabbing a life preserver. “He struck Pastor Matt! How does he know the blow didn’t kill him?” In her agitation, she bumped the table and it wobbled.
Iris grabbed her tea glass before it could fall. “He says Pastor Matt was fine when he left, talking about turning the other cheek, which sounds like something he would say because he always talked the holy talk, even though he didn’t walk the walk.”
“Iris—” Marian sounded like she was going to rebuke her, but she stopped. After a pause, she asked, “How do you know Cade isn’t lying to you? That boy always did lead you around by your hormones. I was sure you’d come to me one day and tell me you were pregnant.”
For one brief second, when Marian didn’t launch into her about Pastor Matt, Iris had a spark of hope that her mother might have come to believe her. But, no. She just wanted to accuse her of screwing around with Cade. She forced herself to let go of the glass she was in danger of cracking, and to say in a falsely upbeat voice, “You didn’t need to worry, Mom. Rubbers are cheap and easy to come by. Pastor Matt taught me that.”
Marian flushed an ugly red, shoved her chair back and said, “Angel, hop down. It’s time to go.”
The girl blinked. “But I’m not done with my drawing, Nana. Can’t we stay a few more minutes?”
“Is it respectful to argue with your elders?”
“I’m not arguing. I’m just asking.”
“Get up. This. Minute.”
The little girl burst into tears.
“She’s over-tired,” Iris said, signaling the server to bring a box for the remains of Angel’s burger and fries. “We walked a lot at the zoo and it was hot. It’s my fault. I’m sorry for—”
“It is your fault,” Marian said, a tremor in her voice, whether of anger or something else, Iris couldn’t tell.
Iris wasn’t sure exactly what her mother was referring to, but she didn’t take her up on it. “Come on, punkin,” she said, lifting Angel down from the chair.
“My daddy calls me that,” she said.
“My daddy called me that, too,” Iris said, a lump in her throat. “I had fun today. Thanks for going to the zoo with me.”
“You’re my best aunt,” Angel said, flinging her arms around Iris and giving her a hug. The solidity of the girl’s warm body pressed against hers raised a lump in her throat. She stroked Angel’s hair and thought how strange it was that she’d been hugged by girls twice in two days. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d hugged a female, since Jane wasn’t exactly the touchy-feely sort.
“You’re her only aunt,” Marian pointed out dourly. She took the girl’s hand. “Let’s go.”
“The car’s not locked—you can get Angel’s booster.”
Marian ignored her, pretending to listen to Angel chattering away at a mile a minute pace, presumably telling her all about the baby gorilla they’d seen, and the kestrel named Marty McFly who got weighed while they watched, and feeding budgies off a popsicle stick with a glob of seeds on the end. For a brief moment, Iris wondered what it would be like to have children, a family. No point to thinking like that, she told herself, paying the bill and ignoring the “Hey, baby” smile of an attractive man dining solo. My biological clock must be winding down and I’m not mother material anyway. Leaving a generous tip, she walked into the cool night alone.
thirty-five
iris
Reluctant to hole up in her room, Iris dragged the desk chair out to the sidewalk to make phone calls after returning from the restaurant. The evening air was cool and clean; she pulled a sweatshirt on and curled one leg under her to keep warm. She tried Jane’s numbers, both the gallery and her cell phone, but had to leave messages again. She twisted her mouth to the side as she hung up, wondering why Jane hadn’t returned her last calls. It wasn’t like her. She hoped nothing had happened to the cat and that Jane hadn’t sequestered herself out of grief. That would be just like her, Iris thought, to refuse to burden her fr
iends with her pain. The thought of a world without Edgar made her sad. She hesitated for a moment and then dialed Lassie’s number. When he answered, she asked him to check on Jane.
“You worry too much,” he said.
“She’s not getting any younger,” Iris pointed out, “and she doesn’t have anyone there if—.”
“If home invaders should break in, or a serial killer,” he said, making fun of her fears.
She didn’t bother to tell him she was more worried about Jane taking a tumble and not being able to reach a phone. She could hear concern under his flippant words.
“I’ll drop by,” Lassie promised. “You doing okay?”
“Just ducky. Never better,” she said.
