"I stand by what I said."
"I know you do. That's the problem."
The silence between them stretches like a wire about to go. I sit very still and try not to be a target.
"I didn't come here to argue about the past," Colette says at last. "I came because I'm worried about you."
"Worried about me?"
"You've been here — what, three months? You've abandoned your career, your apartment, your entire life in Chicago. For what? A farm in the middle of nowhere? A house full of bad memories?"
"These aren't bad memories. These are the memories I should have had all along, before you stole them from me."
Colette's jaw tightens. "I was protecting you."
"From what? From knowing my grandmother? From being loved? From understanding where I came from?" Iris leans forward. "You didn't protect me, Mother. You isolated me. You cut me off from my own family because you couldn't accept who they were."
"I couldn't accept the perversion. There's a difference."
The word lands like a slap. I see Iris flinch — see the old wound tear open fresh.
"There's no perversion here," I say, speaking for the first time. "There was just love. Two women who loved each other for thirty-five years. There's nothing perverse about that."
Colette turns to look at me, and her gaze is ice. "I wasn't speaking to you."
"But you were speaking about my grandmother. And I won't sit here and let you slander her."
"Your grandmother." The words drip. "You're not even related to her. You're just some random child whose mother latched on like a parasite."
"Mother." Iris's voice is sharp. "Don't."
"It's true, isn't it? She's not family. She has no claim to this place, no right to any of it. And yet here she is, living in my mother's house, sleeping in my mother's bed—"
"Sleeping with me," Iris says quietly. "That's what you're really upset about, isn't it?"
The silence that follows is absolute.
Colette's face goes through a series of expressions — shock, disgust, something that might be pain. Then it smooths back into the mask. But I've seen under it now. I've seen what's actually there.
"You're not," she says.
"I am."
"But you were engaged. You dated men. You werenormal."
"I was performing." Iris stands, her whole body vibrating. "I was trying to be who you wanted me to be. I'm done with that. I'm with Cat. I love her. And nothing you say is going to change it."
Colette stands too, white to the lips. "You're confused. It's this place — it's corrupted you, the way it corrupted your grandmother. If you'd just come home, get away from here, fromher—"
"I am home. This is my home. Cat is my home." Iris steps closer to me, and I stand, and take her hand.
"This is who I am, Mother. This is who I've always been. You just wouldn't let me see it."
For a long moment, nobody moves. The lavender shifts in the breeze. Somewhere out in the field, a bird calls.
Then Colette speaks, and her voice is terrible.
"I want you to come back to Chicago. Alone. Without her." She looks at our joined hands with naked disgust. "I'll pay for the flight. I'll help you get your job back. We can forget any of this ever happened."
