Iris

Me an’ Bobby an’ my eight-year old daughter, Kylie, were staying with my sister. She got a double wide set up at the Shady Acres in Leb’non. It was real nice. Maybe there weren’t as much room with us being there and all, but we was doing okay. Ev’rybody was getting along pretty good, right up til Bobby lost his job. That’s when she put us out. All of us. Me. Bobby. An’ Kylie.

Bobby said he thought he could get work up in Nashville, so there’s where we went. It was getting on close to a week that we was just driving around and sleeping in the truck. All of us put up in the back of that rusted old pickup between the blankets we scrounged from anywhere we could find ‘em.

One night we parked down the lot in front of the Dollar General but the Metro Police run us outta there in a hurry. Fact was we were getting run outta ev’rywhere. Ev’ry night - night after night - so Bobby just kept driving around. That’s when we found the house.

It was a big, old house. Probably a fancy one back in its day. One built of dusty, faded brick, with a big wooden porch that went all the way around. It had spires, and balconies, and big old windows. Most of ‘em on the bottom floor was busted out. Some of ‘em was all boarded up. It musta been a long time ago 'cause a lot of ‘em looked worn an' gone to black.

It ain’t like we broke in or nothing. There weren't no lights on in the house, and even with it being pitch dark, we could see the front door was flung open. Bobby said it was just like an invitation, so we parked the truck a couple blocks over and hauled all our stuff in through the back door.

I put all the blankets we had and all the old quilts I could find - the ones that didn’t smell too bad anyways - down on the floor in the front room an’ made us all cozy sleeping bags. Then Bobby decided to build us a fire. He went out back and brought in a big piece of tin. A big tile of it, like from the roof or something. We put it up on some Brico Blocks he brought in ‘cause we didn’t wanna be starting the house on fire. Bobby got some old wood from the fireplace and brought in some more that was stacked up on the back porch. We had that fire goin’ good in no time. Then I tucked Kylie in and told her not to be going off and wandering around.

I musta fell hard to sleep 'cause I didn’t hear nothing. Not til the next morning when I woke up and couldn’t find Kylie. I got Bobby up and we looked all through the downstairs - in ev'ry room. I said to Bobby about looking upstairs, but he didn’t want to. He said he weren’t going up there - no how, no way. I was getting real nervous not knowing where Kylie was at, so I went up on my own.

The steps groaned under my ev'ry step, like they was half rotten, but I was real careful going up ‘em. All the dust and bugs - some dead and some not - were mashed into the old carpet. Little puffs of dust and God knows what all came up under my feet. It made me cough pretty hard, so I put my hand up over my nose and mouth.

The stairs came up into a long hallway with a big old window at the back end, and nothing’ but doors. I didn’t even bother to count ‘em. I just kept going down, trying ‘em all. Most of the rooms was locked. All except the one at the very front of the house. The door was hanging off the hinges on that one, and that’s where I found Kylie.

She was wrapped up in an old faded bedspread. It was covered with lace and embroidered with flowers. Most of ‘em had gone rotten, 'cause they fell away from my fingers when I got on my knees next to her and pulled it up.

She wiped her arm over her face and rubbed at her eyes. “Mama…?”, she whispered and put her finger up to her lips. “Shhh… Ya don’t wanna wake Memmy Iris.”

I looked around the room, but there weren’t nothing to see. “Who’s Memmy Iris?” I asked her.

“Shhh… She’s sleeping.”

I pulled Kylie up to her feet and held her in front of me. “You don’t wanna be talking about this to Bobby. Ya hear?”

She nodded, staring up at me with her big green eyes. “Okay, Mama.”

We watched Bobby pacing back and forth from the front room to the vestibule in front of the steps. “Wha’d I tell ya about going off like that, Kylie?” The tone in his voice was deep. Dark. His brows all pinched together and his face was set hard.

“Don’t you be talking like that to her, Bobby. She ain’t done nothing.”

“I’m fixing to go down to the store and get us something to eat. Ya got any money?”

I reached in the back pocket of my jeans. Pulled out a twenty. And handed it over to him when we got to the bottom of the steps.

“I’ll be back. Y’all stay put,” he said, stalking back towards the broke down kitchen, heading for the back door.

We didn’t follow him out. I took Kylie’s hand, leading her into the front room. “Tell me about this Memmy Iris, Kylie. She one of your haints or a friend ya cooked up in your head?”

Kylie brushed her wild blonde hair back from her face and looked at me. “Nah, Mama. She ain’t no haint. She’s the lady that owns this house. She lived here for years and years and years. But then she got a fever and turned into an angel.”

