Chapter 71 2024
Ivy and I were at the Moosewood Market when we saw them.
We were buying lettuce, carrots, and radishes for the rabbits, as well as cranberry sauce for the Thanksgiving feast Meryl and Elwood were preparing.
My heart skipped several beats as I watched Bart set his hand on Heddy’s shoulder and then point to a pie in the glass case.
“Mom,” Ivy yelped, and I realized I was squeezing her hand.
“Sorry,” I said, loosening my grip.
Hearing my voice, Bart turned, and it took no time at all for him to recognize me. My nevus made it so, no matter how much time passed, I was still instantly recognizable. His gaze narrowed, and my throat grew tight.
“Patch?” Heddy said, her face creasing into a smile.
“She goes by Vivien now,” Ivy said before I could manage to get a word out. “Patch was just the name she used when she skated.”
“Well, hello!” Heddy said, bending at the waist so she was eye level with Ivy.
Heddy was as beautiful as ever. Her blond hair, which had been platinum when she was a girl, had softened to glimmering gold, and her lips were fuller and glossed a light shade of pink.
“I’m Ivy.”
“Ivy?” Heddy said, her voice inflecting high in question and surprise.
She glanced at me, and her eyes widened, then she looked back at Ivy and said, “What a beautiful name. I once knew a woman named Ivy. She was the mother of a friend of mine.”
Her eyes flicked to me, and I knew, in that instant, she knew Ivy was Dylan’s. While Ivy shared my dark curls, she was the spitting image of her dad, tall and lean with bright caramel eyes and sun-kissed skin.
“Are you getting a pie for Thanksgiving?” Ivy asked. “My pappy and I made apple, pecan, and pumpkin pies. Pappy likes pie. I wanted to make chocolate pie also because that’s my favorite, but Nonna said it wasn’t Thanksgiving enough.”
Heddy giggled in delight. Ivy often had that effect on people, precocious in a way that instantly charmed.
“We’re trying to decide between apple and peach,” Heddy said as she straightened.
Bart again put his hand on her shoulder, and it was very slight, but I noticed Heddy tense. Bart wore a wedding band on his third finger, and I looked down at Heddy’s left hand to see a diamond ring on her finger as well, and I realized, with a shock, they were married.
I wondered if that was why she no longer had an Instagram account.
I knew the account had been deleted, because, for years, it had been my only glimpse into Dylan’s life, so I’d followed it closely.
He and Heddy had both lived in New York City, and every so often, Heddy would post a photo of the two of them. #OldFriends.
“What do you have there?” Bart asked, the sound of his voice sending a shudder down my spine. It had been nearly twenty years, but the scared little girl still lived within me.
He was big. Looming. At least a foot taller than Heddy, and bulky, a thick layer of fat cloaking the muscles of the athlete he’d once been.
“Food for the rabbits,” Ivy said, holding up the bag of radishes for him to see.
The orange beaded amulet Boodo had given me as a girl slid down her wrist. Three months earlier, Ivy had fallen off her bike and skinned her knee.
She said she was too scared to ride her bike again, so I gave her the amulet and told her it would protect her, a mother’s lie to help her past her fear.
I had no idea she would take the fib to heart, wearing the trinket with the same devotion I had worn it, as if it possessed true mystical powers.
Bart’s eyes seized on it, and I saw the recognition in his eyes and the slight shift of his jaw.
“The rabbits hang out near the pond behind my Nonna’s house,” Ivy went on. “And in the winter, they get real hungry because there’s not a lot of food, so we go there to feed them.”
“It sounds like a very important job,” Bart said, smiling at my daughter like he was her friend.
“We need to go,” I said, the words hollow in my ears, and I pulled Ivy away, the earth unsteady beneath me, as if it was about to open and swallow us whole.
“Mom, you said we were going to feed the rabbits,” Ivy whined.
Meryl subtly shook her head then turned to Ivy and said, “How about Pappy takes you to the park instead?” I had just told Meryl about seeing Bart and Heddy at the market.
“But—”
“And after, he’ll take you to see the horses,” Meryl threw in before Ivy could protest again. “Horses like radishes as well.”
“I doubt the rabbits will even be there today,” I said. “It’s Thanksgiving, a frightful day for rabbits, chickens, and turkeys, or any animal that someone might make a meal of.”
It didn’t make a lot of sense, but Ivy was only six, so she nodded as if what I said was the gospel truth.
It’s one of the best things about motherhood: the absolute faith children have in their parents until they grow old enough to figure out that, most of the time, we have no idea what we’re doing.
“Go grab your shovel and pail,” Meryl encouraged.
Ivy hurried to the garage, and as soon as she was out of hearing range, I recounted the details of what had happened at the store. Meryl understood the significance, while Elwood did not.
“These are people you went to school with, when you were a kid?” he asked.
