Ivy in Stills

Fifty-Four—Ivy

I

t was after noon when we drove past Wormsloe and headed into Isle of Hope. I was driving—even though Gran said she was fine, it was time I took a turn, and I surprised myself by being up to the task. The live oaks were in their mid-day splendor, and the street I’d traveled a million times seemed like it had been waiting to welcome me home, to tell me it was all going to be okay. It must have been that sensation of sameness, the comfort and safety of home that brought feeling back into my limbs.

My disastrous wedding had branded a terrible moment on my soul and overshadowed everything in my life for a time, but it hadn’t altered this place one bit. This stately island of history and old ways that I had loved forever was warm and familiar and soft against my aches. It seemed amazing, but I couldn’t believe I’d actually considered never coming back here, because as we rounded LaRoche, I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. This was my home. Savannah was my heart. Here—right here—was the salve on my skinned-up bloodiness. And it always had been.

By the time I pulled up to 40 Bluff, the numbness in me had lifted, and I was overwhelmed with sadness. I was suddenly weak with the reason I was here. Camille was waiting at the front of the house, and when she helped Geneva out of the car, my grandmother thanked her for being a godsend.

“The girls are at preschool for two hours, so I’m all yours,” she said. “What can I do for you? Are you hungry?” Mia’s sister eyed me, then Geneva, then me again .

“Oh goodness, I doubt we’ll be hungry for a week. I’m pretty sure that by later this afternoon, we will have run out of space for what will arrive in my kitchen.” Gran sighed and patted Camille’s face. “Get ready to see what happens in this community when tragedy strikes. But, how ’bout you come in and be our official door-answerer? That would be wonderful.”

Camille smiled. “I can do that.”

We made our way across Geneva’s lawn to the big porch, all three of us trying to be in charge, none of us quite making it. At one point, I asked my grandmother if she was okay.

“Heavens, no, sweet girl,” she said. “I suspect I’m going to have to reinvent okay .” She squeezed my hand as new tears filled her old eyes. “But I’ll get through it, sug. We both will. Together. One foot in front of the other.” She offered a sad wink, and suddenly looked very, very old to me. I couldn’t have loved her more. Or needed her more. On our way up the front steps, she linked arms with me. “Like I said, within an hour or two, there will be a parlor full of big-hearted folks heavy with food and love, so if you were thinking you wanted to shower—or better yet—take a soak in my big tub, you have a small window of opportunity.”

I tried to smile. “Sounds glorious.”

My grandmother took my hands. “You know they’re pure in their intent, these folks, that’s all they know. But I also think some will just plain be curious about you.”

“I know, Gran.”

And they were. Neighbors and lifelong friends, who’d last seen me in barrels of lace and utterly devastated, arrived throughout the afternoon and early evening and approached me like I was blown glass, beyond fragile. Not only had my life been upended by Tim Marsh, but now my mother was dead. There could be no possible hope for my recovery. It was in their faces, and I loved them for it. All of them. The Warrens, the Broadheads, the Parkers. Everett Moss, the Marshes. Tim’s parents were as kind as they had ever been. Their house was two streets behind Geneva’s, and I knew it as well as I knew hers, from years of having dinner there, playing night games, doing homework, and hiding away in their treehouse. I hadn’t realized how much I had missed them—my would-be parents. Paula touched my face, then kissed my cheek. “I just can’t believe this has happened, Ivy. I am so sorry about your mama.” She kept looking sideways at me, and I heard her say to my grandmother that I’d gotten too pretty for her knuckleheaded son. It made me remember that I’d cut my hair.

Bryce Marsh nodded, also taking me in. He seemed genuinely lost for words. “I don’t know what to say, Ivy. We just love you.”

“I know. And I love you back.” I hugged my almost father-in-law, meaning it, and found it hard to swallow over the massive lump in my throat. Their words bespoke their sympathy for my loss even as their eyes probed me for signs of lingering damage done by their son. My current sorrowfulness, however, was so palpable, they could not see beyond it to suspect that most things Tim had receded. But they had. As I looked at them through soft eyes, I had the same sensation I did upon seeing my mother for the first time yesterday, a feeling of distinctly being thrust into adulthood and past what would never matter as much as it once had. I hugged them both. I would love them forever, but right now I had to get away from them—from all of them.

Isle of Hope was a tight place—a very tight place—and the support for my grandmother here was real if not a bit cloying. My grandfather’s great-grandfather had helped establish the community. He’d been a milliner who’d come from London in the early 1800s. He’d built this house and much of it, thanks to Geneva, had retained its historical character. Especially the parlor, which was still full of sad-eyed cheek-kissers in no hurry to leave. I loved these people, I truly did, but I craved the quiet of someplace else. I found my grandmother and said into her ear, “I have to get out of here; can I borrow your car?”

