There in the foyer of the Bluebell Cove Eco-Lodge, Celia handed over her cell and told Ivy to call Lily and ask for information about Tyler. Ivy took a breath, suddenly frightened of what her daughter would say if she knew about Ivy sleeping through her dinner with Tyler. She imagined Lily saying, “You’ve been distant from all of us for years and years. Tyler sensed it. He was willing to give you one more chance, but you’ve blown it.”
But Ivy didn’t know how to explain all that to her older sister, so she dialed Lily’s number and waited till it rang itself out. She tried to picture her somewhere on campus—drinking a secret beer with Flora? Studying at the library? She tried again, but no luck.
Celia puffed out her cheeks and said, “All right. Let’s go find your phone instead. Maybe Tyler texted you with news.”
Ivy sped into the night with Celia hot on her heels. She’d forgotten her coat at home but was not inclined to return to fetch it before they found her son. With as much pressure on the gas as she could manage without wrecking, she drove them over to the flower shop, which was dark and locked up after Elliot’s exit earlier today. Ivy yanked open the door and turned on the lights, saying a small prayer of thanks that the lights hadn’t yet been turned off. Someone at the electrical company was looking out for her, maybe. Or they hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
But as soon as she entered, she stopped short at the sight on the counter.
There was a bouquet of roses, lilies, and baby’s breath. It was enormous, at least three times the size of a typical wedding bouquet. Beside it sat a little note.
“What’s that?” Celia asked.
“I don’t know,” Ivy whispered, although she had a hunch she did.
Ivy cleared the distance between the front door and the counter and read the note to herself, surprised that Elliot’s voice came to her mind immediately, like an audiobook.
Ivy, I can’t get ahold of you, and didn’t want to leave the flowers in the cold on your front porch. I get the sense you need a little space from me, and I want you to know that’s okay. I’m willing to wait for as long as it takes. I want to wait till you’re ready to hear how I feel and what that means for me. Call me when you get this. We can either talk about the flowers or not. I can’t wait to see how the flower shop “blossoms” this year. Excuse the pun. I’ve never been one for sappy letters. I guess it’s worth giving them a try. I can’t promise I’ll get any better at them, though—even if you agree that we have a future together.
Elliot
Ivy’s heart pounded in her throat. She was so surprised at the sight of the letter and the flowers that she passed the note over to her sister. She didn’t know what to make of it and needed Celia’s advice. She watched as Celia’s lips transformed into a round O.
“Ivy Harper,” Celia said, her eyebrows headed for her hairline. “What have you been hiding all this time?” She then raised her chin to inspect the interior of the flower shop, which was fresh, unique, and beautiful, all made with the steady, massive hands of Elliot Rhodes. “Ivy Harper. You have secrets,” she whispered. It was like she couldn’t stop saying her name.
Ivy blinked away tears. “I can’t talk about it yet,” she said.
And she reasoned that maybe Elliot was right. Maybe she wasn’t ready to talk about all this yet. Perhaps their love—a love she’d privately fantasized about for the better part of twenty years—was too enormous to look at straight-on. Maybe she was still too broken and too weak. She remembered seeing him at Daniel’s funeral, how guilt and grief had rolled around in her stomach. She remembered meeting his girlfriend and wondering how anyone could get half as lucky as she was.
Ivy had never been lucky. But that wasn’t anything she could deal with now, not until she found her son. She took Celia’s phone again and tried to call Lily, but Lily didn’t answer.
“Maybe she’s asleep?” Celia suggested. “College kids sleep every once in a while, I think. I don’t remember doing that myself, though.”
Ivy pushed herself to search the office and the front room for her cell phone, which she hadn’t seen since the morning. As she hunted, throwing things to the side and scrabbling through drawers, she recounted to Celia what had happened that morning and why she’d been so thrown off. It was why she’d forgotten about her dinner with Tyler and why she’d spent the entire day in bed.
Celia’s jaw went slack. “Daniel was having an affair when he died?”
“I think it was over by the time the accident happened,” Ivy explained. “He got really depressed after she cut things off. I think he spent all summer hiding from me, fishing and drinking beer and pretending he was going to college.
“But over the past few weeks, Elliot’s been pestering me about his sister and her wedding and her flowers,” Ivy said, her hands on her hips and her eyes to the black night outside the window. “It almost felt like he wanted to force me into agreeing to the redesign in exchange for doing his sister’s flowers. I couldn’t figure it out. But the flower shop has been worse for wear, and I needed to do something with my time after Lily left. So I agreed.
“And then this morning, I walked into the flower shop and learned that Elliot’s little sister is Georgia Rhodes—the woman who so long ago had an affair with my husband,” Ivy said, her voice staccato and strange. “Georgia Rhodes wants me to do the flowers for her second wedding. I think she wants to make up for everything that happened back then, as though that were even possible. And she’s somehow convinced Elliot to be in on her scheme.”
Celia frowned. “Do you think Elliot knows about the affair?”
“No. I mean, I don’t think so.” Ivy felt as though her insides were melting.
Celia wrapped her in another hug. “I didn’t know,” she whispered. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that alone.”
Ivy thought, But I did. I did go through it alone. And I don’t feel stronger because of it. I feel weaker and more alone than ever.
“I need to find Tyler,” Ivy whispered.
“Maybe we should go to the cops,” Celia suggested.
“I don’t want him to get in any more trouble,” Ivy said, remembering the vandalism situation back in October and how he’d been given a warning. “I don’t want him to hate me any more than he already does.”
Celia squeezed Ivy’s shoulders. “He doesn’t hate you.”
