Drew’s sense of honor would press him to do “the right thing.” They’d be married. And every day, Drew would resent the child’s intrusion in his plans. That was the way of reluctant fathers.
That’s what Ivy learned from her own reluctant father.
Ivy clutched the letter to her heart, willing it to grow arms like Drew’s and envelop her with forgiveness.
He loves me, but for how long?
5
Ivy—1951
Ivy fingered the envelope in her uniform pocket, the paper representing both closeness and distance. As long as Drew remained unaware of what else she hugged tight to her soul, she could live in the fairy tale that things might work out. If he came home. And if he forgave her.
She opened the staff entrance to the Maple Grove Nursing Home. Lemon and cinnamon. A fastidious housekeeping staff and a creative cook—two things that made Clairmont’s Maple Grove Nursing Home different from other facilities caring for the elderly and infirm. She’d heard the horror stories of places that didn’t deserve the word “home” in their name. Glorified prisons in their starkness, smelling of untended bedpans and warmed-over cabbage soup.
The cinnamon fragrance drifted from the kitchen “on warm waves of wonderful,” as one of the more lucid residents once described it. Ivy stepped farther into the facility, appreciating waves like this after her near-collision with Helene’s soaked-through little one.
She clicked open her metal locker in the nurses’ lounge and dropped her purse onto its floor. Shutting the locker door was impossible without another clang of metal.
“Hey! A little sympathy for the walking wounded!”
Ivy turned toward the voice. Jill.
An unlit cigarette bobbed and danced, stuck to the woman’s limp lips. “You trying to make my headache worse?”
“Sorry,” Ivy said. “Rough night?”
“The night was great.” Jill leaned against her own locker and rubbed her forehead as if to erase whatever memory it held. “It’s the morning after that takes its toll on a person.”
“Wouldn’t know.”
Jill raised her narrowed eyes. “You wouldn’t know what a hangover feels like?”
How far into this conversation did Ivy dare wander? “I have an idea. Look, I need to punch in.”
“Yeah, me too. Time to pacify the ancient and the addle-brained.”
Ivy’s back stiffened. “Jill!”
Jill pulled the cigarette from her mouth and gestured with it. “Don’t tell me you like working here.”
Working was better than sitting alone in the apartment above the dry cleaner day after day. Did Ivy like working here? It had its rough moments. “I enjoy the residents. Most of them.”
Jill snorted her response and took a long drag on her now-lit Camel.
She eyed her coworker. “What made you choose nursing?”
Jill bent to retie the white laces on her polished white nurse’s shoes. “Didn’t want to be a teacher.” Her pinched sentence ended in a whoo of exhaled smoke.
Would the day ever come when a woman could choose a job she was suited for?
Ivy fingered last week’s limp airmail envelope in the pocket of her uniform with her hand as she slid the stiff card into the time clock with her other hand and heard its sinister metallic clunk.
Punched in.
Without needing to remove the envelope from her pocket, she knew exactly what it looked like. The familiar, boxy handwriting. The heart-pounding postmark: Seoul, Korea, July 7, 1951—only a month in transit this time. A return address with power to rearrange her internal organs. Navy ink, paled slightly by the ocean crossing, by the sun and air and humidity, by the Army transport and freight plane and ground truck and on-foot mailman that brought the paper treasure to her door.
Drew’s latest love letter. They didn’t come every week, but often enough to testify to his sincerity. He was too good to her. Better than she deserved. Was it just selfishness that kept her from telling him the truth? The longer she postponed the news that was sure to bring their relationship to an end, the longer she could wrap herself in the warmth of his devotion.
She wasn’t just lying now, she was using him! How long would her sins pile up before the ground opened to swallow her?
Ivy stood behind the wall of medicine cupboards and discreetly adjusted her stockings so the seams were straight in the back. The garter clips holding them dug into her thighs, a button of dented flesh forming already under each one. Regulations demanded hose, even on sweltering summer days. A few years prior, they’d been forbidden because of the previous war’s rationing.
