Forty-Three—Ivy
M
y dad’s firm was about ten minutes away in Pacific Grove, and for the life of me I do not know how I got there. I know I was shaking. Shaking like I was freezing to death, and I couldn’t stop, and I might have cried the whole way, but it wasn’t so much the business of crying as much as my face just leaking—a steady stream running from both eyes and my nose. It was all too unbelievable, what was happening. I couldn’t actually be driving to my dad’s office to tell him this awful news about my mama. It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.
I played Bo’s and Geneva’s words over and over and was so preoccupied that I was frankly stunned that I’d made it to the right location. I’d never been inside my dad’s building, but I knew it well because it was a short bus ride from the place where I’d stayed when I first got to California. His firm owned a studio apartment, which made it convenient for out-of-town clients and daughters best kept out of sight, I suppose. I pulled into the parking lot of Willis, Proctor and Holmes and killed the engine. Daniel had asked me—told me—never to drop by unannounced, and I never had. He’d told me I could call his cellphone day or night, and he’d meet me as soon as he had the time to give me his undivided attention. That naturally sounded like nothing but the ultimate declaration of his concern for me—his emotionally mangled daughter who’d been dumped. Now, walking through his fancy marbled foyer, I knew he’d simply preferred I stayed out of sight.
But these were extraordinary circumstances. He’d understand. Surely .
There was a reception desk, but it was unmanned at the moment, so I ducked into the restroom to pull myself together. I dabbed a wet paper towel under my eyes, which cleaned up the mascara but did nothing for the puffiness. I looked as upset as I felt, and there would be no hiding that from my dad. I took some deep, shaky breaths and sipped some water from my palm and tried to calm myself. Then I walked out.
There was still no one to point me in the right direction, so I headed down the hall where I saw a directory. As I scanned it, I heard, “Can I help you?”
I looked at the girl, and she looked at me. “Are you all right?” she said, taking me in with sudden concern. She was pretty, about my age and somehow familiar. I wondered if we’d met.
“I’m looking for Daniel Proctor,” I said.
“Oh. Is he expecting you?”
“No. But it’s very important.” My voice tripped over important, and my eyes welled up. It alarmed the girl.
She didn’t press me. “Come with me,” she said. “He just got back from court, and he’s in a short meeting, but I’ll round him up.” She walked me down the hall and around the corner, sort of eying me like I might ignite without warning.
The hall opened up into a large common area where there were sofas and a credenza laid out with snacks and cans of soda on ice. Directly across were two glassed-in offices side by side. One had the blinds drawn for privacy, and the other shone with afternoon sunlight. The gold lettering on that door said Daniel Proctor, Esquire, Senior Partner. The girl pushed open the door, and I walked in behind her.
My father’s office was thickly carpeted, library quiet, and very modern. There were four leather chairs around a glass table and a desk that seemed overly neat. In striking contrast, there was a Persian Prayer rug hanging on the wall behind more glass. It was distinctly my mother’s taste. Behind my father’s desk was an enormous family portrait .
“Can I get you a bottle of water? Coffee? A Coke?”
I tore my gaze from the portrait and looked at the girl. “Uh, water. Thank you.”
“You got it. Have a seat, and I’ll go find him. Who should I say is waiting to see him?”
“Ivy.” It came out on a little sob.
“Ivy…?”
I sniffed. “Just Ivy. He’ll know who I am.”
The girl looked at me through kind but narrowed eyes. She was polished up nice. Blond bobbed hair. Sleeveless white blouse, orange pencil skirt. Long legs and shoes that could have come from Giselle’s. She also had enhanced green eyes, where I again saw something oddly familiar.
“Okay, then…” she said. “Make yourself comfortable, and I’ll be right back.”
I nodded, and she left. I meant to sit down, then; I was pretty shaky. But instead, I walked over to the portrait behind my dad’s desk. My father’s family. As I stood there, a new ache bloomed in the bottom of my stomach.His family. His family. They were on vacation somewhere—somewhere fresh and beachy. My dad was deeply tanned, but in this context, it looked right, natural. His wife was his same height, thin, with dark blond hair. Mrs. Proctor was model-pretty, and there was contentment in her eyes, oblivious joy. A very good-looking young man stood next to her; he was tall and had dark hair like Daniel used to have and was wearing his smile.
And then…I swallowed hard when, tucked in next to Daniel, I found the familiar face that in this arrangement made complete sense: blond hair, green eyes, the perfect mix of her parents. She looked like her dad…my dad. I swallowed and suddenly wished I hadn’t come. Staring at her standing so close to my dad felt like a bullet to my heart. She had her arm around another boy, younger, maybe ten or eleven. He had longish hair and a sunburned nose and a great smile—an absolutely carefree smile. I stared, remembering the summer Daniel stayed with me and Mama—the summ er we’d felt like a family. I’d turned eleven that summer, and Mama had talked non-stop about weddings. Then one day Daniel left, he just disappeared, and Mama cried for a month. That was ten years ago. Daniel’s youngest son—this boy with the sunburned nose and the mile-wide smile looked…about the right age. Tired tears filled my eyes until they ran down my face, and I couldn’t believe how much I hurt. Everywhere hurt. I knew my father had a family, I’d always known, but suddenly the most amazing pain ballooned inside of my already amazing pain, and I couldn’t breathe.
This portrait was truth—absolute and undeniable truth—and staring into it was agonizingly clarifying. I felt completely false and every inch the illegitimate. The man I was staring at surrounded by his adoring family certainly did not seem like he intended to change a thing. Not one thing. Not this life he was living. And not the arrangement he’d had with my mother for twenty-two years. And now my mother was…
“Ivy?” The girl with the green eyes sidled up to me and handed me a bottle of chilled water.
“This is you,” I croaked, trying not to.