We were in the living room, and I was pacing, while he and Meryl sat in the two armchairs with a Labrador flopped beside each of them.
Meryl answered for me, succinctly telling him about Bart’s grudge against my family, his brutal bullying, Nick’s murder, and his role in Profe’s arrest.
“Oh,” he said when she finished, his expression dark. “Bad guy.”
“Disguised as a messenger of God,” Meryl said.
“And you think he still harbors a grudge, after all these years?”
Not trusting my voice, I nodded.
Ivy reappeared, her red bucket in one hand, and the bag of radishes in the other. “Let’s go,” she demanded.
Ed and Earl leaped to their feet and circled excitedly.
“You boys need to stay here,” Elwood said, his voice gravelly. “I’m trusting the two of you to keep an eye on things.”
He held out his hand for Ivy, and the two of them left, leaving the dogs whimpering at the door.
I slumped to the couch, and Meryl said, “Breathe. We’ll figure this out.”
I wished I could have believed her, but it was impossible. She hadn’t seen the way Bart’s jaw clenched when he saw the amulet on Ivy’s wrist. Nothing had changed. He’d killed Nick. He’d destroyed Profe. And now, he knew I had a daughter.
I was about to tell Meryl how terrified I was, when a ping from the study interrupted. Meryl’s eyes snapped to mine, then both of us stared down the hall a moment before I leaped up and ran toward it, the dogs hot on my heels and Meryl shuffle-hobbling behind.
Together we stared at the laptop on the desk.
The image from the eagle cam feed was vividly clear.
The camera was trained on the recently vacated eagle’s nest. The family of eagles—the mother, father, and two eaglets—had migrated the week before.
Beyond the nest was the clover beach, and on the far right of the screen was Bart.
He wore the same clothes he’d had on in the store and was dusting off his knees, clearly having just crawled through the hole in the wall.
We watched as he scanned the shore and then as he climbed the knoll and disappeared from view.
Both of us hurried to the kitchen and looked through the window as he crested the top. He scanned the shore again, then looked at the house, and though I knew he couldn’t see us from that distance and through the glass, I took a step back, my heart clattering in my chest.
“Why do you think he’s there?” Meryl asked.
“To scare me,” I said, remembering how he loved to toy with me. “He wants me to be scared.”
“Mission accomplished,” Meryl said.
The doorbell rang, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. The dogs barked and ran from the room, and Meryl followed to answer it as I continued to watch Bart as he turned and disappeared back the way he came.
“Heddy!” Meryl said brightly. “What a pleasant surprise! Come in.” She was using the overly chipper tone she used when she was lying. “Ed. Earl. Down.”
“Thank you,” Heddy said. “Happy Thanksgiving. Is Patch . . . I mean, Vivien . . . Is Vivien here?”
I walked into the living room.
“Coffee?” Meryl asked.
“No, thank you. I can’t stay. I need to get back.”
“Well, I need some coffee,” Meryl said, and she called the dogs with her as she left to go to the kitchen.
For a moment, Heddy said nothing, her eyes skittering around as if not sure where to settle, making her look a little like a scared rabbit. Finally, she said, “Ivy is beautiful.”
When I didn’t respond, she said, “Dylan told me what happened in Korea.”
My blood pumped wildly as I continued to stand there, angry with her and with Dylan and with myself, and terrified for Ivy.
In a matter of hours, the carefully constructed glass house I’d built to protect her was in perilous danger of being shattered, and all because I’d gone to the market at the wrong time.
“She’s his?” Heddy said, more statement than question.
My voice low and rumbly, I said, “She’s mine.”
Heddy blanched, and again her eyes darted away. “I understand. Or I think I do.”
“Good.”
For a moment, she stood quiet, eyes on the carpet. Then finally, as if she’d worked up the courage to speak again, she said, “He’s doing better. He stopped drinking.”
My emotions swelled with undeniable joy and relief, my love still first and foremost. But the reaction was quickly followed by distinct bitterness. If he’d stopped drinking, why hadn’t he reached out? It had been over six years.
Countless times, I’d thought of contacting him to tell him about the miracle we’d created.
Each time, I thought better of it.
I told myself it was out of concern for Ivy, that I didn’t want to risk bringing him into her life, not knowing the state he was in.
Ivy lacked for nothing, especially when it came to father figures.
Between Elwood, Kai, Heinrich, and Mr. Jeffries, the doting male figure was well represented.
But I know part of it was also selfish. I didn’t want to share her.
What claim did he have to her anyway? He was no more a parent to Ivy than my donor father had been to me. She was happy. I was happy. We didn’t need him crashing into our lives and disrupting that simply because he’d finally gotten his life together.
“I’ll ask that you not tell him,” I said.
“I don’t talk to him,” Heddy said, eyes flicking to mine for the briefest second before darting away again. “He’s not a fan of who I married.”
Neither am I.