Into the Tiger's Hour

Chapter Six

A piece of paper was stuck to her cheek when Iris rolled over, blinking against the unfamiliar combination of sun and artificial light. She sat up, back and shoulders protesting the movement, and realized she'd fallen asleep on her desk sometime during the night.

None of it made sense.

Hours of picking through the box, her bedroom door locked and the spare desk chair shoved under the knob in case Ax came to see if she'd done what he asked. Hours of puzzling over old phone numbers with familiar names scrawled on napkins, menus and receipts. Of paging through the worn brown leather journal that seemed to start off as nothing more than a list of names, ages and numerical figures listed beneath but turned into occult notations before she'd come across the final page.

It was that page that had kept her up, straining her eyes until the words had swam before her, and it was that page Iris looked at as she stretched, rolling her shoulders.

I love you.

Why couldn't I say it when you needed to hear it?

You heard me, didn't you? I know you did. You always heard me, no matter what I was saying. Even when I wasn't saying anything of consequence, you heard me and you answered.

I miss your voice so much, Dia. I think I hear you, now and then. Usually when I'm doing something that I know you would've disapproved of. I quit smoking. I know how much that bothered you.

I'm going to do everything right this time, I swear it. I swear to you that I won't let you suffer a moment of unhappiness. Not again. Not when I know what I did wrong to begin with. God, I was so wrong. I should've listened to you more. I should've told you the day we met what I was. Maybe then I could've changed how things went, kept you home where you'd be safe.

She's nothing like you. I just missed you so much. I was holding onto anything that made me feel even a tenth of what I felt with you. I know you wouldn't be angry with me for going to her, but you'd probably look at me that way when I told you how things ended. But if you'd been here, Dia, it never would've happened. I never, ever would have left you for her. And I wouldn't have left you for anything else either.

I fucked up. I fucked up so bad. I'm sorry, I know you don't like it when I curse, but I fucked up, Dia. I fucked up every step of the way and I don't know any other way to say it. I should've just fucking proposed to you the day we met. If I'd had any sense, I would've known what you were to me.

I'm going to do things right, I swear it. I have so many nightmares now, and they're all the same. Every time, I feel your hand going limp and I wake up feeling like it's that same fucking day over and over again.

He said he can do this and I believe him. I don't have a choice, Dia. There's no other way I know to get you back, and he said he can do it. Forgive me for everything I've done. Forgive me for what I'm going to do, but I'll have you back so you can forgive me. I'll have you back and this time I'll give you that fucking ring and we'll do this right from day one.

It was Jonas's handwriting. Iris had seen her father scrawl enough notes, letters and signatures to recognize his handwriting amidst thousands. But she'd never... He didn't write like this anymore, not even when he wrote letters to people who lived out of town. Even the polite notes he wrote to Seraphie, usually thanking her for accompanying him to some corporate function, weren't like this. Not, Iris thought, that a polite note would be anything like this, but the cadence of his words was different.

But it was his handwriting, and she was completely confused.

Ax had said the woman in the sketch--she was guessing now that it was Dia--wasn't her mother. If not, then who was she? And why hadn't Jonas said anything to her about this woman that he'd cared enough about to write such a letter to? What did he mean by 'lose her' and what was he going to do right?