Her Name Is Rose (27 page)

“Ohhhhh, Iris.” Tess put her arms around her.

“I never told you, but Luke and I met her. It was a long time ago … I'm sorry she's dead.” Iris paused. “Tess, she was the real mother of my child.” Iris pulled away and shook herself, circling the island as if to shed the whole blooming thing, like it was something she could shake off and down, like autumn leaves stubbornly holding on to a tree.

“Stop. Iris! Don't say that. You're her—”

“If it wasn't so sad, it'd be funny.” Iris raised her hands and held her head, pressing against her temples. “It's so weird to feel sad for someone you never knew.” She took her long hair and twisted it around and around and fashioned it into a bun at the back of her head. At the sink she turned on the tap and splashed her face. Take control. Now. With her hands on the edge of the sink she looked out the window. The blue clematis was still flowering.

Tess was at her side and handing her a kitchen towel. “It's all right, Iris. It'll be all right. You'll see. I promise.”

Then Iris told about Grace and the odd guesthouse in the South End—“it was rather unconventional”—and she laughed a moment, and about the concert at Titus Sparrow Park, and the Berkshire Mountains.

She left out the part about Hector.

“I'm sorry you've been through all this on your own.”

“It's just, I'm frightened, Tess. Frightened of the future. Of death. For Rose. You know?”

They drank tea quietly, listening as a tractor passed below the garden along the road. Iris wasn't ready to tell any more. Cicero appeared and jumped onto the table. Iris picked him up and settled him on her lap. She knew Tess was looking at her, so she returned her gaze.

“So what about you? What's been going on? How are the boys? Sean?” She half listened as Tess gave a rundown of everybody's activities. Boys were done with soccer camp. (A great success.) She'd been at a conference on abused women. (The statistics are alarming.) And Sean was busy planning. (The music festival.) “Oh, that reminds me, Iris … Sean's wondering if you could help out, again?”

“Um, maybe. Sure. Remind me when it is?”

“This weekend.”

“This weekend? Oh. Right.” She'd forgotten about it. The annual midsummer music festival. “What does he want me to do?”

“You know. Your usual. Some flowers. But … maybe…” Tess frowned. “Forget it. What am I thinking? Listen. Never mind … you—” Tess took Iris's hand, making Cicero jump. “Let's wait and see what we find out at the clinic.”

*   *   *

Rose had left her mother a note telling her that she was
sooooo looking forward
to seeing her. And how crazy it was that Iris had disappeared off to America—of all places—and
without me
! Rose wrote she was gone to London because there was something she needed to take care of. Not to worry. And finally, that she'd gone with a friend. A new friend, and she would be home Thursday afternoon.
And P.S. Mum … you're going to be all right.

Tess came at half seven on Thursday morning to take Iris down to the Limerick Regional Hospital. They came in along the corridor and Iris saw the sign for Oncology and felt a sudden chill; it was where Luke had got his diagnosis. Tess took hold of her arm. “Come on, pet.” They had arrived in plenty of time for the nine o'clock appointment, but still had to wait, which neither minded because they knew some of the women were exiting having been told
I'm afraid it's not good news.

In the Breast Clinic ward they sat on hard, plastic chairs set out in rows in a waiting room in the public area. Tess quietly guided Iris in a breathing exercise, but she was unable to settle down. Her heart had a mind of its own and she couldn't stop herself from fearing the worst-case scenario. She might as well have been speaking her thoughts aloud because Tess turned to her and said, “Stop it Iris. Stop thinking ahead. We'll deal with it, whatever it is.”

“Of course. I know. You're right. Plenty of women recover from breast cancer.”

“Yes. They do. A very high percentage. I know it's because you lost Luke. And you're afraid of the word. Cancer. Say it out loud, Iris. Cancer. If there's cancer we'll beat it.”

“Mrs. Bowen? Iris Bowen?”

Iris started. She rose and walked a step away and turned back and held out her hand. “Please come in with me.”

“I don't know, Iris,” Tess whispered. “They probably won't let me.”

“Tell them you're a nurse.
Please.
”

Iris was shown into a small anterior office with a sliding curtain and an examination table and two chairs. And standing just inside the door was L with the magenta hair.

