She could not recall when she had last laughed. About what?
On that board, there were no pictures of any of her husbands. It was as if her life had stopped when she’d left this silent, still house. And she’d come back to it as a ghost.
Iris opened one of the room’s windows to TEXAS’s February-fresh mildness. They were due a norther. Maybe if she opened all the windows, the house would be refreshed and shake itself back to ‘life?
What about her? Could she then begin to breathe and again be the woman who had left here to move to San Antonio to go to Incarnate Word College? That was...several lifetimes ago.
No.
She could not go back in time. But she couldn’t find the motivation to get herself to go forward. She was lost. She would never marry again. It was too awful to have a partner who failed in the sworn commitment of “from this day forward.” Why had she buried three such good young men?
At twenty-four, she was older now than either of her first two husbands. Iris and her husbands’ families would never know what sort of men they would have become, what careers they would have chosen or what their children could have been.
Her tears welled.
She knew she would never again marry. She could not stand to be another man’s widow. She was a curse. The realization, the clarity of their unfulfilled lives had caught up with her and overwhelmed her to the point that she didn’t know how to cope. Therefore she withdrew. She was in a capsule of her own making. In there she was alone, and it was silent.
With chidings and scoldings, people tried to drag her out. She endured. But she would withdraw as soon as she could manage it in a careful, subtle way.
Her mother watched her. Her daddy was impatient with her and scolded...her mother. But her mother said, “Leave her be for a while. This has been the straw.” She was referring to the straw piled on the straw that finally broke the camel’s back.
How could her mother realize so exactly the burden of grief Iris carried?
Her sisters’ reactions were split between compassion and irritation. They would scold her and try to bring her out of her shell. They weren’t successful.
Despite his busy life, her young brother would sit with her in silence, demanding nothing of her. He was there. He fixed a car part. He wrote a letter. He watched TV. He studied. He was there for her.
She really didn’t notice.
Their friends in Fuquay were very kind and thoughtful of Iris. They were also nosy, but they were reasonably subtle about it. Just that Iris had had three husbands was enough to irritate any number of her unmarried female friends.
Iris’s high school chum Marla’s response was simple. She had twins and she’d hand one of them to Iris—to distract her.
Holding the wiggly baby only made Iris think that none of her three husbands had left her a part of him. “We got time,” they each had said. They’d be logical. “What’s the rush?” “Let’s spend this time with it being just us.”
And it was. Except that, now, she was alone. Alone in the midst of her ordinary, busy family. So alone was Iris in her silence, she could hear the air pop. And she watched the clock. That baffled everyone. If she couldn’t see her watch or the clock, she asked, “What time is it?”
They’d inquire with puzzled interest, “You going somewheres?”
Her glance would come to theirs and she’d say, “No.”
“You waiting for a program on TV?”
“No.”
She confused them.
She wanted time to get on past. She had nothing to do that was important enough to help with it. So she depended on a clock to get it done...to get the time past.
Their neighbor at the ranch down the road, Austin Farrell, wanted to be Iris’s fourth husband. He’d been named for Stephen F. Austin who had brought settlers to TEXAS long, long ago. Well, in TEXAS history, it was a long time. Actually it wasn’t yet two hundred years.
Austin Farrell was a heel-dug, obstinate, good man almost thirty. He was about six feet tall and had land that was productive; and it was all paid for, even the taxes. His eyes were a gray that was strangely blue, and his face was tanned under his Stetson. He wanted Iris. He was a TEXAN. He’d get her.
However, Iris had come to feel like the poisonous Lucrezia Borgia, duchess of Ferrara. That title was shockingly close to Austin’s last name. The Duchess had lived in Italy from 1480-1519. In that time, Lucrezia had dispatched any number of lovers.
Iris Smith Osburn Dallas Alden felt similarly deadly. However, she hadn’t even needed the poison. She herself was the curse. And she didn’t want another dead husband.
Not knowing her mother was a party to Austin’s plans, Iris declined his invitation to go to a play when he arrived at the house one day to visit.
He said, “The play has a funny story, and it’ll make you laugh.”
The idea of laughing at anything was so incredible that Iris gave Austin a glance to see if he was serious.
He was.
So Iris replied bitterly, “I’m the TEXAS version of Lucrezia Borgia. Look what I’ve done to three good husbands.”
Although his eyes squinted just a little bit in compassion, Austin was gently, rather aloofly chiding. “I just asked if you’d like to go with me over to San Antone to the play at the Majestic Theatre. I haven’t yet asked to marry you.”
Iris looked at Austin suspiciously.
He smiled a little and suggested, “Who would you like along as chaperone?”
Iris was distracted. But her mother was leaning in the doorway, listening, and she told Iris, “You really ought to go to the play.” Edwina Smith was a smart woman. She understood Iris’s baffled reaction, and she had offered Iris an opinion.
Iris considered Austin. He’d told her to pick a chaperone. She mentally shuffled through her acquaintances. She chose Violet who was too shy to flirt. This would be good practice for her friend Violet.
Iris told Austin, “Violet. And teach her to flirt. Help her.”
Austin’s heart faltered and he glanced over at Edwina Smith for courage. Iris’s mother smiled the tiniest bit. But it was a sad smile.
Austin became staunch. He’d explain the circumstances to Violet and help her to meet any male she might cotton to.
Iris did go to the play. They doubled. Austin and his friend, Bud, escorted the two...flowers, Iris and Violet. That they were so named was cause for drollness. The women had grown up together and were used to it.
To Austin’s displeasure, Bud made a move for Iris!
Austin growled, “It’s to Violet that you’re supposed to be paying attention. You leave Iris alone.”
Bud smiled.
Austin spent the first part of the evening switching Iris to his other side and blocking Bud’s advances. Austin told Bud that old hack, “You’ve got great teeth.”
Bud smiled toothily.
And gently Austin added, “I’d hate for anything to happen to them.”
The twenty-six-year-old Bud’s eyes narrowed as he considered how much of a threat a mature man, who was almost thirty, would be.
Austin smiled rather widely.
Bud noted the chipped tooth in Austin’s smile and remembered how he’d gotten it. He happened to notice all the scars