Where the Ivy Hides (17 page)

I gently fold the letter in half before setting it on top of the clothes I’m leaving for her. I pull the scratchy wool blanket up around her bare shoulders and kiss her forehead.

And right before I close the door behind me on me way out, I glance back to catch one last peek at me poor Winter Ivy, only to see her smiling back at me.

And I remember thinking: Damn, that’s got to be the world’s saddest smile to ever be smiled.

It’s the same smile that mirrors the one smiling back at me when she ducks under me arm holding the door open and walks into the Italian restaurant she chose for lunch.

Chapter 22

Ryker

It takes some cajoling and a lot of idiotic rambling on me part, but I finally begin to see her true happy smile replacing her sad one, and I relax. I don’t think lunch has been a complete bust. The food is good, the conversation? It could be a wee bit better. I don’t even know what I’m rambling on again about when she murders the bloody conversation with a single word and one hack.

“Have you seen her? How old was she when you last saw her? Was it when I last saw her?” Bam. Bam. Bam.

Hack. Hack. Hack.

Her sentences finish obliterating our happy little lunch as I grapple for answers.
Any
bloody answers at all.

“Wha—“ I swallow a drink of water around the lump in me throat, “Seen who, Ivy love? I don’t follow.” Of course, I follow, it’s a stalling technique.

“Our daughter, Ryker,” she calmly says.

“Ay, I know ya mean our daughter, Ivy, love, what I mean is, why? You know when I saw her last, yeah? It was with you.” I don’t mean for me voice to be carried so far, but bloody hell, every one fucking shut up as soon as me mouth started!

“Okay, Jesus, Ryker.” Her tiny hands pat the dark surface of the table between us. “Just. Stop shouting,” she hisses. “I have my car, I’m of sober and sound mind, I can leave.”

“Sorry. I’m sorry.” I mutter. Bloody fuck, now I’m the one botching the whole meal.

“She’d be…Or she is, five now?” she softly asks, almost hesitantly and me heart constricts.

“Ay.” I nod, not wanting to add anything which could potentially hang me self later on.

“I wonder. I mean, I usually don’t. Hell, I usually stay as far away from the thought as I possibly can. Via drink, or inhale, or other…drastic measures. But, lately—I guess I’ve been wondering about what might have been. I hate babies. I always have. But now, thinking of her. All grown up. I don’t know. I just wonder shit. Like can she tie her shoes? If her name is long or short, I wonder—probably just because my name was so easy to write. Three letters in Kindergarten is a cake walk. I remember being scared to death that Edward would find out I told my teachers I just used Ivy and not Winter Ivy.” If the stars have wings, then I’d bet me unlucky arse. Me Ivy blushes just as she glances down.

She blushes.

I don’t know if it’s the ache in me old heart when her blush tugs on me strings of it, but I blabber the first thought that pops in me head to her every question. “Ay, she can tie her shoes just fine, has for a year. And Lily’s an okay name. Just one more letter longer than yours, love.”

I realize me mistake when her mouth opens and closes without uttering a word. After she gains her composure, she blurts out, “Wait—What?”

Bloody. Fuck.

“Kids learn to tie their shoes at four, yeah?” Shit, I don’t know. I mean, I know me Lily Blake is a little genius, but the tying the shoes, dammit that was a tough one.

I had bloody hell trying to explain that to her.

Ivy cuts her eyes towards me, before speaking and anxiety spikes me heart rate, “No. While I’m sure your shitty excuse for the shoe part is valid, that is not the topic I’d like to discuss. May I ask, is Lily the name you thought up, because she was ours and there’s a fuck ton of lilies around your old house in Ireland and my name is also a flower, or are you calling her that because it is her legal name. That is the highlighted story on the news ticker of this conversation. And you, Ryker David Killian have three seconds to speak. Now, speak.” She growls the last few words.

“I told ya what her name was a month before you had her, Ivy love. And I’m the one who named off the reasons why that was her name, slurred as me words may have been and as drunk as me tongue was that spoke them, I remember them all the same. That’s her name.”

