Twenty-Nine—Mia
W
e were up all night discussing it, but I think we all knew Camille would go. It was the best—and in the end, the only—immediate solution, given the stalking prowess of her insane husband. Her friends were terrified of Peter, so they were out, and there was no hiding her at Mom’s or here. He would find her. We thought of moving her down the coast for a while, but Peter worked for SunTrust, so he knew how to trace credit card activity, and she had no income. If she charged anything, he’d know it, and Dad couldn’t support her indefinitely, though there was talk of him taking out a second mortgage on his house. Camille shut that down.
“I don’t think I have a choice,” she said, tearing up. “At least until I can figure out what I’m going to do.”
Ivy—who’d tried to go to bed thinking this was a family deal, but who I’d dragged back into our drama—leaned over and took my sister’s hand. “Camille, I know you don’t know her—and you don’t know me—but I promise you that Geneva is exactly the person you saw tonight. Mama’s a bit of a flake, but just in matters of love and men. You can trust them. And my grandmother will take excellent care of you and your little girls. She lives to nurture. She might actually nurture you to death.”
Camille smiled weakly. “I have to get them away from here.”
Dad agreed. “You do.”
By nine the next morning, we were at the Target in Seaside, which was sort of on the way to the airport. We figured we only had about twenty minutes, so we split up. Ivy looked for backpacks, I took the girls for pjs, underwear, and summer dresses, Camille grabbed everything else. Mom and Dad were paying Peter an early visit to see if the night had produced my sister. It was vital that they continue to be frantic and engaged. Anything less would raise red flags.
Camille paid with her credit card, but it would be the last time she did. Dad had charged her airline tickets on his Visa and given her just under 500.00 in cash. Later this week, we would take turns using her debit card to withdraw cash in different counties, then we’d send it to her in a cashier’s check. If Peter was monitoring the withdrawals—which he would be—he’d be running all over central California looking for his wife, never suspecting that she was nicely tucked away in Georgia. Camille said we probably had a week before he’d close the accounts, hoping to smoke her out. Dad also took her phone, which I thought was a little CSI, but he insisted and told my sister he would overnight her a new one tomorrow.
At the airport, I hugged Camille and didn’t want to let go. “This is really happening,” I whimpered. “I already miss you.”
“Me, too, Meez. I don’t know what I would have done without you and Ivy.” She then pulled Ivy into our hug. “Thank you. Thank you so much, for everything,” she told her.
“You’ll be fine,” Ivy said. “And don’t be scared when my gran starts talking about your year of ashes . It’s a Geneva thing.”
Camille looked puzzled, but the ticket agent had handed her their boarding passes. “Gate 3, ma’am. You’d better hurry.”
I hugged my nieces, knowing I would miss them almost more than I would miss my sister. For them this was being hyped as an adventure, and Ivy kept telling them one more thing they would love about staying with Geneva. “She has a room full of books,” she said. “You can fish off her dock. Tell her to tell you about the limpkins in the birdbath. Oh, and there’s a hidden fort in the Magnolia tree. I know, because I built it. ”
Camille smiled at Ivy as she hoisted two of the backpacks. She then arranged the lightest one onto Scout’s shoulders and picked up Olivia. “We have to go. I love you!”
We watched them weave through security and through the doors to the gates, and then they were gone. I didn’t think I’d cry, but the enormity of what was happening—my sister and her daughters running away from the worst excuse of a human on the planet—suddenly overwhelmed me. How had this happened? To my sister? To my family?
“Gran,” I heard Ivy say into her phone. “It’s me. Yep. We just dropped them off. They should be coming your way. Oh, you see them? Good.” She gave me the thumbs up. “Okay, then. Thanks so much, Gran. Have a safe trip. I love you! We’ll call you tomorrow. Tell Mama…tell her I love her, too.”
“Successful transfer of custody?” I said as Ivy put her phone in her pocket.
“Geneva has them,” Ivy said.
I looped my arm through hers for the walk back to the parking lot. “I have to tell you, I’ve never met anyone like your grandmother.”
Ivy chuckled. “Yep. They broke the mold with her, it’s true.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“And I want the truth. Do you really believe in all that universe stuff?”
Ivy lifted a shoulder. “I believe in Geneva, so…I don’t know.”
I narrowed my eyes to a slit. “Tell me about her,” I said.
Ivy shook her head. “You know that will take about a year,” she laughed.
“Well, you’d better get started, then.”
“What exactly do you want to know?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Everything. Does she have a big family? Hundreds of friends? What about your grandfather? ”
Ivy cocked her head. “She does have a lot of friends…But she’d trade them all for a big family. All my grandmother ever really wanted was to grow old with someone she loved and have lots of babies. But she didn’t marry my grandpa until she was thirty-nine, and he died less than ten years later. She miscarried three times before my mama stuck and two times after. So, she only got Bree—that’s kinda relevant to her life’s journey. And then Bree was only—I don’t know, six or seven when her daddy died, and she was mad and lost and hard to handle, according to Gran, and my grandmother was too heartbroken to rein her in. So, Mama was a wild child who took her time growing up, and I think if she had raised me on her own, I’d probably have been the same.” Ivy looked over at me and arched a brow. “But Geneva saved me. She saved me and Mama. Gran used to tell me I was the bridge back to her lost daughter, and Mama told me once I was the highway back to her mama. So…allow me to introduce myself, Mia—Ivy Bridge and Highway.” She laughed. “Are you bored yet?”
“Not even a little.”
Ivy shook her head. “Geneva credits the Universe with my existence. She’s never been a fan of my dad, but she’s quick to point out that there was no other route from me to her than the Universe throwing her daughter into his path, so she can’t bring herself to hate him. And if you really think about it, she’s right. She says there are no real accidents.”
“Hmmm. When you look at it that way, I guess she’sright,” I agreed.
“Yep. So, where Gran’s concerned, there is no such thing as random. The word doesn’t even belong in the dictionary. It’s all the Universe being purposeful, bringing people together for a reason that might not be immediately evident.” Ivy looked over at me. “I’m the first to admit my grandmother is a little bit out there, but it’s hard to argue with her logic. Where people are concerned, anyway. ”
I thought about this. “She might be onto something. How else would you and I ever have become friends?”
“Exactly!” Ivy said.
“It’s a little freaky,” I said, unlocking the car door. “Hey, by the way, did you and your mom make up? It looked like things were better between you two last night.”
“I think we did. She gave me some money. It’s in my other pants.”
“Oh good. You can buy lunch,” I grinned. “And then you can tell me all about what a year of ashes is supposed to mean.”
Ivy laughed.
“On second thought, I’ll buy lunch,” I said.
“Why?”
“Remember the other day when you said I got more than I bargained for when I met your dad?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, look around, girl. I think we might actually be even.”