Chapter Fifteen
R eestablishing status quo was a difficult thing when one was in the aftermath of an emotional hurricane. Iris had had to do major cleanup before. She knew it didn’t happen in a day. That she’d be in a state of surrealism until she was back in her routine.
But Scott… For him she had to pretend for all she was worth. She’d gotten really good at that, too. She had to, to be okay.
Still, she couldn’t get the prelunch call from Sage out of her mind. Or rather, couldn’t rid herself of the concern the call had instilled in her. It had taken everything she had to keep her dear friend off a plane home. Sage had said she’d never heard her brother sounding as off as he’d sounded when he’d called her that morning. Not only had he been mentally a bit out of sync, but he’d sounded…needy. In a way she’d never heard before.
Like he was in crisis.
Iris hoped to God it wasn’t because of her. And then, considering other options—that the board had maybe hit Scott’s head, too, causing damage that no one knew about—she hoped his less than stellar state was because of her.
For that problem, she had the solution. She’d focus on distancing herself from her emotional cortex long enough to let it get back into sync with the rest of her. And the intensity between her and Scott would dissipate. She just had to convince him to buy into the solution and let it work.
By pretending she was already in sync.
Nothing she hadn’t done many times before.
And to start, that meant not hovering. She had her instructions. Knew what to watch for. And beyond that, she needed to leave Scott to his own counsel. Worry accomplished nothing.
If something did go wrong again, she’d handle it just as she’d handled their early-morning issue. With calm and clear thought.
She’d watch for signs of head trauma, too. He’d shown no signs of concussion or other cranial disturbance at the hospital. Nor in the twenty-four hours post accident. She’d been told what to watch for. Hadn’t seen a single sign. But she’d start monitoring again.
Just in case.
And for the rest, her own authentic healing, she needed to get back behind her camera. Do the work that allowed the part of her soul that still lived to breathe. To be heard.
To that end, after lunch, icing and bandage check, she left Scott alone long enough to get to her place and collect more camera equipment, including the electronics she used for editing. Taking the dogs with her, because until she got herself under better control, she was still seeing him that morning, nearly passing out in the kitchen while his wound bled out.
Had she not come out…
But she had. End of that story.
However, until Scott was more mobile, she was acutely aware of the chance that Morgan could inadvertently hurt him again.
And…she checked that he had his phone nearby.
Not overcompensating out of fear on that one, she assured herself. Just being a reliable caregiver.
All went smoothly until she got back to Scott’s cottage, had her equipment set up and ready to go, only to turn a complete circle and stand there.
What was she going to photograph? Wall hangings? He had two or three. Furniture. She could, but for what purpose?
She’d already been out of the house too long. Couldn’t spend an hour or two on the beach.
The girls were both out in their beds in the kitchen. Worn out from the day’s adventures on the beach.
Her charge was asleep, dressed in basketball shorts and a T-shirt, with his leg elevated, on top of the spare bed. She noted that his face was smoothed out. He wasn’t moaning, groaning or exhibiting any of the inadvertent movements that had populated his attempts to rest the first couple of days.
Her camera rose as if of its own volition and before she caught an outside-in glimpse of herself, she’d already taken dozens of shots. Close-ups. Zoomed out. His bandaged leg. His face. A hand on the bedspread. The portfolio would be a study.
In pain?
Recovery?
Resilience?
The strength of the human spirit?
Maybe, sometime in the future, when he was off living his carefree bachelor life again, she’d show him the portfolio as a reminder of how far he’d come. Give him proof of his ability to keep his word to himself. No matter how much he’d suffered, he hadn’t broken down and taken pain medication.
The story would be better if she’d taken shots during the first two days. But even the thought of having done so made her cringe in fear for what had been such a close call.
That memory needed to fade as far and as fast as possible. Not be preserved for all eternity.
And…what in the hell was she doing? Taking photos of a sleeping man without his knowledge or any kind of permission?
Her entire body tightened with tension. With chills and a sense of horror. How could she possibly have thought she had the right to just…?
Turning abruptly, she left the room. Clicked off the camera. Stashed it in the bottom of her largest camera bag. There would be no touching the thing again until she could make herself dump the photo shoot.
No one, absolutely no other being on earth—including the girls—could be witness to what she’d done.
Food.
Grabbing another camera, she headed to the kitchen. Almost stumbling over her feet in her rush to get there. Before Scott’s accident—on and off since before Sage’s wedding actually—she’d been thinking about ways to show what food said to her.
In scarcity.
In abundance.
In a color study.
To entice appetite.
Suddenly—almost desperately—energized, she pulled things out of Scott’s refrigerator. Out of his cupboards, and let her soul speak from behind her lens.
