I heard footsteps up the stairs from the garage and mudroom, and a woman in a dark suit didn’t flinch as those drenched children practically attacked her on the landing right below the kitchen.

I was smiling at how sweet the whole scene was, missing for a moment the exuberance of Iris’s youth. I loved Iris’s current stage, but sometimes I missed having a little one who ran to me with relief and excitement.

Julie looked up and caught my eye, and I froze. The Julie in question was none other than Julie Dartmouth, the Julie who had seemed to absolutely revel in writing about Bill’s arrest, our fall from grace, everything salacious she could get her hands on. I refused to talk to her for her articles for the Juniper Shores Sun, obviously, and I soothed myself with the notion that it was a paper in a town of ten thousand people. How much damage could it do? But still. That woman was not who I wanted to live with.

Julie walked up the few stairs into the kitchen. “Charlotte Sitterly?” she asked, confused. She pointed toward what I assumed was a private room and said, “If you want to talk, we can—”

“Julie!” Alice interrupted her. “Charlotte and her daughter, Iris, are going to be staying with us for a while.”

Julie’s face lit up, and I started to feel sick. “That is amazing news! Welcome to the mommune!”

I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t stay here with her. After all the things she had written about Bill, about my family, after how relentlessly she’d badgered me to talk to her for her articles…

“Hi, Iris,” Julie said.

“Hi, Mrs. Dartmouth,” Iris said back. Julie knew my daughter?

I wasn’t sure I could stay here, that I could put myself and my daughter in the situation of living with the local reporter who seemed hell-bent on making our lives harder. I needed some quiet; I needed to think.

“All right, girls,” Alice said. “Let’s go get your things put away and get some laundry started. I’m sure you have plenty.”

“Great,” I said. My usually quick mind felt stuck, unmoving. It was unsettling.

For the second time today, I followed Alice. I had plenty of reasons not to trust her. But for tonight, my daughter and I had a place to stay. And for that small mercy I couldn’t help but feel grateful.

Iris Killing Me

I didn’t know what Mom was getting so freaked out about. Sure, yes, Mrs. Dartmouth was annoying. She was always trying to stir something up in town to write about. But she was nice and cute and basically harmless if you asked me. Exactly zero people took her seriously. Plus, I mean, if we were trying to get Dad out of jail, wouldn’t it be nice to have a newspaper reporter on our side?