by Anna Burke
She saved a few jobs and closed her eyes, feeling Darwin’s ribs rising and falling as he slept. Sure, she’d miss Stormy. The woman had grown on her. But she could make new friends. That had never been difficult.
Lillian’s face formed from the dots behind her eyelids: beautiful, but twisted with anger, betrayal, and fear. Sick anguish twisted her down to her DNA. How could she have thought they could ever move beyond their pasts? It wasn’t just their time at school. Lillian might not believe her capable of understanding where she’d come from, but she could see the pain their class difference caused her. Sometimes those barriers were insurmountable.
I will not be your consolation prize.
She’d been foolish to allow herself to hope for any other outcome. If Lillian believed Ivy considered her as little more than a prize, then nothing had changed. She still saw Ivy as a selfish rich girl. Worse, a damaged rich girl. Spoiled goods.
It was worse than pity.
Pain unfurled through her limbs. Not MS—that pain she could handle. This pain tasted like pine and salt and Lillian’s scorn, and she curled around her dog in the airplane seat and endured it because she had no other choice.
• • •
Snow spat down from the sky in brittle flurries, amounting to nothing but still managing to sting her face as she walked across the parking lot and to the clinic. Lead had settled permanently in her stomach. A week had passed since she’d fled Ivy’s house. Mechanically, her eyes scanned the parking lot for Ivy’s truck. Nothing. She must be on ambulatory, which meant Lillian wouldn’t see her. It should have been a relief. She should not have felt crushed by her absence.
The day stretched into a series of appointments without end. Owners, deep in the post-holiday doldrums, complained about bills and animal ailments that refused to heal. She did her best to keep her tone level as she internally screamed at them for their lack of compliance. Only one case brightened her day. A girl with white-blond hair in a flawless braid proudly presented her new pet boa, despite her mother’s terrified expression, and Lillian knelt to explain the snake’s nutritional and habitat needs to the enthusiastic child.
“You don’t have to feed live mice,” she said, watching the mother pale further.
“That’s good,” the woman said. She sounded faint.
“I read mice can scratch snakes. But won’t dead mice be boring?” The girl’s green eyes beseeched her, and her heart twisted as she thought of another pair of green eyes.
Am I the mouse here, or the snake?
She was still brooding over this question when she arrived home to find Angie perched on the kitchen island.
“Hey,” she said. “What are you doing up there?”
“Trying to decide what to make for dinner.”
“Let’s go to Stormy’s.” Lillian spoke without thinking, unable to bear the prospect of cooking. Cooking was another thing she’d never had a chance to do for Ivy. “I’ll text the others.”
“Thank god. I really didn’t want to cook. Have you heard anything from her?”
“No.”
Angie slid off the counter and opened her arms.
“I don’t need a hug.”
“Liar.”
“Fine.” She let Angie squeeze her tightly and let out a shaky breath. She would not cry over Ivy.
“Let’s go now. They can meet us there,” said Angie. “You need something sweet.”
They fed the dogs, then drove the short distance to the harbor and parked close to the warm lights of Storm’s-a-Brewin’ and jogged across the wind-stricken street. Her scarf blew over her face and she tugged it down with a gasp of cold as Angie pulled her into the shelter of the shop. The aroma of roasting coffee beans filled her nose, washing out the smell of salt and snow, and she searched the surprisingly crowded shop for Stormy.
Ivy sat at the bar with her head bent in conversation with their friend.
“Uh oh,” said Angie as she followed her gaze. “Do you want to leave?”
She shook her head. Of course she wanted to leave, but this was her place. Her friends. Ivy could get the fuck out if Lillian’s presence bothered her. “Let’s get a table.”
Angie chose one far from the bar, and Lillian put her hand on the back of a chair facing away from Ivy. She hesitated. As much as she didn’t want to watch Ivy chat up Stormy, she also didn’t want to turn her back on her. What if she came over? She opted for a chair that allowed her to watch the bar out of the corner of her eye.
