Page 48 of Next Time Will Be Our Turn
My brain was still so fogged with interrupted sleep and so preoccupied with anxiety for our parents that it took a second for me to register who my sister was. “Iris?”
“Unless you have another sister I don’t know about,” Parker muttered before flopping back into bed. He’d met Iris only twice—once at the Sangjit and the other time at our wedding—and though he didn’t say a single bad word about her, I knewhe’d taken one look at her and thought she was way too Americanized.
I put the phone to my ear and said, “Iris?” my voice full of uncertainty.
“Hey, Sis.” She sounded chirpy, her usual self, but I detected a tremor under the words. A shakiness that made my spine tingle. I got out of bed.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing’s wrong,” she chirped once more in that awful, cheery, brittle way. “Just—I was wondering, could I maybe—” Her voice broke then, and she covered it with a laugh.
“Iris, come to my house.”
“What?” Parker said, raising himself up on his elbow. I ignored him.
“Oh,” Iris said, “I don’t think—”
“Now. I’ll wait up.”
There was a thick silence. I didn’t breathe. I had a feeling Iris and Parker didn’t either. Then she said, “Okay,” and hung up the phone.
“What was that all about?” Parker said. I ignored the undercurrent of displeasure in his voice and made my way to the bedroom door.
“Something’s wrong. She needs me.” But once I heard the words coming out of my mouth, I felt ridiculous. Since when did Iris need me? Since when did she need anybody? But I couldn’t shake off the tension in my shoulders, the way my scalp had crawled at that strange note in Iris’s voice. I went downstairs and turned on the lights, blinking at the sudden brightness, unsure what to do. It wouldn’t take her too long to get here sincethere was no traffic. I made my way into the kitchen and started boiling some water. She’d probably want a hot drink. Chamomile tea. Yes, that would be good.
“What are you doing?” Parker appeared at the doorway, scratching his head and yawning.
“I’m making some tea for Iris.”
He shook his head. “Does this—is this something she does often?”
I bristled but did my best to hide my annoyance. “No. She’s never asked me for help before. Which is how I know she really needs me now.”
Parker’s expression turned soft, and he walked toward me and put his hands on my shoulders. “Oh, geez. I’m sorry, Maggie. Are you okay?”
All traces of my irritation at him melted away and I sank against his reassuring form. “I’m worried.”
“Don’t be. Whatever it is, we’ll handle it together. There’s nothing Iris can do or say that’ll—”
The anger flared up again, hot and fast as lightning, and I pulled away from him. “Why do you assume it’s something she’s doing or saying? Something could’ve happened to her.”
Parker raised his hands in a nonthreatening manner, which only made me feel like a crazy bitch. “That wasn’t what I meant at all. Sorry, I phrased it badly, I know.”
“It’s fine. I’m just anxious.” I turned back to the pan, watching the water come to a boil and breathing deeply, willing myself to calm down.
The doorbell rang then. I quickly turned off the stove and rushed to the front door, grabbing the front gate remote to open it. Instead of waiting at the porch, I walked briskly to the frontgate as it slid open, revealing Iris’s silhouette, limned in moonlight. Despite the big pregnant belly, she looked so tiny. I couldn’t see her face in the dark, but something told me that things were seriously, irreparably wrong. Maybe it was the way she was breathing—short, shaky breaths. Or maybe it was the way she stood, like it hurt to be on her feet. Or maybe it was the fact that she carried nothing with her, no handbag or anything. I took her arm and led her to the house without another word.
It was only once we were inside that I could actually see my sister’s features, and the sight of them made me freeze. Even Parker, who’d been waiting in the doorway, looked shocked. I thought of a beautiful blank canvas filled with possibility. Then I thought of a careless hand splashing that white space with ugly, angry colors—dark eggplant, aging green, suppurating yellow. That was Iris’s face, covered all over with furious bruises. Her mouth was swollen, her left eye could barely open, and there was a trickle of dried blood under her nose.
“Iris—” The word was a choked prayer. What could I have said in that moment that might make anything even the slightest bit better for her?
“What happened?” Parker said.
Iris shrugged. When she finally met my eye, she looked nothing like the Iris I knew. Gone was the defiance and the fire. All I saw was exhaustion, defeat. “Erik happened,” she said, and I’d never hated anyone as much as I hated Erik in that moment.
“Do you want us to take you to the hospital?” Parker said.
Iris shook her head. “I don’t think anything’s broken.”
