Cross of Ivy

by Roxi Bahar Hewertson

  PRAISE FOR CROSS OF IVY

  “Readers want characters they care about, and Ms. Hewertson has provided us with one in Abby Trudeau.”

  —Doug Pilley, Writer/Editor, Norfolk, VA

  “Cross of Ivy is packed with action, conflict, surprising story twists, football and sex. What’s not to like! Hewertson delivers one power punch after the other. I LOVED reading this book - it’s very visual, and I can definitely see it playing out beautifully on the screen.”

  —Rod McLachlan, Broadway, Film and TV

  Actor, and Playwright

  “Cross of Ivy surprised me by how quickly I was pulled into Abby’s story. I rarely have time for novels, but I made time for this one. Roxi Hewertson has given us a deeply human and believable story that grabs hold and won’t let go. She has proven herself in non-fiction - but who would have guessed she could write such a compelling novel! Bottom line — this book ROCKS!”

  — Craig Duswalt, Speaker, Author, Radio Host

  and Creator of RockStar Marketing www.CraigDuswalt.com

  Cross

  of Ivy

  Roxi Bahar Hewertson

  Cross of Ivy

  by Roxi Bahar Hewertson

  © Copyright 2015 Roxi Bahar Hewertson

  ISBN 978-1-63393-027-8

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other – except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters are both actual and fictitious.

  With the exception of verified historical events and persons, all incidents, descriptions, dialogue and opinions expressed are the products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  Published by

  210 60th Street

  Virginia Beach, VA 23451

  212-574-7939

  www.koehlerbooks.com

  A $1.99 eBook edition is available with the purchase of this book.

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  For all the necessary girlfriends and wives

  who have been betrayed

  and still found their voices…

  For all the good men and women

  who heard their voices

  and love them still.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  The soft leather seats of the 747 swallowed the lone passenger in the first class cabin. Abigail Trudeau shivered. It was as though the frigid February wind had whistled through her window and seeped deep into her bones. Only moments earlier her eyes had followed every movement on the frozen ground near the plane. She glanced quickly to the tarmac and to the entry door with only the slightest head motion.

  At the same time, Abby was aware of every new passenger who passed by, their carry-on luggage thudding against the seats, their ephemeral shadows pausing, and then, pressing against the backs of other shadows down the aisle. She resolutely willed them all away. She could not abide having to sit close to someone who would ask where she was from, where she was going, what did she think about flying, the weather. No, she could not pretend today; nor could she decant her well-honed Southern charm.

  The jet rose through the dense blanket of fog and drizzle that hovered over New York City. In a matter of minutes, a spectacular morning sky emerged from the darkness, crowned by an iridescent sun reaching down from eternity with long fingers of light. To anyone else, it might have seemed a religious experience, but reflected in the ice blue eyes of the solitary witness, the magic slowly faded into oblivion with the turn of a wing.

  Her deep blue wrap gently draped the matching dress, and the subtle aroma of Chanel rose from the wool. A strand of pearls encircled her neck, and her watch was telling perfect eighteen karat Cartier time. It was ten forty-six. She rubbed her empty ring finger until it looked raw where they had cut off her wedding band. Abby felt chilled to the bone in the comfortably warm cabin.

  Her strawberry blonde hair was cut short, well-tailored, styled to frame her oval face. Another time she might have passed for thirty-five, but today she was older. There were deep, dark circles below her eyes that even well applied make-up could not mask. A cheerful flight attendant returned from the rear of the plane.

  “Excuse me, Mrs. Trudeau, may I interest you in our selection of coffees or teas?”

  She nodded.

  He returned moments later with a china cup, a pot of hot water and a basket of familiar foil packets. Selecting which tea bag to dangle in the pot seemed almost too big a task, but as with everything else, Abby did it methodically, neatly and with grace.

  The hot potion began to warm her. But more than soothing liquid, Abby needed a blanket to wrap around her psyche. She wanted to feel safe again, like she had so long ago when her mother had tucked her in beneath colorful quilts—each stitch carefully sewn by the loving hands of her grandmother.

  Abby longed for the thick, sweet night air of Louisiana’s city streets, filled with the smell of magnolias, the sounds of jazz, and the rhythm of deep blue blues. She could almost feel the early evening mist on her cheeks. She could hear the crickets and feel the mud squeezing between her toes after the rain. She could hear her mother calling her to a supper of catfish and dirty rice, and she could see cousin Emmy laughing so hard that tears of uncontrolled silliness streamed down her face. And she could see Wills, dear Wills, leaning on his rake, smiling up at her from the front stoop.

  That was so long ago. Closer were the recollections of the last four years in Cross, Vermont, of waking up from a dead sleep in the hospital, of running from her husband, Zach. The memories tumbled and flooded into uneasy focus.

