#blue irises

❛ ⠀ iris. ⠀ ❜

She felt like a monster, her shadow looming large over the sleeping cherub. Kim’s daughter was five years old now. The mop of auburn curls, the ruby red lips, the dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks; the last thing Kim wanted to do was disturb this peace. But she had to. She perched herself on the edge of the twin bed and, gently as possible, started to rouse her.

“Iris?” she whispered, “Iris, baby, wake up”

Reluctantly, the dark blue eyes opened. Already, a bewildered scowl was on her face.

“Sweetheart, we need to leave home. I…”

“Again?”

“... Yes.” Kim replied flatly. Iris only sounded moderately frustrated, but it was still a knife in Kim’s heart. “Take some time to wake up, but in thirty minutes, I need you downstairs with your suitcase. Dad and I will worry about your clothes and toothbrush, but pick out four toys you want to take with you. No more than four, okay? The rest have to stay here”

“I want daddy,” she whined.

“He’s downstairs. Come on, get dressed”

Iris pouted and Kim couldn’t help but feel judged. Sometimes it felt like it was written in the stars, that things between them always had to be just that little bit difficult. And it wasn’t for lack of understanding one another.

She jogged back downstairs, almost out of breath; the day had already been long enough and now night seemed insurmountable.

“How many changes of clothes do you have?” she shouted to Jimmy from across the kitchen.

“Four. Two pairs of jeans and two pairs of sweatpants”

“Do you think you could get by with only two outfits? We can buy more once we figure out where we’re going”

“No, we can’t”

“What?!” Kim hollered back while sweeping the contents of the downstairs medicine cabinet into a plastic bag.

“We’ve been frozen out of our accounts!”

“Son of a bitch!” she slammed the cabinet door closed.

“It’s fine. This is what the rainy day fund is for'' The three year old had already fallen back asleep on Jimmy’s shoulder. He passed Fille to his wife, then scurried down to the basement. He pulled back the fiberglass insulation to reveal bundles of cash stacked like bricks.

Kim anxiously bounced the toddler on her shoulder while trying to rifle through the fridge with her free hand. Where were the snacks? There were never any snacks in this house! She went shopping constantly and still whenever she was hungry, the fridge was empty. All she could find was a large glass jar of applesauce, a jar of peanut butter, a bag of shredded three-cheese, and the leftover pepperoni from a pizza kit; it would have to do.

“How much is there?” she interrogated her husband when he returned to the kitchen.

“A little over five thousand? I didn’t have time to count it”

“Then we’re better off than I thought. Ok: Your clothes? Check. My clothes? Check. Iris’s clothes?”

“They’re in my suitcase” Jimmy shot back.

“Fille’s clothes?”

“They’re in your suitcase”

“Ok. Meds? Check. Cash? Check. Jewelry? Electronics?”

“If the FBI is involved, I’m probably going to have to throw my laptop in the next river we drive past”

“We’ll worry about that later,” Kim yelled up the stairs, “Iris! Ten minutes!”

“What about IDs? We don’t even have any paperwork for Fille yet”

“Good thing she doesn’t make much noise then”

Still no reply from upstairs.

“I’ll go check on her,” Jimmy offered.

“No. I’ll do it. Please finish loading things into the car,” Kim said, taking off before he could answer.

Iris was pathetically fishing her stubby arm down the crevice between her bed and the wall.

“What’s the hold up?” her mother asked.

“Chirin fell down and I can’t reach him,” she explained.

Without skipping a beat, Kim dropped to the floor and crawled under the bed. She fumbled around in the dark until her fingers found something fluffy. She shoved the stuffed lamb in Iris’s hands and exasperatedly asked, “There. You have your lamb. Anything else? Think hard; once we leave this house, we can’t come back”

Iris shook her head. Clearly, the level of worry her parents were showing was not lost on her.

“Good. Then we need to go”

When the two came outside into the driveway, Jimmy was strapping Fille into the back seat of the sedan. Kim hoisted Iris into the car, the five year old still clutching her toy with both hands. Kim heard the trunk slam closed and as Jimmy buckled himself into the passenger’s seat, she heard him mutter something under his breath.

“If this ends with us singing B-I-N-G-O in the woods, I’m going to blow my brains out”

“What was that?” she asked her husband.

“Nothing”

They were a mile down the road. The clock on the dashboard read 2:13 am. Kim stole a glance in the rearview mirror into the passengers seats. The sisters had already fallen asleep again, their heads slumped together. That ratty little lamb. If Kim had lost any childhood toys in this way, she must have been too young to remember. But she remembered the one science project that she had been forced to abandon during a move. It was on solar power; it would have been an A! But on the morning it was time to throw everything in a cardboard box and flee the landlord, she couldn’t find it in time. Kim’s mother never would have dropped everything to help look for it. If Kim had even been stupid enough to ask, she knew her mother would have told her to leave it; it didn’t matter. It did though! That stupid little stuffed sheep mattered. Kim would just have to take some meager reassurance in the fact that she had gotten down on her knees to look for it.

“Iris, you know that I love you, right?” she confessed, waking the girl up.

Iris didn’t respond. She just glared back into the mirror skeptically.

“And I’m sorry, if stability isn’t something I can give you. But you know, a lot of kids’ parents have to move around for work. It’s the hand they’ve been dealt, and they just have to deal with it”

Still no reply.

“But I tried. We both tried. Your father and I have both tried so many times to be people other than ourselves. But we can’t. The masks always slip eventually. And I don’t know if it’s exactly a bright side, but look at it this way: if I was any good at pretending, you wouldn’t be here. I wish I could give you the perfect life. But I have to trust that this is still better than nothing”

Another awkward pause.

“I’m rambling. I guess my point is… sometimes, being yourself comes at the expense of other people. And I want you to know that wherever you go in life, all I want is for you to be yourself. And if it hurts me? Fair’s fair; I’ll owe you that much”

Jimmy put his hand on her leg. The squeeze he gave her was enough to communicate, “Kim, that’s enough. Please stop”

Just watched the end of the Punisher season 2 and I couldn't believe it! BLUE IRISES!!! He got BLUE IRISES for Krista! And what is Alina's favorite flowers?! BLUE IRISES!