The clunk that imprinted Jill’s time card startled Ivy. Her fingernail snagged her stocking. By the day’s end, the tiny hole would be a full-fledged run, thigh to toe. Could she never be put together for a whole day? Did her scars always have to show?
Show. Soon her biggest scar would show.
Jill slid her time card back into the steel holding slot not far from Ivy’s. “Welcome to another shift at the funny farm.”
“Do you have to call it that?”
“What are you flapping your lips about?”
“Never mind.”
“No. What did you mean?”
“It’s just . . .” How badly did she want to stay on Jill’s good side? Riding a wave of distractions, the moment passed.
“You’re going to have a time with 117 today.”
“Anna? What’s wrong with her?”
“Stubborn old coot.”
“Jill!” Ivy tsked.
At the percussive sound, Jill looked up. “Don’t flip your cap. She couldn’t hear me if I was standing on the edge of her ear lobe.”
“What happened?”
“Refuses to take her medicine. Yesterday, she’d have spit it on me if I hadn’t ducked.”
“Honestly?”
Jill’s rubber-soled white shoes squeaked as she pivoted to leave the nurses’ lounge. “I’ve got to get that review report done. And I do not relish the tongue wagging I’ll hear if our illustrious head nurse finds out I failed to get that biddy to take her morning meds again today.”
“Let me talk to Anna.”
“Good luck.”
“I can’t administer her meds, but I’ll see if I can get her to cooperate.”
“More power to you. Don’t let her nab you with one of her rambling stories. You’ll never get any work done. The senile imagination. Isn’t it a hoot?” She shook her head. “No explaining some people.”
Anna Grissom’s eyes lit up like a flashlight with fresh batteries when Ivy entered her room.
“Mrs. Carrington! You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
Ivy let the misnomer—Mrs.—go uncorrected. If the staff and residents didn’t believe her married, she’d soon be fodder for the rumor mill.
“Doing okay this morning, Miss Anna?”
“Been better. At my age, is there any other reasonable response?”
“How old are you now? I could look it up, but . . .”
“I was born the day Lee surrendered at Appomattox.”
“And that was . . . ?”
“The end of the Civil War.” The look of incredulity on Anna’s well-lined face said, How could you not know that?
“I mean the date, Anna.”
“Oh. Yes. April 9, 1865.”
“Eighty-six.”
“Sixty-five, dear.”
“No, I mean you’re eighty-six years old, Anna.”
“That’s right. Am I confused, or are you? Silly question.” Anna reached a gnarled hand to brush a stray hair off her forehead.
Ivy adjusted the lap robe around Anna’s legs, tucking her securely into the wheelchair in which the woman would spend most of her day. “Anna, your nurse tells me you gave her fits about taking your medicines this morning.”
“I gave her fits?”
“You saw it differently? I thought you might.”
“It’s my teeth.”
“Excuse me?”
&nb
sp; “I’ve still got all my own teeth, or most of them.”
“That’s wonderful, Anna, but—”
“Did I ever tell you about Puff’s teeth? Now, there was a man with less than a full complement.”
Another train of thought derailed. “Your medications, Miss Anna?”
“I didn’t take them.”
“I know.”
“Because of my teeth.”
Ivy wondered how much searching it might take to find a container with a secure enough lid that it could keep Anna’s musings from spreading where they didn’t belong, like egg whites on linoleum. “What?”
“I’ve got my own teeth, still.”
“Yes?”
“And I can’t abide cold.”
“Anna, I’m sorry, but I don’t understand—”
“That Jill person.” Anna’s sigh seemed to rattle her skeletal system. “She gives me ice water to swallow my pills with. I’ve told her my teeth are sensitive. Doesn’t seem to care. Every day she works this wing, she hands me my pills and a glass of icy water. And yesterday I decided to hold out for room temperature.”
