Even though she’d explained to her niece that the implantation was a common procedure, Zoey suspected Gabi’s malaise was the result of being told that Ivy needed a pacemaker. But a stomachache was a stomachache, so Zoey let her stay home.
Since Gabi said she’d keep an ear out in case Ivy woke up and needed something, Zoey set out on her daily run. Her interview was the next day and although she knew she should be delighted, she’d been far too busy and worried to really let it sink in. But a run might clear her head.
It was earlier than usual when she began the three-mile loop and she wondered if she’d pass Mr. Witherell on his morning jaunt around town. Then a morbid thought flashed through her mind: wouldn’t it be terrible if—now that she’s finally made up with him—Aunt Ivy dies before she gets to have him over for pie?
Zoey had barely made it halfway down the hill when her lungs felt so tight she came to a sudden stop, wrapped her arms around her chest and doubled over. No, no, no. She couldn’t allow herself to cry in public on Main Street for a second time this spring. Her feet leaden, she hobbled to the park and dropped onto a bench facing the water. How tidy it looked, with its flat, blue-green surface, a sharp line for the horizon, and the bright, white ferry cutting a straight path toward the island. As usual, the pristine scenery helped Zoey organize her thoughts.
Knowing what I know now, I can’t leave Aunt Ivy alone tomorrow. I’ll have to reschedule my interview. Or maybe I could pay Carla to come and stay with her? Then her thoughts drifted to Mark. She was going to have to tell him about their aunt’s upcoming surgery. I wonder if he’ll come to see her. He only visited his grandmother once when she was sick and her illness lasted for months…
“Aunt Zoey? Are you okay?” her niece asked breathlessly.
Zoey hadn’t seen or heard her coming. “What are you doing here, Gabi?”
“I was looking out my window and I saw you stop running and hold your chest all of a sudden. I thought maybe something was wrong.”
Was she worried I was having a heart attack? She’s too young to worry so much. “I’m fine. Just lazy. You shouldn’t have rushed down here when you’re sick.” She tapped the bench. “Catch your breath.”
Gabi took a seat and immediately blurted out, “I don’t want Aunt Ivy to die.”
“Neither do I. But I think she’ll be fine once she gets the pacemaker implanted.”
They both were quiet as they watched a gull fly by with a spider crab dangling from its beak. Not the most appetizing breakfast.
“I shouldn’t have yelled those things about her telling the same stories over and over again,” Gabi acknowledged. “I know she heard me and it hurt her feelings. I told her I was sorry and she said it was okay, but I still wish I could take it back. I’m sorry I called you a spinster, too.”
“I forgive you and so does Aunt Ivy, so you don’t need to feel guilty. It’s behind us now.” As delicately as she could, she took the opportunity to level with her niece, saying, “You weren’t entirely wrong. Aunt Ivy does talk about the past a lot, maybe too much. I do, too. But sometimes people need to share their memories about times and people they love because it helps make them happy, or gives them strength or keeps them from feeling so lonely.”
“Yeah, but sometimes it makes them sadder. It makes them miserable.” As teardrops streamed down Gabi’s cheeks and dripped from her chin, it struck Zoey that the girl wasn’t referring to Ivy. She must have meant herself.
“Is that why you don’t talk about your memories of your mom?”
Gabi pressed her palms against her eyelids, her sobbing punctuated with hiccups. She surprised Zoey by answering, “No. It’s because Dad talks about her all the time. And then he gets depressed and he drinks. It’s been, like, six years. Why can’t he get over his dead wife?” It made Zoey wince to hear her refer to Jessica so callously but she understood the girl’s bitterness was directed toward her father, not her mother. She was quiet, allowing Gabi to get it all out. “Kathleen’s the one who’s living. Doesn’t he care about her? Doesn’t he care about me?”
Her question was so plaintive it sounded more like a howl than like speech. Gabi is my heart, Jessica had once said and Zoey had assumed she’d meant her daughter was her joy. That was part of it, of course, but she understood the girl was also her mother’s sorrow. Whenever Gabi’s heart had ached to the point of breaking in half, so had Jessica’s. And, as it turned out, so did Zoey’s now.
