Maia stares at Irene and Irene is just sane enough to feel ashamed.
“You have Cash and Baker and Floyd,” Maia says. “You have Huck. He really likes you…he was in a terrible mood when you went back to the States, you know. And you have me.” She picks up her toast, butters and jams it, and holds it out to Irene. “And you have this papaya jam from Jake’s, which is one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. Try it.”
Irene accepts the toast—how can she not?—and takes a small bite. The jam is…well, it’s delicious.
“Good, right?” Maia says.
Irene nods and takes another small bite.
“You can start a new Pinterest board,” Maia says. “And the first thing on it can be the papaya jam from Jake’s.”
If only it were that easy, Irene thinks. She knows Maia is right; Irene still has what matters. Her family. Her friends. Her health. Her good sense, sort of.
“We aren’t going to leave,” Irene says. She doesn’t add Because we have nowhere to go. This isn’t strictly true, anyway. Baker still owns a house in Houston that is untouched by Russ’s tainted money. And Irene’s elderly aunt Ruth has their family summer home in Door County. But the thought of moving to Houston or living with her eighty-something-year-old aunt isn’t at all appealing. “We’ll figure something out.”
“You can stay here,” Maia says. “And you don’t have to sleep on the couch—we have an extra room. My mom’s room.” She takes a bite of eggs and seems to realize what she has just offered.
“The couch is fine for now,” Irene says quickly. “And I’ll find something. I’m not completely penniless.”
Maia swallows. “Gramps told me I could move into my mom’s room. That means you can have my room.”
“Oh, Maia…”
“It’s a mess, I know,” Maia says. “But I’ll clean it after school. I’m grounded anyway.”
That’s right; Maia is grounded. She’d pulled a disappearing act last night after lying to Cash to get him to drop her off in town. That drama now seems extremely minor, like running out of dinner rolls on the Titanic.
“You don’t have to move on my account,” Irene says, though there is obviously no way she’s going to sleep in Rosie’s room. “The couch is fine.”
“I want to move,” Maia says. “You being here is a good impetus.” She scrunches up her eyes. “Did I use that word correctly?”
Irene can’t help herself; she halfway smiles. “You did.”
“So you’ll stay?”
It’s not in Irene’s nature to accept help from anyone, but she can’t turn down such a sweet offer—besides which, she is the definition of desperate. “I’ll stay until I get back on my feet.”
Suddenly, Huck is before them, dressed in his sky-blue fishing shirt and his visor, a yellow bandanna tied around his neck. “I’m glad that’s settled,” he says.
As Irene is standing at the window watching Huck’s truck wind its way down Jacob’s Ladder, her phone rings. It’s Lydia. Irene hovers her finger over the screen. She would like to stay here, in a space where there’s still a filament of hope. Maybe Agent Kenneth Beckett, who came to search the Church Street house a few weeks earlier, has intervened on Irene’s behalf. There’s always a good FBI agent in the movies, right? One who sees past the letter of the law to what’s authentically right and wrong? Irene didn’t do anything wrong. She doesn’t deserve to lose her home.
“Lydia?” Irene says.
“It’s been seized,” Lydia says. “They have a sign on the door and a team has just arrived to remove the contents. I asked to see the warrant, and what do I know, but it looked official. The guy called the house the ‘fruit of crime.’”
Irene’s stomach lurches and she fears she’s going to vomit. Remove the contents. The “fruit of crime.”
“What about the things that are mine?” Irene asks. “What about the things I bought with my salary from the magazine? What about the things we owned before Russ took the job at Ascension?”
“I don’t know,” Lydia says. “We’re sitting across the street in my car. Should I go ask?”
Irene tries to imagine Lydia asking these complicated questions. But the agents must get asked about this sort of thing constantly, every time they dismantle someone’s life.
“Please ask if you can get one thing,” Irene says. “A photograph of Milly. It’s in the navy-blue guest suite, hanging above the washstand.”
“Photograph of Milly, navy guest room, above the washstand,” Lydia repeats. “I’ll ask right now. You stay on the phone. Here, talk to Brandon.”
No! Irene thinks. She is in no mood to make small talk.
“Hey, Irene,” Brandon says.
“Good morning, Brandon.”
There’s the predictable awkward pause. Brandon clears his throat. “So, this is a bummer, huh?”
A bummer is when Iowa loses to Iowa State. It can maybe be stretched to include a flat tire, a loose filling that results in having to get a root canal, and flunking your driver’s test. What’s happening to Irene is not a bummer. It’s a…well, frankly, she lacks the right word.
“Yes,” she says. “Yes, Brandon, it is.”
Her tone must discourage further conversation because Brandon says, “Hang in there.”
A few moments later, Lydia takes the phone. “Here’s exactly what happened. First, he asked if I was your lawyer. I should have said yes, but I didn’t think fast enough. I told him I was your friend and that all I wanted was one family photograph. I told him I knew where it was and that he could come with me while I retrieved it.”
“What did he say?”
“He said no.”
Irene needs to hang up. She needs to call Ed Sorley, her attorney, although Ed will be in way over