  Cross overflowed with sparkling clear lakes and breathtaking mountains—such a serene illusion. But she knew better. Abby knew about images and making things seem like something they’re not. She had been trapped in the frigid New England winters, snowdrifts, and barely passable roads that led nowhere. Now she had finally found the strength to escape, but she was still cold to the marrow.

 
; As the jet sliced through the pillows of clouds, Abby stroked the silver cross that lay next to her skin. Its delicate intertwining leaves of ivy gave her comfort and reassurance. A slight smile formed on her lips as she remembered the day she first saw it lying there in the black velvet box. Just touching it now reminded her of the stories her mother would tell about her real father, the sailor in her dreams.

  It had left her neck only once. Never again.

  The tea was cold. A wilted bag drooped in the pot. Abby laid her head back on the fresh linen pillow and closed her eyes. She remembered with chilling clarity the last time she had fled a man. It had been nearly forty years ago, and then it had been Boston. But today could have been then, the feelings were so familiar, so raw. Oh, yes, she remembered it all.

  Abby suddenly felt tired, so tired. In the next moment, the jet’s hypnotic drone mercifully lulled her to sleep.

  CHAPTER 1

  The year was 1952. Three dreadfully long years had passed since Abby’s mother married Jack Mitchell and moved them into his house.

  Abby picked at the skin around her nails until scraped patches of cuticle bled and burned. She scolded herself. If she’d been smarter then, she thought, she would have found a way to tell her mother how much she wanted to go on living with Gramma and Papa Cory. She’d been so happy there, so loved, so safe. Oh, what she’d give to be on Papa Cory’s knee bouncing up and down to his robust rendition of Pony Girl, or to once again take his hand and walk - no, skip and run - to the grocer shop with her pennies for Mister Goody’s candy. She should have said she’d rather die than move to this ratty old house—if only she hadn’t been so small and stupid.

  In contrast to the sunny and cheerful room in which she had slept and played the first four years of her life, Abby’s new room was upstairs at one end of a long, musty hallway. Mama had sewn her a pair of bright yellow curtains with little blue flowers on the trim and painted her bedroom walls white. But still, everything felt dreadfully wrong.

  She remembered telling her mother on moving day, “Mama, I don’t like Jack’s house. It told me it’s unhappy.” Mama had squeezed her hand, and it seemed like she understood.

  “Just give it time, Abby. It’ll be all right,” Mama said. “So many places to play and hide,” she added. But her mother’s face had looked so sorrowful that Abby was not sure at all that anything would be right again.

  Abby sat on the edge of her bed, jaw tight, her eyes fixed on the bedroom door, waiting, listening for signs of Emmy’s arrival. Only with her best friend, her cousin Emmy, could she pretend to be somewhere else and forget for a while how much she loathed living in this hateful place with this hateful man.

  Jack’s house was dark and drafty and smelled like dirty laundry. Cluttered stacks of disintegrating, yellowed papers and weary old boxes full of tossed off clothes, and who knows what else, reeked in every corner. It looked as though nothing had been thrown away in the thirty years he’d lived there. Abby’s mother’s attempts to clear out the rubble were always met with forceful reminders that Jack had lived through the Depression, that he might need something in those boxes someday, and besides, it was his house.

  Abby felt swallowed by its gloom. Just now, the desolate grayness of the late autumn day made it seem ever so much worse. If it were not so cold and wet, she and Emmy could play outside in the narrow, overgrown backyard.

  Over the summer, the girls had planted pansies and marigolds at the base of the tangled, drooping vines that, over dozens of years, had multiplied into a thick hedgerow separating Jack’s yard from the neighbor’s. Each year the newly planted seeds bloomed in Mama’s favorite colors of brilliant gold and velvet purple. On warm days, the old shed was a perfect secret playhouse. Abby and Emmy could play school, princess, grocer, and anything else their vivid imaginations cooked up. The game they loved most was playing rich. They’d dress up in the frilly old things Gramma had given them and pretend to be magnificent ladies about town, famous and glamorous like the ones in the uptown shop windows. Mary would call them in for lunch, and like beggars in a bakery, they would gobble down their peanut butter sandwiches and race out to greet their imaginations. Pretending to be anybody, anywhere else, was far better than being trapped inside that awful house.

  The pansies and marigolds were nearly gone now. Frost was nipping at their tender hearts, turning the edges brownish and dull. More and more often it got too cold as the autumn rains dampened their plans, and they had to play upstairs in Abby’s room. Both of them hated it there, especially because of the ‘soul’ across the hall.