As a child, I would listen as me father and mother would wind the words around one another until they told just enough of the truth to keep it honest. It would just so happen, that I was the only mediator in the house. Meaning I usually knew both sides to every story, as I was always home and their ‘truth-cropping’ actions only happened when the other was away. So I quickly learned that from anywhere you stand, you’re looking at a side or a version of the truth. I learned and unfortunately I still practice these techniques as needed.

I call it,
The Art of being Vague.

“That’s her name. It’s always been my name for her, too,” she smiles as she whispers.

Our conversation is mostly kept on the lighter side of things for the remainder of our meal. Between catching me up on stories of her mum and dad, and her brother, Rome, we talk about Lucky’s and her job at SMI.

Me eyes scan over her as she tells me about the odds and ends of SMI and Lucky’s easy merger.

She looks so bloody beautiful right now. So bloody beautiful.

She’s filled out in her cheeks. Her face doesn’t look as gaunt as it did when I laid me eyes on her for the first time in five years at Where the Ivy Hides. God, I felt sick when I saw her at first. She couldn’t have weighed more than eighty pounds wet and wearing boots, and her face was damn near colorless. But you couldn’t tell me cock that. Nope, he wasn’t listening. As soon as me lungs pulled in a deep breath of Winter bloody Ivy, you couldn’t tell me cock shit. Took everything in me that night to not tear that bloody see through dress of hers from her body in shreds where she stood outside the dining area.

Damn the weight loss and the pain in her eyes. But thankfully I found the control to not fuck her where she stood.

She looks healthy. And I do catch fleeting traces of happiness cross her face when she speaks about her family.

The problem is, I have a suspicion that in order to gain access to more than just Ivy’s curiosity, I—at some point, am going to have to share more angles of the truth with her.

I just don’t know how.

It’s after six when I come into the kitchen from the garage and the sound of little feet slapping the hardwood floor greets me as Lily Blake rounds the opposite entryway from the den.

I smile when I hear me little Lily Blake squeal just as the sitter laughs, telling her, “Lily, you better get back over here and eat your green beans.”

“I don’t wannit. I don’t wannit. I don’t wannit, Miss Jenny lady!” Her head is turned as she yells over her shoulder, so when I snatch her up and toss her little bum in the air, it scares her and she yells.

“Green beans are the best, lassie. I told ya a hundred times. Eat your veggies before your meat. Goodness, little one.” I growl at her before setting her back on her feet and look up at Jenny, her sitter. “How was she today? Is the new allergy medicine helping her allergies?” She’s a tidy woman if there ever was. She’s of some Irish decent and one of me mum’s friend’s daughter’s who happens to be here for her Masters in childcare at the university.

She’s beautiful, there’s no denying that. And I’m not sure if it’s the role of Lily Blake’s mum she’s trying to star cast in, or me old lady, but I’m not buying. I’ll tell ya that much.

Jenny O’Malley may be the most beautiful Irish girl on this side of the pond, but she’d never hold a candle to me Ivy. I liked me little American girl. A bloody firecracker, that’s what she is.

Jenny bats her eyelashes and chuckles as she waves her hand. Then chews on her lower lip, eyeing mine before she speaks, “She’s a feisty one. I bet she keeps you on your toes.”

It could be me imagination, but I swear no one needs to bend down that low, just to load the dishwasher.

“Ay. Constantly on me toes. Hey.” I turn around and face Lily Blake, pin her eyes with mine, and sternly point towards the living room. “Bath.” I mouth at her before turning back around and speaking to Jenny, “No, no. Oh no ya don’t,” I probably should have stopped me hand before it actually touches her arm, but bloody hell, I just want her to leave me house. “It’s okay, las, your job here is done. Did you bring your books today? I’ll carry that heavy bag for ya to the car if ya need me to.” I head into the den and thank Christ under me breath that me daughter only half listens. It seems the cast of Team Umizoomi has captured her attention in the middle of heading towards the bathroom. I’m thankful for me daughter more and more with every day that passes in her life. But it’s moments like these that are golden. Her singing presence as she bounces from one sofa cushion to the next, belting out the names of a lad named Geo and another named Bot that derails Jenny from her usual overtness. There’s only so much hair twiddling and lip chewing a man can take before he envisions wrapping his fist in those same said red locks and tossing a woman out on her skinny arse.

