So Much It Hurts (25 page)

The girl is Millicent Temple.

I watch the video five times. Either Millicent is a very good actor or she's had experience fighting.

It's impossible to study after that. I keep thinking about Millicent. Did she love Mick as much as I do? No, I think, she couldn't have. No one could love Mick as much as I do.

My phone rings. It's my mom—not Mick. I try not to sound disappointed. She says she's nearby and she's picked up a vegetarian pizza. “I'd like to come and see the loft,” she says. After our conversation about my dad, I ended up telling her that Mick is my boyfriend. She didn't take it well. Still, I can tell she's trying, even though it must be hard for her.

I'm so used to hiding out, I nearly say no. Then I realize that with Mick gone, I can have anyone I want over. And it's not as if I'm nursing a black eye. “Okay,” I tell her. “It's apartment nine-oh-seven.”

“By the way, Iris,” Mom says, “I'm not alone.” She hangs up before I can ask who is with her.

CHAPTER 31

“…to know a man well were to know himself
.”
—HAMLET
, ACT 5, SCENE 2

I
hear more than two pairs of high heels clicking down the corridor. Maybe more than three pairs.

I expect to see Mom when I open the door. But first I see Katie. Mom is behind her. With Ms. Cameron and Ms. Odette. And why is Tommy marching down the hallway, carrying the pizza cartons?

William Shakespeare has come to the door with me. When he sees the crowd of people, he meows and races back inside, probably to hide underneath the couch.

I want to slam the door in their faces. “What's going on?” I ask instead.

“We brought pizza,” Mom announces.

Tommy is the only one who has the decency to look embarrassed.

“Mom, can I talk to you—privately?”

The others take a few steps back. I hear shuffling sounds in Mrs. Karpman's apartment. Now she's cracking open her door to see what's going on. “Has everyone arrived?” she asks.

I get so close to my mom, our faces nearly touch. “You didn't say you were bringing all those people,” I hiss.

“Iris,” she says grimly, “this is an intervention. You're going to have to let us in.”

The intervention turns out to be Mrs. Karpman's idea. “How did you even know what an intervention was?” I ask as she bustles past me.

“Errol told me about it,” she says. “He thought it might be a good idea.”

“Listen, all of you,” I say while they are filing into the apartment, “I don't mind having you here for pizza, but I don't need an intervention.”

“Interventions are for people who don't think they need interventions,” Katie says. From her tone, you'd think she participates in interventions regularly.

Tommy heads for the kitchen, where he begins opening the pizza cartons. Seeing Tommy in Mick's loft feels wrong. “Are there napkins here somewhere?” he calls.

Mom takes my hand and leads me to the couch as if I'm a blind person. “I know this must feel overwhelming, Iris, but you have to understand that it's for your own good.”

Ms. Odette plops down next to me. “I should explain, Iris,” she says, giving me a tight-lipped smile, “that typically, interventions are used to assist individuals struggling with substance abuse.” Doesn't she realize she sounds like one of her brochures? “Of course, we know that isn't exactly your case, dear.”

“You're right. I'm not an addict—and don't call me
dear
.”

Ms. Odette nods. “It's perfectly normal for you to feel angry right now,” she says. At least she doesn't call me
dear
again.

Katie helps Tommy hand out pizza slices and napkins.

Ms. Cameron is poking around the apartment as if she has a right to. “Don't touch that!” I tell her when she stops to examine the print of the Bonsecours Market. Someone must have brushed against it, because it isn't hanging straight. I can tell Ms. Cameron wants to adjust it. I shouldn't have said anything. Ms. Cameron curls her lip, then turns back to the print. She moves the edge of the frame, gasping when she sees what's behind it.

Everyone turns to see what's happened. Ms. Cameron lifts the print off the wall and exposes the hole underneath. It's so obviously shaped like a fist that for once I don't try coming up with a story to cover for Mick.

“Oh my god,” Katie says.

Ms. Odette puts her hand on Katie's elbow. “It's important that we all stay calm,” she tells her.

