He says this sincerely, and I don’t for a moment imagine he could be lying. I’m not saying my instincts about people are never wrong, but they’re only wrong if some prejudice on my part interferes with their natural operation. My instinct about Sumner Fox is that he’s a straight shooter. If I were going to trust any FBI man, I would trust him.
But I’m not going to trust an FBI man. I know what I know, after all.
“I appreciate the lift home, Mr. Fox. I do hope I didn’t ruin your evening.”
“Not at all. Take some aspirin and get some rest. And try not to worry so much about your sister.”
“Who said I was worried?”
“You did.” He tips his hat and steps back. “We’ll find her, never fear. Good night, Miss Macallister. You’ve still got my card, if you hear anything?”
I pat my pocketbook. “Right here.”
My apartment is not the kind of shabby shoebox you ordinarily associate with single Manhattan career girls. If you must know, it used to belong to my parents. I grew up in this apartment and, since neither my brother nor my sister ever had any use for it, haven’t set foot within its walls in years, I had it redecorated ten years ago according to my own taste. The room we once called a dining room has been converted into a library. Harry’s room I kept as it was, because Harry’s the kind of brother who might turn up at any moment after a decade’s absence and expect his dinner kept warm and his scotch with ice. The room I once shared with Iris became a spare bedroom for theoretical guests, and my parents’ bedroom now belongs to me.
But I can’t sleep yet. How can I sleep with my nerves in such a fizzle? I run a bath and sink gratefully into the warm water with a cigarette and a glass of Alka-Seltzer. I instruct myself not to think about Iris, but when my eyes close, there she is. All this time I’ve banished her without effort, and now that I need her gone—absolutely must be clear of Iris for my own peace of mind—she won’t leave me alone.
I have twenty-two years crammed full of memories of Iris, but she keeps appearing to me from her hospital bed in Rome, after the accident. She was a mess. Bruises everywhere, one eye socket so black and puffy you couldn’t make out the eyeball within, to say nothing of the broken ankle and various bandages stuck upon her body, so that she resembled a half-finished mummy. She was asleep when I came in, but her eyes opened the instant I came to the bed. She smiled bravely because she didn’t want me to worry. “I’m sorry,” she sort of croaked.
Sorry!
I don’t cry much, and I certainly wasn’t in the messy habit in those years. What a waste of time—what a crummy way to spend an afternoon. But I came within a kitten’s whisker of breaking down in that moment. Iris was sorry! She was sorry to have occasioned all this trouble. She took the blame on her delicate shoulders.
You understand, therefore, that Iris and I are not estranged because she failed me in some unforgivable way. Iris would never fail anybody. There is not one disloyal bone in her body, not one atom of her that would not sacrifice itself for your sake. People might call that weakness, but I’ve always envied her for it, if I’m honest with myself and with you. She will never stagger under the weight of guilt, as I do—she will know regret, which is the lot of all mankind, but not because she’s done anything to hurt you.
By the time I rise from the bath, dripping and wrinkled, it’s practically dawn. Saturday, thank goodness, so I don’t need to trouble myself about work. I brush my teeth and spread the cold cream over my face and find a clean pair of pajamas in the chest of drawers. The air in the bedroom is warm and stuffy and humid from the bath. I open a window and pull back the covers, and as I begin the ascent into bed my toe discovers something flat.
I glance at the floor. Just under the edge of the bedframe lies the snapshot Iris enclosed in her letter.
I take my time examining them, these nephews and niece I’ve never met. Iris’s kids. Their features are blurred, as if the photographer moved his hand at the exact instant of the shutter’s opening. Still, you can gather in the grosser details. Their hair glimmers in various states of blondness, like their father, and their neat, old-fashioned clothes are exactly the kind of uniform I imagine Iris would dress them in.
My finger touches the small, glossy rectangle and traces the outline of a face, a tiny ear, a smear of hair so blond it might be white. A hand that clutches the fingers of the little boy who stands next to her, whose face seems to have been caught in the act of turning toward her to say something. A smocked dress that comes just to her knees, and the plump little knees themselves, and the white socks with the ruffle and the black Mary Jane shoes, like the ones I used to wear when I was small.