Black Iris

Someone Else.

Iris

Sarah was quiet during the car ride, shifting the position of her legs every three seconds and constantly looking out the window, as if to check where she was.

"Are you alright?" I asked at one point. She just nodded, not looking at me.

The car fell into silence, and I didn't know what else to say to break it, so I just let it be.

A short while after leaving, we passed a field full of cattle, and I heard Sarah murmur something that sounded like 'hey diddle diddle.'

Confused, I laughed. "The cat and the fiddle?"

She looked up, frowning, before her face took on a look of embarrassment. "Oh. I'm sorry, I didn't even realise I said it. It's a reflex thing."

"Weird thing to have a reflex for." I said, giving her what I hoped was a reassuring smile.

She laughed softly, looking down at her hands. In a quiet voice, she spoke. "When I was little, my dad was a carnie, so we spent a lot of time travelling. My siblings and I had to find ways to pass the time, games like eye spy, twenty questions, that kind of thing. One of the things we came up with was that every time we saw a cow, we would sing that nursery rhyme. After a while, it just became automatic."

"That's sweet." I said. "It must have been hard moving around so much. Were you on the road for long?"

She shrugged. "Yeah, until I was eleven, then..." She trailed off, then shook her head. "Well, life happened. Long story short, we had to leave the carnies behind."

I couldn't help but become intrigued by her words, but from the sound of her voice, she didn't want to say more, so I didn't push it. We fell back into silence.

"Where are we going?" She asked after a few minutes.

"A farm." I said, shifting. She frowned at me.

"Why are we going to a farm?" She asked. "I thought you said we were going to lunch."

"We are." I said, before letting out a sigh and looking up. "We're going to my parents place. To see my son."

"Oh, okay." She said, awkwardly.

"I'm sorry, I know it's weird, but I don't get a much of a chance to see him these days, so I take what I can get." I said to her.

She nodded. "Of course, no, I understand. It must me hard not being with him."

"It kills me," I said, "but we thought it was best to keep him out of the limelight in all this, try and protect him a little."

She nodded. "Yeah. That makes sense."

With that, we both fell into silence again. It didn't last long, because shortly after our terse conversation, Porter was pulling the car up my parent's driveway.

I climbed out of the car and Sarah followed suit. The gravel crunched underfoot, and the smell of early spring flowers filled the air. I let out a big sigh of relief, feeling all my tension drift away as I took in the familiarity of home.

"Mommy!"

Jackson barrelled out the front door of the homestead, my ma close in tow. A bright grin took over his face as he rushed towards me and I laughed and leant down to catch him.

"Hey my big boy! Have you gotten bigger?" I said, grinning. He nodded enthusiastically, looking back at my mother.

"I've been eating all of my green veggies, because Granny said it makes me big and strong."