What Happened to Ivy

What Happened to Ivy

KATHY STINSON

Second Story Press

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Stinson, Kathy

What happened to Ivy [electronic resource] / Kathy Stinson.

Electronic monograph in EPUB format.

Issued also in print format.

ISBN 978-1-926920-82-5

I. Title.

PS8587.T56W43 2012 jC813’.54 C2012-904021-5

Copyright © 2012 by Kathy Stinson

Edited by Jonathan Schmidt

Copyedited by Lynda Guthrie

Cover and text design by Melissa Kaita

Cover photo © iStockphoto

Second Story Press gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program.We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

Published by

Second Story Press

20 Maud Street, Suite 401

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

M5V 2M5

www.secondstorypress.ca

Dedication:

To Robert and Tracy

whose stories haunt me still

Chapter 1

“Where are
you
going?” Mom looks at me over a laundry basket heaping with clothes.

“Hannah’s.”

“I need you to go to the mall and pick up Ivy’s prescription.”

“Can’t you do it? Or Dad?”

Mom sighs. “It’s just this one thing, David. It’s not a big deal.”

Dad steps out of his study. “Problem?”

“Why do
I
have to get Ivy’s prescription?”

“Because I’ve got twenty essays to mark.” Dad’s using his best hotshot Classics professor tone of voice on me. “Your mom needs me to get Ivy’s sheets on the line as soon as they come out of the washer because the dryer broke down on the last load,
and
because we’re expecting an important phone call from one of Ivy’s doctors.”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s about
Ivy
, so of course it’s important.”

Of course it’s not important that Hannah has asked me over for the first time since she and her mom moved in three weeks ago, or that it means she might not have been hanging out with my family only because our parents know each other and there’s nothing better to do.

“That’s just for starters, David, but you go on ahead to Hannah’s. Enjoy yourself. Just don’t be long. You can go get the prescription when you get back.”

“Fine.”

“And you can take Ivy to the mall with you.”

Not
fine. Ivy at the mall is never fine. And Ivy at the mall on a Saturday when it’s especially busy? But at least he hasn’t stopped me going to Hannah’s. And at least Ivy’s busy with her physio people so he can’t insist I take her with me now.

“Don’t forget, David,” Dad says as I push open the front door, “you
are
a member of this family.”

Right. Whenever it’s convenient I am.

I trudge down Ivy’s wheelchair ramp, past the garden that’s become mine to take care of the last couple of years, and cross the street.

Okay, so it’s not surprising that with Ivy like she is, my parents need me to help out a lot. But a bit of credit would be nice. Like ‘What a great brother, playing with your sister when you could be down at the video arcade.’ Or, ‘We’re sorry your friends haven’t wanted to come over again after Ivy smushed snot onto her palm and showed it to them before she licked it off.’ I mean, Ivy’s not some adorable little preschooler. She’s eleven years old. Thing is, my parents don’t know half of what I put up with.

Hannah’s dog greets me at the door first with a wide-open, golden-retriever grin. Then Hannah. Her runner’s legs are long and lean. Her shiny hair just brushes her tanned shoulders. I’ll never have a chance with her as anything more than a nice guy to hang with once in a while, but that’s okay. Even that’s a big step up for me in the grand, you know, social-hierarchy scheme of things.

“This is Shamus,” Hannah says as her dog circles around my legs. He runs off and comes back with a stuffed monkey hanging out of his mouth.

I lean down and pat him. Dogs are so easy.

A pizza arrives right behind me.

“I went ahead and ordered,” Hannah says.

“Fine by me. As long as there’s no pineapple on it, I’m happy.”

Hannah laughs. “Sorry.” She opens the box and the pizza is smothered with ham and pineapple. “Hawaiian’s my favorite.” She laughs again, but it’s almost as if she finds the fact I’ve said exactly the wrong thing charming instead of obnoxious.

“So,” she says, “my mom was pretty surprised to find out she’d bought a house right across the street from an old friend from nursing school.”

“Yeah, what are chances of that happening?”

“Is your mom still in nursing?” Hannah asks.

“No, she had to quit. Ivy takes a lot out of her.”

We munch away on our pizza. I don’t dislike pineapple as much as I thought.

“She’s a handful, eh? Your sister?”

“Yeah. Sometimes.”

On the table, on top of a stack of papers, is a brochure that looks familiar. I pick it up to see if it’s for the music camp I think it is. “I was supposed to go to this camp,” I tell Hannah.

“I went earlier this summer,” she says, “before we moved here. It was great. How come you didn’t go?”

“Insurance stopped paying for Ivy’s pool therapy and my parents decided that keeping up her therapy was more important than my music camp.”

“Bummer.” Hannah licks pizza sauce off her fingers. “Just think. If you’d gone, I might have met you even if we hadn’t moved here.”

When all that’s left on our plates is crusts and I’m about to say I’ve got to get home, someone comes to the door. Coming back into the kitchen with a package, Hannah says, “It’s from my dad. Probably for my birthday.”

“Sorry. If I’d known it was your birthday— ”

“It’s okay, it was last month. But at least he remembered this year. Eventually.”

Inside the padded envelope is a small box. Inside the box is a necklace.

“Nice,” I say, even though I can’t honestly see Hannah with a grinning Cheshire cat in neon colors hanging around her neck.

“It would be if I was still seven.” She drops the necklace back in its box.

“Maybe he sent you money, too, or a gift card or something.”

But all that’s in the small envelope is a card with a bunch of bunnies on the front. Inside it says, ‘
Hoppy
Birthday. Here’s
hopping
it’s your best birthday ever.’

Hannah tosses it on her plate with the pizza crusts. “It’s like he doesn’t even
know
me.”

“It sucks when your parents don’t know you.”

Hannah nods sadly.

“I’ve never heard you mention your dad – you know, any of the times you came over with your mom. I wasn’t sure if he was even alive.”

Hannah shrugs. “For how little I hear from him, he might as well not be.” She starts picking little pieces off one of her pizza crusts and dropping them onto the plate. “He left when I was seven. I still remember it exactly. I was in my pajamas – pink with little teddy bears all over. I was playing with my Etch-A-Sketch on the coffee table in the living room before going to bed. I was making a picture of our house.” Hannah takes her plate to the counter and stares out the kitchen window. “My dad came out of my parents’ room with our heavy suitcase, the one we used when we went on holidays, and set it down by the front door.”

This spilling-her-guts stuff is kind of embarrassing and I should be getting home, but you can’t just say, ‘I have to go get a prescription,’ when someone’s blurting out their life story. Besides, something about Hannah’s tanned shoulder, turned my way now…

“Before I could ask him where we were going, he crouched down, kissed me, and said he loved me. Then he was gone. He never told me he wouldn’t be coming back.”

“Sorry,” I mumble, blushing at the craziness of thinking I wouldn’t mind kissing Hannah myself.

Again she shrugs. “It’s not your fault my dad’s a turd.” She smiles at me then.

“If he’s rotten enough,” I say, “I could use him in my garden.”

She looks at me with the same puzzled look I’ve seen when she’s trying to figure out what Ivy is saying.

“You know. Rotten crap equals manure? Good for fertilizer?”

Hannah laughs. “You really are strange, David, you know that?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Wishing I could stay, I get up from the table. “Sorry I have to go now, but I have to go to the mall for my parents.”

“Okay if I come with you?”

Hannah
can’t
come to the mall with us.