Chapter 05
iris
Iris tore out of the art building and ran across the playing field towards the parking lot, fighting the urge to throw up.
It was all very well Kate calling from the main school and begging her to come and talk her sister down from the ledge – literally down from the ledge – but since when had Amy paid any attention to anything she had to say?
She was too far away to see what was happening, but she could see the crowd of students and staff in the parking lot, their heads craned back as they stared upwards. It was a moment before she realised what was so unnatural.
The silence.
The band of terror tightened around her chest. What had possessed Amy to go out on the roof after Raylan Adams? Why couldn’t she have left it to the fire crew to do their job? Why did she always, always, have to play the hero?
As if she didn’t know the answer to that question.
She dug her fingernails hard into her palms, using the pain to hold back panic the way her therapist had taught her.
She and Amy had had their moments over the years – they were sisters, with all that implied – but Iris couldn’t survive without her.
Amy was the light to Iris’s shadow. Without her, Iris would be all alone in the dark.
Someone was running across the playing field to meet her.
Something had happened. Iris started to feel dizzy.
The world spun as if she was on a carousel, a random kaleidoscope of scenes whirling around her: Amy waking her on Christmas morning, waving a plush dinosaur in her face; Amy, aged ten, smiling at Iris in the mirror as she braided her little sister’s bright red plaits; Amy on her wedding day, lit up from within—
‘She’s OK!’ Kate was shouting as she came into view. ‘She’s safe! She’s OK!’
Iris’s legs were suddenly unsteady, as if she’d just done a punishing session at the gym. She’d have collapsed if Kate hadn’t been there to catch her.
‘Breathe,’ Kate said, rubbing her back. ‘They’re OK. Everyone’s fine. Jesse got a rope out to Raylan just in time. Your husband’s a goddamn hero. They’re OK,’ she said again.
Iris was suddenly too furious to speak. She knew it was fear making her angry, but right now she just wanted to find her sister and punch her in the face.
She straightened up and shook herself free from Kate’s supportive arm. The other woman had to jog to keep up with her as she stormed towards the school.
Overexcited teenagers streamed by on either side of them, their amped-up chatter rising to deafening levels as Kate and Iris entered the school lobby. And then from behind them, cutting through it all—
‘Where is she?’ a voice boomed. ‘For God’s sake, will someone please tell me where I can find my wife!’
As if Moses had raised his staff over the water, the crowd in the hall abruptly parted, revealing Amy at the end of the corridor.
MacGill Smith pushed past Iris, almost knocking her off her feet, and swept his wife into a boa-constricting hug.
Amy was tall, but her forehead barely reached her husband’s burly shoulder as Mac tucked her head beneath his chin and covered her with kisses.
His plaid flannel shirt smelled of sawdust and marine paint and the burger he’d had for lunch.
‘I’m fine, Mac,’ Amy said, gently disentangling herself.
‘I just saw you dangling upside down a hundred feet in the air!’
Amy glared at a couple of students who’d stopped to gawp, and they quickly stopped smirking and moved along the corridor. ‘I told you, Mac, I’m fine.’
Jesse emerged from the throng and slung a heavy arm around Iris’s shoulder, pulling her towards him and carelessly dropping a kiss on her freckled nose by way of greeting. ‘Man. Your wife is something else,’ he said to Mac, shaking his head.
‘Thank God you were there, buddy. I owe you.’
Jesse waved away his thanks. ‘Forget it.’
Iris’s husband was a couple of years younger than Mac, taller and broader, with the sleek, well-fed air of a man who’d clawed his way to the top of the heap and, as mayor of the town, was satisfied with the view.
When Iris and Jesse had got together, eighteen months after Finn was born, he’d still been relatively new to real estate, but he’d already made his first million and was well on his way to the next.
Iris would always be grateful to him for rescuing her from the mess she’d been making of her life, and gratitude was a good bedrock for love.
‘Well, the drama’s over now,’ Amy said briskly. ‘I’m sorry, Mac, but there was no need for you to come rushing up here.’
Iris shot her sister a sharp glance. Clearly Amy had no idea Mac had been meeting the fire marshal just a few minutes away from the school. Which was odd, because Mac and Amy didn’t usually keep secrets from each other.
‘I really need to get on,’ Amy said, turning towards the direction of her office. ‘I’ve got two hundred kids to settle and a high school to run. I’ll see you at home.’
Her tone was efficient, dismissive. She could have been discussing plans for the new parking lot layout with one of the construction crew.
And then she threw Mac a smile so intimate the heat rose in his cheeks.
Iris remembered the day Amy had first brought Mac home, staring up at him as if she couldn’t quite believe he was real.
At eighteen, MacGill Smith was not only two years older than Amy – and two years mattered in high school – but captain of the ice-hockey and lacrosse teams, the star of every girl’s secret fantasies.
A definite ten. And Amy had been . . . Amy.
Wholesome, athletic, likeable. But a six or seven at best. She’d looked exactly the same at sixteen as she did now at forty-four: neat, shoulder-length brown bob, clear skin, sensibly trimmed fingernails – pretty in a low-key, girl-next-door way, but hardly the kind of girl to turn heads.
But she’d turned MacGill Smith’s.
Sixes didn’t end up with tens.
Until they did.
Mac and Amy had been one of those couples, the kind other people gave cute, smushed-together nicknames, because they were so loved up: McAmy, everyone at school had called them.
Quite a few girls in Stowebury had felt a pang of envy when Amy and Mac had married the summer she’d graduated from college.
Iris was one of them.