“Therapists are idiots,” Trish said.
“That’s what everyone who’s happily married says.”
“No, really. I mean, look at you. You are a sharp, accomplished woman.”
Iris scowled.
“Stop it, you are. Sure, as women we go underground with our kids and work sometimes. And yes, we get caught up in stuff like planning birthdays and packing school lunches. But that’s what good mothers do. And instead of giving you a high five, the guy decides he’s feeling ignored, you’re looking dull, and so he cries crisis. When what Paul really needs is a good kick in the ass and a mirror. ‘Look at you, buddy! Look at that potbelly. That receding hairline. When was the last time you gave the dog a bath, or painted the planetary system for a fourth-grade science fair?’ ”
Iris sat back in her chair.
“I’m just saying you made the right choice to be home with the kids. It’s one of the best jobs a woman could have, if not the hardest. If Paul finds that uninteresting then he’s a horse’s ass.”
“You sound so June Cleaver. What would Gloria Steinem say?”
Trish sniffed. “I’m not saying anything Gloria doesn’t know herself. We can do it all, just not all at once. Or you end up accomplishing nothing. And look like shit.” She fluffed her hair for emphasis.
Outside, the night was a fluid mix of shadows, leaving no separation between water and sky. Iris glanced around the pub, at the couples finishing late dinners, and the regulars settling in at the bar.
“I just feel so unbalanced,” Iris whispered.
Trish grabbed her hand. “Balance is bullshit.”
Iris couldn’t help it, the tears were starting. “So what’s it about then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe time.”
“Time?” Iris raised her eyebrows. “Like we have so much of that.”
“Humor me, okay? Picture a clock. The hands are never on more than two numbers at the same time, right?”
Iris nodded.
“And you’ve only got two hands.”
“Go on.”
“But they’re always moving, Iris. Think about it. Every number gets touched, every day, by those two hands.”
Iris glanced out at the dark water, picturing her hands moving. Through Lily’s blond hair as she braided it for school. Across Sadie’s back as she headed out the door. Always reaching, touching, holding on.
“Forget balance,” Trish said.
Iris’s eyes welled, blurring her reflection in the window’s glass. Time was the one thing she’d never shorted her kids on. She forced a small laugh and looked back at her friend. “So unbalanced is a good thing, huh?”
“Honey, love is the most unbalanced thing there is.”
Twelve
When Iris pulled into the farm drive that night, she noticed the lights on in the big barn. Had her father forgotten to turn them off? She parked down at the house and stood listening. Then her heart leaped when she heard the sound of a saw.
Inside the barn, Cooper Woods was bent over a board laid across two sawhorses. He didn’t see her leaning against the open doorway, and she reveled in the stolen moment, watching him work.
“Psst . . .”
Cooper jerked his head up, the board in his hand wobbling. “Geez, you startled me. What are you doing out here this late?”
“Sorry. I was going to ask you the same thing.” Feeling braver, she stepped into the light. “Burning the midnight oil?”
Cooper smiled. “Something like that. Hope I didn’t wake you.”
“No, I’m just getting home actually.”
He eyed her more carefully, and she blushed in the dim light, suddenly aware of how made-up and out of place she must look in the barn.
“You look nice.” Another compliment Iris stored away, with a smile.
“So, do you always work this late?”
“Nah, I’m just not a great sleeper. Plus I like working when it’s dark out. There’s something peaceful about it.”
Iris nodded, an image of Trish kneading bread dough in the back of her café in the early morning floating through her head. “I’m not much of a sleeper these days, either.”
Cooper looked at her. “No?’ ” It was a one-word question, but it veiled a hundred more. Suddenly, Iris wanted to answer them all.
She wrapped her arms around herself, though the night was warm, and sat down on her old tack box. Fireflies were flickering in the distance.
“I used to come out here to be alone, when I was a teenager,” she said, watching the lights bob in the spaces between the fir trees. “When I needed to think. There’s something about a barn at night.”
