When the Morning Glory Blooms (29 page)

A shadow crept over Gil’s let’s-make-the-best-of-it face. “I wish I could say, ‘Yeah, let’s escape for a while. Lie in the sun. Walk on the beach and let nothing knock us flat but the waves.’ ” The shadow deepened. “This isn’t where I thought we’d be at this stage of life.”

Ah, this “stage” of life. All ad-lib. No script. No teleprompter. All made up as they went along. She could pull the shades lower or let in a little light. “If we have company coming, we’d better get busy. You grab the shovel. I’ll grab the garbage bags and the air freshener.”

22

Ivy—1951

Ivy stood in the doorway, one hand clutching a newly composed letter to Drew, the other waving good-bye to what would have been her last choice, but her best choice, of a friend. Anna waved back, her arthritic fingers splayed in odd directions but as gentle as they must have been when easing babies into the world.

“I’ll be back, Anna. As soon as I can.”

“I would hope so. You haven’t heard my love story yet.”

Ivy smiled in spite of the tightness in her throat.

“But, dear child  . . .  ?”

“Yes?”

She nodded and pointed toward the letter. “Don’t come back before you’ve done the repair work on your own love story. Deception breeds deceptive success. A false front. An imitation of a true answer.”

“Yes, ma’am.” She’d overacted the obedience gesture and bowing, but believed Anna’s every word.

Anna sighed. Every line of her face filled with compassion. “That baby’s name is not Remorse.”

Ivy stood before the post-office building, its tan bricks lined up, not staggered, speaking of order and neatness—two things patently missing from her relationships, especially the one represented by the letter in her hand. Written. Stamped. Risky.

Oh, so risky.

She’d prayed every day for Drew’s safety, not confident of her skill in prayer or of any obligation on God’s part to listen to her who’d given Him so little thought. And yes, it lent an undertone of guilt to her prayers. But Anna’s persuasive history pushed Ivy to venture into new prayer territory—making a request for herself.

She pressed the envelope to her heart and asked God, who seemed to care far more than she knew, to prepare Drew for the news it held.

Was He listening?

She asked for one thing more. A miracle. That Drew would still love her.

A stirring in her belly changed her prayer. That Drew would love the child.

She kissed the envelope and slid it into the after-hours mail slot. The truth was long overdue.

The four-block walk from the post office to the dry cleaners felt uphill, though Ivy knew it was flat as the prairies that drew Anna’s ancestors to the area. Her last day at work. Maybe the beginning of her last hope of a future with Drew Lambert.

The storefronts held little notice, except for how her reflected profile in the plate-glass windows had changed. Tomorrow she’d take a few dollars to the secondhand store
and look for a couple of maternity blouses and a skirt with an elastic panel. The rash of babies born nine months after the Second World War ended a handful of years ago might mean the racks of no-longer-needed maternity wear would hold an ample supply for her choosing.

Before long, she’d have to concern herself with baby clothes, too. The “Help Wanted” sign in the front window of the dry cleaners could
not
be a sign from heaven.
No. Please, no
.

She stood at the base of the stairs to the apartments above, exhausted by life’s uncertainty. She gripped the handrail and pulled herself from step to step, hesitating on the landing. Their apartment door swung open. The shock of it slammed her against the wall of the landing. In the oppressive heat from the cleaners, flakes of plaster stuck to the backs of her arms.

“Ivy! You’re home. Come on.”

Her dad shot past her down the stairs before she could explain how badly she needed to collapse on her bed and cry out the remains of the day.

She followed him. Her apron waited behind the apartment door. Whatever her father had in mind automatically held more appeal than making—
what day was it?
—pork chops and applesauce, maybe cabbage slaw for a change.

“We’ll stop at the diner for supper,” her dad called over his shoulder, his traditionally emotionless voice bearing a faint hint of excitement.

The echo of her footsteps stopped.

He turned back to her. “Now don’t get yourself used to that. It’s a special occasion.”

“Yes, sir.”

At the base of the stairs, he paused until she caught up, then wordlessly walked out into the deepening dusk and climbed behind the wheel of a raven-black and chrome Oldsmobile with faint fringes of rust.

Ivy took in the scene. Her dad behind the wheel, beckoning through the open window for her to get in. The Andrews Sisters and Bing Crosby harmonizing on the car radio—“Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?”—a song that had never meant as much to her as it did at the moment. Ivy grabbed the chrome handle of the passenger door and pulled. The interior—two-toned black-and-white vinyl—showed surprisingly little wear compared to the exterior rust. From a home with no garage? The victim of many Midwestern winters? She wanted to capture all of it, every detail, to tell Drew and Anna.

Her dad’s driving technique was smooth, as if it hadn’t been years since he owned an automobile. The town looked different at driving speed than it did at walking speed. Less intimidating. Friendlier. Normal people rode in cars with their dads.

