Chapter 4: What Her Mother Kept Hidden

Her mother's surgeon blocked the ward door with his clipboard and told Iris to say her goodbyes. Iris grabbed the doorframe as her knees wobbled. The surgeon caught her elbow and steadied her with a firm hand.

"Her heart failed after the operation," the surgeon explained, lowering his voice as nurses hurried past. "We tried every option, Miss Whitmore. She's awake and asking for you, so go in now."

"Take her back into theatre," Iris pleaded, gripping his sleeve. "The deposit cleared, and my father can wire the rest by tonight."

"Money buys an operating room," the surgeon replied, easing her hand off his arm. "Her heart muscle decides the outcome, and hers has decided. Use the time she has left, because she asked for you by name twice."

Machines beeped on both sides of the bed in the dim ward. Helen Brooks lay propped against the pillows with an oxygen mask over her face and her grey hair spread across the pillowcase. Iris dropped into the chair beside the bed and gathered her mother's hand in both of hers.

"Iris," Helen whispered, pushing the mask aside with her free hand. "They let you out."

"For good, Mom," Iris promised, kissing her knuckles. "I'm home, and I'm staying."

"Gordon came here yesterday," Helen rasped, and her grip tightened on Iris's fingers. "He sat in that chair and bragged about everything, the confession you signed for Celeste and the stranger he sold you to at that hotel."

Iris's breath hitched, and tears ran down her cheeks onto the blanket. She pressed her mother's hand against her mouth to muffle her sobs. The monitor beside the bed beeped faster.

"He swore he would keep that from you," Iris sobbed.

"He swore to love me in front of a priest, too," Helen whispered. "You went to prison for that girl, and you went to that hotel for me."

"I would do both again tomorrow," Iris choked out.

"Celeste swung that bottle in front of witnesses," Helen rasped, and her fingers pressed into Iris's wrist. "Gordon paid every one of them, and he saved the last payment for you. My daughter, in a cell, for that girl's temper."

"Mom, the money reached your ward," Iris urged, smoothing the blanket over her mother's arm. "You had your operation, and the surgeon says your heart came through the first part of it."

"My heart came through the part that mattered to him," Helen replied, and her lips pressed together. "Let me use what I have left on the part that matters to me. Listen well, because I plan to say each of these things once."

"Say them slowly," Iris begged.

"I know, baby, and that's why you need to listen to me now," Helen breathed. "Who brought you here today?"

"Kieran Sterling," Iris admitted, glancing toward the door. "He forced me to marry him this morning, Mom, and he threatened your medication to do it."

Helen's eyes filled with tears, and her chest shook with a weak laugh. She squeezed Iris's hand with the little strength she had left. Her lips curved into a trembling smile.

"Eleanor kept her word," Helen murmured.

"Eleanor Sterling?" Iris stared at her. "The President's mother?"

"Years ago, I worked as her secretary at the Presidential Complex," Helen explained. "During the Independence Day parade, a gunman fired at her from the crowd, and I threw myself in front of her."

Helen tugged the neck of her hospital gown aside to show the puckered scar below her shoulder. Iris touched it with her fingertips, and her own hand trembled. The scar showed pale and round against her mother's skin.

"Eleanor held my hand in the ambulance," Helen went on, "and she swore her grandson would marry you and protect you for the rest of your life."

"He despises me, Mom," Iris confessed. "Disgust comes off him every time he looks at me."

"Then make him look again," Helen urged.

"He plans to divorce me in several months," Iris protested.

"Then use every day of them," Helen insisted, and her breath rattled in her chest.

"Mom, he threatened your medication to get my signature," Iris whispered, pressing her mother's hand between both of hers. "A man who does that to a woman in a hospital bed has a black heart."

"A man who does that wants you badly enough to reach for the ugliest tool in the room," Helen countered, and her mouth curved. "Eleanor raised that boy through every insult this city threw at him for his mother's name. Go to her when he turns hard on you, and call her Grandmother to her face."

"She'll throw me out of her house," Iris protested.

"She'll fight your corner harder than anyone alive," Helen promised. "One more thing, and it matters more than all of it."

The monitor above the bed beeped faster, and a nurse glanced in through the glass panel of the door. Helen's fingers dug into Iris's wrist with sudden force. She pulled Iris closer until their faces nearly touched.

"Listen to me," Helen gasped. "Your grandfather left us his finest piece before he died. Gordon tricked me into signing it over to him during the divorce, and he keeps it locked away."

"What piece, Mom?" Iris asked.

"It's priceless, Iris, and it's the last of Papa we have left," Helen rasped. "Kieran has the power to take it back from Gordon. Stay close to him, make him help you, and bring it home. Promise me."

"Tell me where he keeps it," Iris pressed, leaning over the pillow. "Give me a room, a safe, a bank, anything I can start with."

"Gordon keeps his treasures where his pride can reach them," Helen whispered. "Look at the photographs in my box at the flat, baby, and look hard at my throat in the ones from the summer your grandfather died."

"I promise," Iris sobbed, pressing her mother's hand to her cheek. "Tell me what it is."

Helen's lips parted around the start of its name. Her fingers slid out of Iris's grip, her head sank into the pillow, and the monitor above the bed let out a long, flat whine.