Cooper looked around appreciatively, his eyes moving over the empty stalls, the hayloft, and finally, her, and she knew he understood. “You must miss your family,” he said softly. He’d returned to the sawhorse, and Iris admired his competent hands. They were comforting.
“Yes.” She paused before admitting, “It’s complicated.”
He glanced back at her curiously.
And without hesitating, Iris told him. In the dim light of the barn, surrounded by the deep-throated chirrup of tree frogs, she told Cooper everything about her recent separation. That she missed not just her family but the dream of what she’d held for them. And now . . . well, now all of that had changed. And no matter how desperately she tried to imagine them getting through this, she couldn’t help but hang on to what was supposed to be: that basket of happy endings that every woman tries to fill for her children. No matter how exhausting it became to haul around.
For the first time Iris held out her basket, with all its broken pieces, and allowed someone to look inside. To touch and examine, to turn over in his callused hands all the jagged hurts. The fears of what would come. And the feeling that she’d somehow failed.
Not once did Cooper interrupt. Nor did he offer up any platitudes, telling her it was going to be okay. Instead he leaned thoughtfully against the sawhorse and let her finish.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally, wiping her nose on her sleeve.
Cooper stood and pulled a bandanna from his back pocket.
She accepted it gratefully.
“You’re not alone,” he said finally. “It happens to the best of us.”
Us. And yet it was a team she wasn’t sure she wanted to be on.
“But you’re home now,” he added.
Iris laughed uncertainly. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Believe me, I never planned on moving back to Hampstead. I loved being out in Colorado. Thought I had it all figured out.”
“What happened?”
Cooper shrugged. “Things changed. I finally realized I had to change with them. When my dad got sick, it made sense to come home. I just didn’t plan on staying.”
“So, you’re glad to be back?”
“Yeah, it’s been good for me. Funny how things work out.”
Iris looked around the barn. Cooper had everything he needed here. The lake, his work. His history. “I wish it were that simple.”
Cooper cocked his head. “A girl like you with so much going for her? Look at all you’ve already accomplished, Iris. Give yourself a chance.”
A girl? Whom Cooper viewed as accomplished? Iris smiled softly, accepting the gesture.
“You’ll figure out what you need. I can tell.”
Iris stood, suddenly sure of what she needed at that very moment.
“You going?” Cooper asked.
She handed him back his bandanna. “It’s funny, but I think I can sleep now.”
“Well, sweet dreams, then.” Cooper stepped aside, and Iris imagined him allowing a wide berth for her and all of her troubles. But his expression was gentle.
In the doorway, she paused. “Thanks,” she said. And then she placed her hands on the wooden door and pull
ed, rolling it across its rusty runner. The wheels squeaked in protest. Cooper watched, holding her gaze as she slid the creaky door between them.
• • •
Back at the house, Iris slipped from her clothes and lay naked on the bed. Her eyes rested on the barn windows outside, which still glowed up on the rise. When they finally went out, she rose and pulled on her nightgown. Downstairs the kitchen floorboards creaked in all her favorite spots: by the large farm table; in front of the granite island, where her mother was so often stationed. And loudest at the refrigerator, where Iris stood now, surveying its contents. As she debated between basil biscuits and a leftover drumstick (though what she really wanted was to grab a stick of butter and eat it right out of the wrapper), she imagined what she must look like from behind. A rumpled figure illuminated by the lone yellow bulb of the fridge, alone in a dark kitchen. Not even her own kitchen, but her mother’s. And before she knew it she was weeping. She imagined the kids tucked into their beds, some two hundred miles away. If she left now, she could be home before breakfast. How surprised they’d be to awaken and see her at the stove, flipping pancakes! Reminding Lily to feed her hamster, Jack to park his smelly sneakers in the garage, Sadie to remove her conspicuously applied makeup. They’d sit down together and get ready for a brand-new day.
