3. Iris
Iris
Saturday morning, I did some housekeeping of all kinds.
The house needed cleaning, the grass needed mowing, and the guest bathroom sink had a small leak that needed fixing.
I tried to keep on top of things so this place didn’t fall apart while Travis was gone.
We’d inherited it from our dad when he passed, but with my brother out of the country as often as not, most of the day-to-day stuff fell to me.
Just after eleven, I pulled out some ingredients and started cooking. Normally on Saturdays, I stuck to sandwiches and leftovers, but if Mom had turned over a new leaf, I wanted her to feel welcome.
As the clock hit noon, herbs perfumed the air, and I finished cleaning the dishes, shooting glances at the oven. I’d deviated from the recipe a bit, but cooking was more an art than a science anyway.
No sign of Mom yet.
That’s okay; we never fixed on a time. After peeking out the window one last time, and checking my phone for messages, I set lunch in the warming drawer.
By one o’clock, my baseboards were spotless, my mom still hadn’t shown up, and I felt like I was eleven years old again: staying up late, listening for the sound of the front door opening because Mom was out with her friends and Daddy was already asleep and I thought someone ought to be awake when she came home.
Only to find out the next morning that she’d skipped town yet again.
When my dozenth glance at my phone in ten minutes revealed no new messages, I pulled the chicken out of the warming drawer and took my time plating it up all pretty. The whole time, I felt strangely empty and distant, like I was watching the world from behind a pane of glass.
At least the chicken turned out okay, although maybe I shouldn’t have thrown that curry powder over it at the end. It didn’t seem to pair well with the Italian seasoning the recipe had called for. But that was art, right? Experiment and see what works. And what doesn’t.
As I was drying off my plate, someone knocked on the side door—the one we used ninety-five percent of the time since the driveway ran right up to it. The front door was for company only.
A flash of brown hair, teased to high heaven, told me exactly who it was, and my heart leapt in my chest. Mom.
When I flung open the door, she waltzed right in, a smile on her face. “Hey, baby.”
“Hi, Mom. I didn’t think you were coming.”
“Just running a little late today. Hope you still have some of whatever it is you made. It smells good.” This afternoon, she wore jeans and a top that both hung off her frame.
Smiling to myself, I plated her up a serving and handed it over, glad that I could give her something hot and homemade to eat.
“Thanks,” she said when we were both seated at my small but clean kitchen table. It wasn’t the one we’d owned eight years ago, the last time she’d sat in the house, and I wondered if she noticed.
I looked around the room, as if an appropriate topic would jump out of the butter-yellow walls of my kitchen. Are you clean? How long are you going to stick around this time?
“What did you mean about feeling your age last night?” popped out of my mouth, but I kept the scarier questions inside. Are you sick? Sicker than twenty-five years of meth would make the average person?
She picked at her food with shaking hands. “Just that I’m in my fifties, and I’m thinking maybe I don’t want to live like this forever.”
“Oh?” I said, leaning forward while reminding myself that Mom had already disappointed me once today by showing up late and not texting, so I shouldn’t get my hopes too high.
“Yeah. Been thinking about checking myself into some kind of rehab center, but, you know.” She shrugged. “I can’t afford them.”
“How much are they?”
“Twenty grand. Would be real nice of you to help your old mother out.” She pushed around another forkful of food, but she hadn’t eaten more than a bite or two.
“I don’t know, Mom. That’s a lot.” Maybe a payment plan? Did those fancy rehab centers take those? I started running the numbers on how much I could spare.
“Is it too much to keep me off the streets?” When her eyes caught mine, her pupils were blown wide. Her hands shook where they gripped her fork, and she couldn’t sit still in her seat.
“Are you high right now?” I asked with a sinking feeling that threatened to drag me to the floor.
“Course not.” But she couldn’t meet my eye.
“Because I can’t help you if you aren’t ready to help yourself.”
“How the hell am I supposed to stay clean if I can’t get into rehab? Huh? Tell me that.”
She had a point, one that made guilt rise in my gut. But that warred with the knowledge that, after eight years of silence, Mom turned up on the doorstep and the first thing she asked for was money. That didn’t exactly scream trustworthy. “How long have you stayed clean on your own?”
She shot out of her chair. “I won’t stand here and let my kid treat me like a misbehaving teenager.”
“I don’t have anything to prove. I’m not the one who did a runner after my husband of twenty-five years’s funeral.”
