The last time Ivy had talked to Shea had been three months ago. She’d dutifully called her on her birthday because Margot had asked in that way that only Margot could, where asking equated with commanding. Shea had sounded less than excited to hear from her, and when Ivy had pulled the phone away from her mouth to press End, she’d been surprised to notice that the call had lasted a mere fifty-nine seconds. Fifty-nine seconds in three months does not a sister make. The truth was Shea would never really forgive her for marrying Elliott, no matter how much water flowed under the bridge.
“I’ll have to see, Mom. I can’t really commit to anything with everything that’s happened.” Plus, what would it look like to leave her husband on Valentine’s weekend?
She could actually hear her mother pouting through the phone, but Margot quickly recovered as she remembered what she had to be excited about—her other daughter. “At least call her tomorrow. But afterward! She has no idea!” Margot giggled. “Owen has set this whole thing up without her knowing! And I even get to be there as a witness! It’s going to air on Have a Nice Day USA at 8:00 a.m., so have your TV on!” They were back to exclamation points.
She promised her mom she would watch the show and that, yes, she would call Shea after it was over, much as the mere thought pained her. Shea was smug on days she wasn’t being proposed to on national television in front of a live audience by the perfect guy. Ivy ended the call with her mother and focused on the GPS as she pulled out of the parking lot, trying to figure out where she’d wandered to.
But it wasn’t being lost that was bothering her. It wasn’t feeling like a stranger in this place she wanted so badly to feel like home. It wasn’t even her job loss or talking to her parents or the thought of Shea’s good news. It was what Shea would surely say yes to in front of the nation. It was the thought of what was coming. Shea would have her wedding at Sunset Beach. She’d have the right location, the right flowers, the right dress. The right groom. What was nagging at Ivy wasn’t that her sister was getting married; it was that Shea was having the wedding Ivy had never had.
Ivy drove her car with caution, trying to pay attention to the street signs and traffic signals, instead of getting distracted by the cute little apartments mixed with kitschy little stores. She could imagine herself living here, waking up early to walk to that funky little coffee shop, buying those perfect little knick-knacks in the window of that store for her single-girl apartment on her way home. She could buy a dog. Elliott was allergic. She was thinking about what to name the dog as she passed by Elliott’s car, her eye reflexively picking out the familiar make, model, and color, as recognizable as a face. The car was pulling out of one of the apartment complex parking lots, the kind of place where a single girl would live the kind of life she was just envisioning.
Her heart beat rapidly as she drove past. She looked over to see if it was him, taking in his distinct profile as he scanned the street for oncoming traffic, his face turned away from her as it seemed it always was these days. She knew his profile too well. But she didn’t really know him.
Although everything in her wanted to double back and tail him all the way home, she kept driving, thinking as she did about what a record-breaking bad day it had turned out to be. Bad things happen in threes; isn’t that how the saying went? If that was true, then all the bad stuff that was going to happen that day had happened. She’d lost her job, had her nose rubbed in her sister’s success, and confirmed something she’d suspected but been able to ignore about her husband up until now: there was someone else. She’d just witnessed him leaving her apartment when he was supposed to be at work.
She could imagine what he would say if she confronted him. “That’s absurd! You’re overreacting! Just what exactly do you think you saw?”
But still she could remember her mother talking to her own sister, Aunt Leah, the year Ivy’s parents split up. Her mother had packed her and Shea up suddenly and taken them down to Sunset Beach in the fall, long after the tourists were gone and there was nothing to do but go for bike rides with Shea. Aunt Leah had met them there, her brows knit together even though she wore a smile on her face around the girls. Though Margot hadn’t divulged much to her daughters, there’d been many whispered conversations between Margot and Leah. Ivy had overheard them. “A woman just knows, Leah,” her mother had said, her hand gripping her sister’s sleeve, the fabric of her blouse crumpling under her fingers.
