Months-long trips to Colorado are in my past. I have to be in New York now. I don’t have a choice about that. I’m de facto head of the Alden family.
And Iris? I’m not sure how she fits into any of this, however much I want her to. However much Ireallycan’t imagine my life without her.
“We need an engagement, Jack,” my mother says.
It feels like she’s slapped me and I withdraw my hands from hers and sit back in the chair. I don’t know if she could have said anything more appalling. Her husband is lying in a hospital bed, unable to breathe by himself. Why is she so concerned about me being engaged? And not just engaged, but engaged to someone she approves of. “I’m not even thinking about any of that. Iris and?—”
“No Iris,” she hisses. “You need to stop being so selfish, let that girl go and find yourself someone suitable.”
It’s like she’s struck a match down a lighting strip and I feel myself burst into flame. “Selfish? How is dating someone I care about selfish?”
She fixes me with a look that could penetrate marble. “You think it’s okay to stand by while what generations of Aldens have built goes to waste?”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes. “Stop exaggerating, Mother. I’m fulfilling all my duties.”
“Oh really. Is that why you keep missing board meetings and the trustees haven’t seen you in months?”
“I’ve been video conferencing in to most things,” I mumble. “And even if I hadn’t, me spending a couple of months in Colorado isn’t going to destroy generations of wealth and power.”
“It’s where the rot starts,” she says simply like it’s the answer to a basic math equation. “That’s why you need to come back to New York and stop spending time in Colorado. The family needs you.”
There’s no point in having this conversation with my mother. She doesn’t understand how technology means I can work from anywhere. I can videoconference into meetings and fly back for really important things. It’s not like we’re living in a time where it takes three weeks to get a letter across the country. Plenty of people work remotely now.
“Listen to me, Jack.” My mother’s voice drops and softens, like she knows that she hasn’t won me over and she’s changing tack. But her stare is still as steely. “You think it’s fair to be making some small-town country girl fall for you whenyou knowit would be impossible for the two of you to be together?”
“I don’t know it’s impossible,” I say indignantly. If Wilde’s Farm do start a frozen business, maybe Iris will have more time to come back to New York with me. Maybe she’ll let me help financially with the business. I’m not prepared to walk away from her. She’s too important. Too special. I knew it from the first moment I laid eyes on her.
“So what’s your plan?” my mother asks. “You’re going to marry her? You know very well that there’s no hiding who she is or where’s she’s come from. What will you do? Dress her up like she’s a doll in the right clothes and the right shoes and hope it’s enough? Send her to etiquette classes, and parade her around New York society as your girlfriend or wife, hoping your wealth and power will cover up the cracks? And then what?” She pulls in a breath, like this speech has been a long time coming.
Dress her up like a doll?
I think back to the ballet and how it had been difficult for me to even buy her a dress without it becoming messy and complicated. I didn’t want to dress her up like a doll, but maybe that’s how she felt. It’s not like I care what she wears, but I want her to feel comfortable?
But maybe it’s not possible for Iris to feel comfortable in my world.
“She’s never going to feel quite good enough,” my mother continues as if she’s reading my thoughts. “Someone’s always going to want to bring her down. She’s going to have to live with knowing that you could have married someone who would have understood the rules and navigated them expertly. That you could have married someone with connections who felt comfortable in the world in which we live, Jack. And you’re expecting some farm girl from Colorado to give up her life, say goodbye to everything in her world that makes her happy apart from you. To give up everything to be thrust into a world she knows nothing about and might just eat her alive.”
I try and swallow but my throat is dry and I have to strain to breathe. I want to respond. I want to fight back. Tell her she’s wrong. That Iris would be comfortable. That she’d have my protection. That I’d never want Iris to be anyone but herself. That we would be happy.
Am I fooling myself?
My mother fiddles with the clasp of her handbag. Then she looks me dead in the eye. “That’s what you want from her? To sacrifice everything?” She glances down into her lap.
I don’t want Iris to sacrifice anything to be with me.
Is that what it would take?
“Do you really think hanging on to Iris is anything but selfish?” she asks in a whisper.
Being with Iris isn’t selfish. Is it? Am I fooling myself? Playing with her?
“Jack,” she says again. “You’re an Alden. You know what you have to do.”
It feels like I’m being pulled under the waves and I don’t know if I’ll be able to swim to the surface again. I know that I want to be happy, and I’m happy with Iris. But I don’t want Iris to have to sacrifice anything to be with me. I don’t want her to give up who she is to exist in my world.
THIRTY-ONE
Iris
