“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.