But no. She could see it now. Lily would be confused by her sudden return. Jack would be concerned. Sadie would take one look at her straggly hair and the circles beneath her eyes: “What are you doing?”
And Paul. His exasperation, his head-shaking sympathy. No, she wanted none of that.
Instead, she sat at the old farmhouse table with one of her mother’s drumsticks and ate, wiping tears between bites, until the bone was clean and her face dry. Hungrily, Iris licked the grease from her fingers. She poured herself a glass of milk and drank it; then another. She wandered the rooms, sipping milk and drying her eyes with the hem of her nightgown. Stopping in the den to run her fingers over a bronze figure of a dragon her father had brought back from China one year. Touching the globe by his desk, as she used to when she was a little girl—spinning the orb like a game-show contestant, she’d hold her breath to see where her finger pointed when it finally came to rest: the purported place she’d spend the rest of her life. But it was never anyplace exotic. Her sister, Leah, always got those. Hawaii, Tibet. Once Egypt. Iris always ended up in forlorn or mundane locations: Spoke, Alabama. Fargo, North Dakota. And the place that Leah laughed the hardest over: Siberia.
At the living room piano, she paused. It was where she’d endured long summer lessons with Mrs. Hamilton, the local music teacher. And in the end she’d only ever mastered “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” She wondered if she could still play it. Briefly, her fingers fumbled on the keys, and she realized she had forgotten the notes. Another rush of tears pricked her eyes.
Finally, she stopped in the hallway. Rows of framed pictures lined the walls, each stately and carefully polished, as if their inhabitants were expecting her. The crackled black-and-white images of her great-grandparents, formally posed. There were her parents on their wedding day, her father’s easy smile unchanged from youth. Baby pictures of her and Leah, their bald heads capped in lace hats, feet adorned in little white leather booties. Followed by graduation photos, and later, the shots of her wedding. And finally the framed faces of her own children. As she moved down the hall in her bare feet, the images peered back at her, beckoning her forward through the years and depositing her once more at the end of the hall, in the present.
Iris drained the milk glass. She was not alone. Even in the creaking old house of her childhood, with her aging parents overhead, while her own family slumbered two hundred miles away. Cooper Woods was right.
The subtle pull of sleep washed over her with a suddenness that made her limbs heavy. Uncertainly, she made her way back to bed and pulled the sheets up over her head. The curtains stirred as the lake’s scent filled the room, rising up over the rocking chair, wafting over her pillows.
For the first time in many weeks, she slept soundly.
Thirteen
Cooper Woods’s silver truck rolled up the farm’s driveway by eight o’clock each day. And for the next few mornings, Iris’s bed was empty well before it did.
After an early swim, she towel-dried her hair and dressed in worn jeans and a T-shirt, her new uniform. She applied mascara carefully, and a swipe of lip balm. But nothing more. She was working, after all.
She ignored the curious looks that Millie and Bill exchanged as she hurriedly buttered pieces of toast, heaping them with homemade jam. Sometimes she fried eggs, nestling them between warm slices of Millie’s bread. She’d head out the door with a bagged breakfast for two, and a thermos of coffee in the crook of her arm.
“See you at lunch,” she’d call, and before anyone was able to question or comment, she was already heading up the grassy slope to the barn. And why not? She was doing exactly what Trish had suggested: giving time. Only now it was to herself.
The morning after she’d told Cooper everything was the only day she’d awakened late. The kitchen had been empty, Leah and Millie long since gone for the garden. With a copy of the Boston Globe in hand, she’d wandered out to the patio. Bill was down at the water’s edge, retying the dinghy to the dock. She watched him climb the yard toward her with his fishing rod, a look of contentment on his face.
“So, look what the cat dragged in,” he’d said fondly, reaching the edge of the patio.
“Catch anything?”
He smiled. “Not a bite today, though I usually throw them back anyway. The bass are small this year.”
He joined her at the table, where they sat gazing at the water.