She eyed me with knowing and a little concern. “You’re not going to your mama’s? ”

“I’ll be fine, Gran,” I promised. Then I hugged her and didn’t wait for her to say more.

***

Savannah’s historic district was a twenty-minute drive from Isle of Hope, and for a Friday evening, traffic was predictable. But I was pretty lost in myself, so it didn’t bother me much. Neither did the relative bustle of Chippewa Square, which was sporting its share of tourists at the moment. When I pulled up to the shop at the corner of Perry and Bull, of course I found Mama’s store closed, but I wasn’t prepared for the crime scene tape cordoning off the curved sidewalk in front of it. I parked and realized I was shaking. Images of Mama splayed at wrong angles on that sidewalk filled my mind. I imagined sirens. Screaming. Paramedics doing CPR. Onlookers. Police shooing them away. And all that was left, literally, was this crime tape, most of which had come loose and was blowing listlessly into the street. It looked unforgivably forgotten and anticlimactic—an overlooked crime scene, the victim long removed and now deceased, no longer an issue. It looked shoddy and uninspiring, and it broke my heart and made me mad at the same time.

I got out of my car, and with no concern about whether I needed permission, I gathered the yellow tape—rolled it into a big, obscene ball and stuffed it into the communal trashcan on the corner. No reminder of what had happened here was far better than a faded, blowing-in-the-wind afterthought—that was my thinking.

There was a little wilting pile of flowers stacked up by the double front doors to our shop. It was touching, and for a moment I just stared at them. I could probably name the deliverer of each stem—Mama had lovely, lovely friends. She would be missed. She would.

I gathered the flowers and used my key to let myself in. The lights were off, of course, and the blinds had been shut like at the close of any other day of business at Bree T. Creations . I disabled the alarm before it went crazy and flipped the light switch, which activated not overhead fluorescents, but three huge Victorian lamps. Soft light and the fragrance of citrus and sandalwood imbued the space with familiarity. I looked around. My mother’s personality was everywhere, the walls, the shelves, her artwork adorning her many antique display tables. Her specialty was handmade frames, small, ranging from ornate and beaded to misshapen hardwoods, to cracked plaster, to distressed pine. Very unique, each made with a little attitude and each containing an original watercolor done on homemade paper—something Savannah: A fountain from Forsythe Park, a bed shaped mausoleum from Colonial Park Cemetery, Oglethorpe’s saber, an iconic pied-a-terre.

My mother had an amazing eye, and she’d made quite a name for herself. About eight years ago, maybe ten, she’d caught the attention of someone on the board of trustees at the Savannah College of Art and Design—SCAD—and had been recruited to teach a Design Management course. Now she allowed her top student per quarter to sell their wares in her shop, and it looked like hand-painted silk scarves had made the cut this time. The wrought-iron hall tree in the corner was covered with beautiful one-of-a-kind designs. They fluttered in the soft breeze of the ceiling fan.

A note had been slid under the front door that I did not notice when I first walked in, I picked it up. It was addressed to me. So sorry to hear about your mama, dear girl. Prayers and wishes pouring forth. Delia.

Delia Gwinnett made me cry. She lived across the square on the other side of Chippewa in a walk-up she’d been restoring for years. Her walls were crowded with Mama’s handiwork, and she had been a great friend to us. On Fridays, when I was little, she used to bring me homemade gingersnaps and cream to kick off the weekend. I went to school in Isle of Hope and stayed with Geneva during the week. Friday ’til Sunday, I stayed with Mama and helped out in the shop. Mostly I helped her make paper. I could make paper in my sleep .

I took a final look around and turned off the light. Then I walked up the back staircase to our apartment. Again, the soft familiarity that greeted me was like an embrace: Mama’s ratty paint shirt hanging on the laundry room door, the silk-lined throw sitting in a puddle by the sofa, a diet Pepsi—probably half-full—by the lamp. So her . I loved this room, with its rose-colored walls, sporting a chronology of me throughout the years, and the bay window Mama left perpetually open a crack to let in the sound of horses clopping along on the street below—part of the soundtrack of Savannah.

