Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
When they arrived at the cottage, Gram and Ivy were on the porch swing, reading. To Nora’s surprise, Ivy was wearing a simple linen sundress. She’d pulled her hair back, and with the brown roots that had grown out around her face, she almost looked like a different child.
“Did you get a new dress?” Blaze asked.
Gram looked up from her book and bobbed her eyebrows happily, clearly as surprised by Ivy’s choice as they were.
“Yeah. I used to wear dresses sometimes, and I was admiring it in the beach shop. Jake noticed me looking at it. I said I hadn’t worn a dress like this in a long time. He told me he thought it would look good on me.”
“He’s a smart cookie,” Nora said. “He was right.”
“Where were y’all?” Ivy asked.
Nora plopped down at the outdoor table. “Parasailing.” She gave Blaze a conspiratorial grin.
“You got my dad to parasail?” Ivy asked.
“It was his idea,” Nora countered.
Ivy’s eyes rounded. “Living on the edge, Dad?”
Blaze chuckled, sitting down next to Nora. “Exactly. Speaking of living on the edge, you might want to consider that you don’t know Jake very well. You shouldn’t have ridden home with him before you knew him better.”
While Blaze’s comment seemed generally lighthearted, it clearly hit a nerve for Ivy.
“You don’t trust my judgment?” Ivy asked.
“You don’t know him. You might have asked my thoughts on the matter before you took off with him.”
“You haven’t been there to tell me what to do my whole life, and you want to start now? I had to take care of myself while Mom worked, and she trusted me to do that. You haven’t trusted me once.”
Gram turned her book over in her lap.
“That’s not true. I trust you,” Blaze said.
“So much that you want to fill every hour of my summer with something so I’m not left to my own choices?”
“I was trying to keep you from being bored.”
Ivy crossed her arms. “You were not. You were trying to keep me from doing something I shouldn’t.”
“Why do you think that?” he asked. “ Were you planning to do something you shouldn’t?”
“See? You assume it!”
“Ivy, I only asked because you brought up the subject.”
Nora interjected, “Hang on, hang on. Before things get heated, let’s?—”
“No!” Ivy tossed her book to the side and got up from the swing, the thing nearly rocking Gram right off.
Gram grabbed the ropes and steadied the bench with her feet.
“It’s already heated,” Ivy said, tears brimming in her eyes. “This is why I came here to get away from you. You don’t treat me like a person. You treat me like a kid.”
Blaze raised his arms, looking helpless. “You are a kid.”
“I’m going to be eighteen by the end of the summer. And I’ve been on my own since I was little. I’m practically an adult. But I’m forced to go to this stupid school and follow everyone’s rules when I’m fine on my own.”
Ivy angrily wiped a tear with her wrist, her lip quivering. “You don’t even know your own daughter! Mom did! I miss Mom!” She bounded down the stairs, over the dune, and out to the sand, where she sat down and hugged her knees over the balloon of her dress.
“What am I supposed to do with that?” Blaze asked.
Nora knew what it felt like to lose her mother. Her heart ached for Ivy. “She’s got a lot of pent-up grief, and by the sound of things it seems she might not have had a lot of limits living with her mother. I’m sure Candace had to work quite a bit as a single mom.”
“That was her choice. She wouldn’t take my money.”
“I know, but now Ivy has to navigate the effects of that choice. We’re going to have to tread lightly around her. She’s hurting.”
He got up and stretched his arms across the railing, peering out at his daughter. “I want to help her and parent her, but she won’t let me. How am I supposed to be her dad when she blows up any time I ask for a bit of compliance?” He shook his head, his gaze on his daughter. “Should I go down and try to talk to her?”
“You could,” Nora said, “but I wonder if the message might be better received from an innocent third party. I could try.”
“Okay.” He stepped back and folded his arms. “I’ll stay up here.” He turned to Gram. “You can fill me in on this Jake kid.”
Nora walked down to the beach and sat next to Ivy. Tears streamed down the girl’s face, her eyes red.
“I’m sorry you’ve been thrust into this whole new place. You didn’t ask for any of it,” Nora said.
Ivy sniffled, her bottom lip still quivering.
“And you must miss your mom terribly.”
All the strength left Ivy’s face. She crumpled against Nora’s shoulder and sobbed. Nora put her arm around the girl and squeezed her tightly.
“I don’t know how to be this new person,” she whimpered.
“You don’t have to be a new person. You just have to find your way in different surroundings.”
“I don’t want to live with him,” she cried. “Mom never had anything good to say about him, and I trust her more than anyone.”
“I understand, but as your dad said, there are two sides to every story. He doesn’t know how to do this either. But, together, the two of you could figure it out. You’ve just gotta give him a chance.”
Ivy sat back up and her chest filled with air, but she didn’t respond.
“I mean, he took me parasailing!” Nora exclaimed. “You said it yourself—he doesn’t do that kind of thing, right? He’s trying.”
“He’s trying to make you like him so you’ll take his side instead of mine.”
“I see the situation differently.”
“Well, we’ll agree to disagree.” Ivy wiped another tear.
“Look, I’m not asking for miracles. But why don’t you try to hear him out. Push yourself not to flinch at the first disagreement. When he asks something of you, talk to him. He’s willing to listen, and I think he wants to do right by you.”