Stevie, Morgan, and Emilia arrived a few minutes later.
“So glad we’re not on call tonight,” Steve said as she collapsed into the chair next to Angie. “It is cold as balls out there.”
“Gross.” Angie wrinkled her nose at the expression.
“I may need to get a treadmill,” Emilia said as she took the seat next to Lillian.
“Just borrow mine whenever you want.”
“But don’t bring Morgan. I’ve been enjoying not having my cheese stolen,” said Angie.
“You miss me,” said Morgan with a grin. Her arm rested around Emilia’s shoulders, and jealousy ate at Lillian’s momentary pleasure. She was happy for Morgan, but her shoulders ached where Ivy’s arm had lain.
“Whatever. At least I don’t have to hear you getting it on,” said Angie. “No offense, Em.”
“None taken.” Emilia didn’t even blush.
“Yeah. Some of us haven’t gotten laid in ages,” said Stevie.
“There’s more to life than sex.”
All eyes turned toward her.
“The bitter spinster speaks,” said Stevie, and in a high mock-British accent, added, “I shall never marry, for I have forsaken all love save for that of my dogs and my vibrator.”
“Shut up, Stevie,” said Morgan, glancing at Lillian with concern in her gray eyes.
“Oh.” Stevie flushed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be a dick.”
“And yet,” said Angie, “so often you are.”
Angie and Stevie fell to squabbling while Emilia and Morgan turned worried faces toward her.
“How are you doing?” Emilia asked.
She still hadn’t told them the whole truth. Her eyes wandered across the room to where Ivy still sat at the bar. Her shoulders were slumped, and Stormy periodically reached out to touch her hand sympathetically.
“I’m okay.”
It was true. Sort of. The hours she’d spent looking at medical studies and research on multiple sclerosis, and the additional hours she’d spent staring at Ivy’s social media accounts aside, she was fine. She had a job she loved and amazing friends and that was more than some people ever found.
“Have you talked to her?”
“I don’t have anything to say.”
Ivy got up a few minutes later and avoided looking at Lillian as she headed for the door. She watched her leave. The gust of cold air that briefly followed her exit fell on her cheeks like a slap.
“I want to talk to you,” Morgan said as they prepared to leave an hour later. Emilia, perhaps sensing the kind of conversation it was best to give a wide berth, joined Angie and Stevie at the bar with Stormy. Lillian and Morgan remained at the table.
“About what?”
“Ivy.” Morgan didn’t beat around the bush.
“What about her? You were right. It was a bad idea.”
“I’m worried about her.”
“What?” This took her by surprise.
“Shawna told Stevie some things. I know you’re fighting—we’ll get to that—but I need to ask you something: Is she okay? Health-wise?”
The question too closely echoed her own thoughts.
“Why would I know?”
Morgan stared at her, unamused by her deflection.
“It’s . . . it’s not my place to say,” she said at last. Angry as she might be, she couldn’t bring herself to out Ivy’s condition.
“Do we need to be worried? As a clinic?”
“No.” Heat filled her chest. Threads from the message b
oards she’d glanced at flashed across her memory. MS patients worried about losing their jobs, worried about discrimination, worried about when the next flare-up would occur, decimating their ability to function. No wonder. If Morgan, who was generally tolerant, protective even of others’ weaknesses, was willing to write Ivy off at the first sign of sickness, then they had every right to be concerned.
“Are you sure?”
“She’s a good veterinarian.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. If there’s something going on, then the clinic needs to know.”
“Or we could see if she needs help, instead of moving to replace her.”
“I didn’t say anything about replacing her.”
“It sounds like that’s where you were going.”
“Lil—”
“I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Okay. We don’t have to.” Morgan ran her hand through her short hair and looked at her with a bemused expression.
Her tear ducts prickled ominously. “I’m sorry. I just—I don’t know.”