All these years later, Ivy was finding out exactly what her mother meant. A woman did know. Ivy didn’t need proof. She didn’t need a confession. She didn’t need a private detective or any of the other things she’d seen on TV. Instead the truth about Elliott settled inside of her, like a rock tossed into the ocean, falling and falling and falling until it landed with a soft but certain thud, lodging in her stomach and staying there as she drove home, parked in the garage, and let herself into the house, all the while wondering where this steely resolve was coming from, and where the tears she would’ve expected were.
She climbed the stairs, ran her long-awaited bath, and waited for the tears to come as she sat on the side of the tub and watched it fill, steam coming off the water. She slipped out of her clothes, leaving them in a messy pile where water was sure to splash them. Her mother would disapprove. A wry smile filled her face as she slipped into the water, welcoming the burning sensation hitting her skin. At least she could feel something. She tilted her head back in the water, wetting her hair and then, sliding under the water, holding her breath.
She thought of being a little girl and bathing with Shea. They would play mermaids, braiding each other’s hair and pretending to have fins instead of legs. They would dream of all the adventures they’d have once they became real mermaids and could live under the sea all the time. They’d even made up mermaid names. Shea’s mermaid name was Coral and Ivy’s was Oceana. That tub had been their own little world, a world they’d once believed in as surely as they’d both believed in happily ever after.
Ivy sat up in the water as she heard the beeping noise that meant the door downstairs was opening. As she listened to Elliot’s feet walking around below, she tried not to think about who he’d been with, or what he’d been doing. She felt her eyes sting with those unshed tears she’d been staving off all day. Ivy’s life was a far cry from happily ever after. But it looked like tomorrow on national television, Shea would be getting hers.
“Congratulations, Coral,” Ivy whispered into the empty room, her voice bouncing off the water, her tears slipping into it and disappearing.
Two
April called that evening while she was standing in the kitchen, debating dinner. The girl had a sixth sense, could always tell when something was wrong with Ivy. “Your timing is impeccable,” Ivy said as she answered the phone.
“What’s wrong?” In the background she could hear one of April’s new puppies whining.
“Is that Barnes or Noble?” she asked.
“Don’t try to change the subject,” April teased. She knew Ivy was trying to divert the conversation. And besides, April knew Ivy took little interest in the puppies she’d impulsively brought home from a recent Adopt-a-Pet event. Ivy had warned her she’d bitten off more than she could chew—and, slowly, April was admitting it.
Ivy heard April’s squeaky back-porch door open and shut. “There,” April said, “I’ve escaped to the outdoors.” Ivy could imagine relief spreading across April’s elfin face, her blond pixie cut framing it. Ivy was betting she had on jeans and a loose flannel workshirt at that very moment, her bangs clipped back with pink barrettes to expose her wide, innocent eyes.
“I thought you were supposed to put the dogs outside.”
“They’re not exactly outdoorsy-type dogs.”
“April, only you would pick out dogs that don’t enjoy being outside.”
“Why I’m still single is making more sense to you now, isn’t it? My picker is broken, clearly.”
April was just coming off a yearlong relationship with a you
th pastor who ultimately decided to move back to Michigan to be near his family. While he’d offered to see where it went from long distance, he’d made it clear that living in Michigan was part of any future with him. April had turned him down, but not without more than a few tears. The dogs, Ivy was certain, were a reaction to the loss. A noisy, messy reaction that she was sure April regretted.
“So, shoot. Tell me everything,” April said.
Ivy sighed. Where did she start? “Okay, suffice it to say that this day is going down as one of the worst days of my life.”
“Really? Worse than the day you told your family you were breaking up with Michael in order to marry Elliot?”
Ivy nodded as she answered. “Yes. Worse than that. I think this day just took that one’s place.”
April was silent for a moment. “Wow. Must be pretty bad.”
“You have no idea.”