I wonder if they've scripted this intervention. Everyone seems to have something to say to me. It reminds me of a fairytale I loved when I was little. Five fairies come to bestow their wishes on a newborn princess. Only I've got six fairies, one's a guy, and they're all eating pizza and annoying the hell out of me.

Ms. Cameron goes first. She's still holding the print on her lap. “Iris, I told you I had an affair with Mick—and that he once got violent.” (I hate picturing the two of them together.) “What I didn't tell you is that it happened more than once.” Ms. Cameron drops her voice. “It took awhile before I had the courage to break up with him.”

“This shit makes me sick,” Tommy mutters.

“Now Tommy,” Ms. Odette says. It's obviously not his turn yet.

Mrs. Karpman is having trouble waiting for her turn too. “I knew it!” she exclaims, her voice even raspier than usual. “I could tell the first time I saw that man—”

But Ms. Cameron is not finished. “At the time, I considered going to the police, and honestly, now I wish I had. I know how seductive Mick can be, but I swear, Iris, you'll be better off without him.”

Katie sputters something about wishing she had been a better friend to me. “I should have figured out what was going on,” she says. “I'm so sorry I let you down, Iris.”

When she's through swearing to be a better friend, Katie turns to Tommy. He looks down at his running shoes, then up at me, then over at the wall where the hole is, then back to me again. “You deserve better, Iris,” he says. “I'm not saying that because you dumped me for this douchebag.” Ms. Odette purses her lips when Tommy says
douchebag
. “I'm saying it because it's true.”

Ms. Odette seems to be responsible for statistics. “They say”—she doesn't bother to explain who
they
is—“sixty-two percent of women have been hit, shoved or slapped. So really, Iris, when you think about it, what this man did to you and to Ms. Cameron, well, it isn't so unusual. But that doesn't make it right.”

Ms. Odette hands me a brochure from her purse. There's a girl with two bruised eyes on the cover. When I push the brochure away, Ms. Odette leaves it on the coffee table, right in front of me. I turn my head so I won't have to look at the girl on the brochure. Her black eyes make me want to cry. “Iris, I want you to read this pamphlet. Then I want you to make an appointment to see me. I don't just do career counseling, you know. I have a private counseling practice too.”

Mom is the only one who seems to have forgotten her lines. She's wringing her hands and making sighing noises. She's obviously working her way up to telling me something important. “Iris,” she says at last, “you told me you remembered hiding in a closet when you were a little girl. I didn't want to tell you more, but now I think I have to.” Mom looks over at Ms. Odette as if she needs confirmation that she is doing the right thing.

When Ms. Odette nods, Mom swallows, then goes on. “Your father and I were having a terrible fight. Our worst fight ever. I told him he had to leave. That I'd had it with his gambling. That I couldn't give him any more second chances.” Mom is speaking very quietly, and I understand now that she still feels ashamed of what my dad did so many years ago. “I went to the closet for his suitcase. I didn't realize you were in there. That you'd gone to hide in the closet. And then…and then…oh, Iris!”

Everyone in the room is watching my mom's face, then my face. They are waiting for the end of her story. Only I'm the one who tells the rest, because as Mom was speaking, more of the memory came back to me. “You were shouting, and then you slammed the closet door— really hard,” I say. The memory is so powerful that for a moment, I can't speak. “On my finger.” Without planning to, I touch my dragon ring, twirling it slowly round my ring finger.

“Oh honey,” my mom says, shutting her eyes, “I'm so sorry.” When she picks up the story, her voice is barely a whisper. “We went straight to the hospital. The three of us. Your finger was badly broken.” She looks at my finger, shaking her head at the memory. “It was when we were waiting in Emergency that I knew for sure it was over between your father and me. It killed me that you were hurt—and that it was my fault.

“And now”—Mom's voice breaks—“it's happened again. This man, this Mick, he's hurt you…and I wasn't there to prevent it. Honestly, Iris, I don't know what I did wrong. I just don't know. I always did my best with you.”

It's Mrs. Karpman who finally tells Mom to cut it out. “Has it occurred to you, dear,” she says, “that this…this situation…isn't about you? It's about Iris.”

