Wild Swans (21 page)

The heat breaks in the middle of the night. I wake up to a crash of thunder, to lightning bright as day, to a fury of rain lashing against the roof. I don't know what sixth sense possesses me—usually I curl up and put my pillow over my head during thunderstorms—but this time I crawl out of bed. I walk over to the window under the eaves and peer down at the side yard.

And I see Erica.

Her spiky blond hair is flattened to her skull, her black tank top is plastered to her skin, and she's cringing beneath the onslaught. She's carrying a box in her arms and a bag over her shoulder.

She's leaving.

I run downstairs in my pajamas but pause in the kitchen when I see the note.

Dad—

I'm going away for a while to get myself together. I'll be back this time. I promise.

Grace, Isobel—

I love you, but your daddy can take better care of you than I can right now.

Ivy—

I'm sorry. I owe you so many I'm sorrys.

That's all it says. No clue as to where she's going or for how long. She left Isobel's cell phone sitting on top of the note, like a sparkly paperweight.

She's leaving like a thief in the night. Like a coward.
Again.

I hesitate, but only for a second. Then I run out the back door in my bare feet. Am I too late? Is she already gone?

The cold rain has me shivering in seconds.

Her beat-up Toyota is still in the driveway. She's sitting inside, her face eerie behind the rivulets of rain running down the window. I try the passenger door and it's locked. City habits run deep, I guess; nobody locks their cars around here. I knock on the window.

For a minute I think she'll drive off and leave me standing here alone in the rain.

Instead she leans over, unlocks the door, and pushes it open.

I slide in. “What the hell are you doing?”

Her face is naked. No makeup. Without it, she looks defenseless. Defeated. “I'm leaving.”

“Where are you going?” I ask. “At least tell me where you're going.”

She shrugs. “I don't know. Maybe back to New York. I've got some friends there.”

I appreciate that she doesn't lie and tell me she's going to rehab when she's not. “Come back inside. No one else has to know about this,” I say. “You can put your stuff away. I'll tear up the note. Tomorrow we can figure out a plan, a place for you to go. Somewhere that's not so far away. If you're worried about money, Granddad will take care of it. He just wants—”

“For me to be my best?” Erica's laugh is empty. “I think that ship has sailed, Ivy. No. I can't. I can't look at him and tell him I'm an alcoholic.”

She says it easily. Like the words are familiar, not a revelation. My surprise must register on my face because she smiles. “I've been doing AA for years. That's how I met Rick, actually. He kicked me out when he found out I'd started drinking again. I tried to hide it but… God, I hate him for it right now, but he's a good guy. A good dad. He'll take good care of Grace.”

“And Iz?” I ask. “Please don't separate them.”

“You think I'm a real monster, don't you? Look, I'll sign whatever I need to sign for Rick to have custody.
Temporary
custody,” she stresses. “I'm coming back, Ivy.”

I bite my lip. “You didn't come back last time. You didn't come back for me.”

Without the armor of my anger, I feel so vulnerable. Here it is: the truth. She left me, and I have never forgiven either of us for it.

She reaches over, tentatively, and puts her hand on my arm. “That wasn't your fault.”

I've heard that before, but hearing it from
her
breaks something inside me. I start sobbing silently, shaking with the force of it.

And my mother—she sings.

It's just like I remember, the low honey-and-gravel sound of it. The song is beautiful and sad and so, so familiar. It's about going away and coming back home.

“Please come back,” I say when my tears have stopped. “Please don't make them feel like this.”

“I will, baby.” Erica points out the window. The rain still patters against the windshield but less ferociously. The seconds between lightning and thunder have lengthened. “Storm's slowing down. You better go back inside.”

“Are you sure this is how you want to do it?” I ask.

She nods. “I know it's shitty, leaving you and Dad to tell the girls… I have no right to ask you this, but—will you try to explain that I'm doing this for them, so they don't hate me?” I nod and she scrubs at her eyes. “Thank you.”

I open the door. “You're welcome.”

It's the first real conversation I've ever had with my mother. The first time I've felt heard. Loved.
Mothered.