“Kylie, honey,” I said, settling her to the floor on top of our makeshift cot, “There ain’t no such thing as angels.”

“Is too, Mama. I’ll show ya…”

She ran off and up the steps before I could get a hold of her. I heard her footsteps going down the hall. Heard her talking, her voice low and sweet. But I couldn’t make it out. I waited.

In a minute or two she was back downstairs, perched on her haunches in front of me, holding out a small black notebook. “Look,” she whispered. “It’s Memmy Iris’s picture book. Ain’t she the prettiest, Mama…”

I took the book from her hand. The cover was soft, mildewed leather. The pages, yellowed with age, were splotched with gray mold. Some were inked in an elegant script that had long gone to ghost, but most of it was blank. I closed it gently and tucked it under the blankets just as we heard Bobby stomping back through the kitchen.

He had a six-pack of tall boys in one hand and a black plastic bag in the other. “Here,” he said, holding it out in front of us. “I gotcha some peanut butter and bread. Some Cokes, too. Figured it was good a’nuff for a while.” He dropped the bag in my lap and went off to the other room. The one I figured to be a grand dining room once upon a time.

Kylie looked up at me. Her lips quivering.

“Shhh…, “I said as I put my finger up to my lips.

She smiled.

I fixed Kylie a peanut butter sandwich, using the seal under the lid to spread a thick layer out over the bread, and cracked open one of the Cokes. “Here ya go, honey. You eat up. I’ll be right back.”

Bobby had fixed himself in the corner of the long room with his back up against the ornate wood paneling. He turned up the can of fortified beer and bubbled it down. “Ya want one?”

“Nah. Thanks. You have it. Me an’ Kylie, we're fixing to go upstairs and have a look around...”

“Well, why don’ya just,” he said, popping the top on another beer. “I’m gonna get myself some fortification an’ go see some guys I met. You be alright here for a while?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You go on.”

***

When Bobby left out, me an’ Kylie went up the stairs. “Memmy Iris said that Bobby ain’t my real daddy, Mama.”

I stopped mid step. “How would Memmy Iris know anything about this, Kylie?”

“She said he don’t smell right. That’s he’s going bad in a hurry an’ we gotta get gone from him. Get gone from him right quick.” She was six steps ahead of me when she turned around. “Come on, Mama. I know where the secret is. Memmy Iris said it’s something she been saving for you. Saving it for a real long time…”

I followed behind my young, innocent daughter. Down the long hall and into the front bedroom, thinking about things not smelling right and how Bobby was going bad in a hurry. Whoever this Memmy Iris was, she was right about that. I knew it, sure as shit. I just didn’t wanna face it. Didn’t wanna think about his drinking. How angry he was getting. And how it was all getting worse, day by day.

Kylie crossed the sunny room, running her fingers lightly over the faded floral paper on the walls, until she was clear on the other side of it. She had her fingers wrapped around an ornate brass door knob, fixed to a beautiful, carved oak door. “Come on, Mama. It’s just up here. Memmy Iris said we could have it. That it would sure be a’nuff for us to get a good start.”

I held the door and looked up into the darkened stairwell. The narrow, rough hewn steps looked like they led to an attic. Maybe the maid’s quarters back in the day. “Be careful, honey,” I whispered as we went.

The stairs opened to a rough, plastered room with one small window. A rope bed was set up against the far wall. An old wooden rocker sat in front of a small door with an old iron padlock fixed to it. Kylie got down on her knees in front of it. Took the lock in her hand and tugged. It gave way easily, and she turned, smiling brightly at me. “It’s in here, Mama. Come see.”

I knelt beside her and opened the door to a dusty cubby. A hiding place. The smell of the dry wood and something else - something like the scent of magnolias - filled my head. We crawled into the cramped space.

“Shhh… We’re here now, Memmy Iris. Me an’ Mama...”

Kylie sat still on her knees and looked up. I could make out a slow, warm smile creeping across her face, as if someone were telling her a magical story. She reached her hand into the shadowed corner and gently slid a worn black leather bag to her. “Look, Mama. Here it is.”

The black bag looked like a big, old doctor’s bag.

“Open it, Mama. Memmy Iris said you should open it.”

The catches gave way real easy, and I pulled the tabs, gentle-like, to open the top of the bag. It was filled with banded stacks of bills. Old money. Older than any I ever put my hands to. More than I ever laid eyes on. I pulled out one of the stacks and thumbed it slowly. It was all intact. I took out the rest of it and laid it out on the floor - all $20,000.00 of it.

The house shuddered just as we heard Bobby’s heavy, drunken steps and the slam of the back door.

“Memmy Iris said we ought to go, Mama. Go now and get gone. Once and for all.”