She sucked in a breath. “Oh, you stuck-up bitch, you think you’re too good for me now? I just need a few thousand bucks. I’m sure you have it. Not like you ever paid one cent of rent on this dump.”
“Rent? No, I just have to keep it from falling down.” And last month I’d spent most of my savings on new siding.
She threw her plate onto the floor, shattering it and sending food flying. “Is this how your daddy would want you to treat me? He worked his fingers to the bone to make sure you never went without, and you’d turn your poor mother out on the streets.”
“Yeah, Daddy worked his ass off to keep me and Travis fed and clothed while you were running around on him, breezing back home whenever you pleased.” How dare she?
I loved my mom, but Daddy was the parent I could always count on.
“I don’t know why he never divorced you, with the way you treated him. ”
Her face crumbled, every line coming into sharp relief, more lines than a fifty-five-year-old woman should have. Hard living had done that and had made her hard in turn.
I sighed. “Just…leave, Mom. Come back when you’re serious about getting clean. In the meantime, there’s a food bank downtown that won’t ask any questions, and the big city shelter won’t turn you away, either.”
She crossed the kitchen, bony fingers gripping my arms. “You don’t understand, baby. You’ve got to help me out. Hand over some cash and we can do this the easy way.”
I jerked away. “Are you still trying to shake me down? Get out.”
“Not until you pay me!”
I wasn’t expecting her to be so fast, but she was on me again in seconds, clawing, trying to rush past me to the hallway, probably trying to get to one of the bedrooms. Daddy always used to hide cash back there.
But I was younger, better fed, and sober. I pushed her across the slick linoleum floor and out the kitchen door, then locked it.
“Let me in!” she screeched as she banged on the glass.
“If you don’t leave, I’m calling the cops!” My voice cracked on the last word.
An orange fluff ball streaked across my porch, growling and hissing at Mom, who jumped back and cursed. Looks like my cat likes me pretty well after all.
Just then, a beat-up red Chevy pulled into the driveway. I thought I saw a flash of greasy dark hair from the driver’s seat.
“Sue,” a male voice yelled from the car. I couldn’t say for sure, but it sounded like the same guy she’d been with last night. “Is your girl paying up?”
“Naw, she’s too good for the likes of me these days.” Mom threw the words over her shoulder while stepping off my front porch.
“Too bad. She’s a pretty one.”
“Best keep your eyes in your head, Joel. That girl’d freeze your nuts off.”
I stared, frozen, as she got in the truck, slammed the door, and they peeled away, leaving skid marks on my quiet residential street.
I ran over to the hardware store before Mom worked up the courage to come back, if she ever did. As I was comparing two different brands of locks, my phone rang.
“What?” I said when I picked up.
“Why are you buying new locks?” Jackson’s voice crackled over the line, deep and demanding.
“Who told you I was buying new locks?”
A long pause greeted that question. “Hunter. He saw you while he was in there asking after a job.”
I glanced around, wondering if the middle Hayes brother was still around. “When did he get out of jail?”
“This morning. It’s not important.”
“Of course it’s important! Why didn’t you tell me?
” I should pop over this evening with dinner.
Hunter was a year ahead of me in school, and while we’d never been close, we’d always gotten along on account of our brothers’ friendships.
Seeing a friendly face must be so important to him right now. “Is he staying with you?”
“He’s staying with Cole. Now, why are you buying new locks? Did your mom do something?” Threat crept into his deep voice and sent a forbidden thrill down my spine. I should not be getting all worked up over Jackson right now.
“Because the old ones need to be changed.” Decision made, I put back one of the locks and stuck the other in my basket, then started looking at deadbolts.
“Are they broken?”
“No.”
“I’ll be at your place in ten.” He hung up.
Fuck me. Jackson was going to come over and demand an explanation for what I did at my house. He’d act like I was some empty-headed kid who needed him to look after her, then make all kinds of overbearing demands, invoking Travis’s name the whole time. I was red with embarrassment already.
Jackson’s car was already in my driveway when I got home. He should have been working, but I guess henpecking me was more interesting.
I parked on the street—no way was I blocking him in when I meant to send him packing—and stomped over to where he crouched on my front porch, fending off my kitty protector. The orange floof was in front of my door, hissing and baring his teeth.
“Are you sure this thing’s a cat and not a demon?” he demanded.