True Places(92)
Suzanne’s voice was a whisper. “Tell me, Iris.”
“Ash, he got sick.” She wiped her nose with her sleeve. “Mama’s medicines didn’t work. Daddy took him away.”
“And you thought Ash was still alive?”
Iris covered her face with her hands. She couldn’t explain it, how Ash had been with her, how she had carried him inside her like she carried these woods: the smooth river stones under her feet, the trill of a wood thrush, the smell of rain in April. It had felt as real as anything she could taste or touch.
Suzanne said, “I’m so sorry, Iris. I can’t imagine how you feel.” She paused for a long while. “But it’s good news about your father, right? I can help you find him.”
The letter was in front of her. Iris fingered the corner of it. It was good news, wasn’t it? Daddy was alive, more than likely. But Iris wasn’t sure how to feel. It was like she had been given her father in exchange for Ash. If it was a bargain, it wasn’t necessarily one she wanted, not without knowing where Daddy had been and why he thought he’d failed all of them. Iris knew she had to find the answers, had to find her father, but there was no telling what she would do once she did.
Suzanne told her they could stay at the cabin for the night, or for as long as Iris wished, but she didn’t want to stay. Sadness and regret clung to the walls and beams and windows like spiderwebs, and Iris didn’t know how to clear them out or see past them. For the first time, she missed her room at the Blakemores’, where her life might have begun the day she walked inside. She didn’t exactly want to go back there; she simply wanted to be somewhere, anywhere she didn’t have to be reminded of what she no longer had. Of course, that place didn’t exist. Iris didn’t wonder that her mind had stoked the memory of her brother into existence and snuffed out the reason for her father’s leaving. She only wished she could find a way to keep lying to herself.
“Let’s go back.” Iris got up from the table, folded the letter, and slipped it into her pocket.
“Okay.” Suzanne sounded unsure, and Iris realized Suzanne didn’t know where they were going any more than she did. “I think we need to tell the police about the letter.”
Iris nodded.
“Is there anything you want to take with you?” Suzanne said.
Iris scanned the room. Nearly two years ago, after the intruders had left, she had done the same thing, deciding what she could and could not live without. The answer was the same now. She shrugged. “No.”
Suzanne went over to the shelves where Mama kept her stores and pointed to the notebooks. “What about these?”
“If you want them.”
“Are you sure?”
“They’re no use here.”
Suzanne took them down and placed her palm on top. She stood quiet as a heron stalking a fish. A breeze shifted the air through the open door, a cloud-scattering breeze. A beam of sunlight splashed onto the rug under Suzanne’s feet, the faded pattern of ivy vines brightening to green again. A smile tugged at the corner of Suzanne’s face, and Iris marveled at how in that moment Suzanne resembled Mama, even though, feature for feature, they shared little. When Iris first met Suzanne, she had thought the same.
Suzanne smiled at Iris. “Have you ever had a dream where you find something you’ve wanted for a long time, something perfect and special? And you know you’re going to wake up and it will be gone, but you hang on to it with all your might, just hoping that when you open your eyes, it will right there, in your hand?”
Iris nodded. She couldn’t actually remember a dream like that, but she understood what Suzanne was trying to say.
“Well,” Suzanne said, holding up the notebooks. “It worked.”
CHAPTER 41
Suzanne wriggled out of the straps of her backpack and leaned it against the Navigator. Iris followed suit. Suzanne fished the keys out of the top compartment, opened the hatch, and tossed the packs inside. As she closed the hatch and came around the side of the car, she studied the brick farmhouse. No signs of life whatsoever, only a few rusted-out vehicles between the house and the barn, obligatory in this part of the state.
“Iris? Let’s take a quick look at the house.”
“Okay.”
The girl had been subdued since they’d left the cabin—hardly surprising given the jolts she had received. Iris didn’t seem to care where they went.
Suzanne strode up the short drive and noted the house numbers peeling off the dented mailbox. Lilac bushes in dire need of pruning lined the drive, and honeysuckle had climbed to the porch roof and engulfed half of the porch railing. Along the front walk, a dozen peonies were covered in round, full buds, ready to burst.
“How old is the house?” Iris asked.
“Not sure. Mid to late eighteen hundreds?” It was a simple, boxy Federal-style house with a chimney at either end. Suzanne guessed that the porch, adorned with fussy fretwork, had been added later. She scanned the roof. Original tin, corroded along the seams, but intact. She didn’t know much about old houses except that a leaky roof could spell disaster. She rounded the corner of the house and Iris followed. A large addition had been attached to the back. She had seen uglier ones. Behind the house was a large field sloping down to a pond framed by woods on the far edge. Beyond, hills gave way to mountains. A pair of hawks soared above the field, spiraling upward as if tethered to each other. Suzanne felt an odd brightness inside her. It took a moment for it to register as hope.