Iris: The American Dream Series Book One

The Aftermath

Oma made us spaghetti and meatballs for dinner on the Sunday after Halloween. Romy and Esmee chewed little bites off of their giant meatballs and slurped up noodles with lots of extra noise for effect. Pim pushed everything around on his plate without looking any of us in the eye. It was obvious by the distracted way that Mom twisted her noodles around her fork over and over without eating them that she was just trying to get through dinner without yelling at Pim.

Oma and I cleared everything away while the twins helped Mom with laundry after dinner. We could see our reflections in the dark window over the sink as we stood side-by-side.

"That was good spaghetti, Oma," I said, passing her a glass to rinse. She took the dishes from me and loaded them into the dishwasher without saying anything.

Pim came in from taking out the trash and started gathering up the recycling in a paper bag. His chore after dinner was to pick up everything and get it to the curb for Monday morning trash collection. He did it all without saying a single word.

I gave up on trying to make small talk with anyone. Oma snapped the dishtowel she'd been using, then folded it crisply and hung it over the edge of the sink to dry. I wrung out my sponge and tossed it into its wire container behind the faucet. Mom walked through the kitchen with a basket of folded laundry on one hip, her slippers making a pit-pat-pit-pat sound across the hard floor as she took the clothes to her bedroom. The twins were racing around upstairs, trying to see who could get into their pajamas and dive under the covers first so that Mom could tuck them in.

"Iris, I'm going to need you to read to the girls tonight, please," Mom said as she came into the kitchen, turning on the lamp on the counter and lighting a pumpkin-scented candle. "Oma and I need to speak with Pim."

I dried my hands on a kitchen towel. "Okay."

Esmee and Romy were already in their matching twin beds. In typical twin fashion, they couldn't agree on how to decorate the room, so Mom and Oma had agreed to let them divide the room in half, and they had pushed the beds against opposite walls. Given the freedom to choose the way their surroundings would look, they'd each stubbornly insisted that they knew best what would look good. Consequently, Esmee's half was pale purple with butterfly decals on the walls, and Romy's was hot pink with a poster of a lion family hanging above her bed. Mom and Oma had taped a line down the center of the walls and painted it so that the pink and purple met up in the middle.

"Iris, are you reading to us?" Esmee asked, her blanket already pulled up to her chin, blonde curls spread out over the purple pillow. Romy was sitting on the floor in her pajamas, playing with animal figurines on the carpet.

"Hop into bed, Rome." I picked my little sister up under her armpits and gently lifted her into her bed. "I get to pick out the story tonight," I said, pulling the blankets over Romy so that only her face was peeking out.

They didn't argue when I chose Pocahontas for Romy, and Cinderella for Esmee. I turned on the lamp on the nightstand between them and sat on a beanbag at the foot of their beds, facing them both so that I could turn the books around and show them the pictures as I read. We got lost in Pocahontas, and I forgot to wonder what was happening downstairs as I made different voices for Pocahontas, her father, and John Smith. Toward the end of the book, I flipped it around to show the girls a picture and realized that they were both asleep.

I closed the book and switched off the lamp. Oma's voice drifted through the house; I heard tension in her words. I tiptoed to the top of the stairs to sit on the steps and listen.

"Pim, my job here is very important to me," Mom said. "It's important to all of us, because it's how I pay the bills." I could picture her standing over him, looking down at my brother as he rested his forehead on the table. "This neighborhood is filled with my coworkers—this is a community, our community—and anything you do here reflects both on me and on us as a family. I can't even begin to imagine what you were thinking with that stunt on Halloween."