Epilogue
CAM
NINE MONTHS LATER
Stepping into the Philadelphia Art Museum usually calms me.
The familiar smell of all the old paintings, the worn floors from the constant foot traffic, the hushed conversations and the tour guides walking past, describing all the masterpieces to everyone gawking at them and snapping photos.
It’s comfortable.
But today, I’m tense, anxiety coiling around my spine and stiffening it the moment we enter.
Ivy rifles through the bag hanging on the back of the stroller, falling behind me slightly.
I stop walking and turn toward her. “What are you looking for?”
She glances up, frustration in the little huff that puffs from her lips. “Her pacifier in case she wakes up.”
Her nervous rustling around, searching for it makes me grin, and I peek down at Drea sleeping soundly in my arms, snuggled against my chest. “I don’t think we have to worry about that. She’s out cold.”
Ivy sighs. “Of course she is, because you’re holding her. You know she’ll have to get used to sleeping in the stroller or her own crib—not in your arms—eventually.”
“Well, that day isn’t today.”
I adjust my hold on Drea to keep her head up, and Ivy rolls her eyes slightly at the same argument we’ve been having for the past six months.
Her belief that my constant need to hold Drea is going to somehow make it impossible for her to sleep as she grows older, doesn’t worry me.
And even if it did, the feeling I get when I have her snuggled against my chest is well worth any frustration her sleeping patterns might cause later.
Because this grounds me.
Knowing she’s here, that she’s safe, the feel of her pressed against me, being able to look down and see Drew’s face and that mop of curly hair, holding this tiny piece of him who is growing and thriving and is so loved by everyone around her, it helps me get through the hard days.
The days when the guilt and the anger over how everything played out still get to me.
When I have to rely on Ivy, Mom, and Dale to keep me from listening to the voices in my head that still love to try to seduce me to that place I never want to go again.
“She’ll be fine, Ivy.”
She sighs and stops digging in the bag. “You’re not going to tell me why we’re here?”
I shake my head, that tension moving from my spine into my shoulders the closer we draw to the reason I’ve brought her to the museum today. “It’s a surprise.”
Ivy scowls. “Yeah, yeah…”
“I know you don’t like surprises.”
But I wasn’t about to tell her about this one.
I couldn’t.
This is something that has to be seen and it needed to be perfect before I showed Ivy.
“Come on.”
I lead her through the museum and toward the contemporary and modern art wing.
She raises a brow as we pass into it because typically when we’re here, we head straight for Prometheus.
But before she can ask anything, the familiar click of heels sounds on the floors and Roxy approaches us from one of the side galleries that has a sign marking it closed.
A bright smile spreads across her face, her eyes lighting up. “There you are.”
Roxy rushes over and pulls Ivy into a tight hug she returns, and I grin, as Roxy whispers something conspiratorially into her ear. Whatever it is makes Ivy laugh and shake her head.
The fact that those two have grown so close over the past several months makes me happier than words can express. Roxy has become almost like another member of the family—though, Ivy might be annoyed that she was in on all this and kept it from her again.
Roxy approaches me and pushes up onto her toes in her heels to peek at the baby. “I see my favorite girl is taking a nap.”
I nod. “She’s been out for a while.”
“Well, that’s lucky for you because otherwise, you know I’d be stealing her for a while.”
Grinning, I lean in and place a kiss on Roxy’s cheek. “I’ll hand her over as soon as she wakes up, I promise.”
Roxy winks. “I’ll hold you to that.” Somebody calls her name across the gallery, and she waves. “Sorry, guys. I have to go, but find me after, okay?”
“We will.”
Ivy raises a brow. “After what?”
That same anxiety tightens my gut. “You’ll see.”
Her brow furrows, and her lips twist slightly. “Why does that sound so ominous?”
Chuckling, I shake my head. “I promise, it isn’t.”
At least, I hope not, because honestly, this could go one of two ways and I have no idea which one it will.
Months and months of planning have all lead to this moment, and keeping anything from Ivy has been weighing on me—even if it was for a very good reason.
I hope she sees it that way…
Ivy allows me to lead her toward the gallery marked closed, but before we reach it, I pause and wait for her to do the same.
“Please try to understand…”
She raises a brow at me in question. “Understand what?”
“Why I had to do this.”
Her eyes narrow, unease filling her gaze. “Cam, you’re scaring me…”
I hate those words.
The last time she said them, I blew up her entire world.
Even though so much time has passed since that night, the ripple effects of it still linger.
That agony sometimes return when we least expect it.
But somehow, we’ve found a way to keep swimming against the tide of anguish.
We’ve kept our heads above water and grown stronger by taking things a second, a minute, an hour, a day at a time.
And this is part of that process.
Something that’s been a long time coming.
“Go in.”
She cautiously steps around me, leaving the stroller near the entrance, and enters the gallery through the black drapes with me right behind.
Her steps falter.
Her mouth drops open.
Her eyes lock on the massive canvas hanging in the center of the space.
“Oh, my God, is that…”
I step up beside her, my gaze raking over the image I’ve spent hours staring at and have memorized. “Yes.”
She makes a little strangled noise in the back of her throat, and I glance over at her, but she’s fixated on the canvas where I first made love to her, the night she came to my studio and learned the truth about what happened at Mom’s birthday party.
I dip my head low so I can brush my lips against her ear. “I call it ‘Worshiping Ivy,’ and it was too beautiful not to share with the world.”
“Cam…”
I can’t tell by the way she says my name, if she’s angry or not, and she doesn’t even look at me, so transfixed by it that she stands completely still.
Several minutes tick by as she examines every inch of the canvas—the smears, the blotches, the handprints in the paint that tell the story of our first time together.
The longer I wait for her to say something, the harder my body trembles.
