Kim heard a funny noise. For a moment she wasn’t certain what it was, and then realized the sound was of her own humming. It was an old John Denver song, Rocky Mountain High, but it wasn’t the song that was as remarkable as the fact that she was humming. It was something she used to do when she was happy.
For the first time in a long time she realized that she was happy. She had come to love the Sunflower Coffee and Tea Company. As sorry as she was that Iris was stuck in bed, it was nice to be trusted enough to run the bakery, and even better, she knew she was doing a great job.
The customers liked her, the work was satisfying, and with Iris’s permission, she had even introduced Nanaimo bars, a layered concoction of a chocolate and coconut base, a middle layer of thick custard and a final topping of chocolate. The bars were from her native Canada and had been pretty popular at the family barbecue. She thought, if she stayed here long enough, she might even try baking maple sugar cookies but she didn’t want to push too hard too fast with the cross-border baking.
She visited Iris every day after she closed the bakery. Iris had plenty of friends and family so it wasn’t that she lacked visitors, but the Sunflower Coffee and Tea Company was her baby and her passion and she enjoyed hearing the stories of the funny things that happened in the bakery as well as a tally on sales.
Dosana still did all the ordering and Geoff popped in when he could to keep an eye on things but she knew that Iris liked to hear about all the little dramas that played out each day. “It makes me feel like I’m still part of the bakery.”
“Oh, believe me, you are.” Kim pulled out from her bag yet another greeting card from one of the customers who missed Iris along with a teddy bear. She set it on the table amongst all the other greeting cards and flowers and plush animals. There were always fresh flowers. As one lot drooped another seemed to take its place. And there always seemed to be someone named Chance helping out around Iris’s house. At this very moment, the muffled sound of a vacuum cleaner hummed from downstairs, and when she’d said her hellos as she walked in, she’d discovered Marguerite on the phone to Rose, giving the Portland GP the daily update. She’d never seen a family that worked so well together and she experienced a tinge of envy.
Beneath the covers of Iris’s bed, she could see that the mound of her pregnancy was growing nicely. Following her gaze, Iris patted her own belly and said, “Today’s a big day. I officially passed the thirty-five week mark. If I can hold the suckers in one more week it will be considered full-term.”
“That’s great. How are you feeling?”
Iris’s hand rubbed absently up and down her belly. “I feel fat, overwhelmed, and scared.” She shifted uncomfortably. “And I swear these two are going to be fighting all the time. I think that’s all they do in the womb. Fight all day.” She took Kim’s hand and placed it on her belly. “Can you feel them?”
She laughed, softly. “Feel them? It’s like a whole litter of puppies rolling around in there. Are you sure it’s only two?” she teased.
Iris groaned. “I can only handle two.” And then she nibbled her lip. “In fact, I’m not even sure I can handle two. Or even one! I don’t know how to be a mother at all.”
“I think it’s one of those jobs where the babies provide on-site training.” She patted Iris’s belly and withdrew her hand. “You’re going to be fine.” She hesitated and then said, “Back home, I’ve seen plenty of women give birth who are a lot less ready than you are. Somehow, they figure it out. You will too.”
“You never talk about your background.”
She was sorry now that she’d said anything at all. “It’s really not very interesting.”
“Compared to, say, lying here in bed all day every day? You think your story’s not interesting? Trust me. I’m fascinated. I’ve watched all seven seasons of The Good Wife on Netflix, gobbled up Scandal, even though I’d already seen it when it came out. I think I got through The Gilmore Girls in a week. Trust me, I need a new story.”
And she thought, why not? She and Iris were friends, and Iris had a way about her that made a person want to unload their problems, share their secrets. “I would really appreciate it if what I tell you went no further.”
Iris looked first puzzled and then concerned. “Okay.”
She gazed out of the window and saw pretty trees that were part of an orderly neighborhood surrounded by nicely kept houses.
“I never tell people about my past. I am seriously trusting you.” And maybe it was time.
“You can, you know.”
She drew in a breath and said, “My dad was a draft dodger. He settled in a little town in British Columbia, near Nelson. He had a buddy up there who’d told him about the place.” She began to tell the story that shamed her to her core. “They started a grow op. Back before they were even called grow ops. A few more of their friends moved up and they began buying up acres of land and growing cannabis. It’s what our family lived on. Black market marijuana.” After marijuana started to be legalized, she’d hoped her dad would retire. But he was too used to the easy money. Her mother was close-lipped about his activities, but Kim was worried that branched out. She couldn’t condone his behavior and she couldn’t turn him in, so she felt stuck between loyalty and conscience. Every time she read about an overdose she wondered where the victim got their drugs from.