And now she's leaving. I know she means well; I know she is trying. But I don't know if I will ever see her again.

• • •

I don't go back to sleep. I change clothes and make myself a cup of tea and read at the kitchen table till the sun is up. Then I go upstairs to wake Granddad, the note and Isobel's cell phone clutched in my hand. He comes out of his bedroom as I raise my hand to knock.

We haven't spoken much since I left Java Jim's. When he came home and found out how Gracie almost drowned, he hugged me tight and thanked God that I'd gotten there in time. Erica stood nearby with a sour look on her face. Like every time he said something nice to me, it took something away from her.

We all sat around the table and had ice cream. It was the first time—and now maybe the last—that we were together as a family without a fight. Gracie was back to her chipper self quicker than the rest of us. I couldn't stop worrying about what might have happened if I hadn't left the open mic night early. Would Erica have gotten past her fear of the water and saved Gracie, or would I have lost my little sister? Erica was quiet the rest of the evening, hovering over Grace, maybe wondering the same thing.

I hand Granddad the note. He reads it and cusses, running a hand over his beard. “Not again.”

“I saw her before she left. She said she'll be back this time,” I offer.

“Are you all right?” Granddad's eyes search my face like he's looking for clues. Waiting for me to break, maybe. But I am learning I'm an awful lot more resilient than he or I or anyone else has been giving me credit for.

“I am, actually,” I say. And I mean it. I'm sad—really sad—but I'm okay.

“Will you stay home this morning and help me look after the girls? She might do a poor job of it sometimes, but Erica's the only mother they've ever known, and her walking out like this…”

We're still talking in hushed voices. A few yards away, the girls are sleeping behind their closed door. “Of course. I'll call the library and let them know there's a family emergency. I'm sure they'll understand.”

“I think that's best,” Granddad agrees. “But maybe say you're not feeling well. No need for people to start asking questions.”

Part of me wants to lash out at him the same way I did Erica. Denounce him for his damned pride, for all the ways he's contributed to this mess. But his shoulders are slumped and his blue eyes are watery and bleary pre-coffee. This is a lot for anyone to deal with once, let alone twice.

I'm not the only one who's had to endure the whispers and poor-dearing over the years. How much shame must he have felt when Erica ran away the first time and left me behind? Whatever was or wasn't his fault, she was the daughter he raised, and every arrow that people in this town slung in her direction must have felt like it went through him first.

“No one needs to know the details, but it seems kind of pointless to lie,” I say. “People will find out that Erica's gone.”

“Ivy, I really don't need everyone in town speculating about what's wrong with my daughter, whether she went to rehab, whether she's in a psychiatric hospital, whether it's like mother, like daughter.”

For a minute I think he means me. That
I'm
bound to inherit Erica's problems. Then I realize that he means Erica and Grandmother.

“What am I supposed to say? I don't even know where she went,” he says.

“I think we have to trust that she's going to get better so she can come back for Gracie and Iz.” It sounds ludicrous, even to me, but what other choice do we have? “She knew she was going to lose them anyway. After what happened yesterday, one of us was going to call her ex.”

“I tried to get her help before. Therapy. Inpatient stays for her eating disorder. As soon as she turned eighteen, she refused to go back. I guess Grace falling in the water yesterday was a wake-up call,” Granddad muses. “But her leaving again? People will talk.”

“They will.” I take a deep breath, already dreading all the questions.

The door across the hall creaks open. It's Iz, her blond hair in wild curls around her face. She steps out into the hallway and shuts the door behind her. “What's going on? I can hear you two whispering.” She sees her phone in Granddad's hand. “Did Mama give you that?”

Granddad nods. “Isobel, let's go downstairs.”

Iz scrunches up her face. “Now? It's barely morning.”

“I think it would be good for us to talk before Grace wakes up,” Granddad says, herding us toward the stairs.

Iz darts a glance over her shoulder at me, her brown eyes enormous. “What happened? Is Mama… Is she dead?”

My heart aches that that was her first thought.

“No. But she's gone away for a while,” Granddad says.

