“I’ve never seen cygnets before,” Ivy said quietly, stepping to Torin’s side. “They’re nothing like their parents yet, are they? All gray and fuzzy and awkward.”
“They’ll become beautiful.” Torin watched his daughter's rapt face. “Given time.”
Like my Jewel. She'll never look like other girls. But she has her own beauty—a beauty that shines from within, from her sunny nature, to the joy she takes in living, and the love shegives so freely. If only the world could see her the way I do. The way Ivy does.
Ivy leaned down to look into Jewel’s face and capture her attention. “Can you count how many swan babies there are?”
Jewel pointed a stubby finger. “One, twoo, shree, four, fivv, six.”
“That’s right. Six.”
They stayed by the water until Jewel had exhausted her supply of bread and apple bits, and the swan family had drifted to quieter waters, the cygnets still paddling furiously in their parents' wake. A few had begun to investigate the lake's edge on their own, pecking at the shallow water with stubby beaks and occasionally tumbling sideways, righting themselves with indignant peeps.
Jewel watched them with the intensity of a child memorizing everything, her lips moving silently as she counted again. “Six,” she announced. “Six bay-bees.”
“Six babies,” Ivy confirmed. “Well done.”
Back on the blanket, Jewel settled against Ivy’s side with the boneless draping of a child whose energy was entirely spent. She clutched her feltCin one hand, and the other hand rested on Brave, who’d spread herself across the girl’s lap with a proprietary air.
Torin lounged nearby, his legs out, back against a rock
Within minutes, Jewel’s eyes drooped, her breathing slowed, and she was asleep.
Ivy eased the girl’s head onto a folded coat and gently extricated herself, careful not to jostle Brave or disturb the sleeping child. She moved to sit beside Torin on the far edge of the blanket, leaving a respectable distance between them—though in the warm, lazy afternoon, with tiny waves lapping softly at the shore and the mountain standing silent vigil, the distance felt less like propriety and more like caution.
For a while, they simply watched the lake in comfortable silence. A red-tailed hawk circled overhead, riding a thermal with motionless wings. Somewhere in the forest, a woodpecker hammered out a rhythm that sounded almost like a heartbeat.
“You've never told me about Jewel's mother,” Ivy said quietly. “I take it that your wife never lived in Three Bend Lake. Did she die from childbirth?”
The question jerked him from his contentment. With a sigh, he straightened, bringing his knees in and crossing his arms over the tops.
Torin had figured this conversation would come. He'd dreaded the possibility—had constructed elaborate internal arguments for why the information was unnecessary, inappropriate, none of her business—and yet, in some strange way, he'd also been preparing for the revelation of his pathetic history. The story was a poison he'd carried for twelve years, sealed inside him like a wound that healed over without being cleansed.
Hank and Brian knew some parts, but not all. Maybe—just maybe—speaking the sad tale aloud to the right person would draw out some of the infection out.
And if any person on earth is the right one, it's the woman sitting beside me.
He picked up a pebble from the grass and turned it in his fingers, a smooth, flat stone warmed by the sun. He rubbed his thumb over its surface, feeling the fine grit, buying himself a moment to decide, before executing a long toss to the lake, where it plopped beneath the surface.
Has the time come to trust Ivy with the truth?
Ivy blurtedout the question about Torin’s wife without really thinking. Well, she’d conjectured plenty but hadn’t intended to ask.
Torin hesitated for a long moment.
Ivy wondered if he was too grief-stricken to talk about his wife, and she wanted to take back her question.
“I’m divorced.”
Scandalized by the answer, Ivy held in a gasp. She didn’t know anyone who was divorced.
He saw her shocked reaction and half-turned away.
Embarrassed by her judgment, she strove for empathy and tactfulness. “That must have been very difficult.”
“I almost don’t have words to describe the pain. It was like my life turned upside down in the space of a few hours. We were happy, Mary Beth and I. Excited for the baby. The whole family was, too. The first grandchild on both sides. Our fathers wanted a boy, of course. My mother whispered to me that she wanted a granddaughter. Her mother just wanted a healthy baby, as did we. We’d even picked out the names. Anne or Andrew.”
“Good, traditional names.”