But a second heartbeat pulsed a few inches lower than hers, and it partially belonged to a soldier who didn’t yet know, but who would soon know, it existed. She’d slipped her fate into a mail slot, said good-bye to her truest friend, been evicted from her source of income, and now rode beside a man who had fathered her but who barely talked to her and couldn’t even point to the radio when it sang, “Have I told you lately that I love you?”

Life was far from normal.

“This is it.” Her dad pulled to the curb in front of a squat, pale yellow bungalow. It wasn’t the best light to get a good look, and her dad made no move to turn off the motor or get out of the car. Ivy did what she could to assess the property from that distance.

Set back from the street. A long, broken, weed-choked sidewalk led to the front door, centered between two twelve-paned windows. A living room and dining room? The lawn, unlike that of its neighbors, hadn’t been mowed, perhaps all summer.
Wildflowers and what looked like prairie grasses towered over the crisp lawns on either side. The smallest of the homes on the street, it gave the sense of having shrunk with age, as had so many of the patients at Maple Grove Nursing Home. Anna.

She kept her gaze directed out the window. “How many  . . .  how many bedrooms?”

“Three. They’re small. The largest has an alcove. Might work for the crib. Room for both of you in there. Might want to paint.”

Her dad made allowance for the baby. Everything above her neck pinched to staunch the tears that threatened. He’d used a baby word—
crib
. The child had a home.

Dad tilted his head and leaned her way, as if getting a better view of the house. “We’ll have to buy one more bed. But I think I have a lead on one from a guy at work. His mother-in-law lived with them the last few months until she died.”

Where were all these words coming from? They didn’t flow naturally. It was as though he squeezed them out through a corroded pipe. Flat and emotionless, they told the facts, just the facts. But hidden behind the statements lay hope of a change Ivy didn’t see coming, a change that glowed like the anemic streetlight on the corner of the block, a light that eased to life as the Olds pulled away from the curb.

She felt the trees arching over the street as if snugging the neighborhood. As the breeze rushed through the open window, she took a deep breath. Not a hint of dry-cleaner fluid or steamed wool. She smelled freshly mowed lawns, night-blooming jasmine, and an outdoor grill’s contribution to a family’s supper.

A bedroom she could share with her child. A place at the table.

She turned toward her dad, his face now reflecting the odd greenish light of the dash instruments. “Buy one more bed?”

He cleared his throat of years’ worth of congestion. “For that Anna.”

Ivy tried but couldn’t suppress the one-beat sob or the tears that blurred her vision.

“Make sure you know I’m not responsible for taking care of that woman. You’ll have your hands full with”—he nodded toward her belly—“those two. But they’re not my responsibility. Got that?”

“Got it.”

“They can have a room and food. Anything else, you’re all on your own.”

“I got it, Dad. Thank you.”

“I don’t know how you’re going to work and manage taking care of—”

“Dad. I got it. I don’t know, either. But I’m pretty sure God does. And I’m  . . .  going  . . .  to have to  . . .  trust Him.”

As if agreeing, the baby leapt in Ivy’s womb.

Plowing through the paperwork to get Anna Grissom released to Ivy and her father’s custody took as long as wading through the legal details for the purchase of the house. Anna had outlived Josiah’s children, which both complicated and uncomplicated the matter of legal custody.

The remains of late summer took down the last of its decorations to allow room for autumn’s before Ivy and her father closed the door to the apartment and moved their possessions to the bungalow. Ivy had done all she could to clean and patch, emptying box after box and canister after canister of various cleansers, painting all the bedrooms, scrubbing the hardwood floors—wishing for the luxury of carpeting but knowing Anna’s wheelchair would fare much better on the
hardwood—sewing curtains for the kitchen window, and finding drapes for the front windows at the secondhand store.

The alcove in Ivy’s bedroom remained empty, but there was time. A little time.

Anna’s room overlooked the side yard on the east. Ivy positioned the bed, made a space for the wheelchair, and added a small table for a view out the window. After two days of unpacking Carrington boxes and moving furniture, which went slower because of the restrictions the baby placed on her involvement in heavy lifting, they transported Anna from room 117 to 329 Cottonwood Drive. It took some fussing to get her settled in and to convince her that her excessive gratitude made Ivy’s dad claustrophobic. He spent most of that evening raking leaves in the backyard, as if there wouldn’t be a far larger collection before the season ended.

Anna directed where her few possessions should rest. A very long life. So few possessions. But it seemed as if Anna had held onto what mattered and had discarded the rest.

“I don’t know how to talk to him.” Anna refolded a handful of embroidered hankies for Ivy to place in the smallest drawer of the dresser along the north wall of the room.

“My father?”

“Yes.”

Ivy chuckled. “You’d think asking me would get you at least a handful of answers, wouldn’t you? You’ve known him an afternoon. I’ve known him all my life and I’m no farther along—” The choice of words halted her. No farther along. She laid her hand on the shelf of her belly.

“I don’t want to offend him.”