Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
On Christmas morning, Ivy and Lily sat on the sofa downstairs, drinking coffee and looking at Lily’s potential class schedule for the following semester.
The University of Southern Maine was a coastal college that would allow Lily to specialize in environmental science with a concentration in coastal climates and ecosystems. Now that Ivy had opened the door, so to speak, to these sorts of conversations, Lily had spoken endlessly to Ivy about the professors she wanted to work with, the careers that awaited her after a four-year degree, and what internships she hoped to get as soon as this summer here in Bluebell.
Most notably, Celia’s boyfriend, Landon, had offered her a position at his lab, if everything went well, for her first semester.
As she was so keen on saying to everyone, Celia was sure that Lily would ace all her classes.
Ivy knew Celia was right. It felt as though everything was rolling out easily for Lily, as though she was smart enough to make anything work. Ivy felt a strange mix of pride and fear.
Ivy had never been the sort of person who could make everything work. Neither had Daniel. Where had Lily inherited this spirit from? Why did she have to take this gorgeous spirit so many hours away?
“If I take Biology 201 and Linguistics 101 back-to-back,” Lily said, furrowing her brow and gesturing at the screen, “do you think that’ll overwhelm me?”
Ivy could only say it wouldn’t. “Do you have enough time to get from one class to another?”
“That would give me fifteen minutes,” Lily said. “And it says the distance is like a five-minute walk.”
“You’ll be fine,” Ivy said. “Make sure to pack yourself a snack.”
Lily smiled and lay her head on her mother’s shoulder.
Together, they regarded the smaller Christmas tree they’d set up in the house.
Presents were piled underneath it, and the decorations featured photographs of Lily and Tyler at various stages of babyhood and toddlerhood.
There was even a photograph of Ivy and Daniel on their wedding day all those years ago.
Ivy wore a strappy white dress with a tiara, and Daniel wore a tuxedo.
Ivy had felt like the most beautiful woman in Bluebell Cove—for one day only.
How she was going to miss Lily! She wasn’t sure if she could bear this.
To make matters worse, Wren had recently announced she planned to travel again soon, now that she more or less had her Graves’ disease under control.
It meant that the grand Harper House would hold only Ivy and Tyler, that they would pass by each other like ghosts until Tyler graduated and either decided to go to college or left town for some other reason.
Ivy was trying to wrap her mind around the idea of being an empty nester.
But after a lifetime of giving herself over to everyone else, she couldn’t fathom it.
Everything was about to change.
That afternoon, Celia hosted the entire family at the rental she had down the road.
Ivy, Lily, and Tyler carried platters of food and bottles of soda and wine, entering a throng of people eager to hug them hello.
They’d spent almost all week at the eco-lodge watching movies, eating food, and trying to reconnect after so many years apart.
But Ivy had kept an emotional distance, nursing her wounds after Lily’s announcement via Celia.
She knew she had to make peace with it, but she didn’t know how.
Dinner was roasted ham, garlicky starches, leafy salads, and stuffed mushrooms. They sat at a long table, half of which offered a beautiful view of the snow sweeping down outside.
It looked like a long white sheet. Juliet was back in Manhattan, spending time with her family—a family they still knew very little about, which meant it was just Landon, Celia, Wren, Sophie, Landon’s children Isaac and Mallory, Ivy, Tyler, and Lily.
Everyone agreed it was a gorgeous day out there.
“A perfect Christmas,” Celia declared with a smile.
She’d just published another article for the Bluebell Cove Gazette, one that involved a takedown of a few of the not-so environmentally friendly restaurants on the outskirts of Bluebell Cove.
Ivy listened, surprised. Celia hadn’t mentioned her research on this particular article.
It sometimes felt as though Celia had more hours per day than the rest of them.
While Landon passed a platter of roasted tomatoes over to Lily, he asked her about her coursework for the University of Southern Maine and whether she’d signed up for all the classes she wanted.
“I was debating over a few different ones just this morning,” Lily said, blushing. “I don’t want to make a wrong move.”
“It’s impossible to,” Landon said. “It’s your first semester, which means it’s all a big exploration for you. As long as you take a few classes in your chosen discipline and let yourself experiment a little bit with other courses, you can’t go wrong.”