  “Locked! Keep it locked!” Abby heard Jack yell at her mother the day they moved in. He told Mary his dead mother’s soul was in that room, and it was never to be disturbed, never. Abby knew little about the story of Jack and his mother. She knew nothing of the suffocating obsession mother and son had shared. She knew nothing of the tuberculosis or how the old woman had died, or when. And what had become of Jack’s father? Surely, even he must have had a father, Abby thought. And most of all, she knew nothing of the demons that haunted her stepfather.

  But she knew better than to risk Jack’s rage. Every day, every time she tiptoed by the dark door across the hall, she worried that somehow the soul would get out, maybe squeeze through the hole in the lock or under the door.

  And then what? She was convinced the soul would come after her someday. Abby always shivered at the thought.

  On that dismal thunderous Saturday, Emmy’s high-pitched giggly voice chimed, “Abbyyyy,” and wafted up the first set of stairs, bounced off the landing and floated the rest of the way up around the corner and down the hall. Abby tossed away her brooding thoughts and leaped up to greet her cousin. They met on the landing and ran, holding hands, into her room.

  Mama was hanging laundry and Jack was at work at the docks when they hatched their plot. Actually, it was Emmy’s idea. She was tired of playing with stuffed toys and wanted to explore. Abby protested, but, as usual, Emmy won out. The girls slid down the stairs, into the kitchen, and removed the odd looking key from its hook. They raced back to Abby’s room, feeling a rush of excitement tinged with fear.

  “What if there’s really some dead person’s soul in there?” Abby whispered. She wanted to run more than she wanted to look, but her position on the matter shifted from second to second.

  “Then we’ll run real fast and hide in your room. We could stuff pillows under the door,” Emmy said with a hint of six-year-old bravado.

  They peeked into the hall and scraped their little feet over the floor until they could touch the door to the soul’s room. Emmy inserted and twisted the key until she could turn the knob slowly, an inch at a time. She waved Abby in after her as she slipped sideways through the slight sliver of light between the frame and the door.

  Inside, there was an unmade bed. A grimy thick layer of dust coated every surface, and a strange decaying odor hung in the air, like something long ago rotted. The girls gagged at first, held their noses and squinted up their faces. Abby desperately wanted to bolt and tugged at Emmy’s sleeve, but her cousin kept shaking her head as she whispered, “Not yet.” On the dresser was a filthy hairbrush and a cardboard picture frame. An unsmiling little boy and perhaps his mother were on either side of the baggy legs of a man with his face violently ripped off, leaving only the jagged edges of the photograph.

  The air was stale and thick as old pea soup. The girls tiptoed around the room, hanging on to each other’s hands, looking for treasures and secrets, their bodies trembling as if they were inside a meat locker. Suddenly a scratching noise was coming from the behind the bed. Another noise came from the closet. They looked at each other, eyes as big as moons, covered their screaming mouths and ran, slamming the door behind them.

  “Maybe it was the soul!” Abby blurted from her bed as her chest heaved.

  “Maybe it was a mouse,” Emmy squeaked, her steel gray eyes as far open as they could go.

  “We better put the key back before he sees it’s gone,�
�� said Abby, wanting to be done with it. “And promise we’ll never go back there again. It might get us next time. Do you promise?”

  “Okay. But I still think it was just a mouse,” Emmy said.

  Jack Mitchell spent his time at work or down the street at Jake’s, his favorite tavern. Mama had kept her part-time nursing job, but she was always home after school with something good cooking in the kitchen. Abby could always smell the oatmeal cookies all the way up the walk, and her favorite meal was corned beef and cabbage. Even Jack liked that enough to say a nice word now and then.

  Abby and Jack avoided each other most of the time, except when she made enough noise to disturb his radio shows or wake him from his naps; then he bellowed at her as if she were a stray cat. It suited Abby fine that Jack had never gotten around to adopting her, and she was glad he worked on Saturdays so Emmy could come over and play all day. Abby liked to pretend Jack simply was not there. She managed this quite well until the day everything in her little world changed.

  She was hanging her school uniform in the tiny closet of her corner room when Mary walked in and sat on the bed. Her mother was wearing an expression that sent dread through Abby, freezing her in place.

  “Abby, I need to tell you something,” Mary said quietly and patted the bed indicating that her daughter should sit. “I’m afraid, Emmy, Aunt Mo and Uncle Mike must move far away.”

  Abby gasped and collapsed on the end of her bed. Her bright blues eyes turned to puddles. A knife of words cut through to the core of her being.

  “No! No! They can’t do that. Emmy has to stay. She can sleep with me. I’ll make room. No! They can’t go! Mama, please, please tell them they can’t go.” Mary tried to comfort her. She explained about Mike’s new job with the bank in a place called Louisiana, and that they could call on the telephone and write letters, and maybe visit once in a while. It fell on deaf ears. Abby sobbed and shook, and would not be consoled. On the day Emmy left, the girls clung to each other so tightly it required both mothers to tear them apart.