Her Name Is Rose (19 page)

“What?” Her eyes widened.

“Yeah. Yesterday morning. I finished my piece because of you …
you
were my inspiration.”

A group of young teenagers cycled past the window, their voices loud and happy. He watched her watching them until they cycled out of sight. Iris stood and went to the window. After a few moments, she walked toward Hector, put her hand briefly on his shoulder, and said, “Okay,” and then went out the front door and crossed the street to the park.

*   *   *

Hector found Grace and Billy in the office and when he told Grace that he wanted to borrow her car to take Iris to the Berkshires, she gave him that mother of all looks.

“What have you found out? What's the appointment? And who is she looking for? Is it the name on the envelope? Have you found her?”

“Nothing about the appointment, and not exactly.”

“Hector! Tell me.”

“It's a needle in a haystack, Grace. We found one Hilary Barrett in Becket, Massachusetts. What are the chances? Right, Billy?”

“Hilary Barrett. Hilary Barrett.” Grace mused and screwed her round, dolphinlike eyes closed. “I
know
that name.” Billy and Hector waited. Waiting for Grace to clarify, but she kept shaking her head and closing her eyes. “I can't remember. Oh…”

“I might be able to help,” Billy said at last. Grace and Hector looked to him. “I mean. I am in
computers.
What do we know?”

“Of course. Billy. Computers! Now.” Grace spoke excitedly, her voice rising.

“We only know that she is Mrs. Bowen's daughter's birth mother,” said Hector.

Billy raised his eyebrows. “That's a mouthful.”

“And, that this Hilary Barrett
once
lived at 99 St. Botolph Street. That's about it. Right?” Hector looked to Grace. “She'd be around … I don't know. What do
you
think? How old is Iris?”

“Oh my. She's so pretty. Um? Early forties?”

“Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. So her daughter is … like … twenty?”

“No. Nearly nineteen,” Billy said and Grace and Hector looked to him. “Yeah, she told me yesterday morning when we were talking at breakfast and—”

“Right. Okay.” Hector was nodding his head up and down in a kind of staccatolike beat in double-time. “That makes this Hilary anywhere from forty to forty-five. Ish. Yeah?” Hector was bouncing on his toes now. Rocking back and forth. “Okay. See if you can find anything out, kiddo.”

“Will do.”

Then, as if in silent consent, they left in separate directions. Grace to the kitchen to plan that evening's dinner, Billy to his laptop to see what he could find out. And Hector to his room, where he lay down and waited for the sound of Iris's footsteps returning.

 

Eleven

The thing about Iris Bowen was she liked to talk to people, even strangers. Like a few days earlier with Thornton Pletz, the Polish-American waiter at Botolph's. If it hadn't been for the dead-ended conversation about Hilary, she would have gone on and asked him about his family in Europe. Had he any relatives still there? Did he have children? Or, with Kerry at the airport the day she arrived, if she hadn't been so overwhelmed with the sense of arrival and her mission, Iris would have asked in what village in County Kerry her granny was born.

At home in Clare, she struck up conversations with the people behind shop counters, too. With the man who sold her flowers on a Wednesday afternoon at the street market in Ennis, with the fair-haired fishmonger from Slovakia, who had developed a habit of asking each time he met her, “When is Rose due back?” To which Iris usually replied, “In a few weeks.” Her answer, too, had become a habit. Their frequent exchanges (Iris always bought a piece of halibut from him on a Friday) had turned to repartee, which made the Slovakian and other customers in the fish shop smile.

A few things like that, little anchors, helped her cope with loss.

And, it made her feel less lonely.

Before flowers and fish, Iris would often meet Tess for lunch in Ennis. In winter they sat in old feather-stuffed chairs beside the fire, just inside the front door of the Old Ground Hotel. In the summer they sat in garden chairs under the ancient beech tree on the moss-lined patio. They became regulars among regulars and the owner, an art lover named Allen, got to know their names. He never failed to ask how Rose was getting on. He'd known Luke because Luke often lunched there on his noncourt days and they'd become friends. When Luke was in hospital, Allen would send meals from the hotel's kitchen. One day he had driven all the way out to Ashwood to deliver a bread-and-butter pudding, which was Luke's favorite.