“You know, you can take the boat out anytime you want. You’re a big girl now.”
She smiled. “I know, Dad. Thanks.”
“Have you spoken to the kids?” he asked, glancing over at her.
“Yes, last night. They’re having fun at camp.”
He nodded, resting his chin in his hand. “That’s good. Your mother and I can’t wait to see them.”
Iris let the silence settle, but it wasn’t with the usual ease. Questions, however wordless, pressed the humid space between them, and she closed her eyes, wondering where to begin. Or how.
“Daddy, I’m in trouble,” she whispered.
Bill Standish fixed his gaze on the dock. “I’m listening.”
Iris cleared her throat. “Paul and I, we’re not doing so well.”
Bill Standish leaned back in his chair and let out a breath. “I’m sorry to hear that, honey. Is there anything I can do?”
Iris shook her head. “We’ve been in therapy for a while. A long time, actually.” She glanced at her father. “I think it’s really over.”
“Is that what you want?”
Iris shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. We’re not good together. But I don’t want my kids to come from a broken home.” Her voice cracked, and Iris covered her face with her hand.
Bill stood. Just as he had when she was a child, he held her as the sobs racked her rib cage, until the stifled tears slowed.
“Maybe if you give it some time,” he said. “Marriage is no different than this farm.” He looked around them. “It’s hard work.”
“You make it look easy.”
Bill shook his head and chuckled. “Your mother is a complicated woman. Sometimes I have to remember to duck my head. Fly low.”
“But what about you? Don’t you mind that?”
Bill looked her evenly in the eyes. “I love your mother. You learn to adapt in ways that let you both get on with things. Besides, I’m a bit of an old bear myself.”
“Come on, Dad. You’re always so patient. Sometimes I get mad at her, for being so, I don’t know, strong. So pushy. It’s like she can’t see us for what we are sometimes, she’s so focused on what she wants all of us to b
e.”
Bill nodded. “That’s love, my dear. In just one of its mysterious forms.”
“But she’s so hard on me. And you, too.” Iris glanced at her father, hoping she hadn’t offended him. It wasn’t her place to remind him of his marriage’s shortcomings. Certainly not now.
But he shrugged good-naturedly. “It’s the only way your mother knows how to love. I know how it can feel sometimes, but I’ve learned that I can’t change that about her.” He laughed. “And I’d be taking my life into my own hands if I tried.” Which made Iris laugh, too. “You have to remember, her own mother was tough on her growing up, so it’s not like your mom knew much else. And I think she’s come a long way, considering.”
Iris recalled Grandmama Whitmore—never to be referred to as “Grandma”—only in snapshots. There were her gloved hands, crossed chastely in her lap. They were not hands that dug in sandboxes or wiped tears. Not even hands that held her own, at any time that she could remember. Her grandmother had died when Iris was just five, and the few memories she had were of her face from across a hemstitched tablecloth, probably at a holiday dinner, their interactions formal and distant.
Bill shifted in his chair, drawing her back to the patio. “Honey, I wish there was something I could say to you. I hope you two are able to work through this.” He took her hand tightly in his own, and Iris looked down at his large knuckles, gnarled with age. “But even if you don’t, you will be all right.”
She looked away, pressing the fingers of her free hand to her eyes.
“That’s one thing about you kids,” Bill added. “You were the one I always knew would be all right.”
• • •
After that morning on the patio, there’d been no need to say more.
But Iris had a sudden, restless urge to do. So she’d climbed the hill to the barn. If he’d been surprised to see her return, Cooper didn’t say so. Instead, he accepted the thermos of coffee with a grin, and her presence without question. He instructed her matter-of-factly: Hold the board at this angle, aim the nail gun like this, watch your fingers. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as backbreaking as the garden work had been, much to Iris’s relief. But it was hard work nonetheless, and it required her concentration and her strength, two things that batted away her worries that bobbed like moths, incessant against the light.
The Lake Season Page 11