My grip on a still sleeping Drea is that only thing that keeps me grounded enough to wait Ivy out and give her the time and space to gather her thoughts.
When she finally turns toward me, her eyes are wet, barely restraining tears. But before she can say anything, her gaze finds something over my shoulder and she pushes past me to approach it.
I hold my breath as she studies the paintings lining the wall.
Each and every one of her.
Some that she’s seen before, others that I’ve done in the studio when I went over to work and tucked away so that she wouldn’t get a glimpse of them when she came over to see what I’ve been painting over the last several months.
She walks slowly, examining each canvas, and pauses in front of the one I did of her on the bed our first night together, and I know she sees the change I made.
“I figured since many of these were intimate, you wouldn’t want your face to be shown, so I modified them slightly, but the originals are still at the studio.”
In any where her identity might have been revealed, I’ve changed it to a partial profile or cropped the painting completely so no one will ever know that it’s her unless she wants them to.
But it doesn’t make them any less haunting or any less beautiful.
Ivy doesn’t say anything as we slowly make our way around the gallery, viewing the nearly four dozen paintings I chose to be part of the collection.
The longer it takes and the more time that passes in her silence, the more anxious I become for her reaction.
She hates it.
She’s angry.
I shouldn’t have done this without asking her permission.
What the fuck were you thinking, Cam?
Drea lets out a little annoyed sound before resettling against my chest, and I rub my hand up and down her back softly as I follow Ivy. Giving her some space to gather her thoughts.
When we finally reach our starting point back at the massive canvas, Ivy turns to face me, tears sliding down her cheeks.
My gut twists violently. “I’m sorry. I know I should have asked your permission. I understand if you’re mad. I shouldn’t have—”
“No.” She shakes her head, a soft smile forming on her lips. “I’m not mad.”
“You’re not?”
She lets out a little laugh. “God, no. I’m…honored and surprised and…”
“Surprised about what?”
Her gaze travels over the gallery walls. “Is this really how you see me?”
I narrow my gaze on her. “What do you mean? You know it is. You’ve seen the paintings I’ve done of you. Well, most of them.”
“Yeah”—she nods—“I mean, I have, but not like this.”
“Ivy…” I close the distance between us and securing Drea with one palm, grasp Ivy’s chin in the other. “There isn’t a good enough artist in the world to truly capture how I see you and how beautiful you are, but this is as close as I could get.”
She pushes up and kisses me, her lips gliding across mine in a movement filled with love, pain, and sorrow, then presses her forehead to mine. “Thank you. This is a tremendous gift.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “There’s more.”
Falling back on her heels, Ivy’s brow furrows. “More?”
“Something I should have done a long time ago…”
I incline my head toward the adjoining gallery. “I call this collection ‘Red,’ but the one in there is different.”
Chewing on her bottom lip, she moves toward the next gallery.
I’m frozen in place watching her step inside—a combination of anxiety and the grief that still lingers keeping my feet from moving to follow her.
A muffled sob falls from her lips as soon as she walks in, and I squeeze my eyes closed against the burn of tears, trying to keep from falling apart completely while Drea is in my arms.
Snuggling her close, I force my eyes open and follow Ivy.
She stands in front of a half dozen paintings of Drew—the ones I’ve done over the last several months, trying to capture those precious memories I have of him. Moments when he truly displayed who he was for the whole world to see.
I step up next to her. “I call this collection ‘Light.’”
Because that’s what Drew always was for everyone he met.
He pulled me out of dark places too many times to count. Helped me find my feet. Encouraged me to go to art school instead of just putzing around at my studio. He always wanted what was best for me and everyone else around him, and he would bend over backward to do what he could to get them there.
Which is why I had to do this.
Ivy walks up to the first image, reaching out her hand.
She trails her fingertips across the paint as if he’s standing in front of her and this is her chance to touch him one last time.
Her hiccup sobs echo in the small room, a fitting soundtrack for the moment she comes face to face with him again like this.
I might not have been there for this particular moment captured on the canvas, but I see it every day in the photo on the end table…
The pure, vibrant joy radiating from his smile as he spun Ivy in his arms on that beach after asking her to be his wife.
And I know she recognizes it even though it’s only his face in the image.
She places her hand over his lips, whispering something I can’t hear, and when she turns back to face me, I know what she wants without her even asking.
I close the distance between us and carefully hand Drea off to her. She pulls her in close, snuggling her face into the baby’s dark hair and carries her over to the painting.
But I hang back.
This moment isn’t for me.
It’s for them.
The three of them.
And when she moves away from the painting to examine the others along the gallery walls, I stay behind her, explaining each moment from our lives together captured and why I chose it.
So many memories of him.
Each important in its own way.
Not just for me, but for Mom, who already came and saw both collections yesterday.
And especially for Ivy and Drea.
Even if Drew’s daughter can’t see them right now or appreciate their meaning, I’ll continue to paint them because this is what I promised I would do—help her know her father.
The light to my darkness, my other half…
When we reach the end of the collection, Ivy finally turns to me and stares up with tears streaming down her face. “Thank you.”
I dip my head to press a featherlight kiss over her lips. “You don’t have to ever thank me for anything, Ivy. If anything, I should be thanking you for giving me everything, but most of all, for your forgiveness.”
Something I never thought possible.
Yet, somehow, we’ve reached that place. Through pain and anger, anguish and guilt, we found a way to each other.
She was my sweetest obsession, and I became her sweetest agony.
Through it all, Drew was the light that has shone in the darkness and guided us to this moment. And now that light shines with Drea, the brightest star in the night sky over the shore he loved so much.
* * *
I hope you enjoyed Cam and Ivy’s story in The Sweetest Lie Duet.