Christy-Lynn let the words sink in. The question reared its head again. Was it possible Stephen hadn’t been as okay with her choice to remain childless as he had pretended? It was a haunting question, one she’d never have an answer to.
“How often did he see Iris?”
“Not very often near the end. But you know what his schedule was like. Always jetting off somewhere. And he was living two lives, wasn’t he? It couldn’t have been easy, keeping it a secret from the whole world—and you.” Rhetta set down her mug and looked Christy-Lynn in the eye. “You never suspected even a little?”
“Not even a little,” she answered flatly, pretending the old woman’s gaze didn’t unsettle her. “Did he seem . . . fond of Iris?”
Rhetta lifted her shoulders then dropped them with a sigh. “It’s hard to say. He treated her more like a doll than a daughter, something pretty he could pet and hold on his lap. He used to call her his best girl. I don’t think Honey liked that too well. She didn’t like sharing him, even with Iris. It’s terrible to say, but I think she would have eventually stopped coming to see Iris altogether. And in time things would have gone south with Stephen. Honey always did have a short attention span.”
“Four years isn’t that short,” Christy-Lynn pointed out drily.
“I suspect Iris was the reason for that. Your husband could have lived without Honey. And she could have lived without him. But children have a way of changing things. They turn your life inside out—your heart too. Honey was just too young and selfish to know it. My fault I guess, since I brought her up.”
Christy-Lynn considered Rhetta’s words as she pushed away her mug. She’d been nothing but forthcoming, neither defensive nor secretive, though not quite apologetic either.
“You’re very blunt about all this.”
Rhetta seemed surprised by the observation. “What else can I be? This was only ever going to end badly, but when you’ve been around as long as I have, you realize people have to make their own mistakes—sometimes big ones—before they figure out they’re getting it wrong. Trouble is, they usually figure it out too late, and someone else is left holding the bag. All Honey cared about was having fun. She knew I’d take care of Iris—and I will for as long as I can.”
On cue, Iris toddled into the kitchen clutching her teddy bear. “Juice.”
“All right. I’ll get you some juice.”
Rhetta clutched the edge of the table as she shoved herself out of her chair, her slippers scuffing the worn vinyl as she went to the refrigerator. Her hand trembled as she filled a plastic sippy cup, then snapped on the lid. “There you go, sweetie.”
But Iris had lost interest in juice. She was too busy staring at the stranger in her kitchen, her wide violet eyes full of questions.
Rhetta took the forgotten sippy cup from Iris’s hand and set it on the table, then took hold of her shoulders. “This is Christy-Lynn, honey. She’s a friend . . . was a friend . . . of your daddy’s.”
Iris cocked her head to one side, a tiny V of confusion forming between her pale brows. Rhetta caught Christy-Lynn’s eye as she grabbed a rumpled pack of cigarettes from the counter. “Come on then,” she said, taking Iris by the hand and nodding toward the door. “Let’s get you outside in the sunshine for a bit.”
Christy-Lynn recognized Rhetta’s words for what they were, code for Nonny needs a cigarette. She followed reluctantly as Rhetta herded the child onto the porch and then down the front steps, unearthing a plastic bucket and shovel from somewhere and putting them in Iris’s hands.
“We’ll be right up here,” she promised, lumbering back up the porch steps. “Right here where you can see us.”
“Is Mama coming?”
Rhetta pressed a hand to her chest, her eyes closing briefly. “No, baby. Mama isn’t coming. She had to go away, remember?”
Iris’s chin began to quiver, her little face threatening to crumple. “Want Mama.”
“I know you do, little one. So do I. But she’s watching us.” Rhetta squinted up at the sky, pointing to a tuft of white cloud. “From up in heaven, remember? And she loves to watch you play. Can you do that for Mama? Can you play?”
Iris nodded, but her face was a dejected blank as she turned away with her plastic shovel. Rhetta reached into her housecoat pocket, cellophane crinkling as she fished out her cigarettes. She fumbled one out of the pack then eased into the chair beside Christy-Lynn’s. “It’s hard looking at her, isn’t it?” she asked when she’d lit her cigarette and taken the first pull.
“Very.”
“It’s hard for me too.” Her voice crackled. She took another long drag, blowing out the smoke on a long sigh. “She barely talks anymore. Just a word here and there when she wants something. Poor thing. She’s so confused. She’s started having nightmares since Honey . . . since the accident.”
Christy-Lynn nodded but said nothing.
“I’m tired, Mrs. Ludlow. And I’m not . . . equipped. I didn’t expect to be raising another child at my age, and my doctors aren’t exactly full of good news these days. I don’t know how much longer . . .”
Christy-Lynn cut her off before she could finish. “Surely Ray and his wife—”
“They’ve already said no. And I suppose I can’t blame them. They can barely keep body and soul together as it is, and there’s another mouth coming in the fall. I don’t know how Ellen will manage. She can’t keep up with the four she has, let alone five. There just isn’t room for Iris.”
“What will happen if . . . ?”
“When,” Rhetta corrected, squinting at Christy-Lynn through a freshly exhaled haze of smoke. “There’s no if. Only when.”
“And Iris . . . ?”
“Social services, I suppose, unless Ray backs down. And I don’t see that happening.”
Christy-Lynn felt her chest squeeze, as if her rib cage was suddenly filled with stones. “You mean foster care?”
Rhetta’s breath shuddered as she looked away. “I know it’s a hard thing, but there’s nothing else . . . no other way.”
Christy-Lynn remained quiet, partly because she didn’t trust her own voice. She was sixteen when she entered the foster care system. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like for a child Iris’s age, especially when that child was already showing signs of coping issues.
“You can’t mean Ray would actually let his own niece go to foster care. If it comes down to it, if something happens, they’d take her, wouldn’t they, rather than let her end up with strangers?”
Rhetta’s eyes were moist now, her face full of misery. “He told me I had better take care of myself because there was no way he was having Honey’s brat in his house. As if it was Iris’s fault her parents weren’t married.”
Christy-Lynn was stunned. “What about Christian charity? About suffer the little children? Isn’t that what he’s supposed to believe?”
Rhetta shook her grizzled head, as if bewildered. “I gave up trying to figure out what that boy believes a long time ago. But you can ask him yourself if you want. That’s him coming up the road, and it looks like he’s brought the whole brood. I forgot they were coming by to pick up some muffins I made for the church bake sale.”
Christy-Lynn looked up in time to see a faded maroon van coming down the road in a cloud of dun-colored dust. “I’ll go,” she said, instantly on her feet. She didn’t want Rhetta to have to explain her presence. “Oh, my purse and keys are inside on the kitchen table.”
Rhetta pushed to her feet with startling swiftness. “I’ll bring them out.”
To her dismay, Christy-Lynn found herself alone on the porch, watching as the van pulled up and the doors swung open. The children tumbled out first, rawboned and pale, whooping like wild things as they scrambled in all directions. Ray appeared next, coming around to open the passenger side door for his wife. She was matchstick-thin but for her swollen middle, carrying a foil-covered casserole dish as she waddled toward the house a few paces behind her husband.