Chapter 12
iris
Iris knew her sister tried hard to be a nice person. Amy believed in seeing the best in people and doing the right thing.
Which is why it was both painful and entertaining to watch her scroll through Jesse’s phone, politely exclaiming at the photos of his latest toy.
If it wasn’t for Colt Smith’s personal endorsement, Jesse would never have won the election four years ago.
The insular locals had never considered Jesse one of their own; he was a blow-in from Burlington, Vermont’s largest city.
A tourist. He’d lived in Stowebury since his parents moved there when he was fourteen, but to the town, he’d always be an outsider.
But as long as Jesse had Colt’s backing, he’d be re-elected uncontested next year. Colt owned the Maple Sweet Brewery, Stowebury’s largest employer and the biggest contributor to its tax base – which meant Colt owned the town.
Iris wasn’t an idiot. She knew Amy’s father-in-law wasn’t supporting her husband purely out of the goodness of his heart.
Sure, they were family; but she had no illusions that Colt also expected some sort of quid pro quo for his campaign funding, like “flexible” scrutiny of his brewery’s code compliance.
But a little low-level mutual back-scratching was how the world worked.
Iris had no interest in Jesse’s political ambitions, and in a town as small as Stowebury, being mayor was largely nominal anyway.
There was no fancy chain of office – or an office itself, come to that; Jesse just had a desk in the town hall, a three-room white clapboard house on Main Street.
His main role was liaising between the town’s committee and the public, which, as far as Iris could tell, meant dealing with angry emails complaining about property taxes.
But he also oversaw zoning and planning permission: a role that dovetailed perhaps a little too neatly with his day job selling real estate.
Iris knew a lot of people thought she’d landed on her feet when she’d snagged Jesse Spencer.
But the truth was, she didn’t give a damn about the money, or the boat, or the cars.
She’d never tell her husband, of course, but she’d actually preferred the cramped little apartment she’d rented downtown when it was just her and Finn to the huge McMansion Jesse had built them all on the lake.
The house was far too big for the four of them; they had to employ an army of staff – cleaners, gardeners – to take care of it.
Now that the kids were teenagers and out of the house most of the time, it was like living in a mausoleum; she and Jesse rattled around the place like two peas in a barrel.
She dreaded to think what it’d be like when Finn and Rose went off to college.
No, she hadn’t married Jesse for his money, but for Finn. She’d wanted her son to have stability and security – and, yes, fine, money – to atone for the disastrous start she’d given him.
The lousy, absent biological father.
The sick, inadequate biological mother.
Iris could remember very little of the first year of Finn’s life.
The baby blues that’d hit three days after he was born had quickly graduated into anxiety and depression, and by the time he’d been six weeks old, she was in full-blown psychosis.
The most dangerous of perinatal mental illnesses, postpartum psychosis sits at the far end of the spectrum – and she’d slid all the way to the edge.
Delusions, hallucinations, paranoia – she’d had them all.
If it wasn’t for Amy, neither she nor Finn would have survived.
Her sister had come over one morning to take her to her postnatal check-up, and found Iris about to put her baby in the dishwasher because “the voices” had told her he was dirty.
After that, Amy had quickly found her a place at an inpatient psychiatric facility, which she’d paid for herself – Iris had been unemployed, and insurance wouldn’t have covered a place like that anyway – and had then looked after Finn for the year it’d taken Iris to find her way back to sanity.
Iris had missed so much: her son’s first smile, his first tooth, his first steps.
The electroconvulsive therapy they’d given her at the hospital had cured her depression, but it had also wiped out whole swathes of her memory; she’d lost not just the year she’d been ill, but random slices of her life, whole seasons sometimes, gone forever.
She had no recollection of her early teens; she’d forgotten the entire summer she’d turned sixteen.
And something had changed forever between her and Amy.
Amy had always been her big sister, but their relationship had had its own kind of balance; Amy might be older and wiser, but Iris had been cooler, wilder.
Amy had lived vicariously through her, enjoying her exploits and scrapes even as she picked up the pieces afterwards. Iris had had Amy’s respect, even envy.
Now all she had was her pity.
She knew Amy loved her, of course; would do anything for her. But Iris would always be less than. She was a good mother, but never quite good enough.
The only decent thing she’d ever done for Finn was marry Jesse.
He was a wonderful stepfather to Finn, who’d been just two when they’d got together.
He might not be Jesse’s biological son, but if not for his thick crop of dark red curls, you’d never know it.
A man’s man, Jesse had a natural affinity with his son he didn’t have with Rose, much as he loved her.
They spoke the same bro-code, liked the same things: beer, football, girls.
They even looked like each other, and Finn had Jesse’s amiable nature and the same easy, laid-back way about him: clearly the triumph of nurture over nature.
Iris glanced at the clump of teenagers on the terrace now.
Unlike the other kids at the party, Finn was as happy mixing with adults as he was with his peers.
You could drop him anywhere on the planet and he’d have four new friends inside ten minutes.
He had the confidence of someone who knew who he was – just one of the many ways, Iris thought, with a twinge of resentment, that he was more like Amy than her.
Her eyes narrowed as she watched her son’s girlfriend, Ashley, detach herself from the knot of teenagers and join Colt Smith on the terrace.
She was an unusually pretty girl, with waist-length naturally platinum hair and slanting dark eyes that she accentuated with thick kohl; but she looked completely out of place at a backyard barbecue in her spiky four-inch heels and skintight jeans.
Just Colt’s type, though. The man was well known for his penchant for nubile young women.
Colt and Ashley moved to the end of the terrace, out of earshot. Iris frowned. The two of them looked altogether too cosy and familiar together, her blonde head almost touching his as they talked. Now, what was that all about?
Her sister came back outside with a tray of food, and Finn immediately went over to help her pass it around.
Iris had lost count of the times people had told her she must be so proud of her son, but Amy was the one who deserved the credit.
Amy had taken Finn under her wing, first when he was a baby, but also as he grew up, securing him an internship at the senator’s office in Burlington, writing a stellar recommendation for college and introducing him to all the right people.
Something was off with her son today, though. Iris couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but beneath his usual affable demeanour, he seemed oddly tense. She knew he’d been out partying most of the night, but that didn’t explain the tightness in his shoulders, or the tension around his eyes.
Her gaze returned to Ashley as the girl left Colt on the terrace and joined Finn, slipping her arm possessively through his as he chatted to his father.
Amy came over and topped up Iris’s wine glass. ‘They make an odd couple,’ she said, nodding towards Finn and Ashley.
‘I keep hoping it’ll fizzle out, but he seems besotted,’ Iris said. ‘You don’t know how lucky you are with Maggie.’
Nicky’s girlfriend was sweet and funny and unselfish to a fault. She’d even turned down a place studying drama at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh so she could stay home and go to UVM with Nicky. Iris knew Kate hadn’t been thrilled by her daughter’s decision, but Maggie had refused to be swayed.
She wondered suddenly if Ashley was behind Finn’s odd mood.
God, she wasn’t having an affair with Colt, was she?
As sick as that would be, given the fifty-year age gap between them, Iris didn’t really care; but Finn would be heartbroken.
The sooner her son went off to college, the better.
Few high school relationships survived the transition; Finn would have his pick of girls when he got to Pitt.
‘Ashley wouldn’t be my first choice for Finn, either,’ Amy added, with a sigh, ‘but I suppose the girl’s harmless enough.’
Iris glanced sharply at her sister. How could she not know what kind of girl Ashley was? Was she being wilfully blind, or just hopelessly optimistic?
Ashley Lincoln was as far from harmless as it was possible to be.