“Shh-shh-shh.” She stroked Gabi’s hair down her back. “He cares about you more than anything. About Kathleen, too. I know for a fact the two of you are the reason he agreed to get help. He doesn’t want his behavior—his grief—to keep hurting you. Trust me, sweetheart. If he didn’t love you and Kathleen as much as he does, he’d never even try to stop drinking.”
She put her arm around her niece and pulled her toward her. As Gabi cried a while longer, Zoey said, “I’m sorry if it’s been upsetting for you to hear me talk about your mom. But I do that for a couple of reasons. One is that I miss her, yes. But not always in a sad way, if that makes sense. I loved your mom so much—she was my best friend, as well as my sister. And if I never talked about her, it would be as if she never existed.
“Another reason is that she trusted me to remind you what she was like. Not to feel lonely for her but because she wanted you to get to know her better, the way you would have if she were still alive. And sometimes, you remind me so much of her, it’s as if you give her back to me again. Which doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate how unique you are, because I do. But when I see a similarity between you and her, it’s almost as if I can’t help saying it out loud because I want to give her back to you, too.”
Now Zoey’s eyes were overflowing and when she sniffed, Gabi sat up straight and announced, “I do remember some things about her, Aunt Zoey. Especially when I’m here. I just didn’t want to talk about them.”
“Will you share one thing you remember about her before we head back to the house?”
“You know how the thunder here is super loud because it reverberates over the ocean? Well, when I was little and we’d get a storm and I couldn’t sleep, my mom would sing to me. Even after it stopped thundering I’d still pretend to be afraid so she’d sing another song. I always wished I had a voice like hers but I didn’t, so that’s why I took flute lessons instead.”
And that’s why you were devastated when I didn’t come to your concert this year. Zoey felt as if she might start crying all over again. “She’d be so proud of you.”
“We’re having a concert right over there by the pavilion.” Gabi pointed across the lawn. “It’s going to be the next-to-last week of school.”
“Do Aunt Ivy and I have to wait that long to hear you play? Couldn’t you practice at home?”
“I suppose,” Gabi said. “But it’s up to Moby.”
They walked up the hill and when they entered the house, Ivy was waiting for them at the door. She was already dressed and had taken out her rollers and combed her hair. “Quick, girls, I need to get to the library. The painting class begins in half an hour.”
Zoey was surprised. Although a few days ago she would have been happy to see her aunt getting involved in something out of the house, Ivy hadn’t mentioned anything specific about wanting to go to a class, and she hesitated. “I don’t know if that’s a such good idea, Aunt Ivy.”
“Why not? You’re the one who’s been pushing me to take a class. I’ll enjoy this one more than any of the classes at the senior center. And Dr. Laurent seems to think I will, too. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have recommended it.
“Okay, but—”
“But nothing. The only thing that has changed between yesterday morning and this morning is your awareness of my arrhythmia. The arrhythmia itself hasn’t changed. I’m no worse off. So I don’t want anyone treating me any differently. Now, let’s go!”
“I was just going to say I’m not sure we can get a driver to pick us up that quickly.”
“Who needs
a driver?” Ivy dangled a set of keys in front of Zoey’s nose. “I have a perfectly good car in the garage. Which is where I’m headed.”
“Me, too,” Gabi said. Zoey was going to tell her if she was too sick for school she was too sick to go to the library. Then she realized Gabi was volunteering to go so Ivy wouldn’t charge down the steps without support while Zoey dashed upstairs to grab her wallet.
After getting into the boat of a car, Zoey tried multiple times to reverse into the narrow driveway, fearing she’d knock over the picket fence on the side if she was too hasty. By the fifth time she’d backed out and pulled into the garage again, Ivy said, “Move over. Let me give it a try.”
Aware that she’d dampen her aunt’s newfound sense of adventure if she objected, Zoey nervously relinquished the driver’s seat. She intended to stand outside so she could signal Ivy if she got too close to the fence, but her aunt told her to get back in the car or risk being flattened. She’d barely buckled her seatbelt before Ivy pressed on the gas pedal and expertly maneuvered the car down the brick driveway on her first try. When she stopped at the sidewalk so she could switch places with Zoey again, Gabi hooted, “Who-hoo! That was awesome, Aunt Ivy. Will you give me driving lessons?”