“What did she do this time?” Morgan’s voice was gentle.
“It . . . it wasn’t her. It was me.” She paused, but Morgan waited for her to continue. “I freaked out on her. She—Morgan, I don’t know how to be around her sometimes, and I hate her, and—”
She couldn’t continue. Her mother’s words echoed in her skull. Lillian’s in love with Ivy. She wasn’t. Couldn’t be. That would be so dumb.
“Dammit,” she said, and let her head fall into her hands.
Ivy had rooted within her like her namesake. She felt the green, pulsing strength of those roots around her heart and the tendrils that burrowed through her bloodstream with each breath. She couldn’t uproot her without internal damage. Moreover, she didn’t want to. Ivy’s brightness might cut, but it also illuminated. The world without her ebbed and flowed in muted grays.
Morgan rubbed her shoulders as she sobbed in the middle of the coffee shop, understanding crashing over her like the frozen surf beyond the steamed glass windows.
Chapter Thirteen
Stormy’s words rattled around the empty cab of Ivy’s truck. “Do what’s right for you,” she’d said, her hand warm on Ivy’s at the bar and her brown eyes full of empathy. “That’s all we really can do.”
The problem was she didn’t know what was right for her. She knew what she wanted, and look where that had gotten her. Alone and sick and stupid. She started the engine and turned into the empty street.
Reaching out to other clinics hadn’t brought the relief she’d hoped. Seal Cove had started to feel like home, despite everything that had gone wrong. She liked her house. She liked her view of the river. She liked her clients and the hospital staff, and she liked Stormy’s café and the small community she’d built for herself over the last few months. Moving here, however, had been just another mistake. Putting down roots in poisoned soil never would have worked. Better to pull out now, vegetal metaphors and the person they reminded her of be damned. It was time to move on. She sagged at the prospect of the work involved. Interviews. Getting to know a new hospital. Moving, potentially, if she couldn’t find a new job close by. And, of course, the inevitable flare-up that would follow.
She fought the wind for control of her scarf as she got out of her truck and let herself into her house. The kitten pounced on her boots as she fumbled them off. Not even this made her smile. She was just so tired. Of fighting with Lillian, of running, of her failing body and her diminished dreams.
The vibration in her pocket didn’t register for a moment. Vibrations and odd sensations were a regular occurrence, and it wasn’t until she remembered she’d put all non-clinic calls on silent that she reached for her phone.
Lillian, read the caller ID.
Her thumb hovered over the accept icon. Her heart flopped, once, not daring to hope. She tried to tell herself not to pick up. Lillian had made her position clear. There wasn’t anything else to say.
There also wasn’t anything even resembling a choice.
“Hi.”
“Ivy?”
“Yeah.” She waited, listening to Lillian’s unsteady breathing on the other end.
“I . . . I was hoping we could talk.”
“I’m listening.”
“Maybe not on the phone?”
“I’m on call tonight.”
“Oh. Tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
“Can I make you dinner?” The pleading note in Lillian’s voice tugged at the barriers she’d tried to build since their last fight. She didn’t know what this meant. Dinner was more than a conversation. It was . . . what? A peace offering?
“Trillium,” Lillian said into Ivy’s silence.
Trillium: the safe word they’d jokingly agreed upon, she remembered, and she cradled the phone against her cheek even though nothing about this felt safe. “Okay.”
“Come over at seven?”
“Okay,” she said again.
“Okay. Cool. Um . . . okay. Bye?”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Lil.” She forced herself to hang up before either of them could say anything else, and sank to the floor of her foyer to rest her head against her knees.
• • •
Her hands shook as she chopped the eggplant into cubes. The white flesh oxidized almost instantly, but that wouldn’t matter once she’d sautéed it in the honey, ginger, and soy sauce simmering in her wok. Other vegetables lay in neat piles on her cutting board, and the rice cooker counted down the minutes until seven o’clock. Ivy would be here soon.