“Wow.”
“My mom is a lot younger than my dad. She came up to visit and they hooked up.” Her mind drifted back to the life she had left. “They didn’t have as many kids as your folks, only six. I’m the oldest, so I always helped out. Where we grew up, you kept to yourself. I was taught from an early age the cops were the enemy. They didn’t even let doctors come out to our property. I can’t think of one woman in our circle who went to a hospital to have her baby. They had them at home.”
Iris had both hands on her belly now. “It sounds like it was awful.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t know any better. And one thing’s for sure, you get pretty good at doing for yourself. I’ve helped birth a lot of babies. My first aid skills are pretty good. I can stitch up a cut if it’s not too bad. And, of course, I’ve been baking since before I could read.”
“It’s like you time-travelled from the time of the early settlers or something.”
“Sometimes I feel like that. We lived like the Amish, without their decency.”
Iris suddenly reached out and put a hand on her knee. “It wasn’t your fault. You were a little kid.”
“I know but, now that I’m older, I see the evil that drugs do. Drug money clothed me and fed me. Anyway you look at it, I was part of that.”
“I made the mistake of tracking down my birth parents.” At Kim’s surprised glance she said, “Jack and Daphne made a rule that if we wanted to know if we were their natural children or adopted that we had to wait until we were sixteen. Then it was up to us. So, when I was sixteen, I asked. Mom, Daphne, cried when she told me and I think I cried too.”
“That must have been so hard for you both.”
Iris nodded. “I found my birth parents and let me say that the best thing they did was give me up.” She shook her head as though she could shake off a bad memory. “But what if my mom hadn’t? I’d have been raised with a single mom who only got pregnant to try and get her married lover to leave his wife and move in with her. Didn’t work out the way she planned it, but it could have. I was so lucky to end up where I did. I think you have to accept that you didn’t have a choice. You got through a tough childhood the best way you could and now you live your own life.”
“But my family, all our friends’ families, they’re criminals.”
Iris gazed at her steadily. “Is that why you’re so weird around James?”
When Iris mentioned her brother’s name, Kim felt the longing for James that she couldn’t ignore. He was the last man she could have, and the only one she wanted. “Like I said, my whole life I’ve been taught to stay far away from cops.”
“James is a good man. He’d understand that whatever your parents do it’s not your fault.” A troubled expression crossed Iris’s face. “If only his partner–“
“If only his partner what?”
Iris shook her head. “Not my story to tell. I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m not myself today.”
She wanted to press, to try and find out more about what had happened to James’s partner. She had a bad feeling that it wasn’t a story with a happy ending, but Iris shifted again, clearly uncomfortable. “The babies feel so heavy.”
"How many weeks along did you say you are?" She'd seen that look on a woman's face before. It was a kind of inward -looking, pensive expression that suggested to Kim that those squirming babies were getting ready to make an early entrance into the world.
“Thirty-five weeks.”
"When is your next appointment with the OB/GYN?"
Iris shifted again, and for a moment Kim wasn't certain that she'd heard her. Then she said, "Monday, I think. Maybe Tuesday." She shifted again. "My back hurts. I think it's from lying here so much. My muscles are probably atrophying."
Kim didn't stay much longer, and when she went downstairs, she found Daphne in the kitchen arranging dark purple spears of Iris in a tall vase. She glanced up when she saw Kim and her blue-green eyes lit up as she smiled her big, welcoming smile. "I know she doesn't need more flowers, but I saw these at the market today and, well, they are not only very pretty but her namesake flower."
"I'm sure they will cheer her up."
Daphne dropped her tone to an almost conspiratorial whisper and said, "Look what else I have." From a plain brown paper bag she withdrew two tiny layette sets exquisitely knitted. One was yellow and the other white. "I could not resist. Do you think I can give them to her now? I know we agreed not to have a baby shower until after the babies are born, but I don't think it's bad luck to give these to her now, do you?"
