Kissed by an Angel/The Power of Love/Soulmates

by Elizabeth Chandler

  “Don’t stop,” he said softly, and came to stand behind her.

  Ivy played to the end. For a few moments after the last chord, neither of them spoke, neither of them moved. There was only the still, silver moonlight on the piano keys, and the music, the way music can linger on sometimes in silence.

  Then Ivy rested her back against him.

  “You want to dance?” Tristan asked.

  Ivy laughed, and he pulled her up and they danced a circle around the room. She laid her head on his shoulder and felt his strong arms around her. They danced slow, slower. She wished he would never let go.

  “How do you do that?” he whispered. “How do you dance with me and play the piano at the same time?”

  “At the same time?” she asked.

  “Isn’t that you making the music I hear?”

  Ivy pulled her head up. “Tristan, that line is so … so …”

  “Corny,” he said. “But it got you to look up at me.” Then he swiftly lowered his mouth and stole a long, soft kiss.

  “Don’t forget to tell Tristan to stop by the shop sometime,” Lillian said “Betty and I would love to see him again. We’re very fond of chunks.”

  “Hunks, Lillian,” Ivy said with a grin. “Tristan is a hunk.” My hunk, she thought, then picked up a box wrapped in brown paper. “Is this everything to be delivered?”

  “Yes, thank you, dear. I know it’s out of your way.”

  “Not too far,” Ivy said, starting out the door.

  “Five-twenty-eight Willow Street,” Betty called from the back of the store.

  “Five-thirty,” Lillian said quietly.

  Well, that narrows it down, Ivy thought, passing through the door of ’Tis the Season. She glanced at her watch. Now she wouldn’t have time to spend with her friends.

  Suzanne and Beth had been waiting for her at the mall’s food court.

  “You said you would be off twenty minutes ago,” Suzanne complained.

  “I know. It’s been one of those days,” Ivy replied. “Will you walk me to my car? I have to deliver this, then get right home.”

  “Did you hear that? She has to get right home,” Suzanne said to Beth, “for a birthday party, that’s what she says. She says it’s Philip’s ninth birthday.”

  “It’s May twenty-eighth,” Ivy responded. “You know it is, Suzanne.”

  “But for all we know,” Suzanne went on to Beth, “it’s a private wedding on the hill.”

  Ivy rolled her eyes, and Beth laughed. Suzanne still hadn’t forgiven her for keeping secret the swimming lessons.

  “Is Tristan coming tonight?” Beth asked as they exited the mall.

  “He’s one of Philip’s two guests,” Ivy replied, “and will be sitting next to Philip, not me, and playing all night with Philip, not me. Tristan promised. It was about the only way to keep my brother from coming with us to the prom. Hey, where did you two park?”

  Suzanne couldn’t remember and Beth hadn’t noticed. Ivy drove them around and around the mall lot. Beth looked for the car while Suzanne advised Ivy on clothes and romance. She covered everything from telephone strategies and how not to be too available to working hard at looking casual. She had been giving volumes of advice for the last three weeks.

  “Suzanne, I think you make dating too complicated,” Ivy said at last. “All this plotting and planning. It seems pretty simple to me.”

  Incredibly simple, she thought. Whether she and Tristan were relaxing or studying together, whether they were sitting silently side by side or both trying to talk at the same time—which they did frequently—these last few weeks had been incredibly easy.

  “That’s because he’s the one,” Beth said knowingly.

  There was only one thing about Ivy that Tristan couldn’t understand. The angels.

  “You’ve had a difficult life,” he had said to her one night. It was the night of the prom—or rather, the morning after, but not yet dawn. They were walking barefoot in the grass, away from the house to the far edge of the ridge. In the west, a crescent moon hung like a leftover Christmas ornament. There was one star. Far below them, a train wound its silver path through the valley.

  “You’ve been through so much, I don’t blame you for believing,” Tristan said.

  “You don’t blame me? You don’t blame me? What do you mean by that?” But she knew what he meant. To him, an angel was just a pretty teddy bear—something for a child to cling to.

  He held her tightly in his arms. “I can’t believe, Ivy. I have all I need and all I want right here on earth,” he said. “Right here. In my arms.”

  “Well, I don’t,” she replied, and even in the pale light, she could see the sting in his eyes. They started to fight then. Ivy realized for the first time that the more you love, the more you hurt. What was worse, you hurt for him as well as for yourself.

  After he left, she cried all morning. Her phone calls hadn’t been returned that afternoon. But he came back in the evening, with fifteen lavender roses. One for each angel, he said.

  “Ivy! Ivy, did you hear anything I just said?” Suzanne asked, jolting her back to the present. “You know, I thought if we got you a boyfriend, you’d come down to earth a little. But I was wrong. Head still in the clouds! Angel zone!”