And then?
A chorus of barking dogs announced tires on gravel. The knife clattered to the cutting board from her suddenly nerveless fingers. The house was empty. Morgan was with Emilia, and Angie and Stevie were off doing who-knew-what, probably with Stormy, though since Morganas on call, Stevie—it doesn’t matter where they are. She reined in her racing thoughts and wiped her hands on a towel, smoothed her hair behind her ears, and then undid the motion with a nervous shake of her head.
Ivy waited on the front step. Purple circles underlined her eyes, and she looked like she hadn’t slept well in a week. Even her hair, normally sleek and hydrated, seemed lank in the porchlight. The effort of not reaching out to her was almost physically painful. She’d wanted Ivy to hurt, but not like this. She looked defeated. There was no sweetness to the victory.
“May I come in?”
“Oh. Right. Sorry.” She stumbled backward to let Ivy into the foyer and scolded the dogs, who took advantage of the enclosed space to corner their victim.
“No Darwin?”
“He’s at home with the cat.”
“Dinner will be ready soon. Can I get you something to drink?”
“I’m okay,” said Ivy.
“Tea?”
“Sure.”
Even her voice sounded defeated. She turned away from Ivy to hide the emotions wreaking havoc on her expression and led the way back into the kitchen. A small fire burned in both hearths. The kitchen blaze crackled and let loose a shower of sparks as she passed. James slept on a faded blanket before it. He cracked one green-gold eye at the sound, then resumed his nap.
She’d set two places at the kitchen table. Ivy sat in the proffered chair and stroked the dogs gathered around her. She followed the movements of those slim fingers, remembering the way they’d slid through her hair. Hermione jumped on her two hind legs and pawed Ivy with her only forelimb until Ivy succumbed and picked her up. The little dog’s obliviousness to the human tension deepened her own longing.
She put the kettle on and stirred the eggplant, adding Five Spice as needed. The aromatic scents of spice and oils filled the kitchen, and she lost herself momentarily in the work. Cooking, unlike Ivy, was predictable. You added the right ingredients in the right order at the right time, and usually things worked out. Love was different. She’d done all the right things with Brian, but the meal had soured in the pot before she could taste it. Her mother’s
words haunted her. Had she really played things safe? If Brian hadn’t called things off, would she have ultimately ended up dissatisfied? Picturing him as a dish was easier than contemplating what to say to Ivy. Brian was mild. Healthy, maybe, but unchallenging. Ivy was sharp spices and new combinations that burned and bit and brought every single taste bud to life.
The fire popped. Oil sizzled. Her spoon scraped the sides of the wok. When the kettle went off, she brewed two cups of ginger tea with a dash of brown sugar and set one in front of Ivy.
Ivy looked up from Hermione and searched her face. What did she see? Was her terror obvious, or had she managed to hide it behind years of never reaching farther than the nearest rung?
“Thanks.”
Nodding, she turned back to the stove and finished up preparing the meal. Steam fogged her glasses. She took them off. They wouldn’t be much help if, as her tear ducts warned her, the evening went as she feared.
“Here.” She placed the bowl of rice and vegetables before Ivy and sat, her own plate sending tendrils of steam to the ceiling.
“It smells amazing.”
This was the longest phrase Ivy had uttered since her arrival.
“You look like you haven’t been eating well.”
Ivy ignored the comment and took a bite, blowing on a slice of eggplant to cool it. Lillian watched her face change as she chewed. Caution faded, and awe replaced it.
“Lil, this is—wow.”
Pride in her cooking dispelled some of the dread. “It was one of my favorite dishes growing up.”
“I can see why.” Ivy took another bite, this time with more enthusiasm. Light came back into her eyes and Lillian didn’t press any conversation on her as Ivy devoured the food on her plate. Ivy could afford to eat out whenever she wanted, but the way she shoveled food into her mouth suggested home-cooked meals were a rarity. It felt good to give her that.