“Oh. It's you,” Iris said. She'd caught the woman by surprise.

“Yes, it's me. I work Monday and Tuesdays in Ennis. Wednesday and Thursdays here.”

“Nice to see you again. Can my friend come in with me?”

“I'm afraid not, Mrs. Bowen. She has to wait outside. It won't be long.”

“Please! She's a nurse, aren't you, Tess?”

Tess reached for Iris's hand in solidarity. “It'll be all right, pet. Really. I'm sure. I'll be right here.”

“Well, I'm not supposed to, but you know what? Go for it. You can stay,” L said to Tess, “but she has to go in to see the consultant on her own. Mrs. Bowen, if you'd take your top off and your bra and put this on.” She handed Iris the familiar blue paper cape. “I'll be back to take you in for an ultrasound. Just a few minutes.”

When L left the room, Tess raised her eyebrows. “Now, there's a free-looking spirit. That hair. And the nose ring.” Iris nodded, undistracted, turned around and duly undressed and covered up in the paper cape. Then she paced the room. Back and forth, left and right. “It's not me I'm concerned about, you know.”

“I know.” Tess kept her eyes steadily on Iris. “It's probably not the right time, and, please forgive me, but—”

“I know what you're going to say.”

“Do you?” Tess put a hand on Iris's back and made little circles like she was easing an ache. “Rose will be all right. She will be able to take care of herself. She has her own life to live, too.”

“But…”

“You can't prepare for every eventuality.”

“She'd have no family—”

“Maybe…” Tess looked at the floor, acknowledging the real possibility of something happening to her friend. She looked into Iris's eyes. “But
I'd
be there for her … and, eventually, she'd make a family of her own.”

“You don't understand. Rose is my life's work. I can't … leave … unfinished. I feel responsible in a way that you don't understand. You
can't
understand. I've disturbed the natural order of things.”

“That's crazy.”

“I'm not her real mother.”

“Iris!”

Iris resumed pacing. “Have you read the definition of ‘mother'? I have. I know it by heart: ‘A woman in relation to a child or children to whom she has given birth.' Why do you think they call birth parents the ‘natural parents'?” Iris's face was flushed. She lifted her hair away from her neck. The crepe paper cape made her feel hot and cold at the same time. She had never spoken like this. Not to Tess, anyway. Not to anyone. No one except Luke ever knew how Iris felt about being an adoptive mother. She carried on like normal but in her deepest self, she knew she was not like anyone else. Every other mother she knew was natural. She believed sometimes she was an imposter. It wasn't organic. She'd missed out on some essential hormone or something that comes with being pregnant. Some blueprint that gets downloaded to your hard drive. An invisible guidebook. Then you know without having to ask when to hold on and when to let go. It's a natural process. You just have to show up and do the right thing. She'd been showing up and doing the right thing all her life. But as an adoptive mother she had to go beyond that and yet she was missing the essential element—the how-to manual. She did her best to leave no stone unturned and had taken her responsibility as a parent as a matter of life and death.

Tess was stunned. Her eyes glossed. She was usually quick to respond but not now; now she was speechless. Iris was grateful her friend didn't rush in to fill the silence with platitudes. She'd heard so many of them down through the years. “You're so lucky you didn't have to go through morning sickness!” Or, “You didn't have to go through the pain of childbirth—you don't know how lucky you are!” To all such comments from well-meaning mothers, Iris simply and slowly nodded.

There were tears in Tess's eyes when she finally spoke. “Iris Bowen, you're the most natural mother I know.”

Just then L had returned. “This way, Mrs. Bowen. Please follow me.” The nurse held the door open. “I think you'll be fine, Mrs. Bowen. Really. And,” she smiled, “it's nice to see you again, too.”

A different nurse helped her up onto the examination bed and checked her name and birth date and the file. She patted Iris on the arm. The door opened and a woman dressed in heels and a dark skirt and white coat walked in.