“Liar. Come back soon, will ya? We miss your smiling face at the pub. Greg’s pining.”
She snorted a laugh, surprised by how much it pleased her that Greg was apparently thinking about her. “I thought you didn’t want me hooking up with him.”
“He’s a big boy,” Lassie admitted.
She disconnected and dialed again, getting Cade’s voicemail. After leaving a message asking him to call her, she snapped the phone shut and tapped it on the chair’s arm. Damn. The parole board hearing was days away; she was running out of time. What more could she do to discover the truth? Short of a séance to contact Glynnis Brozek to find out what really happened that night, she was out of options unless or until Pastor Matt awoke again and his brain worked its way around to disgorging who attacked him. If that ever happened, it was likely to be too late to help her father.
Thinking of Mrs. Brozek brought Iris’s brows together. Was it possible that Mrs. Brozek had beaten her husband and then died of a heart attack from the exertion? Maybe Mrs. Brozek knew what Iris knew about Pastor Matt: that he liked young girls. Could something have caused her to snap that night and take a poker to her husband? Had she tired of being the properly submissive pastor’s wife, or had guilt at her complicity finally driven her over the edge? Iris bit her lip. Maybe she hadn’t been complicit all along, but had learned something that night that drove her to kill her husband.
Iris’s excitement about the idea subsided as quickly as it had come. She’d better hope Glynnis Brozek wasn’t the guilty party, because if she was, Iris would never get her dad out of prison. There was no proof, and no judge was going to overturn the conviction based on Iris’s convenient and completely unprovable theory. A car ground its way up the gravel driveway. She looked up. An old sedan pulled in beside her rental and Jolene got out, slamming the door. Hard.
Iris’s instinctive reaction was pleasure, but then she remembered how they had parted, and set her face in a neutral expression. Jolene strode straight toward Iris, skirt flapping around her calves, and stopped three feet away. She planted herself, arms akimbo, and glared at Iris.
“Did you sleep with my son?”
Oh, damn. Iris’s stomach lurched. “Did he tell you that?” she asked, looking across to the Welshes’ house to see if Jolene’s arrival had drawn them out. No one emerged; Iris’s guilt must have made Jolene’s words sound louder than they were.
“Not in so many words. He called to say that you’d been arrested for trying to kill Zach’s father—”
“I wasn’t arrested. The police only wanted—”
“—and when I asked him how he knew that, he hemmed and hawed and said he was here with you. In your room. Early yesterday morning. Did he spend the night?”
“No,” Iris answered. The literal truth was a dodge, she knew.
For the first time, Jolene’s face lightened, and she sounded uncertain. Her arms relaxed to her sides. “Oh, I thought—” She gave an embarrassed laugh. “I’m sorry. I—”
Momentarily tempted to let Jolene apologize and avoid the scene, Iris couldn’t do it. She blew air through her lips and said, “I did sleep with him. Not last night, but the night before. He was here yesterday for breakfast because I wanted to apologize for … for taking it all too casually. It’s a bad habit.”
Jolene seemed to be standing still, but Iris could see tiny vibrations in her hands and jaw. “You could be his mother,” she finally said. “It’s obscene.” The car’s engine ticked as it cooled behind her.
“He’s twenty-three—an adult.”
“Did you do it to hurt me, to get back at me?” Jolene lifted her chin to look straight into Iris’s eyes. “Is that it?”
“Don’t be ridic—” Iris cut herself off and squared her shoulders. “Maybe partly.” The relief of admitting it turned quickly to regret as Jolene looked at her with loathing.
“It makes me sick to think of it … you stalking my boy, getting him drunk, seducing him into your bed.”
“It wasn’t like—”
Jolene clapped her hands over her ears. “I don’t want the details. This is hard enough.”
“I wasn’t going to tell you—” Exasperated, Iris cut herself off. She stood, prickles stabbing the foot she’d had tucked beneath her. “I’m sorry,” she said, facing Jolene.
Her apology was apparently unexpected, because Jolene opened her mouth but then shut it again. “I’m sorry for Aaron and I’m sorry for disappearing on you twenty-three years ago. I’m not sorry I left Lone Pine, but I should have let you know I was going, should have kept in touch.”
