“Go on, honey,” Ivy said flatly. “You want to go, so just go.”
Lily looked like she’d been smacked. “Call me if you need anything?”
“Will do.” Ivy raised her chin and gave her daughter a look that meant now. So Lily turned on her heel and fled the house, headed back for the festival.
Wren and Ivy sat in silence, the television on mute but showing an eerie pharmaceutical commercial. It made Ivy feel insane.
“I think I might be in over my head,” Ivy admitted quietly.
Again, Wren asked for details about what happened tonight, and again, Ivy refused to give them. She couldn’t open up to Wren. She couldn’t open up to anyone. It was just as Lily said. She wondered if she was too broken to ever love again.
“Can I ask you a question?” Ivy asked. She couldn’t bring herself to look at her little sister.
“Of course.” Wren cupped her knees and waited.
Ivy felt the weight of her expectation on her shoulders. “Do you think Lily hates being here? Do you think she should go away to college?”
Wren was quiet for a little while, as though she wanted to be careful not to say the wrong thing.
“I hear her and Celia talking about it sometimes,” Ivy said. “I know Lily loves her Aunt Celia. And I know I should be grateful for that. But things here in Bluebell are breaking down. Things I need Lily’s help with.”
Wren’s voice was meek. “They’re your dreams, though, aren’t they?”
Ivy twisted her head to look at her sister. In the greenish light from the lamp, she looked entirely too sick and thin. It suddenly felt like they were fighting a losing battle against everything that tried to hurt them—everything from diseases to teenage angst.
“I stayed in Bluebell Cove,” Ivy warbled, reciting that same old refrain.
“Yes. But you also built your own reality here,” Wren said. “The flower shop? That was your dream. Maybe Lily has her own version of a flower shop in her heart. And…” Wren wetted her lips. “I don’t think she wants to go far. She wants to be able to drive home whenever she can. Maybe she wants to set up her adult life here? But the only sure thing that will push her out of your life is trying to cling to her now. You know?”
Ivy blew all the air from her lungs. She was surprised at how angry Wren’s words made her. She needed to be stronger in the face of all this change. Standing, she re-zipped her coat and headed for the front door. “I’m headed to the shop for a little while,” she said. But right before she opened the door and entered the frigid black night, she glanced back at her little sister and said, “I do appreciate your honesty, Wren. I mean, I want to appreciate it. Which is all I can really say right now.”
Wren nodded. “I know, Ivy. I love you. We all do.”
Ivy walked the entire route to the flower shop, taking care to draw a perimeter around the Autumn Festival. The air was crisp and alive with the smell of bonfires, autumn drinks, and desserts. Laughter rang out. Some of it belonged to Lily, she was sure. Some of it also belonged to Celia and her new boyfriend, Landon. Maybe right around now, Elliot was sharing a second dessert with some other woman, someone who could accept love and tenderness.
Standing on the corner, Ivy forced herself to see the flower shop for what it really was. She saw the cracked edges of the window. She saw the busted roof and the door, badly in need of repair and a fresh coat of paint. She’d known the place needed TLC, that it needed money she didn’t have. But Elliot was right—it was really worse for wear.
She couldn’t bring herself to go inside and see how bad it really was.
This, she suddenly realized, was why so many people had stopped buying flowers from her. Nobody wanted to enter a place that looked haunted. Nobody wanted to buy beautiful flowers from a woman who didn’t believe in love.
Chapter Eight
Spring 2008
The biggest surprise of Ivy’s life came when her father admitted he was wrong. This had never happened before, not in all the years of Ivy’s life. It was impossible to understand what had gone on in James Harper’s head, nor what had forced him to reckon with how awful he’d been on Thanksgiving. But by January, Ivy and James were seated at the bank, co-signing a loan that Ivy would later use for the flower shop. And by the first week of March, the flower shop was hers. Ivy couldn’t believe it.
She’d told the universe she had a dream, and that dream had been achieved.
A few minutes before Ivy left for the flower shop for the first time as its owner, she called Adeline down in Florida to gush with thanks. Adeline sounded dreamy over the phone, as though she’d just spent the past week on the beach and couldn’t remember what it meant to panic about a thing. Certainly, Maine winters were a thing of the past for her.
“I always knew it would happen for you, honey,” Adeline said. “Your daughter is going to grow up surrounded by flowers and so much joy! Send me so many pictures. Keep me in the loop.” Ivy promised she would. And she did, for a while, until it all got too complicated.
Life always had a way of tying itself into knots that you couldn’t untangle.
But that first morning in March of 2008, Ivy wheeled Lily’s stroller over to the flower shop and set to work. So many months after Adeline had closed it down, it needed a deep clean and a bit of fresh paint. The tasks didn’t frighten Ivy. At nearly four months pregnant, she still felt agile and could stay on her feet for long stretches at a time. When lunchtime came, she unpacked a sandwich and a bag of green peppers and ate, watching as the sunlight played across the puddles on the sidewalk.
For the first time, the idea of going home to work a few hours at the front desk of the Bluebell Cove Inn and then make Daniel’s dinner didn’t boggle her mind. She was sure it was because she’d allowed some of the day to be for her and her dreams alone.