“Okay, before you start, I’m going back inside because the dogs can see me, and they’re going crazy barking at me through the window. I’m just going to throw some food down for them and hope it diverts them. Hang on.” Ivy listened while the door squeaked and the barking reached a crescendo, then suddenly quieted at the sound of kibble filling a metal bowl.
April sighed loudly into the phone, and Ivy could hear the squeak of the couch springs as she sat down. “Okay, they’re quiet. Do tell. But talk fast because I know the quiet won’t last.”
As succinctly as she could, Ivy ticked off the three things that happened—the call from her dad, the call from her mom, and seeing Elliott’s car.
“I’ll kill him,” April breathed into the phone. “Seriously. I’ll sic these dogs on him.”
Ivy couldn’t help but smile at the thought of the little mutts going after Elliott, attacking his ankles with gusto while he hollered. “I’ll keep in mind that I can call on their services if needed.”
“You really think Elliott would …” April breathed.
“I don’t know, April.” Ivy found herself backpedaling. “Maybe he was running some papers over to a colleague who’s sick at home.” She could come up with a dozen excuses for what she’d seen, so she was sure Elliott would too. “I’m sure it’s nothing, and I won’t ask. Don’t want to be the crazy accusing wife, you know.”
A heavy silence fell. Apparently single friends didn’t do too well with news that all was not bliss on the marriage front.
“Anyway”—Ivy decided to change the subject—”talking to both my parents in one day has wiped me out. I’m going to eat something and go to bed early so this day can be over.”
“Ivy?” April said. “Take my advice and don’t answer any more calls from your parents.”
She sighed. “I wish it were that easy.”
“Yeah,” April said. “Your life was much easier back when you weren’t talking to them.”
“Back when you and I were first figuring out each other’s brand of crazy.”
April laughed. “Did you figure mine out yet? ‘Cause I’d love to know.”
“Not even close.” They both laughed. Ivy loved how April could always make her laugh, no matter what. It was April, after all, who’d gotten her through that rough patch with her family, helped her see that she could make it even if it meant making it alone. April had taken her back to church, got her praying again, made her see that, really, she wasn’t alone at all. Back then, Elliott and April had seemed more like family than her own blood.
She leaned her head against the phone, feeling the connection to April that was always there. At least she could count on that.
“So, what are you going to do?” April asked.
“Well, I’m going to get out of bed every morning, and I’m going to put one foot in front of the other …”
“Breathe in and out all day long,” April finished with a giggle. Sleepless in Seattle was their favorite movie, and they often found reasons to quote lines to each other. April was convinced that she’d find her Tom Hanks character in some magical way, just like Meg Ryan had. It was Ivy’s job to affirm that she would. But sometimes Ivy wondered if April wasn’t better off single. The trouble with finding Mr. Perfect was that he wouldn’t stay perfect.
“So are you going to watch your sister on TV tomorrow morning?”
Ivy laughed. “What do you think?”
“Guess you have to.”
“Pretty much. You know I’ll be quizzed on it later.”
“How bad can it be, right?”
“Right. I mean, it’s just my sister getting her dream proposal so she can start planning her dream wedding—”
“The one you were supposed to have,” April interrupted.
“Thank you for pointing that out,” she replied.
“Meanwhile your dream has kind of …”
“Fizzled,” Ivy finished her sentence.
“Well, just because something fizzles doesn’t mean it can never spark again.”
Upstairs, in the bonus room they used as a gym, she could hear Elliott running on the treadmill, his feet pounding out a rhythm. Lately he’d become obsessed with working out. She could pick up almost any women’s magazine and learn what that indicated. She wondered what kind of spark could possibly ignite the passion between them again. She could hardly admit to her best friend that she was starting to believe there was no hope for her marriage, that the spark she was referring to was impossible.
“Well, I better go,” she said. “I just heard Elliott’s treadmill switch off.”
“Look, whatever happens, you know I’m on your side, right?” April’s dogs were getting louder in the background. She had to yell over the barking.