She was sorry, she realized. Sorry for things she couldn’t even articulate. After Jolene’s revelation at the school, she’d thought she hated her, but she couldn’t seem to grab hold of that anger anymore. Part of her still thought Jolene should have spoken up back then, but it wasn’t like she’d been a beacon of honesty and openness, either. She hadn’t told Jolene about Pastor Matt, hadn’t told anyone until it was too late for Gabby. She’d been so caught up in her own turmoil that she hadn’t even noticed that Jolene was in love with Zach, that she was pregnant. I don’t have the moral high ground. Maybe there is no such thing, or not in a friendship anyway.
Iris cleared her throat. “I don’t have a lot of friends, Jolene, and meeting you again has made me realize that maybe it’s because I’m not a very good friend.”
Jolene collapsed onto the hood of her car. “Aaron might be twenty-three, but he’s young for his age.” When Iris didn’t respond, she gave a strangled laugh, “I don’t suppose he’d be happy to know I was here, having this conversation with you. I shouldn’t have come. It’s none of my business. He’s an adult—I know he’s an adult—but I still see him crouched over his Legos when he was three, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth, or coming out of the bathroom when he was fifteen, little pieces of toilet paper stuck to his face after his first attempt at shaving. He’s … he’s … it’s hard to let go.” She expelled the last words on a rush of air.
“I won’t tell him.”
“Are you and he—? Will you—?”
“No.”
“Thank God.”
“What? You don’t want to be my mother-in-law?” Iris smiled at Jolene’s almost palpable relief that there wasn’t going to be an ongoing relationship.
“No. I want to be you.” Jolene half-whispered the words, but Iris caught them.
“What?”
Jolene flapped her hand, clearly embarrassed. “Oh, I don’t want to be you—I just want your life. No, not even that. I just want to be more than a wife and a mother.” She twisted an engraved silver bangle round and round her wrist.
“You’re a teacher,” Iris offered, unsure what to say.
Waving her hand again, Jolene dismissed her career. “I fell into that because it meshed well with the whole wife and mother thing. I could teach—a job Zach approved of, by the way—and still be home for the kids after school. I don’t usually dislike teaching, and there are moments when I like it, but it feels like something I do, not who I am. I know I’m not making any sense.”
“No, you are,” Iris said. “Making jewelry is more than what
I do. It took me a long time to realize I had to be an artist—art doesn’t pay well usually, especially at first, and I had to live—and longer still to discover that rocks and metal were my medium, but I’m at peace when I’m working on a design. It’s where I get my joy. If I still believed in God, I’d say it’s why he put me on this earth.” But now my gift is gone. Her hands ached to work with metal again and she curled her fingers in.
“I need that,” Jolene whispered. “Rachel’s going to be gone in a year, and I don’t kid myself that she’s ever going to settle in Lone Pine, maybe not in Colorado—and then what will I have? If I’m not ‘mom,’ who am I?”
Iris bit back the platitudes about Jolene still being mom and wife and friend. “It’s never too late to find out,” she said.
“Yeah, well.” Jolene stood, dusting off her skirt. “I’m a little long in the tooth for Broadway.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe they’re casting a revival of Arsenic and Old Lace or Driving Miss Daisy.”
Jolene giggled, suddenly sounding very much like the sixteen-year-old Iris had known. The sound seemed to surprise her because her eyes got big, but then she let the giggles come until she was laughing uncontrollably. Iris joined her and pretended not to notice when her friend’s laughs turned to sobs. After a moment, she joined her on the hood of the car, the metal groaning at her weight, and put an awkward arm around Jolene’s shoulders. When Jolene stopped crying long minutes later, Iris edged away, embarrassed, and asked, “What’s it like having Esther as a sister-in-law?”
“Oh, my.” Jolene choked out a sound between a laugh and a groan. “That woman has been my cross to bear.” She started talking, describing Esther’s attempts to stop Zach from marrying her, and then moved on by stages to describing her life in Lone Pine, having children, and her recent unsettled feelings that she wasn’t living her life so much as letting it zoom past un-noticed. Iris took over when Jolene’s voice grew tired, relating some of her experiences before she washed up in Portland, and telling her about Jane and Edgar.
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