“Yeah, I’m pretty sure they do.”
“There were divorce papers drawn up,” she says with a shrug. “They were in our apartment, but who knows if he ever fucking found them. I was gone by then, so maybe we are still married.”
“Shit, Iris! Don’t you think you might have mentioned this to me before?”
“Really? When?” She slams her palm on the floor. “When your dick was in me? Oh, by the way…thump! Thump! Thump! I’m married…thump! Thump! Thump!”
“You might have had one or two other opportunities!”
“What does it matter?” she yells back at me.
I open my mouth but quickly realize I don’t have an answer. Iris is dead. She said so herself, as screwed up as that is. The physical body of the woman in front of me belongs to Seri. Am I still “the other man” if the person I have an affair with is dead?
How much more fucked up could this be?
“I can’t process this.” I push myself off the floor and walk into the kitchen just to put a little distance from the whole conversation. I glance up at the cabinet, debating grabbing the bottle of whiskey inside of it but decide I don’t want to go down that path again. Instead, I grab another pack of cigarettes and open it. I can’t bring myself to walk back to the fireplace to retrieve the one next to Iris.
I lean one hand against the counter, smoke with the other, and stare out the window at the darkening sky. Forming any kind of coherent summary of the details I have gathered from Seri, Netti, and Iris simply isn’t working. It sits in my head in a chaotic, disjointed mess of conflicting information.
I wonder if Margot, the queen of internet searches, has found anything.
“Meow!” Solo puts his front paws against my leg.
I reach down to pat his head, but he darts from my touch and runs to the far side of the cabin. As soon as he reaches the wall, he spins around, jumps up on top of a pile of firewood, leaps across the room to land on the bed, completely misses, and then wipes out on the floor. He sits up immediately, looks from Iris to me, and then begins to lick his tail as if everything has gone as planned.
Iris covers her mouth and giggles. The sound is deep and throaty compared to Seri’s laughter.
“You’re nuts,” I say to the cat.
Solo looks at me and struts back into the kitchen to rub against my ankle. Appreciating the distraction, I reach down to pick him up. He scrambles from my hand to my shoulder, digging his claws in for balance as I gather up some previously cooked fish for him to eat.
I glance over my shoulder at the woman in front of the fire, trying to figure out how, in such a short time, I could have gone from a loner in the wilderness with no responsibility to anyone other than myself to where I am now.
“Are you going to kick us out now?” Iris stares at me with dark eyes, but I can see a flicker of fear inside of them.
“No,” I tell her. “I’m not kicking you out. You
can stay as long as you want.”
Feeling emotionally exhausted, I walk back into the main area and lean my hands on the back of the chair. Iris looks up at me, her expression curious.
“Does Seri know?” Iris asks.
“Does she know what?”
“That you’re in love with her.”
Her tone catches me off guard as much as the question. She’s not being snarky and doesn’t sound jealous. In fact, if she hadn’t used Seri’s name in the question, I would have thought it was Seri herself speaking.
As far as the question goes, I have no idea how to respond. The only person I have ever loved is my mother, and she turned on me.
“Am I?” My throat feels tight, and there is pressure behind my eyes.
“It’s pretty fucking obvious.” Iris folds her arms across her chest. “Tell me something, Bish. How many women have you allowed to spend the night here?”
I can only shake my head.
“None? Am I right?”