“What do you mean, gone?” Iz asks.

We file into the kitchen and Granddad hands her the note. She reads it and slumps into a chair.

“Where did she go? When is she coming back?” Iz asks.

Granddad and I exchange looks. “We don't know.”

“What if she
doesn't
come back? What if she leaves us here forever, like she did with you?” Iz turns to me, her voice rising. “What if Dad doesn't want me either? What will happen to me? Where will I live?”

Granddad sits down next to her. Puts a hand on her shoulder. His hands are big and wrinkled, his knuckles swollen from arthritis. “You will always have a home here, Isobel. We're your family.”

“I want to talk to her. I want to know where she is. When she's coming back.” Isobel dials her mother's number and puts the phone to her ear. Her leg jiggles frantically. “It goes right to voice mail. She probably sees that it's me. She probably sees that it's me and she isn't answering her fucking phone! What kind of mama—?” Her voice breaks.

“We're here, Iz. You aren't alone,” I promise her.

“I'm going to call Rick,” Granddad says. “Can you give me his number, Isobel? You can talk to him after I've had a chance to explain what's happened.”

“Here, use my phone.” Iz hands it back to him. “He's under ‘Dad.'”

Gracie and Iz are going away.
That's all I can think. If Rick is half the man his daughters think he is, he'll cancel everything and be here in a few hours to take them home.

I only had ten days with them.

It's not fair. We're sisters. We should get to grow up together.

I fight against another surge of anger at Erica. I was supposed to have this summer with them, at least.

“Ivy, after you call in sick at the library, will you call down to the Sutton and tell Saundra that Isobel won't be able to make it?” Granddad asks.

“Tell her I'm not coming back,” Iz says.

“Let's wait and see what your father has to say. He might not be able to come get you right away.”

Isobel glares. “Even if I'm stuck here, I'm not going back to that stupid theater camp.”

“Isobel, honey, let's wait until we have more information. I already paid for the whole month,” Granddad says.

Iz gives him a look that is pure Erica. “Then that's your own fault for wasting your money. I told you I didn't want to go. You didn't listen to me. Nobody ever listens to me except Dad.”

Granddad frowns. “I know you're upset with your mother right now, and I understand that, but you need to speak to me with respect.”

“There's room to be upset with both of you.” Iz straightens the leg of her purple-plaid pajama pants, and I fall a little more in love with my new sister. Sure, she can be a brat, but she's brave enough to say what she thinks, to tell the truth, and in this family, that's worth a hell of a lot.

“She's right,” I say, and they both turn to stare at me. “Well, she is. She told you no and you didn't listen. This is going to be hard enough, and if you don't let us handle it the way we need to—within reason, I mean—it's going to be harder. Iz shouldn't have to go to theater camp. And I'm not going to lie to people about what happened. You can play it off like Erica was always planning a short visit, but I'm not going to spin some pretty lie. I don't think it's okay for you to ask me to, any more than it was okay for Erica to ask me to lie about being their sister.”

I think Granddad will argue with me, but he doesn't. “You're right,” he says. “I'm sorry. You tell people whatever you want.”

He takes Isobel's phone and goes to his study to call Rick. I sit at the table with Iz while she stares at Erica's note, trying to make sense of it.

“You bitched her out yesterday, didn't you?” Isobel asks. She looks so young now, without her makeup, with her tousled-every-which-way hair and pajamas.

“I told her you and Gracie deserve a better mother.” I say the words slowly, carefully. Isobel is searching for someone to blame, and it would be easy for her to pin Erica's leaving on me.

Iz smiles sadly. “I always thought a bad mother was better than none at all.”

“I don't know.” I have given this a lot of thought over the last week. “It was hard sometimes. Luisa took me bra shopping and to the gynecologist for the first time, and Claire gave me the sex talk before anybody else.” That earns a smile from Iz. “Mother's Days were the worst. I was so jealous of my friends. I used to give Luisa presents, but it wasn't the same. When I was little, like Gracie's age, I used to wish Erica would come back. I wished on shooting stars and four-leaf clovers and pennies in fountains. And then she came back and she—”