  “We didn’t get her a boyfriend,” Beth said quietly but firmly. “They found each other. Here’s the car, Ivy. Have a good time tonight. We’d better dash, it’s going to storm.”

  The girls jumped out and Ivy checked her watch again. Now she was really late. She sped over the access road and down the highway. When she crossed the river, she noticed how rapidly the dark clouds were moving.

  Her delivery was to one of the newer houses south of town, the same neighborhood where she had driven after her first swimming lesson with Tristan. It seemed as if everything she did now made her think of him.

  She got just as lost this time, driving around in circles, with one eye on the clouds. Thunder rumbled. The trees shivered and turned over their leaves, shining an eerie lime green against the leaden sky. The wind began to gust. Branches whipped, and blossoms and tender leaves were torn too soon from their limbs. Ivy leaned forward in her seat, intent on finding the right house before the storm broke.

  Just finding the right street was difficult. She thought she was on Willow, but the sign said Fernway, with Willow running into it. She got out of her car to see if the sign could have been turned—a popular sport among kids in town. Then she heard a loud motor making the bend on the hill above her. She stepped out into the street to wave down the motorcyclist. For a moment, the Harley slowed, then the engine was gunned and the cyclist flew past her.

  Well, she’d have to go with her instincts. The lawns were steep there, and Lillian had said that Mrs. Abromaitis lived on a hill, a flight of stone steps lined with flowerpots leading up to her house.

  Ivy drove around the bend. She could feel the rising wind rocking her car. Overhead the pale sky was being swallowed up by inky clouds.

  Ivy screeched to a halt in front of two houses and pulled the box out of the car, struggling with it against the wind. Both houses had stone steps that ran up side by side. Both had flowerpots. She chose one set of steps, and just as she cleared the first flowerpot it blew over and crashed behind her. Ivy screamed, then laughed at herself.

  At the top of the steps she looked at one house, then the other, 528 and 530, hoping for some kind of clue. A car was pulled around the back of 528, hidden by bushes, so someone was probably home. Then she saw a figure in the large window of 528—someone looking out for her, she thought, though she couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, or if the person actually beckoned to her. All she could see was a vague shape of a person as part of the window’s reflected collage of thrashing trees backlit by flashes of lightning. She started toward the house. The figure disappeared. At the same time, the front porch light went on at 530. The screen door banged back in the wind.

  “Ivy? Ivy?” A woman called to her from the lit porc
h.

  “Whew!” She made a run for it, handed off the package, and raced for her car. The skies opened, throwing down ropes of rain. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time Tristan had seen her looking like a drowned rat.

  Ivy, Gregory, and Andrew arrived home late, and Maggie looked miffed. Philip, of course, didn’t care. He, Tristan, and his new school pal, Sammy, were playing a video game, one of the many gifts Andrew had bought for his birthday.

  Tristan grinned up at the drenched Ivy. “I’m glad I taught you to swim,” he said, then got up to kiss her.

  She was dripping all over the hardwood floor. “I’ll soak you,” she warned.

  He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. “I’ll dry,” he whispered. “Besides, it’s fun to gross out Philip.”

  “Ew,” said Philip, as if on cue.

  “Mush,” agreed Sammy.

  Ivy and Tristan held on to each other and laughed. Then Ivy ran upstairs to change her clothes and wring out her hair. She put on lipstick, no other makeup—her eyes were already bright and her cheeks full of color. She scrounged around in her jewelry box for a pair of earrings, then hurried downstairs just in time to see Philip finish opening his presents.

  “She’s wearing her peacock ears tonight,” Philip told Tristan as Ivy sat down to dinner across from the two of them.

  “Darn,” said Tristan, “I forgot to put in my carrot sticks.”

  “And your shrimp tails.” Philip snickered.

  Ivy wondered who was happier at that moment, Philip or her. She knew that life did not seem so good to Gregory. It had been a rough week for him; he had confided in her that he was still very worried about his mother, though he wouldn’t tell her why. Lately his father and he had had little to say to each other. Maggie struggled to converse with him but usually gave up.

  Ivy turned to him now. “The tickets to the Yankee game were a terrific idea. Philip was thrilled with the present.”

  “He had a funny way of showing it.”

  It was true. Philip had thanked him very politely, then leaped up with excitement when he saw the old Sports Illustrated spread on Don Mattingly that Tristan had dug up.

  During dinner Ivy made an effort to keep Gregory in the conversation. Tristan tried to talk to him about sports and cars but received mostly one-word replies. Andrew looked irritated, though Tristan didn’t seem to take offense.

  Andrew’s cook, Henry—who’d been let go after the wedding, but reinstated after six weeks of Maggie’s cooking—had made them a delicious dinner. Maggie, however, had insisted on baking her son’s birthday cake. Henry carried in the heavy, lopsided thing, his eyes averted.