As soon as I spot Jenny’s backpack next to the front door, I whistle at Lily, “Lassie, come here.” I scoop up the backpack just as Lily gets to me.

“What, Daddy?” She pulls on the hem of me shirt from behind me.

Without missing a beat, I squat down and tell her over me shoulder, “Hop on me back, I’ll give ya a piggyback ride.” After she locks her hands around me neck, I stand up and hand Jenny her backpack and head in the direction of the door.

After Lily Blake and I have, unbeknownst to her, covertly dodged ourselves out of an hour of awkwardness with her sitter and she’s bathed, I juggle the hair dryer and her hot pink hair brush as we blow-dry her inky black ringlets straight because the other girls in her class do it. She begins doing what little ones sometimes do, poking too close to shit that’s usually best left  alone.

“Daddy, why does that Miss Jenny lady blink so much when she talks to you?” me daughter asks.

I keep me eye on the distance between where me hand is holding the hair dryer and her little head, “Ay. Can’t say, Lily love. Don’t know.”

Once her hair is, for the most part dry, I turn the hair dryer off and she slowly turns around. After a pause, she looks up at me from under her long eyelashes and whispers, “I don’t want her as me mum, Daddy. She doesn’t use salt when she cooks.” Her cute little face screws silly and she puckers her lips.

I laugh, “No, no. We can’t have a mum who isn’t using salt.” I tie the pink pony tail at the nape of her neck. “Mums aren’t something you can really pick out, either, Lily Blake. You have what you have, and you have is what you’re born with. But you’re also born with luck. And that luck is what you make it. And you make it as you grow up.”

I don’t even know what me mouth is saying. The shits just popping up in me head and I’m spitting it out.

Bloody hell.

“But what if you can’t find your mum? What if you want to pick her out, but you don’t know. Or do you think I’ll just know?”

After I turn on her bedside lamp, I kiss her forehead. I don’t answer her question until I’m at her bedroom door and I’ve turned off her light. As I stand facing away from me sad daughter’s eyes, I shove the words out as fast as I can, “Ay. Lily Blake, if I had to guess, love, I’d say you’ll just know.” I tilt me head to the side and pause then speak, “I’m sorry, me Lily love, I try.” I have to swallow a few times to get the words out, “I know I may not be much, but I promise, I won’t always be the only thing you ever have. I’ve found your mum, Lily. And I promise, one day soon, I want you to meet her.”
Master of the art of Vagueness.
“I just, she needs a little of me help, and a bit more time. You remember that lesson last week in bible school about patience?” She nods, “I’m going to need you to show me your best patience, me Lily love. Can I ask ya for that?”

“I can be patient, Daddy. I will get straight S’s for Satisfactory on my report card, remember to always feed my fish,
and
brush my teeth twice a day plus be placent. All. Year. Long. You will see.”

I can’t help me chuckle from coming out, “Okay, me Lily. I will see. Goodnight, love.”

I toss and turn until after midnight as hundreds of questions follow one answer in my head.

I don’t want to have that conversation with my daughter ever again. I don’t want my daughter to grow up not knowing the only other person on this earth I’ll ever love as much as I love her. I don’t want her to grow up not knowing her mother. Her bloody carbon copy. I want me whole family together. I want me Ivy back.

But no matter how it cuts, it bleeds the same. I need me Ivy. And me Lily. I need me girls, both, under me one roof.

I know Ivy is the key. How could I bloody not?

Bloody hell. Just fuck it.