“Uh, yes,” she said, taking in my emotional imbalance. “Not the greatest pic of me, but it’s my dad’s fave of all of us. So…are you alright?”
I sniffed, tried to cover my emotion. “Where…where was it taken?”
“The Cayman Islands—last Easter. We have a condo there.”
I suddenly wondered if my mother had ever been to the Cayman Islands—I knew I hadn’t. “So…I guess you work for your dad?” I managed.
“I do. I’m in law school,” she offered, still preoccupied with my tears. “But right now, I work as a paralegal-slash-receptionist-slash gofer,” she said, half-smiling, “for him and my grandpa mostly—Lloyd Willis—he’s the other partner. ”
“Wow.” I nodded, avoiding her eyes. Willis. Not my grandfather . Daniel’s father-in-law. “All in the family, I guess.”
“I guess so,” the girl shrugged. “My mom used to practice, now she teaches. My brother just started here, and I have three more years.”
I looked at her. “You look awful young to have all that under your belt.”
“Not really. I’ll be twenty-two next month. Pretty on schedule. I’m Liz, by-the-way—Elizabeth—Proctor.”
Seven months older than me. More tears. “You look like your dad,” I rasped.
She smiled uncomfortably. “That’s what they say. How do you know my dad?”
I opened my mouth not having a clue what was about to come out. But fortunately, behind us, the door opened with a rush of cool air. Liz and I turned at the same time, and the look on our father’s face was priceless—suddenly slackened jaw, blanched skin, alarm-rimmed eyes.
“Dad.” I almost said it, but the word came out of Liz Proctor. “Good,” she said. “You’re here. This is Ivy. She needs to talk to you about an urgent matter. Dad? Are you…are you okay?”
Daniel pulled his eyes from me and looked at his other daughter. “Wh…what? No. I…I’m fine. It’s just a headache. Rough afternoon.”
“I’ll bring you some Advil.” Liz Proctor patted her father on the chest as she left—a familial gesture, rife with belonging. As she walked out, I watched Daniel swallow, hard, his adam’s apple riding up his neck. He looked suddenly small to me, frightened, like I could destroy him with the sound of my voice.
“Wh…what are you…” he looked over his shoulder, made sure his door was shut, moved closer to me. “I’ve asked you not to , never …to…What are you doing here?”
I stared at him, not appreciating his tone, and at the same time overwhelmed by it. “There’s…there’s been an accident. ”
“You were in an accident?”
“No. No, it’s Mama…She was hit by a car,” I said, my voice cracking.
“What?” he said, more blood draining from his face. “What are you talking about?”
“Mama was hit by a car today. It’s bad. It’s very bad. I’m going home, and I think you should come with me. You have to come…”
“I don’t…Slow down!” he said with an edge. “Start at the beginning.”
I looked around, feeling cold and very out of place, especially when my gaze again landed on the happy portrait of his happy family.
“Ivy? Focus! What exactly happened?”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “All I know is that there was a robbery and she…she got in the way…”
“Oh, good Lord. But she’ll be okay, right?”
“I don’t know. Geneva doesn’t think so. There’s a flight to Savannah tonight out of San Jose. You need to come with me. Mama needs you.”
“Ivy…” My father slowly shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”
I looked at him. “Then make it possible! She needs you.”
“I’m in the middle of a trial. I have to be in court all week.”
“I don’t care. Make some calls. You have to come,” I said, again sounding like petulance personified.
“I can’t do that…I’m sorry.”
As I met my father’s eyes, the waves of my reality nearly knocked me over. Again. I looked past him to his vacation portrait where he so… fit, right there in middle of that family he’d built. I looked back at him and fought more tears. “If your wife had been run over and was lying broken in a hospital three thousand miles away, would you go to her?”
His shoulders slumped and a deep, pained furrow appeared between his brows. “Ivy… it’s not the same thing. ”
My breath and tears gushed at the same time. “If your daughter—your other daughter—if her mother was three thousand miles away hurt and broken…Would you go then?”
My father looked hard at me, sighed, then dropped his gaze in something that looked like shame. I saw it, and he knew I saw it, and in that moment, I also saw the pitiable tableau of my makeshift family: my beautiful, deluded mother lying broken somewhere in Georgia, this man who’d strung her along my whole life with false promises, and the inconvenient daughter they’d made now begging him to care. It all smackedof bad reality TV. When Daniel again met my eyes, they were filled with twenty-two years of something that wasn’t actually love at all, and it turned my stomach. It seemed to surprise him as well, because, I swear, he fell inward, just slightly, buckling a bit under the weight of his duplicity. It might have been me seeing it, or it might have been him letting it be seen. Either way, my father had shown himself to me.
Liz Proctor came back then with a bottle of medication and a glass of water. When she saw us, she was immediately wary, and I wondered if she could possibly imagine what she’d walked into.
“Is…is everything all right?” she said, looking from me to her father.
I studied her, a dozen knives poised on the end of my tongue. But all I said was, “No. Nothing was ever all right, was it Daniel?” I looked back at my father, her father, the love of my mama’s life. I stared at him for a good long minute, watched him try to regain his footing for the sake of his other daughter. He lifted his chin, found his lawyer voice. “I’m so sorry I can’t help you, Miss Talbot.”
From somewhere not usually accessed, I found my glare and I laid it on him. “I doubt that,” I said. “But I’ll be sure to pass it along to my mama.” I turned to leave, and Liz Proctor hurried to the door.
“I’ll show you out.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary, Liz,” Daniel said quickly—too quickly. “I’m sure Ivy can find her own way. ”
His daughter looked at him through questioning eyes, then she looked at me.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’ve been finding my own way for quite a long time, now.” Not trusting myself to say more, I opened the door and walked out.