“Oh, I’m afraid I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“The last time my license expired, I didn’t bother to renew it. Legally, I’m not allowed to drive except on private property.”
“You could teach me how to back down the driveway, then. That’s one of the hardest skills to master.”
“And you’re speaking from personal experience, right Gabi?” Zoey teased.
“No, I’m speaking from the experience of sitting in the back seat while you were trying to drive in reverse,” she retorted drily. But when Zoey glanced in the rearview mirror, she caught her niece smiling to herself and she smiled, too, happy that things were starting to get back to normal between them.
They made it to the tiny library in the nick of time. While their aunt was in her art class, Gabi browsed the local history section and Zoey chatted with the librarian, who informed her the library would be closing permanently on July 15. That’s when she was relocating to Colorado because her husband was starting a new job. The town hadn’t found a replacement to fill her role.
“It’s a shame that this place is going to close, but there are only a handful of librarians in Hope Haven and they’re already staffing the other libraries,” she said. “Unfortunately, the salary isn’t high enough to counterbalance the cost of living here, so we haven’t attracted any qualified off-island candidates.”
When Zoey inquired about the exact figure, she understood why the pay rate was an obstacle. And yet, the thought ran through her mind that if she continued to stay with her aunt and lease out her townhome, she’d be able to afford to live on a lot less. Theoretically, she could take the librarian position. The prospect certainly had its appeal, because even though she’d been trying to keep Ivy from feeling apprehensive about her eventual return to Providence, lately Zoey was finding that she felt anxious about her departure, too. Not only because it would mean saying goodbye to her aunt, but also because it would mean saying goodbye to Hope Haven. The longer Zoey stayed, the more accustomed she was becoming to island life. The more she preferred island life.
But what if she passed up the position in Providence to take this job and her aunt had a health-care need that forced her to move six months from now? Or, heaven forbid, if she died? Mark would take over the house and Zoey would be in almost the same position financially that she was in now. Plus, she’d have nowhere to live. Unfortunately, staying in Hope Haven permanently isn’t an option for me, she concluded. And for the rest of the hour, she researched additional employment opportunities online, just in case the one she was interviewing for the following day didn’t pan out.
On the way home, Ivy raved about the artist, Emily, who also taught elementary-school kids in the island’s school system. “She was so creative and encouraging. You’ll never guess who her husband is—he’s that pediatrician who took your splinter out, Zoey. They met when she came to the island to paint a mural for the children’s wing at the hospital,” her aunt babbled. “She was only supposed to stay for the summer but then she met the doc and they fell in love and got married. Isn’t that romantic? Her story gives me hope for you and Nick.”
“You and Nick?” Gabi taunted, “Wait till I tell Aidan he’s going to get a new mommy!”
“Don’t you dare! I mean it, Gabi.”
“Okay, okay. I won’t… if you stop so we can get an ice-cream cone.”
“It’s too early. Bleecker’s isn’t open yet,” Zoey fudged. She actually didn’t know what time the shop started serving, but she was concerned about Ivy’s diet, since Dr. Laurent had emphasized that she ought to stick to healthy foods.
“Can we stop to get more strawberries and flour instead? Aunt Ivy’s going to teach me to make a pie now that the paint’s dry on the cupboards.”
“I thought you had a stomachache,” Zoey grumbled as she pulled into the supermarket parking lot. “I’ll let you off by the door and then I’ll circle around so I don’t have to dock this ship.”
“I’m going in, too,” Ivy announced. “I can’t remember the last time I went into a grocery store.”
Zoey was impressed that she was expanding her interests and taking on new challenges and she understood that Ivy didn’t want anyone fussing over her health. However, as she watched her niece and aunt inching toward the supermarket, she couldn’t help but worry that Ivy was overexerting herself physically.
It took fifteen minutes for them to return to the car and when they did, Ivy insisted that Bleecker’s had to be open by that time. Once again, Zoey drove as close to the shop’s entrance as she could and then kept circling the block while Ivy and Gabi placed their order at the window. On her sixth time around, Zoey spotted them strolling toward her.
