Forty-Four—Mia
M
y brother was a total mess, close to a full-on panic attack, but as I rubbed his back, he rallied enough to eke out his story. It was awful, and I couldn’t believe that I’d let Ivy leave here alone. I almost couldn’t fully grasp what had happened to Bree Talbot. And I definitely couldn’t believe what Bo had done. My brother had gotten himself to the campus, half-clad and sweaty, to tell our friend—while holding her—that something terrible had happened to her mother. As he told me all it had taken for him to tell Ivy, he seemed to relive his delivery of this devastation and, in so doing, began hyperventilating. He tormented himself over all the ways he could have been gentler and how much of a disappointment he had been in her time of need. His self-loathing was heartbreaking, and I didn’t fully understand what had provoked it.
I had a Xanax in my wallet and an unopened bottle of water in my backpack. I handed them to him, but he just stared at me.
“C’mon, Bo. You need this,” I said. “You’ll feel better.”
He bent over his knees and filled his lungs a few times. When he sat back up, he placed the little pill in his shirt pocket. “I’m worried about Ivy,” he said. “She shouldn’t be alone.”
He stood and paced in front of me for a moment, took a few more deep breaths, then headed toward the library parking lot. Of course, I followed him, wondering when he would realize that he was run-sweaty and wearing shorts—something he never did in public aside from running the hills behind Lullaby’s neighborhood. His hair was pushed back with a sweatband, and his sunglasses were smudged—two additional sources of shame that, for the moment, had apparently escaped his awareness as well.
When we got to his car, he asked—more like ordered—me to google Ivy’s dad’s address. I mapped it on my phone and gave him directions as we pulled out of the parking lot. “What are we doing?” I said. “She has my car.”
“I have a bad feeling, Mia. I don’t think she should be by herself right now.”
Bo drove in cold silence, his face a brick of agitation. He looked like hell. “Bo, settle down. You did good,” I said, gently, still trying to sooth him.
He didn’t respond, but his breathing had slowed a bit, even if his incessant tapping on the steering wheel still advertised his anxiousness.
“She’ll be all right,” I said feebly. “She’s got to be…”
“She won’t be all right, Mia!” Bo barked. “Don’t be ridiculous!”
“Hey! No snapping at the sister!”
Bo pulled up to Daniel Proctor’s building and told me he wasn’t going to wait with me. “I’m the last person she wants to see, Mia. I’m going home to take a shower.”
“What? Wait! Why would you be the last person she wants to see? What did you do?”
“Nothing. Just go. Go find her.”
“Bo!”
“I’m fine!” he snapped.
“I’m not getting out of this car until you take the bloody Xanax,” I snapped back. “And I have all day!”
He glared at me but wasn’t hyperventilating, which I considered a good sign.
I glared back.
“Fine!” He made a production of pulling the little pill from his pocket and swallowing it with no water. “Happy? Now get out and go find Ivy. ”
It was weird, the way he was acting—even for the king of weird. I watched as he drove away thinking something did not add up.
Now I was leaning against my car trying to decide if I should go in and look for Ivy or just wait out here for her. What an amazingly horrible afternoon. Two hours ago, we had been having so much fun spending Super-dad’s money. Ivy had smiled for the first time in days. Now her mom had been hurt…maybe worse than we could imagine, which was tragic enough, but telling Daniel? Bo was right; one of us should have been with her. I should go find her.
As I made my way across the parking lot, Ivy walked out, or rather she stumbled out, of the entrance. She looked a little unsteady, and when she saw me, her shoulders sagged. My heart ached for her, and all I could think to do was fold her in a hug, and she clung to me like I could save her life. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“Oh, Mia. I didn’t know how bad I needed to see a friendly face.”
We got in my car, where I cranked up the air and then we proceeded to sit in silence for a moment. When Ivy did not offer anything, I finally asked, “Did you see your dad?”
“He’s an ass.”
“Big ass? Little ass?”
“He can’t be bothered with Mama. That kind of ass.”
“Ouch,” I grimaced. “I’m so sorry, Ivy.”
She looked over at me, tired and overwhelmed. “I met my sister,” she said softly.
I felt my eyes widen. “Ummmm. What?”
Ivy nodded. “She’s my age, Mia. My age. Do you know what that means?”
“No?”
“It means my dad had two little kids by two women—or even better, one little kid and a pregnant wife, when he and Mama made me.” She shook her head. “I always knew he had a family, but I didn’t truly know it—down where it counts—until just now.”
