Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-seven
If not for Hugo needing to be walked the next morning, Iris would not have gotten out of bed at all.
She slowly began the job of putting her apartment back together, filling three trash bags with damaged items. She should have been angrier, but in some way, after everything, the purge felt good.
Iris had begun to cleanse herself of the noxious lies she’d built her life around, and she wanted to keep it going.
But the work, internally and externally, was exhausting.
The hormones didn’t help; Iris took her final “trigger shot,” beginning the forty-eight-hour countdown to her egg retrieval procedure.
It wasn’t her usual numbness slowing her down, but the opposite.
Over the last several days, her system had been overwhelmed with feeling.
She corrected herself: The feeling had started earlier—with the perfume.
The perfume had kicked her out of her cerebral existence and back into her body.
Wearing the perfume, Iris felt and gave in to her physical desires, heeded her gut instincts, and connected to a more sensual experience of the world around her, maybe for the first time.
Rapacine had told her the fragrance would arouse her limbic system, the most primitive part of the brain that processes scent, memory, and emotion—Iris wondered if the witchy woman knew just how much would be unlocked.
When the initial frisson and fun had worn off, and the fragrance appeared to be wreaking havoc on her life, Iris began to think of the perfume as a Pandora’s box. Now she understood the perfume was only the key—the Pandora’s box was her body.
Iris remembered Rapacine’s story about her mother, and the lesson that if you numb yourself to pain, you numb yourself to life’s pleasures, passions, and beauty.
And to make the trade even worse, it doesn’t keep you safe like you think it will, it only blinds you to recognizing and reacting to the true danger.
At some level, Iris now understood that she had learned to dissociate during the molestation, and the coping mechanism had never left her.
She had learned to distrust her own body; her body hadn’t been able to fight back or to flee, and the trauma had rewired her.
Ever since, when Iris felt stressed, she retreated into her mind, strategizing how to behave perfectly and control outcomes, to only middling, unsatisfying success.
Not so with the perfume.
With Gabe, she had felt love. She wasn’t sure if she could trust it, wasn’t sure it was wise. But she’d felt it.
There was one part of her that felt lighter.
Acknowledging what Jacob had done to her and what had really happened on the night of the fire released her from her lifelong shame about not being grateful enough.
Her body had known what had happened all along, she just hadn’t listened to it.
Although now Iris substituted blaming herself for that instead.
And what was she supposed to do with this knowledge now that she had it?
How could she ever share it with an intimate partner?
It was disturbing, it was repulsive, it was intimidating, it was damaged.
How could she explain it to someone when she was just barely coming to terms with it herself?
She knew she had a long road ahead of her in processing and healing, one long overdue. But she was thirty-five.
Would she ever be fixed enough to be loved?
Or, could she learn to love herself unfixed?
One step at a time.
Iris was gathering the clothes that had been pulled from her drawers when she saw Gabe’s potted orchids overturned on the floor.
The dirt had spilled out, the little bamboo stick propping the stems now bent them to the side, and a few of the purple flower heads had wilted or snapped off.
But the Kintsugi vase—she bent to pick it up, turning the small blue globe in her hands—the vase was unbroken.
Or at least, not rebroken. She ran a finger over the gold veins, checking for weaknesses, but the seams had held strong. Maybe even stronger.
It reminded her again of Rapacine’s teaching: A flower’s scent was most beautiful and powerful on the cusp of decay. Maybe what was dying off was the old ways that no longer served her. And the beauty of decay is the becoming something new.
Her phone rang. It was an incoming call from Hannah.
Only when she answered, it was Mike, and he sounded scared.
Hannah was about to have an emergency caesarean at Lenox Hill.
Her water broke, and the baby was still breech.
Hannah’s blood pressure spiked and the baby’s heart rate slowed.
She was going into surgery—now. He was about to go in with her.
Her family was on their way from Pennsylvania but might not make it in time.
Iris had ordered an Uber before she’d ended the call.