Ivy was holding her ice cream in one hand and Gabi’s arm with the other, and Gabi had a cone in each hand. A breeze was blowing the teenager’s hair into her face and when she reached to brush it out of her eyes, she accidentally daubed ice cream on her forehead. Stopping short, she turned and showed Ivy what she’d done. Although Zoey couldn’t hear what they said, she could see laughter overtaking them both as Ivy wiped it off for her.
When they climbed into the car, Zoey joked, “I hope that wasn’t my ice cream you were wearing.”
“Nope. It was mine. Peppermint fudge—my mother’s favorite flavor,” Gabi recollected. “When I was little I used to order it, too, but I could never finish my cone, so Mom would eat the rest of it. My dad tried to convince me to get cherry vanilla, because that’s what he liked and he wanted my leftovers, but I refused. So he’d always complain it wasn’t fair because he was outnumbered by the two of us. Then Mom would say she wouldn’t call that unfair—she’d call it lucky. And Dad would tell her that she was right, he was the luckiest man alive.”
Zoey didn’t remember that about Jessica and Scott, but she was glad their daughter did.
On Thursday, Zoey allowed Gabi to stay home from school again because she said her stomachache had come back and she had another headache, too. It was a stretch to believe her—she’d seemed fine on Wednesday afternoon when she made her first pie with Ivy.
After they’d finished baking, Gabi had put Moby in her room, and treated them to a private performance on her flute. She’d played magnificently and the mini-recital would have been the perfect ending to the day, but the evening got even better when Scott called. He’d been able to add Kathleen to the call, too, and the trio had talked for almost two hours. Which meant Gabi had stayed up late, so Zoey supposed it was possible that sleep deprivation could have upset her stomach or given her a headache. In any case, she had an ulterior motive for not challenging her niece’s claim: it gave her peace of mind to know Ivy wouldn’t be home alone while she was in Providence at her interview.
It went so
well that before she left, the director told her she was their top candidate and they hoped to contact her with an offer by Monday. She was surprised by how anticlimactic their decision felt after so many months of being unemployed, but all Zoey cared about was getting back to Dune Island. She called both Ivy’s landline and Gabi’s phone to let them know she was on her way. But neither of them picked up, which she told herself was understandable: Gabi hated using her temporary phone and rarely carried it with her and Ivy was probably napping.
Home, sweet home, she thought as she crested the hill on Main Street and flicked on the blinker. Her delight at seeing Nick’s truck was parked in the driveway turned to dismay when she noticed Mark’s red convertible parked in front of him. Why is he here? she wondered. Zoey had barely closed the door to the rental car when Gabi rushed out of the house, her long hair flying behind her.
“What’s wrong?”
In one long, breathless sentence, Gabi explained, “Aunt Ivy left the bathtub faucet running upstairs and it flooded the bathroom so I called Nick to ask him what to do and he said he’d come over right away and in the middle of everything Mark showed up and had a meltdown and Aunt Ivy had to take one of her heart pills and then when I was holding the door open so Nick could bring in the equipment to dry the floor Moby got out and I can’t find him anywhere!”
“We will, honey.” Zoey placed her hands on her niece’s shoulders. “First, take a deep breath. Now let it out… Good. Did the pill help Aunt Ivy or did she need to take a second one?”
“No. It worked right away and she said she felt fine again. Nick and I helped her up the stairs so she could take a nap. I stayed with her until she fell asleep and when I came down, Nick told me Mark was taking a walk. So he’s still out, Aunt Ivy’s in bed and Nick’s in the best room checking to see whether the water from upstairs flowed down into the ceiling or along the wall. But I have no idea where Moby could be.”
“He’s gotten out before but he never goes far. He usually hides beneath the wild rose bushes by the back fence. If he’s not there, try using the electric can opener in front of an open window. The sound usually makes him come running. I need to go check on Aunt Ivy and talk to Nick, but if you don’t find Moby by then, I’ll help you look, okay?”
Aunt Ivy's Cottage: A totally gripping and emotional page turner Page 20
