“Lucy said something,” she says.
My chest tightens. “To you?”
“No,” Ivy says quickly. “To Theo. To Theo first.”
She glances up at me, eyes already too bright. “She askedhimif I could be her mum.”
Oh.
The café noise dulls, like someone’s turned the volume knob just a fraction.
“She didn’t make a big thing of it,” Ivy goes on, words coming faster now, like she’s afraid they’ll disappear if she pauses. “She was very… Lucy about it. Said she didn’t need a pony. Or presents. Or cake.”
I sniffle and know I can’t dismiss this as hormones. “Oh, Ivy.”
“She told him she wanted a mum,” Ivy says. “And that, since we sleep in the same bed, and Sabrina’s parents do, that must be how it works.”
My eyes sting.
“And she didn’t ask you herself?” I say.
Ivy shakes her head. “She said she had nervous bugs in her tummy. So she asked Theo to ask me.” She laughs then, a broken sound that turns into a sob halfway through. “He came into the kitchen talking about ice cream flavours like nothing was happening and then just… dropped it.”
I push my chair back and stand, lean across the table, and pull her into me without asking.
She makes a sound against my shoulder that’s pure release and clutches me like she’s been holding herself together by her fingernails until now.
“She wanted me,” Ivy says into my jumper. “She wants me.”
“Yes,” I say fiercely. “Of course she does.”
She pulls back just enough to look at me, tears spilling freely now. “I said yes. I didn’t even think. I just… said yes.”
I smile through my own tears. “Good.”
“She called me Mum later,” Ivy whispers. “Just once. Like it was nothing. Like it had always been true.”
My heart does something painful and wonderful all at once.
“That’s not nothing,” I say. “That’s everything.”
She nods, wiping at her face, breath hitching as she tries to steady herself.
We sit back down eventually. Ivy wraps both hands around her coffee like it’s the only solid thing left in the world.
She stares into it for a moment, breathing like she’s just run a race she didn’t train for. I watch her steady herself and feel something loosen in my chest. Relief, maybe. Or pride. Or the quiet certainty that Lucy picked exactly the right person.
Then Ivy looks up, eyes clearer now, and gives a small, crooked smile.
“Okay,” she says. “Enough about me.”
I blink. “You sure?”
“Yes,” she says. “Because, if I talk about it anymore, I’ll start crying again and I’ve already cried in public today.”
Fair.
She tilts her head, studying me in that way that’s always made me feel like I’m about to be gently but thoroughly dismantled.
