Chapter 6 #2
On Thanksgiving morning, Wren and Ivy worked like crazy in the kitchen of the house where they’d grown up, cooking the turkey and the stuffing and the green bean casserole, baking four different types of pie.
Lily was awake, propped up in her kitchen chair, smiling and laughing at everything they did.
Ivy hated that her daughter was only seeing women working diligently to serve their men.
Meanwhile, the men were in the living room, watching football and talking about having their first beer.
Under her breath, as she stirred the stuffing, Ivy outlined her plan of attack to Wren.
It surprised her to confess this to her sister, who seemed so much younger and so silly at heart.
But Wren’s face turned stone-cold serious.
“You have to do something. This is your dream.” She said it as though she’d never assumed Ivy had a dream.
Ivy began to understand how everyone had seen her over the years, as if she were willing to be batted around by her husband and father. Like she had nothing to offer.
It wasn’t true, she knew. She hadn’t known how to tap into this side of her heart.
“Dad won’t be nice about it,” Wren pointed out.
“Understatement of the century,” Ivy said.
Thanksgiving went on as it always did: with heaping plates and James Harper’s stories and the television always on, showing one game after another.
Ivy kept tabs on her father’s moods, wondering if there would be a point later when she found it safe to broach the subject of the loan for the flower shop.
After another helping of pie, Daniel passed out on the sofa, snoring gently. Wren carried empty plates into the kitchen to wash up and bowed her head low to Ivy to indicate it was now or never. Ivy’s tongue felt thick. She sipped her water and willed herself forward.
“Dad?” she stammered, with more energy than she’d planned for. “Dad, I want to ask you something.”
Her father flinched away from the television and gave her a look like he didn’t recognize her. She wondered if she looked older to him. All the sleepless nights with Lily had probably taken a toll on her face. Maybe her aging reminded him that he was getting older too.
“What’s going on, sweetie?” he asked, surprising her with the term of endearment.
Ivy told herself not to burst into tears. If only my mother were still alive, she thought. If only another woman were here, Celia or Juliet, to help her.
Wren was too young for this kind of pressure. Ivy took a breath.
“I have a business plan I’d like to propose to you,” she said, raising her chin.
Her father lifted his eyebrows into a funny smile. “Aren’t we professional-sounding on Thanksgiving?”
Ivy set her hands on the table and forced herself to say everything she’d practiced in her head: the flower shop, Adeline’s offer, her belief that she could bring in more capital if she ran her own business, her urgent belief that she had to go after her dream, that it was now or never.
Throughout, her father listened with his head tilted. He said nothing, asked no questions.
But when Ivy slid the printed-out business plan across the table, reversing it so that he could read it first thing, James Harper burst into laughter. The brash and arrogant guffaw woke Daniel up immediately. Daniel bumbled, scratching his beard and peering back at the table.
“What did I miss?” Daniel asked.
James ignored Daniel and picked up the business plan, waving it around. Ivy had never felt more stupid in her life. Mortified, she gripped her thighs and willed the moment to pass.
“Sure, Ivy,” her father said, wiping tears from his cheeks. “Sure, I’ll lend you the money. But only when you prove to me you’re ready.”
At the worst possible time, Lily began to cry upstairs, drawing Ivy away from her father and away from her fight. Ivy got to her feet and nearly fell to the floor again.
“Your assignment,” her father said, “is to arrange the finances at the Bluebell Cove Inn. I imagine you’ve seen what a mess they are. Now that you have all this business prowess, you must understand.” He laughed, as though this were ridiculous.
Ivy swept away from the table, her heart pounding as she hurried upstairs to tend to Lily.
It was only when she had the door behind them both that she burst into tears.
Her crying joined Lily’s. Almost immediately, Lily stopped crying and blinked at her, as though surprised that her mother could cry as well.
“It’s okay, honey,” Ivy breathed. “I’m going to figure it out. I have to.”
When she returned downstairs, she found Daniel fast asleep on the sofa and her father asleep on the chair beside him.
Wren was in the kitchen, scrubbing the pan they’d cooked the turkey in.
Rage was etched across her face. But when she opened her lips to speak, Ivy felt a roiling in her gut and raced to the bathroom on the other side of the kitchen.
Something was wrong, she knew. It was as though throughout the past few weeks of planning for her big business talk with her father, she’d allowed herself to ignore the bigger issue at play.
When she limped back to the kitchen, she slumped at the table and watched as Wren hurried to make her a mug of tea.
“He’ll come around,” Wren said. “Or he won’t. But you’ll come up with something else. You’ll figure it out! You’re entirely capable, Ivy. This is your life.”
It took all of Ivy’s strength to tell Wren what had just occurred to her. It had nothing and also everything to do with the flower shop. It had everything to do with the next steps of her life.
“I think I’m pregnant,” she breathed, then burst into tears again.
Wren bent to hug her sister. Ivy was grateful she couldn’t see Wren’s face, that she couldn’t see how disappointed Wren was in her.
A more responsible woman wouldn’t have gotten pregnant in the face of achieving her biggest dream.
A more responsible woman wouldn’t have brought another child into the misery of her marriage to Daniel.
But in the same breath, Ivy felt a glimmer of excitement. If anything in the world had given her power, it was being a mother. Maybe another baby would activate her all the more. Perhaps it would force her to find more hours in a day.
She imagined Lily and the new baby, years from now, as best friends and confidants. It hadn’t happened for Ivy and most of her sisters, not till recently with Wren. But maybe Ivy’s children would get lucky. Perhaps they’d look at one another and know they were soulmates.