All of this Iris thought about the following morning as she stood at the bedroom window upstairs in Grace Hale's house, wondering if she should phone Tess again. She was sure Grace wouldn't mind if she used her phone. She listened to the unfamiliar sounds of Boston's early morning traffic, of buses and cars and garbage trucks. American cities woke so early. She was used to birds and tractors and, at this time of year, the disappearing song of the cuckoo.

Her hands were restless and she kept fussing with her hair. Twice since rising, Iris had changed her clothes. Nothing looked right. Sitting on the bed fastening her sandals she recalled the dream she'd had early that morning. Luke was in it. He was walking out of the sea holding a box. He walked toward her but the tide kept coming with him and he made no progress to the shore. He wasn't struggling, just walking in his suit, ankle deep in the tide pools. He smiled. She couldn't see what was in the box he carried from the sea.

She missed her garden—her own garden—where things had a way of working themselves out. A knock on the door made Iris jump. She opened it to find Hector, who had a tray that held a teapot and some toast and a daisy in a water glass.

“I thought maybe we could get a head start on breakfast and hit the road when you're ready,” he said and he put the tray down on her made-up bed. He stood back as if somehow proud of himself. “You still want to go, don't you?”

She nodded. “I'll be down”—she hesitated—“in a bit. Five minutes.”

“Great.” He clapped his hands together. “I'll get the car ready.”

Iris looked at the daisy. Some of its petals were missing. As if someone had plucked them.

*   *   *

Grace had agreed to lend Hector her old Jaguar so he could drive into the Berkshire Mountains to show Iris some of America. Or at least that's what Grace had thought the previous night when they met for meat loaf and salad in her kitchen.

“To see some of my great state of Massachusetts, right?”

The table was laid with bone china and linen napkins and an assortment of lit candles. “I asked Billy to tidy up the car for your little road trip tomorrow,” Grace had said, pulling her muumuu that had gathered tight beneath her gold belt. She'd looked at Hector, whose teeth slightly eclipsed his bottom lip. His eyes seemed charged with some meaning Iris didn't understand. Grace returned his scrutiny, then turned to Iris and went on. “Bob loved that car. You'll like it. Drives like a dream. I couldn't give it up when he died. I know it's old—”

“Gracie, you're a visionary,” Hector had said promptly, and pulled the chair for her to sit. He'd poured her wine and given her a look, which Iris found puzzling. Grace drank half the glass in one long sip.

“You'd better watch him, Iris, he's a charmer.” Her voice had a curious undertone, Iris thought, as she watched her cut the meat loaf into slices.

During the supper, Iris succeeded in not having to talk about herself. Grateful the subject of the phone calls to Ireland was not referred to, she had instead asked questions. She'd learned about the renovation of the South End, which had been Grace's passion for twenty years. Learned how Hector had answered an ad for a spare room and how he ended up living with Bob and Grace when he was a student at Berklee, and how long ago the neighborhood around St. Botolph had been populated by jazz musicians.

“Hector wore his hair in a ponytail those days,” Grace said distractedly.

Hector glanced sideways at Iris.

Grace continued, “You know, Botolph is the patron saint of Boston. It was named after him when the Pilgrims came here in the early 1600s. Right, Hector?”

“Something like that, Gracie.”

With a twinge of regret that here she was sitting, listening to something she knew Luke would have been more interested in than she was, Iris recalled when he'd told Rosie that a Bowen ancestor had been a passenger on the
Mayflower,
survived the journey, and landed at Plymouth Rock. Rose was doing a genealogy chart in primary school. Iris remembered because Rose was distressed about it. “Are they
my
ancestors, too?” she'd asked.

“Of course! What's mine is yours,
ma petite chou
,” Luke had said.

And with that Rose was happy. If she ever struggled about her biological connections, she hid it well. Maybe she'd locked it away in a box. Iris could never be sure.

