Iris smiles at me and I jerk my thumb towards the stage, then turn it upright and give the thumbs-up signal, which Jason sees. He rewards me with a smile so wide, it seems like it might slide off his face. I smile back, as wide a smile as I can manage. Anything narrower seems cruel.

Even Dad seems smitten. He sings along at the top of his voice when Jason does a cover of “Only the Lonely,” oblivious to the daggers some members of the audience throw at him. Everything is going so well. I’ve even resigned myself to Vera’s no-show and am well on the way to convincing myself that it’s a good thing, her no-show.

It’s for the best.

And while I haven’t exactly forgotten what we’re doing here or where we’re going, I seem to have been able to tuck it behind other, less pressing worries. For the moment, at least. Worries like finding the car in the car park in Chinatown. I’m eighty-five percent certain I’ll find it, in one piece. Iris took a photograph of the car, in its car park space, with the number of the space in clear view. And there’s a security guard on duty to keep an eye on everything so...it should all be fine.

Needless to say, I am worrying about Brendan and the girls, especially about the girls’ text messages, which remain unanswered. But I’m not really worrying about them as such. As in, about anything happening to them in my absence. Like someone spiking the girls’ drinks with Rohypnol, or Brendan falling through an open manhole on his way to work. Not more so than usual, at any rate.

So when Iris falls, on the way out of the theater, I am completely unprepared.

11

Always check your blind spot.

I ris falls on the stairs. Steps really. There are three of them, carpeted with a long tread and shallow rise, a metal handrail on either side. I walk in front of her, linking arms with Dad, who can become disoriented in crowds.

Behind me, the sound. A sort of strangled yelp. I turn around. Iris is falling. She seems as surprised as I am by this turn of events. She doesn’t have time to put her arms out to protect herself. She falls like a felled tree. Almost effortless.

A cracking sound. It’s the sound of Iris’s face hitting the metal handrail, if you can bear to think of that. She seems to bounce off it before she hits the ground, where she lies momentarily. In that moment, everything seems quiet. Muted. As if we are underwater. Even my initial movements towards her seem cumbersome and slow, as if I am submerged.

“Iris!” My shout seems to break through the wall of silence and the babble of the world is returned to me. I kneel beside her. Blood, hot and red, blooms along her forehead. Already a crowd has formed the obligatory circle around us. I check that Dad is there. He is. He is telling the woman beside him about Frank Sinatra. “...and he asked me if he could smoke in the cab so I said...”