The Lake Season by Hannah McKinnon

Author:Hannah McKinnon [McKinnon, Hannah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty

Monday morning Iris found herself practically sprinting down Main Street to keep up with her mother and sister. Adele was waiting already for them on the sidewalk of Patty’s Boutique as they hurried toward her.

“We’re here!” Millie announced, as if the woman couldn’t see for herself the three harried figures huffing toward her.

Iris had kept silent in the backseat of the car on the drive into town that morning, still smarting from Cooper’s revelations.

Now, surrounded by racks of gauzy white dresses, amid all the trappings of happy endings, Iris sat sandwiched between Adele and Millie as Leah stepped out of the dressing room for her last fitting.

“Oh!” Adele gasped in approval as Leah stood before them. “It’s lovely, darling. Stephen will be dumbstruck.”

And despite the fact that Iris had seen Leah in the dress before, it still gave her pause. Looking rosy and healthy, she showed no sign of the thin or tormented soul from the last summer.

• • •

When they were done, the older women went to the front display cases to try to find a new handbag to match Adele’s wedding suit, leaving Iris alone with Leah in the dressing room.

“Help me out of this thing?” Leah asked.

Iris rose from the couch slowly. She did not feel like helping her sister with anything.

She fumbled with the buttons, which were impossibly small. “Careful,” Leah warned. “They’re hand-stitched.”

“Of course they are,” Iris muttered. She was almost done when she felt Leah’s skin pinch between her fingernails.

“Ow!” Leah spun around.

“Sorry,” Iris snapped. She worked more slowly, ignoring ­Leah’s impatient sighs, and avoiding her gaze in the mirror in front of them.

“What’s with you today?”

“Nothing,” Iris said. This was not the time to bring things up, though, honestly, she couldn’t imagine when that time might be.

“If anyone should be edgy, I’d think it’d be me.”

Iris looked at her sister for the first time all day. Before she could change her mind, she said it. “I could have helped you, you know.”

Leah stepped out of her gown carefully, and placed it on the hanger. “With what?” she asked distractedly.

“With everything. Anything.”

“Is this about Vermont again?”

Iris waited as Leah tugged on her seersucker shorts and snatched her flip-flops off the floor.

“I’m talking about last summer.”

Leah froze, staring at the pink flip-flop in her hand.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Leah?”

Leah rose from the chair, her voice paper-thin. “What do you mean?”

And suddenly Iris saw it, behind the glossy hair and freckled complexion. The sadness that shimmered, faintly, in her sister’s gray-green eyes.

Iris lowered her voice. “I know about last summer. About your . . .” She struggled to find the word. “About your breakdown.”

Before Leah could answer, Iris grabbed her hands. “Why didn’t you come to me?”

“Iris,” Leah whispered. “Please. Don’t.” Tears spilled from her eyes, as if some small dam had broken inside her. “Not now. There’re things you don’t understand.”

“Make me understand. I want to help you.”

Leah’s eyes darted around the dressing room. “I wanted to tell you.” She paused. “When the time was right.

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