“Yes, I remember now,” Grace said. “Something about a stone and a monastery and a Benedictine abbot named Botwulf in England. English Pilgrims landed here and called it Boston. I can't quite remember the connection. I have it written down somewhere.” She paused. “If you're interested I can find it. You know—” Grace stopped suddenly and looked directly at Iris. “You know, I never asked you what brought you to Boston.”

“Grace! None of our business, I think.”

“I'm doing a gardening piece on Boston city gardens,” Iris said. She said it quickly, and she didn't look at Hector.

“Oh?” Grace turned the wine in her glass. “That's nice.”

They ate in silence for a little while.

“Enough for me,” Hector said, his hand covering his glass when Grace attempted to fill it from a third bottle. She looked to Iris, who shook her head gently.

“But thank you. It's been a lovely evening.”

“Pleasure, I'm sure,” Grace replied with a just little too much emphasis on her Ss. “Sorry it was only meat loaf. Not much of a cook since Bob…” She paused and spoke pointedly to Iris. “It's never the same. But we manage. We get on with it.” She rose and stood for a moment and looked toward the door. Hector got up then and put his arm around her, kissed her cheek, and led her out the door, his hasty movement making the candles flicker. For a moment then, light mottled the room and Iris had sat alone, feeling guilty that she had lied and wondering what she was going to say to Hilary Barrett in Becket, Massachusetts, the next day.

*   *   *

Now, in the sun-drenched morning, Iris locked her bedroom door and went downstairs. She looked into the breakfast room for Grace, but only Billy was there, serving a table of two young couples. More of Kerry's special people? she wondered. He was telling them about the Mapparium.

Hector appeared at the front door. “Ready?” A swish of heat rushed in as he held the door open. His tall frame blocked the light coming through the doorway.

“Yes.”

“Wait!” Grace called when they were in the hallway. She came, still in her white terry-cloth bathrobe, carrying a basket. “I've some chicken sandwiches and lemonade. For your journey.”

“You're too good.” Iris took the basket, gave Grace a half hug with her free arm.

“Thanks, Gracie.” Hector stood at the door and opened it wider, an edgy look raising his eyebrows.

Iris moved past him, down the steps to the car.

“Oh … wait! I remembered something,” Grace called.

“What?” asked Hector.

Ignoring him, Grace looked to Iris. “About St. Botolph … he's known as the patron saint of travelers and wayfarers.”

Iris gave the basket to Hector and went back up the steps and hugged Grace with both arms. “You're a pet, as we say in Ireland. A real pet.”

“Ohhhh,” Grace said, teary-eyed, adjusting the belt of her robe. “I do hope everything works out. It can, you know. Sometimes. Right?”

*   *   *

How suddenly surreal Iris's life felt then. So unfamiliar was the blue day, the heat, the fancy car, and, not least, the man sitting beside her, humming. His quirky manner mystified her. Even excited her. She hadn't been in the solo company of a man since her husband died. Not really. Not like this. Hector's eyes shot from the rearview to the side mirror as he pulled the car quickly away from the curb. He wasn't a smooth driver.

As they passed along St. Botolph, she noted the dark windows of the restaurant. It was Sunday, Thornton would be opening for brunch soon. At the corner of her mind was the look on Grace's face as they pulled away. It was a look of a thousand words, none of which Iris understood, and she wondered if she was meant to.

“Is Grace all right?”

“Grace? Sure, fine. She's probably a little under the weather. You know? Too much vino. No need to worry.” Hector drove the car west along Huntington. It seemed like he wanted to hurry. He pressed and released the accelerator as if pumping the car forward. She found it a little disturbing. After a few moments he turned the car right onto a larger road, and, as if she could hear his thoughts rummaging about in his head, flicking through his repertoire of suitable topics for discussion with a woman he hardly knew, but was trying to impress, she awaited his conversation. She looked out the window as they passed the Mary Baker Eddy Library and recalled the pink Irish family in the Mapparium and wondered where they were sweltering today. She hoped for their sakes they were at a beach. And for one brief moment, she wished she were there with them, safe among her own.

“That's Berklee,” Hector said finally, and pointed. “Over there. Some of my happiest days—”

“Is it?” Iris said with a little more gusto then she'd intended, turning her head toward him but regretting her enthusiasm immediately.