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“You’re calling me from a foreign country. This is going to cost you a shit-ton of money.”
“You’re worth it, but fine. You don’t want to talk to me, okay.” She hung up.
Iris dropped her phone, eyes swimming with tears. I didn’t mean to hurt her.
“You didn’t hurt her, baby. She was keeping you on the phone until I could get here.”
“Mama?” She whipped her head up in shock.
“You’re always worried about hurting your sisters.”
Althea Wentz walked out of the thinning forest surrounding the outcropping Iris was on. Piros gave her a sniff or two before heading off on his own.
Her mother looked like Helen Mirren from Red. Dressed for the weather, the woman who had taken her in as a little girl and given her a loving home, along with her last name, walked closer, reached out a hand to help Iris up and enfolded her in her arms.
Years had passed but she still smelled the same. Geraniums mixed with a hint of something home baked. Unnamable, but delicious. The smell had comforted her when she had been a little girl and it did the same right now.
Iris broke. She sagged into her mother’s embrace.
Althea didn’t speak, just held her while she cried. The wind wound around them, the air cold and crisp. Her mother didn’t rush her, simply waited until she finished crying.
Nose running and eyes still streaming, she pulled back. Her mother gave her a tissue then a smile. “Let’s talk, baby.”
“Yes, Mama.”
Hand in hand they moved closer to the treeline, no matter how sparse it was, given the height they were at. Following her mother’s direction, Iris sat on the rock, immediately grateful for the thermals under her jeans.
“You, my darling Iris, have always felt like you weren’t enough. Always looking for the exit and the door.”
Opening her mouth to dispute the words, Iris snapped it shut at the not-so-subtle squeeze from her mother. It had worked when she was a little girl and it worked now.
“You retreated so much I worried for you. We all did and, to some extent, we still do. You embrace what you can control with such openness and joy. Like the house you inherited. No one else in our family, other than Ren, would have gone there with a truck of supplies to see it in the dead of winter. Or held back their panic when the storm raged in, stranding you there. But for you, all of it is fine. Because it’s life and an adventure.”
Althea held Iris’ face in her gloved hands, forcing her to meet her own warm blue gaze.
“Nature, to you, is expected to be wild and do unexpected things, throwing curveballs at you. That unknowing you embrace. When it comes to humans, you’re already expecting the worst and that keeps you closed off from experiencing what could be the most wonderful time of your life.”
Flashes of laughing and talking to Bradford skipped through her mind and she wished she didn’t miss him so much.
“Baby, I know you’ve always felt abandoned and worried that we were going to leave you or that we were lying about how much we want and love you. No matter how much I tell you otherwise, until you believe it, you’re going to continue holding yourself away from the world.”
“I don’t do that,” she protested. “I avoid people because they disappoint. Nature never does. And I don’t push all people away.”
“Right. I misunderstood and you told your siblings about the house immediately.”
Iris stared out over the area around them, watching Piros as he dragged a thick branch around, almost like he was drawing in the snow.
“That’s not fair,” she protested. “I needed time to process it all.”
Iris saw the sadness in her mother’s gaze. “Sure.” A blink and it was gone. “All I know is I had to hear about you spending time with some stranger from your sisters. I want to know the details.”
“Mama!”
“What? Just because I’m older doesn’t mean I didn’t dance on a pole a time or twelve.”
“La la la, I’m not listening to this.” She covered her ears and shook her head.
Her mother laughed and smacked her arm. “Are you seeing him again?”
They started walking back. “No. I don’t know who he is.”
“And this way if he were stupid enough to reject you back in the real world, you’ve already eliminated the possibility.”
“He was a rich man, Mama. We don’t do things in the same circle.”
Piros dropped his huge stick at her feet. Althea bent to pick it up, then she chucked it as far as she could. He took off after it with a bark.
“I’m guessing there was something you two did in the same circle.”
Flushing, she just walked on. Silence stretched between them and they headed for lower elevation. As they moved, Iris thought about what her mother had said. Did she self-sabotage? Or was she just so used to being the outlier that she refused to give any guy an honest chance?