“I’ll hang out, but I’m not promising anything.” She squeezed her eyes shut and wiped the remaining tears away.
The rest of the afternoon, Ivy played card games with everyone and kept the peace. But she was quiet. When dinnertime came, the atmosphere wasn’t jovial enough to warrant a night out. Blaze offered to bring back some seafood to cook. With everyone in agreement, he ran out to pick up a few dishes and returned as quickly as he’d left.
“Want to help me make dinner?” he asked Ivy when he got back.
She didn’t say yes, but she seemed to be considering it.
“I promise it’ll be a better experience than last time.” A smile played at his lips.
“We won’t have Cappy’s to bail us out if we screw it up,” she said, making a tiny joke, but still careful in her response.
He retrieved containers from the bag and set them on the counter as Gram and Nora pulled plates and glasses down from the cabinets.
“We can do this,” Blaze said. “Do we have a frying pan? I bought scallops.”
“Fancy.” Ivy waved her fingers in the air, but didn’t smile.
“Fancy and easy. The guy at the market said you literally just cook them in butter.”
“I can help too,” Gram chimed in. “What else did you get?”
“Peel and eat shrimp—also easy. Are you sensing a theme?” He reached into the bag and took out a bottle of wine. “The guy said this goes really well with seafood.”
“Do I get a glass?” Ivy teased, squinting at him.
“No, but you do get this.” He pulled out a bottle of lemonade and set it in front of his daughter.
“Fair enough.” Ivy opened the lemonade and took a big drink of it, her shoulders not quite as slumped as they had been during the card game. “So what am I actually cooking?”
Blaze handed her a Styrofoam box. “Crab cakes.”
“How do I do that?”
“The same way we do the scallops—just plop them in butter. We also have asparagus, mixed veggies, and we have gumbo.”
By the time they sat down to dinner, Ivy and Blaze were at least able to hold a conversation.
“Jake said I have the coolest name he’s ever heard,” Ivy said as she cut a scallop in half.
“I came up with your name,” Blaze said, holding a half-finished glass of wine. “Did your mom ever tell you how we thought of the name Ivy?”
She shook her head.
“There was this old house down the road from the little shack we were renting at the time. It was two stories, white brick, with a chimney on each side of the house, and ivy arched over the rounded front door. It was the most extravagant place we’d ever seen. We named it “The Ivy,” and we used to say that one day things would go our way, and we’d have our own Ivy.”
“You named me after a random house?” Ivy asked.
“Wait. It gets better, I promise.”
“I hope so.”
Gram laughed.
“When we got pregnant, things were already going sideways with us. I was working around the clock. But there was one day when all the craziness seemed to stop. I met your mom for her doctor’s appointment, and we got to hear your heartbeat. We both cried. I leaned over and gave your mom a kiss, and I promised myself I’d do whatever I could to make things better between us.”
“That promise didn’t work,” Ivy said under her breath.
“Your mother’s and my marriage was an impossible situation, given our maturity levels at the time, Ivy. But that day was different. The doctor asked if we wanted to know the sex. We said we did. He announced we were having a girl. I told your mom that nothing else mattered but you, and that you were our Ivy. It was just like finding the perfect lyric to a song you’re trying to write. I put my hand on her belly and said, ‘Let’s call her Ivy.’”
Nora sat behind her glass of wine, falling for the man who sat across from her. He was so much more than the guy on the social media posts. He was kind and real, and she couldn’t take her eyes off him.
“Mom never told me that story,” Ivy said with a frown. “I wonder why.”
“I don’t know,” Blaze returned. “But I’m happy to tell you now.”
* * *
“That was such a lovely story Blaze told tonight,” Gram said as she came into the bedroom to get ready for bed.
“It was.”
Gram set her book on the nightstand.
“I almost forgot,” Nora said. “I bought you a surprise today.” She went over to her suitcase and pulled out the gift bag from the boutique. “It’s been in Blaze’s car, and back in the rental, so the bag’s a bit beat-up.” She handed the gift to Gram.
“What’s this for? It’s not my birthday.”
“It’s just to be nice. And to say I’m glad you convinced me to come on this trip. I really needed it.”
Gram took out the quilted book bag and held it up by the strap. “Oh, my goodness, this is beautiful! Thank you, dear.”
“I thought you could use it to carry your book to the beach.”
“I will.”
Gram was about to set the quilted bag down when Nora stopped her.
“There’s one more thing in there.”
“Oh, there is?” Gram reached into the bag and fished around for a while, pulling out the bookmark. She held it up in the lamplight. “That’s lovely.”
“I noticed last night you were using that hospital paper to mark your page, so I thought you could do with an actual bookmark. You deserve it.”
As Nora said the words, she tried to figure out why she’d seen a flash of what looked like fear across Gram’s face when she’d mentioned the word “hospital.”
“Are you okay, Gram?”
Gram slipped the bookmark into her book. Then she gave Nora a wide smile. “I’m fine, honey. I was just thinking how you’re so right: I should treat myself more.” She set the bag and her book on the bedside table and climbed under her covers. “You’re such a dear for thinking of me,” she said before clicking off the light. “Sweet dreams.”
“Sweet dreams.”
Nora got into bed and stared at the dark ceiling. Had Gram acted weird just now? Or had she imagined it? It had been a long day. Perhaps they were both just tired.