“Oh.”
“Does that make me ornery?”
Ivy bent to lay her too-warm, fleshy hand on Anna’s bird-bone arm. “No.”
“Cantankerous? Jill said I was cantankerous. I remember having a pig once that was cantankerous. I know the difference. Did I ever tell you about Ham?”
“Ham?”
“The pig. Try to keep up, dear.”
Ivy smiled. Only Anna could chide her without guile.
“I called him Ham. His real name was . . . was . . . oh, I forget what Puff called him.”
“Anna, I’d love to stay and chat, but I have eight other patients today, some of whom are genuinely cantankerous. I’ll stop back a little later. Can I tell Jill that you’ll take your medicines without a fuss if she brings you room-temperature water?”
“Of course!” Anna’s eyes sparkled with a precocious child’s delight. “I’m not here to make waves. I’m too old for that.”
Ivy wiggled her toes inside her shoes. She arched her back. What would it be like in a few months when the baby weighed more than a whisper? The only good thing about heading home to that stuffy, friendless apartment at the end of the day was the prospect of getting out of her uniform and shoes. She’d punched out already but poked her head into room 117 one last time.
“Anything else I can do for you before I leave, Anna?”
“I can’t remember his name.”
“Whose?”
“The pig. What was Ham’s real name? I’m losing the pieces.”
“It’ll come to you. If you’re like me, you’ll wake up in the middle of the night and Eureka! Don’t worry yourself about it.”
“I’m losing the pieces of my story, Ivy.” The older woman looked up, as if tilting her head back would keep the threatening tears from spilling.
“It happens to the best of us, I guess.”
Anna leveled her watery gaze at Ivy. “But I want them to know.”
“Who?”
“My girls. I want them to know how it turned out.”
“Your daughters? But your chart says—”
“A hundred and twenty-seven of them.”
“Miss Anna . . .” Ivy fought to remove the hint of condescension from her voice. “I just read a magazine article about a woman who had the most children born to her of any woman on earth. From Eastern Europe, I believe. Sixty-nine. That’s the record.”
“Well, I had a hundred and twenty-seven of them.” Anna’s gnarled hand reached to rub the spot on her cheekbone where the map of Africa age spot rested. “And that must make close to four or five hundred grandchildren by now.”
“Now, Anna . . .”
“Maybe more. Oh, how rude of me not to ask. How are your morning glories, dear?”
“My morning glories? I don’t have any flowers outside my apartment.”
“You call it morning sickness, I’m sure.”
Ivy’s knees lost their mooring pegs. At least half her previous height melted into her white nursing shoes.
“What?”
“Is it getting better now? Usually does. Not for all women, but most.”
“Anna, I . . . I don’t know what you mean.”
“Didn’t you tell me you were expecting? Oh, maybe not. I guess I just knew. Or maybe the Lord told me.”
“How could you know?” Ivy retraced her conversation with every living soul at the home. No, she hadn’t breathed a word. “I mean . . .”
“Experience. I can usually read it in the eyes. But that green pallor to your skin these past weeks gave it away. Funny you haven’t mentioned it to me. I’m sure you have your reasons. Is your young man excited?”
“My . . . my husband? Yes. Of course.”
Anna grew a sympathetic pout-spout on her lower lip. “Too bad he’s got to be so far away at a time like this.”
“How did you know that?”
“The letters.”
Ivy sat down hard on the idle steam register along the wall. “I haven’t shared his letters with you.”
“I see their outline through the pocket of your uniform. Red and blue border. Must be airmail. Really far away?”
“Korea.”
“Oh, child.”
“His name is Drew.”
“Drew Carrington. A stately name. Finding a fitting first name for your baby will be a challenge, won’t it?”
“I don’t know how you—” Was the room spinning? Ivy’s mind whirled. She knew the day would come. Someone had to be the first to know. But this dear, almost ninety-year-old woman with “less than a full complement” of sensibility left to her? If she figured it out, how long before others knew? Or did they already? Had the break room gossip started without her?