—
Iris raced down the hall of Lenox Hill Hospital’s maternity floor, following the directions to room 416.
She found it with the door ajar and peeked in; she could see only the foot of the hospital bed and Mike curled up in a nearby armchair, gazing sleepily into a bassinet.
She knocked lightly, and Mike sprang up to meet her at the door.
“They’re both asleep. Let’s talk out here.”
They went back into the hallway and took two chairs across the hall. Mike was wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt inside out, with sweatpants and loafers, like he’d gotten dressed in a hurry. Not that Iris looked any better.
“Is Hannah okay?” Iris asked.
“She did amazing. I mean, I was freaking out, but she was calm and so freaking brave—” Mike’s voice cracked and his brow creased as his eyes washed with tears.
“I didn’t know a person could be that strong, but she is.
” He gathered himself with a sniff. “And they said it all went good. She was awake the whole time, and they said the surgery and delivery and sutures, everything went perfectly right. And we have a healthy, beautiful baby girl!”
“Aww, a girl!” Iris pretended she was learning this for the first time, but she didn’t have to fake the emotion. “That’s wonderful.”
“Iris, I owe you an apology.”
“Mike—”
“I haven’t been myself these last few months.
I’ve wanted to have a family with Hannah since our first date, but when the reality of this enormous change was coming, I panicked.
I started drinking way too much, I acted out, I made a mess of my life at the exact moment I needed to be building a home.
” Mike’s jaw clenched, his regret plain.
“What I did to you the night at my party was totally out of line, and I’m so sorry.
And worse was how I handled it afterwards.
I was so embarrassed and ashamed and scared you were gonna tell Hannah that I gaslighted you, when I knew it was my fuckup and mine alone.
And Hannah knows that too, I came clean, about everything.
But I’m so sorry I did that to you, and to her. ”
Iris felt emotion welling in her chest.
“I did the same thing at work. I’d have two Scotches at lunch and act like an idiot.
In my mind, I stayed on the right side of the line, but the line wasn’t good enough.
I pushed a flirtation on Toni and made her uncomfortable.
When I realized I messed up, I told the partners I wanted her off my cases, I didn’t mean to block her from getting an offer, but they mistook it to be because she wasn’t up to snuff, and I didn’t correct them.
I behaved dishonorably, and I own it. So I resigned from the firm. ”
By this, Iris felt less moved. But she nodded.
“But with the baby here, everything is different now. I know that sounds like a line, but I feel it to my marrow. Today I felt what it would be like to lose Hannah, and it would end me. I love her more than anything, and I saw what she endured for our family, and I’m never gonna let myself fall short of her standard again, she deserves that ten times over.
And when I held my daughter for the first time, the overwhelming love I felt and the instinct to protect her, it gave me instant clarity.
I need to be the best father to her and the best husband to Hannah that I can possibly be.
Nothing else matters. I will make it my life’s work. ”
Iris took a deep breath. Mike seemed sincere, and she could tell becoming a father had moved him deeply.
She just hoped he followed through on doing that work on himself.
She looked him square in the eye. “You have to do better for Hannah or you will lose her, because she knows her worth, and I won’t let her forget it.
And you’ll have to do better for your daughter, because she’ll love you whether you deserve it or not.
And if you don’t deserve it, she’ll never learn to love a man who does. ”
Mike nodded. “You’re right. I will.”
Then the sound of a baby crying from inside the hospital room caught their attention.
“They’re awake! Let’s go in.” Mike led the way and Iris stepped gingerly into Hannah’s hospital room. The nurse leaning over the bed straightened up and stepped back to reveal the most beautiful thing Iris had ever seen: her best friend holding the love of her life.
“Hiii,” Hannah said softly. She was sitting up in bed with her back and legs propped on pillows, and in her arms was a tiny bundle in a pink-and-blue-striped hat. “Meet Olivia Grace Lefebvre.”
“Oh my God!” Iris whisper-squealed and rushed to Hannah’s bedside. “She’s so beautiful, and I love her name! Welcome to the world, Olivia.”