Her responses were all wrong.
My husband is having an affair.
I wish you had never left me at the hospital that day.
I don’t know what I’m doing in my life. I feel so alone.
But instead of saying anything, tears drifted down her cheeks. Elliot looked mortified. He hurried to the counter and touched her shoulder. “Ivy! I’m sorry,” he said. “If I said something stupid, tell me. Please.”
Ivy shook her head and swallowed. “It’s not that. I, um. I cut my finger this morning.” She showed him the little point from the thorn of a rose. It hurt a little, but it wasn’t the cause of her tears, obviously. She hoped he wouldn’t call her out.
Elliot furrowed his brow. “Can I get you a bandage? Something from the pharmacy?”
“No,” she assured him, focusing her attention on his mother’s bouquet. “I’m all right.”
Chapter Nine
Present Day
It was Celia’s idea to arrange the calendar so that the entire week before Christmas Day, the Bluebell Cove Eco-Lodge was empty of guests, the rooms set aside only for them. “We deserve a Harper family celebration,” Celia explained, clasping her hands, standing in the kitchen of the house where they’d all been raised. “I think we should enjoy the lodge for what it is. Let's decorate the Christmas tree and watch old movies on the big TV in the main room and cook a big feast.”
Lily stood at the counter with a mug of coffee, her eyes alight. “I love it,” she said. “Can we watch While You Were Sleeping? Can we decorate Christmas cookies?”
“Of course we can, honey,” Celia said. “Sophie already requested The Holiday and a big serving of lemon bars. Oh, and Ivy? Could you put together a few floral bouquets for the eco-lodge? Something Christmassy. I was looking at some of the photos you have on your website, all these complicated arrangements you’ve sold over the years for holidays and weddings and things. I never knew how talented you are.”
Ivy swallowed the lump in her throat and considered telling Celia that she hadn’t opened the flower shop in more than a month, that to keep costs low, she’d stopped buying flowers, stopped opening her bills, and stopped dealing with her problems at all. During the Thanksgiving season, she’d heard from a few of her regulars, asking if she would make bouquets for their Thanksgiving tables, but she hadn’t answered any of them back.
She knew that one day soon, everything would probably explode in her face. She’d have to sell the flower shop. She’d have to officially give up. But right now, she was pretending that wasn’t so.
“I could do that,” Ivy said. “If I don’t have too many orders to tend to.”
Celia smiled. “Don’t worry if it’s too much.”
The morning of the first day of their planned Harper Christmas Weeklong Celebration, Ivy returned to the flower shop to receive a small shipment of flowers from her traditional supplier. Despite dropping off the face of the planet for the past month or so, she’d miraculously received a few orders for Christmas wreaths and flower arrangements, and she’d decided to spend the day making and delivering them. If she still had flowers left over for Celia’s arrangements, she’d put together a bouquet or two. Maybe she could find the Christmas spirit within her.
As Ivy worked, she was overcome with memories of the eighteen-plus years she’d spent in this flower shop. She listened to Christmas songs she’d always loved, cut the stems of flowers, and tied ribbons. She imagined herself putting a FOR SALE sign out front next spring and conning some beautiful twentysomething into buying it. “Go after your dreams,” she imagined telling that other woman. “Don’t you want to show your children what you’re capable of?”
Ivy’s heart felt black, especially when she considered the first few years of owning the flower shop and what solace she’d always found here. Where was that solace now?
Oh, but she still adored putting together bouquets. She still adored the artistry, the delicate beauty of every individual flower, of how no two bouquets could be the same.
Why can’t I go on doing this forever? she wondered. Regardless of how much money it brings in?
When Ivy finished for the day, and after she’d made her required deliveries to her faithful clients, she piled the bouquets for the eco-lodge into the back of her car and drove back home. She entered the eco-lodge with the bouquets and arrangements piled into a large cardboard box, only to find Celia, Wren, and Juliet behind the front desk, sipping wine and watching the snowfall through the window.
“She’s outdone herself!” Celia cried. It took Ivy a moment to realize Celia was talking about her. She smiled, suddenly grateful that she’d been asked to contribute. She still felt distant from her sisters, but maybe this Christmas celebration would change things.
Wren handed her a mug of hot chocolate and said, “Let the decorating begin!”
Over the next few hours, Ivy, Celia, Wren, Juliet, Sophie, and Lily decorated the eco-lodge for their Harper Family Christmas. They secured Christmas trees, hung lights, strung holly and tinsel, and played Christmas music from the speakers that piped out from all corners of the living room and kitchen.
“You remember that year the Christmas tree fell on Dad?” Wren asked, taking a break on the sofa in the living room and wiping tree sap on her jeans. Boxes of decorations were strewn all over the floor.
“I remember!” Celia laughed.
“He was howling loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear,” Ivy chimed in, surprising herself. She could still picture her father, fighting with the sticky Christmas tree, uninjured but so angry that he could hardly speak. “It took ages to get that thing off his hands.”
“He used to always love Christmas Vacation before that,” Wren said. “After that, he couldn’t stand to watch that movie.”