“His name is Lambert. Drew Lambert. I . . . I kept my own name when we . . . married.”
“Whoever heard of such a thing? I don’t know. Young people today. Not you, of course, Ivy. You’re one of the reasons I still have hope. Which brings me back to Ham.”
“Your pig?” Any subject was safer than the one with which they were toying. “Yes, tell me about your pig, Anna.”
“Actually, he belonged to Puff.”
“Your husband?”
“Oh, mercy, no! Now, what did Puff call that pig? Ivy, I’m losing the pieces!”
What am I getting myself into? Just walk out the door, Ivy. You’ve put in your time. Spare yourself the grief. You’ve got larger concerns than an old lady missing a piece of her memory puzzle. Maybe Jill’s got the right attitude.
No. No, she doesn’t.
“Tell me more about him, Anna. The name might come to you.”
Anna slapped her hands together in a single burst of misshapen applause. “Where do I start?”
“When did you first see the pig?”
“Soon after Puff moved in.”
“Puff . . . lived with you?”
“Yes. Well, not in the way you might be thinking. He helped me run the place.”
“The place?”
“Morning Glory.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t follow.”
“Do you think it would help if you jotted a few things down? If my hands weren’t so crippled with the ar-thur-itis I’d write this myself. I need to tell my girls how it all turned out.”
“Your daughters.”
“Not really.”
“Now, Anna . . .”
Anna folded her disfigured hands and rested them on her lap. “I should start at the beginning.”
6
Anna—1890s
Seems you’re flirting with foolishness, if you ask me,” he said, flicking cigar ashes over the side of the carriage and onto the blessedly damp, ash-snuffing lane.
Flirting was far from my mind. And I wasn’t asking.
His speech gurgled. The man was drowning in his own spit!
He cleared his throat with a grinding sound. “Sure you ain’t bit of
f more than you can chew? What’re you planning to do with it? You can’t be thinking too ambitious, considering the shape it’s in.”
People of various ilks and motives have wondered whatever possessed me to make what I did of the house. Aunt Phoebe’s lawyer—a greasy man with extra chins and a deficit of manners—was among the first.
On the carriage ride from his office in Westbrook the day I took possession, he peppered me with questions about my intentions, as if he felt obligated to protect me from a nefarious suitor, as if I were proposing marriage to the structure. In a way, I suppose I was.
My hesitance to give clear answers must have frustrated him. His brow furrowed and he breathed sausage-scented sighs. Unconcerned whether or not he understood me, I clutched my thoughts close to my heart. His constant probing was like a squeaky pump handle. For all his flailing efforts, he was rewarded with no more than a dribble of information from me.
Tenacity sometimes steps over the line into stubbornness, but I won’t apologize for that. It got me through more than one pickle.
His clothes smelled of yesterday’s bullhead dinner and cheap homemade cigars. As we rode side by side in the carriage, I worked my shawl up around my shoulders, frail protection that it was against everything offensive about him. Being polite is not often a struggle for me. This day it was a canyon crossing . . . barefoot . . . with a fifty-pound pack on my back.
“You sure you thunk this through?” he asked as he urged the horse across the bridge at the entrance to Aunt Phoebe’s property. Poor grammar seemed a good fit for his demeanor, a mismatch for his profession.
“I’ve given it a great deal of thought, Mr. Rawlins.”
He grunted, then spit over the side of the carriage. We rode in blessed silence the last few hundred yards.
“You ain’t but, what, twenty? Big place for a little thing like you,” he said, turning the key in the padlock on the ten-foot, double front doors.
A little thing? Did he think I’d consider that endearing? “It suited my aunt, and she was no taller than I, Mr. Rawlins.”
“I didn’t mean because you’re short. Just . . . well . . . being alone.”
When the Morning Glory Blooms (9781426770777) Page 5