“Hello, Mrs. Bowen, I'm Dr. Browne. I'll be performing the ultrasound.” The nurse prepared Iris's breast with gel, then stood by Iris's side and held her hand. The light from the monitor shined on the doctor's young face. Dr. Browne took the probe and rolled it over Iris's left breast with one hand. She stopped and clicked with the other on the keyboard. “Don't be alarmed, Mrs. Bowen, just taking pictures.” She stopped the probe, centering in on what Iris imagined must be the distortion, and clicked some more.

Even though the probe was cold, Iris felt as if she were being ironed. The doctor pressed hard and rolled the probe back and forth across her left breast. It hurt. Iris tried to imagine all the badness being pressed out of her, like wrinkles in her blue linen dress being steam cleaned, and all the crinkles and creases, corrugations and distortions being ironed away into faultless perfection. A terrifying few moments ensued as the doctor rolled and stopped and clicked. Iris shivered.

“Just want to make absolutely sure. These architectural distortions can be tricky things.” The doctor said nothing for the next little while and looked at the monitor. She replaced the probe and stepped back. She nodded to the nurse, who wiped Iris's breast clear of the gel and helped her sit up. The doctor waited while Iris adjusted the cape and moved to the edge of the examination table. “Let's keep an eye on that left breast.” She placed a hand on Iris's arm. “You've got some very busy breast tissue, Mrs Bowen.”

Iris began to cry.

“There's a lot going on in there.”

It seemed an age before the doctor added, “But I'm happy with what I see. You'll be fine.”

Iris looked at her. Then she called out: “Tess! Tess!” And without anyone's say-so, Tess burst into the room.

“Tell
her,
” Iris said to the doctor. “Tell her what you just said.”

And because Iris Bowen was not, on that day, someone you could deny, Dr. Browne said again: “She has some very busy breast tissue.”

“A lot going on in there,” Iris said.

“A lot going on in there,” repeated the doctor, nodding. “Yes.”

“But…” Tess said.

“But she'll be fine.”

“But I'll be fine.” Iris looked to Tess, who was coming to embrace her.

Iris dressed and on the way out of the clinic's waiting room, passing the half dozen anxious women awaiting their turn, she met L and smiled and went on through the door. As they headed along the hospital's wide corridor with its framed artwork on freshly painted honey-yellow walls, Iris said to Tess, “Hold on,” and Iris hurried back. She peeked in the door of the outer examination room. L was getting the next blue cape ready. “I'm sorry, but, may I ask? What is your name? It's been driving me crazy.”

“Latara. My name is Latara.”

“Nice to meet you.” And for no reason she could quite explain she grabbed Latara with the magenta streak. “Thank you,” she whispered. Iris released her hold and was off and out of the clinic so fast, Tess had to skip to keep up with her.

 

Sixteen

Rose arrives back home on Thursday. With Conor. She approaches through the gate and up the path that leads to the front door, but her mother doesn't rush to meet her as she expects. Only the cat does.

“Where is she?”

“Your mum?”

“You'd think she'd be here,” says Rose, turning the key. “Her car's here.” She stops at the door and looks around.

“Not being nosy or anything, but did you tell her what time you were coming back? Did you tell her about me—”

“No.” Rose looks at Conor with narrowed eyes. It's a look that stops him, but only for a moment. They walk into the kitchen. Iris's blue Wellies are neatly paired by the back door and propped against a tall vase of flowers on the counter is a note. As Rose begins to read, her face changes.

“What is it?”

“Her appointment. She's gone to the Breast Clinic with Tess. I didn't know it was today.”

Conor studies her. Then he waves her hair over her shoulder and leaves his hand on her back. He draws her toward him and she folds into his arms and buries her head. Rose and Conor have been together four days and three nights, but already they are so comfortable in each other's company that anyone seeing them would think they'd been together for years. Conor sits on the sofa in the kitchen and watches her now. “It'll be all right, Rosie girl.”

“Yeah,” she says, and she walks back the way they came in and opens the door for the cat. She lifts and holds him. “You want some milk, don't you, Cicero? Yes, you do. Yes, you do.” The cat tries to climb onto her shoulder while she pours out milk. Rose lets him drink from a saucer on the counter and plays with his tail.