I pushed out a shaky breath and sank down onto the overstuffed sofa. The cushions folded in on me like a hug and suddenly everything felt so terribly undone. How could she not be here? How could my mother not be here when—good, bad, or messy—she was the ever-present hook on which my life hung? Right here was where we’d laughed and argued and teased and yelled. Right here in this room, over lasagna and pizza and tears and nail-polish and American Idol and The Bachelor , where we’d talked and listened and not listened at all. Where we’d annoyed each other and hurt each other and even switched places in the hierarchy of smart and dumb a few times, but at the end of the day, where we’d belonged to each other with that kind of vicious stickiness known so well to mothers and daughters who were each other’s only .

I looked around and ached. I didn’t know how to be me without her.

I must have fallen asleep in the warm stew of my musings because I woke with a start when a pebble bounced against the bay window. Then another.Then another. It was just after 10:30. Maybe the police had noticed the crime scene tape had been cleaned up, or maybe Delia had seen the lights on and brought me cookies. But as I came fully awake, I knew it was neither of those. Only one person ever threw rocks at my window. I sighed, bone tired and not at all ready, but I stumbled downstairs and opened the door anyway .

“Hey, Ivy,” he said, sheepishly.

“Hey, Tim.”

He swallowed. “Mom said you’d be here. I…don’t be mad. I had to see you. I hope it’s okay.” He shook his head, and tears filled his eyes. “Ivy, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

I stared at him for a few beats. “What for, Tim? Mama? Angela? The wedding?”

He looked truly pained. “All of it. I’m sorry for all of it. Can…can we talk? Please?”

I breathed deep, knowing pretty much everything he would say to me because I’d heard it all before—aside from the few forthcoming particulars having to do with our current circumstances, of course.

“Please, Ivy,” Tim pleaded, his eyes full of emotion.

This, too, was familiar. His sorry was always genuine—and genuinely sad. But I must have been truly exhausted because for some reason, I was surprisingly… unmoved by him.

“We could go for a walk,” he suggested hopefully.

As I considered this, I took him in. My almost-husband seemed older to me, somehow, and saddled with heavy things. And strangely, he felt like he’d been missing from my life much longer than the mereweeks it had been since I’d last seen him. He was wearing a dirty white tee shirt and had muscles on his arms that didn’t used to be there. Then I remembered his new job and that tires must be heavy. The dark shadow on his jaw made him look serious and, I thought, better looking than I remembered. He was taller than me by a head, and as I looked up at him, I felt… Nothing . Well, not nothing, exactly. But nothing that hurt.

Maybe I was just too tired or too filled with my mother being dead to have room for anything else. But whatever it was, feeling nothing at this moment was not what I’d expected. And somehow that made me stronger than I realized. “I guess we could talk for a minute,” I said.

“Really?” he breathed. “Thank you, Ivy. ”

I grabbed the key from the cash register and locked the door, and we headed down Bull Street. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to make this easy for Tim, plus I didn’t really have much to say anyway. But I did sort of admire him for taking me on right now. I knew Tim—he wasn’t good at this kind of stuff—so it was no surprise that we were well past Liberty Street before he finally spoke.

“Do you hate me?” he said on what might have been a tiny sob.

“I wanted to,” I said, my gaze on the sidewalk. “I thought I did for a while. But turns out I’m not really very good at it. Hating.”

He made a laugh noise that wasn’t a laugh at all. “Well, if it helps, I hate me.”

I looked over at him. “That’s good. I think it actually does help, a smidge.”

He tried for a smile, and I did, too. And then I missed him.

Tim and I had been friends our whole lives. He’d hit Felix Dunn for calling me fat in the fourth grade. When we were thirteen, he waited six hours in the hospital lobby while I got my tonsils out. He threw me a surprise party when I was sixteen, and it wasn’t even my birthday. I knew his faults and his secret fears, and he knew mine. So, he knew how deeply he’d wounded me. And I knew how hard he’d tried not to. I also knew he’d had no choice when he’d finally realized how much he wanted to be withAngela, which I now realized had everything to do with her being pregnant. Of course, his timing—at the time—had sucked. But I knew now, with certainty, that if he’d been five minutes stronger and said ‘I do,’ we’d be married like I’d dreamed. The rub would be I’d be competing with the girl he really wanted, not to mention their child. And we’d be miserable. All of us. As it stood, because the Universe actually rolled the dice in my favor, Angela would always compete with me, at least with the idea of me. Every time she hurt him, every time they fought, every time he was disappointed with life, he’d think of me because that’s what he did; I was his safe place. I knew it, he knew it, and she knew it. It was twisted and sickish and very sad. But because Angela had swooped in to save herself at the eleventh hour of my wedding, by the grace of God, this ridiculous cycle had spat me out for good.