Kim could not remember a time when she had felt so included. It was like this big happy Chance family had simply accepted her into their fold, when she was only Iris's employee. And now, here was Daphne asking her advice, as though she were Iris's intimate friend instead of a woman who'd only been working here a couple of months.
She picked up a pair of the yellow knitted booties. "They're so tiny. You can never quite believe that a little human being will fit into these."
Daphne nodded. "And then they'll grow out of them so fast your head will spin, but I am grabbing my grandmother's right to buy foolish and impractical baby gifts."
She thought about Iris upstairs with her aching back and restlessness and said, "I think you should give them to her today. I'm not as experienced as you are, I've never had a baby of my own, but I don't think the babies are going to wait much longer."
Daphne had a way of looking at her as though she could see behind Kim's façade to the frightened little girl she still was deep inside. She said, "I think you are someone who sees a great deal more than she lets on.”
She didn't say anything at all just continued to trace the pattern of the tiny yellow booty in the palm of her hand.
“You’ve helped Iris more than just in the bakery and we all know it. You may not want to hear this, but you’re fast becoming one of us. Like family.”
She shook her head. “I could never be part of your family.” She heard the sadness behind her words and probably Daphne could too.
"A family is more than a collection of matching DNA. Our kids came to us in a variety of ways, but every one of them belongs. Who’s to say you don’t belong here, too?"
Kim glanced up at her in surprise. She was more and more convinced that this woman actually could read minds. If she hadn't just left Iris, after telling her about her own history, she'd have believed that Iris had blabbed all her secrets to her mom. But, obviously that wasn't the case. Somehow, Daphne had seen through her to the lost little girl who was still trying to find her place in the world.
She placed the booties carefully back on the white tissue they'd been wrapped in and said, "Your kids were very lucky. Every one of them."
Daphne rewrapped the tiny bundles of clothing and replaced them inside the bag. "We were all lucky."
She wanted to ask more questions, to imagine for a moment what it would've been like growing up with Jack and Daphne as parents, but before she could form her first question, Geoff walked in carrying reusable cloth bags heaping with groceries.
"Hello, ladies!" He announced cheerfully. Emerging from one of the bags was a string-tied bundle of purple irises.
He glanced at the irises Daphne had just finished placing in the vase and his grin widened. If ever a man had looked pleased with himself and happy about his impending fatherhood, Geoff had to be that guy. "Great minds," he said.
Daphne was folding over the rim of the bag containing the knitted layettes, Geoff was heading for the kitchen counter beside the fridge and Kim was thinking she should leave, when all of them froze at the sound of a strangled scream.
Geoff dropped both bags of groceries from nerveless hands and began to sprint for the stairs.
"Oh my God!" Daphne whispered before following her son-in-law. Kim hesitated for a second, then grabbed her cell phone and also headed for Iris. As she left the kitchen, she stepped over the groceries. A gallon jug of milk now lay on top of the cheerful purple irises.
When she reached Iris's room, her pounding heart eased a little as she immediately took in the situation. Iris was leaning on Geoff, her face flushed and her breath coming in pants. "I think my water broke."
Daphne said in a wavering voice, "Oh, honey. It's time."
Geoff held his wife, in her damp nightgown, as though she were the most precious thing in the world. "Let's get you to the hospital."
Kim came into the room quietly and said, "Why don't I help Iris get into some dry clothes, and you call ahead to the OB/GYN so she can meet you at the hospital?"
They all looked at her. Iris nodded. "I do not want to show up at the hospital in a dripping nightgown. There are some dry sweats in the middle drawer."
Geoff was already reaching for his cell phone. "I'll call ahead."
"What should I do?" Daphne asked, looking at Kim.
"I think you should call your husband and tell him he's about to be a grandfather. And then maybe let the rest of the family know."
"Right." Daphne stepped towards Iris and patted her shoulder. “You'll do great. And as soon as the babies are born, we'll be waiting to welcome them into our family."
Iris fell into her mother's arms. "I’ve wanted this day for so long, I can't believe it's finally here."
They were on their way within ten minutes, Iris looking nervous but excited as Geoff helped her to the car. Daphne waved them goodbye and then got on the phone. Kim picked up the dropped groceries and put them away. The flowers weren’t too bad. She threw away the two broken stems and added the rest to the vase Daphne had already partially filled.
“Please let Iris and her babies be all right,” she whispered aloud.