“’Course I do,” Ivy responded. April was someone who would never lie to her, never throw her over for someone else, never hurt her. She had proven that over and over. But Elliott was her family, and Ivy knew April loved him. That was the thing about family—you never really stopped loving them no matter how mad at them you got.
“Okay, good. Now if you were a true friend, you’d come over here and rescue me from these dang dogs!”
They said good-bye and she hung up the phone with a smile on her face that lasted until she saw Elliott come down the stairs, his phone in his hand as he texted, his thumbs flying over the miniature keyboard. He passed by her without even looking up.
Dinner was a quiet affair, as always. Elliott seemed to write off tonight’s silence to the news of her job loss, squeezing her shoulder as a form of solidarity as they were dishing up their plates. But “It’ll work out” was all he said before he took his plate and went to eat in front of the computer.
Ivy sat alone at the kitchen table, picking at the leftover lasagna she’d pulled out of the fridge, her mind flitting to their first Valentine’s Day together—and how different tomorrow night’s would surely be. Back then they’d been newly in love, both startled by their attraction to each other, by the similarities, by the need they had to be together all the time. “I’ve never felt like this about anyone,” were words they both threw out, equally as often. It had been real then. Of that she was sure.
She looked in the direction that Elliott had disappeared mumbling something about finishing some work as he slunk away with plate in hand. “I’ll just bet,” she said to herself, studying the candleholders they’d received as wedding gifts, wondering when was the last time they’d eaten by candlelight or skipped dinner altogether in a rush to fall into bed, eating sandwiches in the kitchen much later, famished and grinning at each other.
She yawned loudly, covering her mouth out of habit even though she was alone, her eyes taking in the view they’d loved off the back of the house—the trickling stream, the expanse of mountains beyond. His arms had gone around her as they stared at it together the first time they’d looked at the house. “This is the house we’ll grow old in,” he’d said and kissed her as the Realtor looked away, shuffling his feet awkwardly.
Elliott walked back into the room, carrying his empty plate, streaks of red and pieces of noodles an
d cheese clinging to the china. He laid it in the sink and started to walk away.
“You could at least run some water over that,” she remarked, looking down at her mostly full plate.
He stopped walking, strode back over to the sink, and pulled dramatically on the spigot so that the water shot out at full blast, filling the plate. “There,” he pronounced, sarcasm lacing his voice as he shut the spigot off just as abruptly as he had pulled it on. She watched his back as he walked away and tried to come up with the words to confront him about what she’d seen that afternoon. Words that wouldn’t make her sound crazy. Words that he couldn’t twist. Words that would get to the truth.
But no words came. She carried her plate to the sink and rinsed it, watching the uneaten lasagna slip down the drain. Then she sank into the couch, laptop open. She needed to get on some job search sites, start typing her résumé, or do something productive. Instead she got on Twitter, escaping into whatever other people were talking about. She clicked on some links, read up on some celeb news, and added a book someone was tweeting about to an online bookstore cart. The novel was about a woman making a fresh start and finding triumph in the midst of heartache. She stopped and listened to the sound of Elliott in the next room, typing. That sounded like a story she needed to read.
She was about to log out of Twitter when she saw a tweet from their pastor. He had quoted Psalm 84:5, “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage.” She wanted to find her strength in God, as if it were that easy. And the idea of a pilgrimage sounded good at that moment—but a pilgrimage to where? She usually found such comfort in the Psalms but tonight she just felt hollow, wrung out.
She heard Elliott’s footsteps behind her and opened her eyes.
He stooped down and peered at her laptop. “Twitter, eh?” He wore that amused grin on his face she was growing to hate. He stood back up and scratched his head, leaving the top of it sticking up like a rooster’s comb. There was lasagna sauce dried on his cheek. She realized looking at him that she didn’t find him attractive like she used to, didn’t want to reach for him just because he was close enough to touch.
The Wishing Tree Page 2