Snapping shot after shot—hundreds of them in an hour. Colors. Shapes. Telling stories. Even engaging the dogs in them.
The high she felt when she was doing good work slowly trickled through her.
Then consumed her.
And she welcomed herself home.
* * *
He needed her gone. Still. Just as badly as ever. But as Scott awoke from the first good sleep he’d had since the accident, he came into full consciousness with a clear head and a new, two-point strategy.
First, accept the help being given. Experts and nonexperts, friends and even family knew he needed assistance in order to heal most expediently. And his number-one goal was to get back on his feet. Both of them. And regain full control.
Only then could he direct his full attention to more-pressing matters.
His prior plan, to do it on his own, would have given him a semblance of control, but it had lacked clarity. He’d faced tough cases in court, creating case law that could reverberate nationally, and had always sought others’ thoughts, and research, and assistance at the table in the courtroom, too. More eyes, ears, thoughts and hands on deck made him better.
Same went for recovery.
Doing it alone was going to slow him down.
And the second prong in the plan—be the friend to Iris that she was being to him. By accepting her spin on the sudden flare of awareness between them, he allowed her to pretend that it wasn’t happening, while at the same time taking the onus fully on himself to ensure that nothing more did happen.
Once he was well, Sage and Gray and Leigh were home, and Iris and he were back in their normal routines, they’d be fine.
Feeling more like himself than he had since his sister’s wedding, Scott called out to Iris. Waiting for her to spot him as he slid from the bed to his chair, admitting when a hand from her would make the job safer. Just until he could put some weight on the ripped wound.
He glided through knee icing and antibiotics in good spirits, joking with Iris, rather than grousing or grunting as he sat propped up on the couch, accepting her ministrations. He did all the exercises Joel had given him, as often as he’d been told to repeat the relatively small, but very painful movements.
And managed not to tense up when Iris suggested that he was overdue for application of the compression bandage on his back. He’d been aware of the lateness. Almost an hour. Had been bothered by it.
But not as much as he was by the idea of her touching his bare skin. He’d been working up to it. Getting into a professional mindset. While trying to figure out if there was a way he could twist and wrap his own torso as effectively as someone else could do it for him.
Segueing into looking for excuses to call Dale over—and, Hey, while you’re here …getting the writer to wrap him.
His mind came up with various levels of inventiveness. Just nothing that wouldn’t make it look obvious to Iris that he didn’t want her fingers grazing his back, his sides, his stomach…
And the more he tried to find another option, the more his mind was locked on those fingers and his skin. Sending him in the direction of turned on before they’d even gotten to the deed .
No matter what, he had to let her float undisturbed in pretend mode. He’d taken on the responsibility to keep all hint of something more happening between them off the table. And he would not fail.
And there she was, fresh bandage in hand, approaching him from the hallway entrance to the living room. His mind spun. His body, hidden by his T-shirt, was already starting to grow.
She had to lift the shirt to complete her task.
She was two steps away.
With roaring in his ears, Scott tried to think of something gross.
It wasn’t working.
Work. It came first.
And…just as Iris told him to lean forward, and reached for the hem of his shirt, Scott’s gaze fell on his laptop.
Work.
Grabbing the opened electronic device from the table, he flipped it to tablet mode, opened his email and, just in time, dropped the thing on his lap.
A good attorney—which he most definitely was—did not cover up evidence. Ever. For any reason.
But a good man trying to be a friend did.
* * *
Iris was fixing dinner—spaghetti with her mother’s homemade sauce recipe—when she finally received her return call from Dr. Sandra Livingston. Her stomach tightened, filled with butterflies, as she saw the name on her screen.
Though the two hadn’t spoken in the three years Iris had lived on Ocean Breeze, she got a birthday card from the psychologist every year. With a reminder that she was always there for her. The doctor had never said so, but Iris knew that she was one of Sandra’s most memorable patients. One who, though their relationship had always been nothing but professional, had become personal to her.
The job she took home with her at night.
Putting her sauce on low, she was calm as she stepped outside and then down toward the beach as she took the call, assuring the psychologist that she was fine.
“I wouldn’t have called except that someone else is involved and I need confirmation of what I know is going on,” she said, confident again as she heard herself speak.
The name on her phone…another flashback of angst-driven anxiety…had triggered her stomach for a second. All part of the surge.
“Tell me what’s going on,” Sandra said, her tone as calming and authoritative as always.
“Nothing really,” Iris said, taking a deep breath of ocean air. Then glanced back at the cottage. She’d left the dogs inside with Scott. Should have brought them out with her. Had to get the call done.
“It’s just a trigger,” she said quickly. “I’m good with it. But, unfortunately, the episode happened when someone else was around. I really just need to confirm that these flashbacks to experiencing over-the-top emotions apply, not just to the original types of feelings or source of feelings, but to any emotion I might be experiencing at the time.” She was still down by the water but couldn’t take her gaze off the back door. Willing the girls to show themselves, stand there, asking to be let out with her.