“Ivy… ”
She ran a hand under her nose. “It was all lies. He was never intending to leave them for us, no matter what pretty promises my mama fell for. He was never leaving his family. He was growing it. He has a little boy that I don’t even know if Mama knows about. And the kicker is the Willis in Willis, Proctor and Holmes is his wife’s family.” She shook her head. “Who lives that way?”
“Ivy…I’m…I’ve got nothing,” I said, completely helpless.
She sniffed. “I asked him to come to Savannah with me,” she said flatly. “I told him Mama needed him.”
“And?”
A tear fell down her cheek. “He said no.”
I looked out my window and hated Daniel Proctor. I also had no idea what to say to his daughter.
Ivy shut down after that. I didn’t blame her—what was there to say? Having met her dad, seen him in action, I could only imagine what she was going through. But it wasn’t just Daniel. I was also—despite everything—having terrible feelings about Bree Talbot. But she was not in any shape for me to think badly about, so I kept all that to myself.
When we got home, Bo wasn’t there, but he’d left the flight information on the counter. He made me so mad. He’d said he was worried about Ivy, and that had been beyond obvious—so where was he? I’d thought it would be nice if we both took her to dinner on the way to the airport, which was more than an hour away. But he wasn’t answering his phone, and he was ignoring my texts.
I was so upset that while Ivy folded her laundry, I ducked into my bedroom and called my mom—my voice of reason and clarity. I told her everything that had happened, along with Bo’s weird ownership of Ivy’s heartbreak. It was so him, but somehow extra out there , which also made me mad since this was Ivy’s crisis, not his. But somehow my brother had managed to usurp her personal disaster and turn it into his own. Mom let me rant but said she understood .
“Have you tried to reach Bo?” she asked.
“Messages and texts! And I’m swearing at him telepathically right now. I’m just so mad at him!”
Mom sighed. “It doesn’t sound like him, does it? How is Ivy?”
“Bad, Mom. I’m worried about her.”
“That darling girl. You give her my love. Stop worrying about Bo. It sounds like he got busy…which is code, dear daughter, for him just not knowing how to say goodbye.”
“You think?”
“Yes, that’s what I think. Now you get Ivy where she needs to be. I’ll try and get a hold of your brother. You’re a good girl, Meez.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Hug that Ivy. Tell her to call us.”
“I will,” I promised. “I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too.”
As I watched Ivy finish packing, it hit me that I didn’t know when I’d see her again. Or if. And the thought hurt. She filled one suitcase and a small duffle with her things, and in mere moments, it was like she’d never been there at all. I looked around. “Wow. It will seem so strange to not have you here.”
“It will seem strange not bein’ here,” she said. Then she looked at me. “Thank you, Mia, for all that you’ve done for me. I don’t know what would have become of me if you hadn’t met with my dad that day.”
“I’d have one less friend,” I said, getting emotional.
“Me, too.”
I tried Bo one more time to let him know we were hitting the Bread Bowl for dinner if he wanted to join us. But I never heard from him. It was kind of a bust anyway. Ivy barely touched the salad she ordered, and our stilted attempt at conversation was derailed by a lengthy phone call from Geneva. Apparently, Bree had been taken back into surgery, and Ivy’s grandmother had nearly been admitted to the hospital herself for heart palpitations. She called just to hear Ivy’s voice—so Ivy talked to her through dinner and almost the entire way to San Jose International.
At the curb, I pulled Ivy’s things out of my trunk and my eyes filled with tears.
“Don’t start,” she said. “Or I’ll have to start, and I can’t cry anymore.”
I pulled her into my arms. “I’m going to miss you! I so wish I could go with you, but…”
“Stop—you’ve been wonderful enough.”
“Maybe this weekend,” I said, not sure what I even meant.
“Shhhh. Don’t. It’s okay. Hopefully Bree will be on the mend, and then…who knows? I’ll probably get that call from one of the hundred jobs I’ve applied for, and I’ll have to come back.”
“Promise?”
“Of course. Probably. Maybe—it’s a possibility.”
I swallowed. “Call me when you land. And then call me when you see your mom.”
“I will,” she said. “I will.”
Just before she went through the doors, Ivy turned to me and shouted. “Please tell Bo goodbye. And tell him I’m so, so sorry.”
“What? Sorry for what?”
But Ivy just waved and disappeared into the airport.