No one lets me get a word in. Maybe that's how interventions are supposed to work. Though I'm beginning to suspect this isn't exactly a textbook intervention.

I haven't always been good at standing up for myself. I realize I need to stand up for myself now. “All right then, listen up,” I say to all of them, and the determination in my voice seems to catch everyone by surprise. “I need you to leave. Now. All of you.”

Tommy is the first to get up from the couch.

Katie does not budge. “What about our intervention?” she asks. “Did it work?”

Mrs. Karpman pokes Katie in the elbow. “Give her time,” Mrs. Karpman tries to whisper, but we can all hear her.

Mom won't stop hugging me. “I love you so much, Iris. I'm so sorry for everything. I'm sorry I wasn't there to protect you. I'm sorry I wasn't more honest. Will you at least think about what we said?”

Ms. Odette moves the brochure closer to the edge of the coffee table.

Ms. Cameron sighs dramatically when she passes the hole Mick punched in the wall.

I agree to think about what they've said.

If I didn't, they might never have left.

CHAPTER 32

“
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain
To tell my story
.”
—HAMLET
, ACT 5, SCENE 2

I
toss Ms. Odette's brochure into the recycling box, careful not to look at the battered girl on the cover. Now all that's left from the intervention are two empty pizza cartons and the smell of Ms. Cameron's patchouli perfume. Just as I'm thinking how relieved I am to be alone, someone buzzes from the lobby. I decide not to answer, but whoever it is keeps buzzing.

I drag myself to the intercom.

“Yes,” I say.

“Iris, I need to come back upstairs.” It's my mom. What can she want from me now?

I sigh into the intercom, then buzz her in.

“I was halfway home when I realized I had to come back,” she says when we're sitting on opposite ends of Mick's leather couch. William Shakespeare has come out from under the couch, and now he leaps up onto it, settling himself on one of the zebra pillows.

“That's William Shakespeare,” I tell her. “He's mine.”

“He's beautiful,” Mom says.

William Shakespeare purrs at the compliment.

Mom starts to reach out for my hand, then folds her hands back in her lap. “I'm sorry about tonight, Iris. I know it must have been overwhelming with all of us barging in here the way we did.” She looks around the loft as if she can still see the others. I watch as her eyes linger for a moment on the print of the Bonsecours Market, which I hung back on the wall after everyone left.

“It was pretty bad.”

Mom looks down at her hands. “My parents tried to talk me out of marrying your father.”

“I take it you didn't listen.” I don't say what I'm thinking: that if she hadn't married him, I might never have been born.

“There's something you need to understand, Iris. I was crazy in love with him.” The words sound strange coming from my mom.
Crazy in love?
My mom is the least crazy person I know. She might as well have told me she is fluent in Swahili or moonlights as a belly dancer. When she looks up at me, her eyes are misty. “When we were together, the world changed for me. Things came alive in a way they never had before.” Mom smiles a little at the memory. “He wasn't a bad man, Iris, but he was bad for me. That's why I had to make him leave. And why I insisted that there be no contact between the two of you. He understood.”

Because I don't know what to say, I don't say anything. My father did not abandon me. He wanted to stay in my life, but that would have been too hard for my mom. He respected her wishes. Could that have been his gift to me?

Mom gets up from the couch. “I'm going to get out of your way now,” she says, tucking her purse under her arm. Before she goes, she kisses my forehead.

When I'm alone again, I go to stand by the window. I'm afraid that if I keep sitting on the couch, I'll hear the voices from the intervention in my head. From up here, the yellow lights from the streetlamps along Cavendish Boulevard make a golden chain.

I think about my mom and my dad. I try to picture them when they were my age.
Crazy in love. Not a bad
man. But bad for me. I had to make him leave.

What kind of man is Mick? I walk over to the table and pick up my cellphone. It's after 9:00
PM
. Why hasn't he phoned or texted? He knows I'm waiting for news from him. Maybe the Australian cell-phone network is down. No, that's a crazy idea. He'll phone soon. I know he will.