Lily glanced at Ivy, who forced herself to keep her eyes upright. Ivy didn’t want to seem afraid of how this rolled out.
“It’s crazy to imagine that I’ll be there in, like, two weeks?” Lily said.
“You’re going to love it,” Sophie said. “I always say that I didn’t know anything about myself before I went to college.”
“I mean, I know not everyone has to go to college. Like, it’s not always essential. But I know it is for the career I want to go after,” Lily said, careful to adjust the conversation for Ivy and what Ivy had done. She didn’t want to offend her mother, nor the memory of her father, Daniel.
“Your father went to college,” Ivy interjected, remembering Daniel’s night classes, his sudden belief that he could be something more than what he was.
“I didn’t know that,” Celia said, her fork poised above her plate.
“You never told us that!” Lily said, her face open, echoing shock.
Tyler leaned over the table. They were curious about their father, especially since Ivy spoke so little about him.
They hadn’t begged her for details about him in a few years.
Ivy realized now that it wasn’t because they weren’t still interested.
They’d probably stopped because she hadn’t had much to say.
“What was his major?” Lily asked.
Ivy knew that Daniel had never declared a major and had only taken a few classes at the community college. But she remembered he’d had a history class. Something to do with European History. “He was studying the Roman Empire. It was all a bit over my head.”
Tyler gaped at her. Lily looked as though she were about to cry. She was probably thinking that she took after her father and had his genius mind.
“The Roman Empire!” Wren said, impressed.
“Yes, well.” Ivy raised her shoulders and scraped her fork over her ham. “I wish he could have gotten to see you heading off to college, Lily. He would have been proud.”
It was the first time she’d said something like this since Lily had gotten into college.
Lily’s eyes filled with tears and glinted with Christmas tree lights.
Celia raised her glass and suggested a toast to Daniel, and they all did, the kids with their sodas and the rest with their wine.
Ivy cursed herself for having brought up Daniel in the first place.
But she sensed that saying his name had brought her children closer to her, if only a little bit.
* * *
A few days after Christmas, Ivy was upstairs in bed, reading over what needed to be done if she wanted to sell the flower shop within the next few months.
Reading it felt like putting her hand on a stovetop.
She still hadn’t googled what it meant to declare bankruptcy, as it terrified her too much and made her feel as though she’d really failed.
More than that, she was worried that something about it would affect the Bluebell Cove Eco-Lodge, that it would take money from their father’s trust and force her sisters to scatter to the four corners of the country again.
Was that possible? It was an anxious thought from nowhere and probably had no bearing in reality.
But what did she know about finances? She’d never gone to college. She rolled her eyes at herself.
It was then that she received a phone call from Elliot Rhodes.
Ivy stared at the name, feeling out of her mind.
She hadn’t yet showered today, and her hair fell in strings down her pillow.
But it wasn’t like Elliot was asking to video chat.
It wasn’t like he could see her. Could he?
Feeling foolish, she glanced at the window but saw nothing but the steady stream of snow outside. She willed herself to answer the phone.
“Hello?”
“Ivy? Hey!” Elliot sounded happy, as though he hadn’t assumed she would pick up. “Merry Christmas. Guess where I am?”
Ivy couldn’t help it; her lips quivered into a strange smile. It was something about his voice. It was something about how happy he sounded, just because he had her on the phone.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Are you on the moon?”
“Close,” he said. “I’m at your flower shop. Standing outside, actually. But you’re not there.”
“What? Yes, I am,” she said. “Did you try the door?”
“The door’s locked,” he said. “And it’s all dark back there. I think you might be pulling my leg.”
Ivy snorted and snuck deeper beneath her covers. She felt endlessly cozy, all of a sudden. “We’re closed until the new year,” she explained. “Do you need flowers desperately? Like, right now?”
What was this flirty voice she was using? Where had she found it?
“I don’t need any flowers, actually,” he said. “But I wanted to discuss the deal we made a couple of weeks back. The one where you do the flowers for my sister’s wedding in exchange for me fixing up the flower shop?”
Ivy half remembered the conversation at the Autumn Festival, the whipped dessert, the bright jolt of caramel across her tongue.
“I don’t remember agreeing to that,” she said.