Into the Sunshine: Of Love and Loss Series Book Two

28

A woman gently touched Iris's right shoulder. "You all right, honey?" she asked, her voice weathered and threaded with compassion and kindness.

Iris flinched. A lie perched on the tip of her tongue as she anxiously wiped her wet cheeks before turning to look at the woman.

Recognition and shock flashed in the wrinkled hazel eyes staring back at her, mirroring the latter emotion twisting Iris's roiling stomach.

"Maxine?" Iris said, her voice a low, raspy whisper.

"Mrs. Cooper?" The older lady replied, nodding. Except for a few wild curls, her salt and pepper hair was pulled in the same severe chignon Iris had seen daily during her stay at Pine Ridge. "Why, of all the people I never expected to..." Maxine paused, the concern and empathy in her eyes growing. "Perhaps you'd rather I returned to my seat? I'm sorry to intrude. It's just you looked and sounded so inconsolable, I couldn't—"

"I'm fine, really," Iris murmured, her voice tight as she fought to contain another sob.

"Oh, phooey," Maxine said, waving her hand dismissively and sitting in the empty seat beside Iris. "If I've come to know anything for certain after working in the hospital the past thirty years, it's that anyone using that phrase is most assuredly anything but fine."

Iris gnawed on her bottom lip to keep the telltale tremble from showing. But the action did nothing to stop the tears streaming down her face in a continual river of emotion. They sat in silence save for the train's rumbling chug-a-chug, the air thick with unspoken questions and memories.

Finally, Maxine offered a crisply folded hanky with a delicate, tatted edge and a monogrammed 'M' in the corner. "It's clean," she murmured.

Sniffling, Iris took it and dried her face and eyes, oddly soothed by the familiar scent of rose water imbued in the soft cloth. "Thank you," Iris said, handing it back.

Maxine shook her head and folded her hands in her lap. "Keep it, dear. I've plenty more where that came from," she replied, studying Iris. "Conversation, silence, solitude, or touch?"

"One," Iris surprised herself by quietly saying, turning to face the older woman.

A curious smile slowly creased Maxine's face.

"What's that look for?" Iris murmured, frowning.

"You surprised me. I was sure you'd say three just to be rid of me."

"The thought did cross my mind."

Maxine chuckled. "I'm pleased you resisted."

The ghost of a smile tugged at Iris's lips but never gained the impetus to fully form, and a stray tear slipped down her cheek. Iris quickly sopped it up with the hanky.

"What's troublin' you, honey?" Maxine asked, her eyes warm and full of kindness. "And don't tell me nothin' is 'cause it's as plain as my stubby right thumb that you've a burden you're strugglin' to bear."

Without meaning to, Iris's gaze snapped to the digit in question. Chuckling, Maxine held her hands out, thumb side together, and drawled, "Looks like the Almighty replaced it with a toe. Doesn't it?"

It did. But instead of agreeing to such an unkind statement—regardless of Maxine being the one to say it first—Iris relented and answered the woman's earlier question. "I'm Mrs. Monterose now... not Cooper... got married the end of June."

Maxine blinked several times before understanding dawned. "Oh! Congratulations on the happy news," she quietly gasped, smiling. The words had no sooner left her mouth when she frowned and leaned in close, genuine concern threading her whisper-soft voice, "It is happy, isn't it?"