Silver linings, I thought. Who knew it would take the hardest day of my life—which turns out not to have been my failed wedding day—to recognize them?

I looked over at him. “Are you happy?” I said softly.

He considered me. “Some days, yeah. Some days for sure—but marriage is a lot of work,” he informed me, sounding like a dime-store philosopher. “You know I have a son.”

“I do. Congratulations.”

He smiled. “He’s pretty awesome.”

“He’s your son. What choice does he have?”

Tim looked down at me with an expression of gentle surprise. “How do you do that, Ivy? How do you not despise me?”

I ignored his question. “Do you have pictures?”

“Of him? Umm, yeah. ’Course.” He stopped and pulled his phone from his back pocket. “He’s just starting to smile,” Tim said, punching apps on the small screen. Then we huddled under a streetlight near Monterey Square, and Tim showed me his baby boy—seven weeks old tomorrow. Timothy Jack, TJ, was beautiful. He had his dad’s dark hair but looked just like Angela—which I thought was unfortunate. I sniffled. He seemed so small and safe and adored, nestled in the crook of Tim’s arm. And the expression on Tim’s face…That pinched.

“He’s perfect,” I rasped.

Tim caught my emotion and quickly put his phone away. Then it was awkward for a moment because it couldn’t be anything else. “I’m so sorry,” he said again.

We crossed the street at Forsyth Park and headed back down Drayton in silence. A horse-drawn carriage passed us, and the driver tipped his hat. Tim jutted his chin. After a minute, he said, shyly, “You look great, by the way. I really, really , like your hair.”

“Oh, thanks,” I said, touching it. “I’m getting used to it. ”

“So where did you go…after…?”

“Oh…California. I left the day after, with my dad. I was actually never planning to come back here.”

“Never? Because of me? Ivy—”

“But then my mom…”

Tim studied me, renewed pain on his face. He shook his head. “I’m so sorry about Bree,” he said. “I…I couldn’t believe it. I heard what happened on the radio, but I didn’t know she died until Mom called tonight. I was working. I tried to get off early, but…”

I looked at him. “It’s…it’s…it feels sooo weird. So completely wrong.”

We stopped, and Tim looked at me with tears shining in his eyes, and of course that got me crying, too. When he held his arms out to me, I almost walked into them. Almost. Heaven knows I needed a strong place to fall apart, a safe place. Unfortunately, my dear Tim was neither one of those things, and we both knew it.

I looked at him, then stepped back from his invitation and brushed my tears away trying not to see the sting of my rejection in his eyes. “I’m okay,” I said, sniffing. “I’ll be okay. Eventually…”

“You do hate me,” he said in a raspy voice.

I shook my head. “No. No, I don’t. I just don’t think I trust you with my hurt right now. It’s probably because I don’t love you anymore…so I’m…you know…”

The saddest tear filled his eye, then rolled down his cheek. It was a little heartbreaking. And after a few beats of neither of us saying anything, I looped my arm through his and we walked the rest of the way back in silence, because what else was there to talk about really? At his car, I gave Tim a little hug because he seemed to need one. He cried into my neck and truth be told, I cried, too. It was all very sad and felt very final. But a little bit good, too, freeing. Which was quite surprising.

After Tim drove away, I did not know what to do with myself. I wasn’t ready to go back to Geneva’s, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend the night here. So, I walked across the street to Chippewa Square and sat down on the bench facing my home—Mama’s home. Bree used to tell me how lucky I was to have two addresses, two phone numbers, two bedrooms—two lives, really. And I guess I was. It’s what happens, I suppose, when you’re raised by two generations.

There were still a few tourists roaming the streets at almost 11:30, which I found comforting. The shops were closed, of course, and the restaurants, but the bars on the river front would be open for hours. Of course, the ghost tours were still doing their creepy business. Savannah was known for being a city of extreme paranormal activity. I’d never experienced any, but I wouldn’t have minded a little tonight. I gazed up at the statue of James Oglethorpe—Savannah’s founder and guardian of Chippewa Square. “Where were you when Mama needed you?” I whispered, fresh tears filling my eyes, blurring everything into a buttery glow.

It was the fireflies. I hadn’t even noticed them. They were everywhere, glimmering up the shrubs at Oglethorpe’s feet, the trees, the bushes.

When I was a little girl, Mama and I used to come out here, sit on this very bench and watch them. Make wishes. She’d make up outlandish stories about their magical powers and where they went when they left for the season—some secret location where they weaved your dreams true.

She used to tell me they were very, very busy conjuring up the perfect someone worthy of my heart.