Lily chased her, her footsteps scraping against the concrete. Ivy was grateful that she’d decided to come, although she had to fight herself from saying, “Don’t you want to run off and see your friends? Maggie and Madeline? Don’t you want to run off and hatch a plan to leave home and go to college? Don’t you want to run around and spread more gossip about us?” But she felt too pathetic to say a thing.
In the car, speeding off for the station, Lily finally spoke.
“I’m sure it’s not a big deal,” she said hesitantly.
“We don’t know anything yet,” Ivy said.
“Tyler’s not crazy,” Lily assured. “He’s been hanging around some people he wants to impress, that’s all.”
Ivy flinched. “How do you know about that?” Lily wasn’t in high school any longer. It didn’t make sense that she’d have such knowledge about the goings-on there, did it?
As though she could read her mother’s mind, Lily said, “I’m still in town. I have plenty of friends still at the high school. And Tyler and I talk, Mom. I mean, I know what’s going on in his head, and it’s not always pretty. Not that it should be! Being alive is complicated.”
Ivy took a staggered breath. “Should I look into therapy?”
Every one of her bodily cells screamed that she couldn’t afford therapy! But maybe she could find something through their pathetic health insurance? Tyler’s health came first.
“I don’t know,” Lily said. “I don’t know if Tyler would open up like that. He’s, you know.” She stalled. “He’s more like you. He keeps things in. Mostly.”
Ivy squeezed her steering wheel till her knuckles hurt. She couldn’t believe her daughter had just said that. But then again, she couldn’t believe that Lily had told Elliot Rhodes that Tyler was in trouble. Had she raised her daughter to be so open about family secrets? What else was Lily belting out to the greater Bluebell Cove audience?
“Please, don’t tell strangers what’s going on with us,” Ivy couldn’t help but say.
Lily flared her nostrils. “Elliot obviously wants to help.”
“He doesn’t want to help. He’s like everyone else in Bluebell Cove. He wants to gossip about us. He wants to spill our secrets to the world.”
“Not everyone is like that,” Lily muttered.
But Ivy felt sure her daughter was wrong. She’d already lost the taste of Elliot’s dessert on her tongue. She felt empty.
All at once, they were at the police station. Ivy raced from the car to the front door, which Lily caught before it closed on her. There he was, her youngest boy, sitting hunched in a plastic chair to the right of the counter. His dark hair hung in strings down his face, and his cheeks were blotchy, as though he’d been crying.
“Oh, Tyler,” Ivy breathed.
Her son flinched to look up at her. Rage and fear echoed from his eyes. But before he could answer, the same officer who’d called appeared. “Evening,” he said, his voice broad and flat. “Thanks for coming down. I know it means a lot to Tyler not to have to spend the night.”
Ivy’s heart felt cracked. She told herself that the officer was just putting on a show to frighten her son. That was what cops did on television shows.
“What happened?” Ivy asked.
“Vandalism, ma’am,” the officer said. “We picked Tyler and a few of his buddies up outside the high school. They had all kinds of paint on them. Spray paint and buckets. They hit the gym pretty hard. We think they were planning on hitting the football field after that.”
Ivy closed her eyes and, for some reason, found in her mind’s eye an image of toddler Tyler, finger painting in the sunny kitchen, laughing as he did it. How had they gotten here?
The officer explained that because this was Tyler’s first offense, he was only getting a warning. The same couldn’t be said of his friends, who would have to put in some serious community service hours. Ivy listened, her fists tight, until the officer cleared his throat, asked her to sign a few papers, and said they could go.
Tyler limped along beside her, looking more pathetic than she’d ever seen him. Lily wrapped her arm around him and whispered something in his ear, something Ivy couldn’t hear. When they got in the car, Ivy told herself not to lose it. She told herself to hold her tongue.
But suddenly, she burst with, “What on earth were you thinking?”
At this, Tyler could do nothing but cry. He couldn’t explain himself. Lily felt like a fool.
Back at home, they found Wren in the living room under a blanket, tired after too much time outside. Graves’ disease still had a profound grip on her, it seemed. But when she saw Tyler, she tapped the sofa seat next to her, urging him over. Tyler shook his head and shot for the staircase. A minute later, his mini speaker blared with a song that Lily didn’t recognize.
“What happened?” Wren asked, her eyes enormous.
Ivy dropped into the chair beside the sofa and put her face in her hands. Lily was still in the foyer, checking her phone and switching her weight. Obviously, she was needed elsewhere.