“In theory, that’s certainly possible.” The doctor’s voice shut out all other thought, sound, for the moment as Iris sank into it. And relief came, making her weak for the second it took Sandra to continue. “However, that’s not the only possibility. Tell me what’s going on.”
No.
She was no longer under Dr. Livingston’s care.
Didn’t need a counselor anymore.
Her life was good. Great. More than she’d ever hoped it could be following the accident.
“Iris? You called me.”
Right. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”
“Please don’t hang up.” The words came quickly. Loudly enough that she could hear them even as she was lowering her phone to see the button to end the call.
Dr. Livingston had known. Which sent another wave of alarm shooting through her. “I’m still here,” she said, forcing calm into her words. And, with steps on the beach, into her demeanor, too.
She could pretend with the world. She’d promised herself, and Ivy, who always watched over her, that she would never pretend with Sandra Livingston. The woman was the sounding board that had helped her find a healthy life again. She was Iris’s checkpoint.
And so she told her, in just a few sentences, about her friendship with Scott and Sage, about the wedding, and the way she’d leaned into Scott as they were dancing, tempting him in a way that had introduced a sexual component neither of them wanted.
“Are you sure about that?”
“Sure that my surge inadvertently tempted him?” she asked. Needing to hear the diagnosis so she could get on with the cure.
“Sure that neither of you want your friendship to be more?”
“Positive.” She didn’t have to pretend on that one at all. “On both sides.” With another two sentences, she told Sandra about Scott. A workaholic confirmed bachelor. And then, facing the door again, as mentioning the man brought back her worry about him alone with the dogs, she said, “I swear, I’m not wrong about this,” she finished. “I’m panicked about the thought of losing what we had. I miss him. And I’m already on the way to being back to my healthy self,” she said, when she’d meant to be done talking. “I had a great afternoon. Doing what you taught me to do. And found the peace and clarity that have seen me through.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” The voice over the phone sounded truly pleased. A familiar sound, even if not heard in a while.
“I just need to know that I’m not missing something,” she said then. “That I’m on the right track here. I don’t want Scott to get hurt.”
Truth rang so loudly she felt like everyone in every cottage on the beach must have heard it.
“I can’t tell you that,” Sandra said. Then, while fear surged through Iris again—ripping her breath out of her lungs as it went—the woman continued, “I know that you might be. What you’re saying is most definitely feasible. Believable even.”
Then what was the problem? She didn’t ask. And felt as though she should have when Sandra left a long pause before saying, “It’s also possible that your psyche is not only ready for more, but that you’ve healed to the point of yearning for more.”
Shaking her head, Iris let that one go even before the psychologist had finished the last word. There was no way anyone would ever know her as completely, love her as unconditionally as Ivy had, and she couldn’t settle for less. Nor could she let someone else give her their all when she knew she’d be settling. And, on another, more selfish level, she couldn’t risk loving and losing again.
“Picture it as your emotions having been in a deep sleep.” Sandra said what Iris already knew. A part of her had gone permanently to sleep along with Ivy. They’d died together.
Waiting to be able to end the conversation without being rude but needing to get back up to the house—to check on the dogs—Iris headed in that direction as she listened to Dr. Livingston saying, “It’s possible that they’ve woken up.”
They hadn’t. It wasn’t like she was surging all over the place. Or even for more than random moments in a whole day’s worth of hours filled with hundreds of normal minutes.
“But it’s just as likely, if not more, that Sage’s wedding, a twin sister, though not mine, and me being maid of honor, triggered an emotional setback,” she said, halfway to the door of Scott’s cottage.
“I can’t tell you that, Iris. The mind isn’t that cut-and-dried. What you say is feasible. A valid possibility. One that I would not push aside.” Thank God.
She took a couple of more steps to the door, feeling her smile come back.
And Sandra said, “Just as I wouldn’t discount a resurgence of life.”
Reaching for the door handle, Iris saw both girls in the kitchen, lying by the stove, right where she’d left them. And her smile grew as she thanked Dr. Livingston, promised to keep in touch and hung up.
Surge. Resurgence. The psychologist would be remiss not to point out both sides of the equation. She was, after all, a scientist. One of the mind. It was her job to make sure everything was on the table.
Just as it was Iris’s task—the task of any healthy, one-time patient—to be able to discern which applied to her.
And she knew for certain, could feel in her core, that she was most definitely experiencing only a surge.
Resurgence hadn’t been an option on her table since the day she’d woken up in a hospital bed without her twin.
But having a friend, being a friend, was something she wanted with all that was left of her.
And that realization was new.