  Philip’s face lit up. “It’s Mistake Cake!”

  The rich and lumpy chocolate frosting supported nine candles at various angles. Lights were quickly extinguished and everyone sang to Philip. With the last measure, the doorbell chimed. Andrew frowned and rose to answer it.

  From her seat, Ivy could see into the hall. Two police officers, a man and a woman, talked with Andrew. Gregory leaned into Ivy to see what was going on.

  “What do you think it’s about?” Ivy whispered.

  “Something at the college,” he guessed.

  Tristan looked across the table questioningly and Ivy shrugged her shoulders. Her mother, unaware that there might be something wrong, kept cutting the cake.

  Then Andrew stepped back into the room.

  “Maggie.” She must have read something in his eyes. She dropped the knife immediately and went to Andrew’s side. He took her hand.

  “Gregory and Ivy, would you join us in the library, please? Tristan, could you stay with the boys?” he asked.

  The officers were still waiting in the hall. Andrew led the way to the library. If there were a problem at the college, we wouldn’t be gathering like this, thought Ivy.

  When everyone was seated, Andrew said, “There’s no easy way to begin. Gregory, your mother has died.”

  “Oh, no,” Maggie said softly.

  Ivy turned quickly to Gregory. He sat stiffly, his eyes on his father, and said nothing.

  “The police received an anonymous call about five-thirty P.M. that someone at her address needed help. When they arrived, they found her dead, a gunshot wound to her head.”

  Gregory didn’t blink. Ivy reached out for his hand. It was cold as ice.

  “The police have asked—They need—As a matter of normal procedure—” Andrew’s voice wavered. He turned to face the police officers. “Perhaps one of you can take over from here?”

  “As a matter of procedure,” the woman officer said, “we need to ask a few questions. We are still searching the house for any information that might be relevant to the case, though it seems fairly conclusive that her death was a suicide.”

  “Oh, God!” said Maggie.

  “What evidence do you have for that?” Gregory asked. “While it’s true my mother was depressed, she has been since the beginning of April—”

  “Oh, God!” Maggie said again. Andrew reached out for her, but she moved away from him.

  Ivy knew what her mother was thinking. She remembered the scene a week earlier, when a picture of Caroline and Andrew had somehow turned up in the hall desk. Andrew had told Maggie to throw it in the trash. Maggie could not She didn’t want to think that she was the one who had “thrown Caroline out” of her home—years earlier, or now. Ivy guessed that her mother felt responsible for Caroline’s unhappiness, and now her death.

  “I’d still like to know,” Gregory continued, “what makes you think that she killed herself. That doesn’t seem like her. It doesn’t seem like her at all. She was too strong a woman.”

  Ivy could hardly believe how clearly and steadily Gregory could speak.

  “First, there is circumstantial evidence,” said the policeman. “No actual note, but photographs that were torn and scattered around the body.” He glanced toward Maggie.

  “Photographs of … ?” Gregory asked.

  Andrew sucked in his breath.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Baines,” said the officer. “Newspaper photos from their wedding.”

  Andrew watched helplessly as Maggie bent over in her chair, her head down, wrapping her arms around her knees.

  Ivy let go of Gregory’s hand, wanting to comfort her mother, but he pulled her back.

  “The gun was still twisted around her thumb. There were powder burns on her fingers, the burns one gets from firing such a weapon. Of course, we’ll be checking the gun for prints and the bullet for a match, and we’ll let you know if we find something unexpected. But her doors were locked—no sign of forced entry—her air-conditioning on and windows secure, so …”

  Gregory took a deep breath. “So I guess she wasn’t as tough as I thought. What—what time do you think this happened?”

  “Between five and five-thirty P.M., not that long before we got there.”

  An eerie feeling washed over Ivy. She had been driving through the neighborhood then. She had been watching the angry sky and the trees lashing themselves. Had she driven by Caroline’s house? Had Caroline killed herself in the fury of the storm?

  Andrew asked if he could talk later with the police and guided Maggie out of the room. Gregory stayed behind to answer questions about his mother and any relationships or problems he knew about. Ivy wanted to leave; she didn’t want to hear the details of Caroline’s life and longed to be with Tristan, longed for his steadying arms around her.

  But Gregory again held her back. His hand was cold and unresponsive to hers and his face still expressionless. His voice was so calm she found it spooky. But something inside him was struggling, some small part of him admitted the horror of what had just happened, and asked for her. So she stayed with him, long after Tristan had gone and everyone else was in bed.

  P1-10

  “But you told me Gary wanted to go out Friday night,” Ivy said.

  “He did,” Tristan replied, lying back next to her in the grass. “But his date changed her mind. I thin
k she got a better offer.”

  Ivy shook her head. “Why does Gary always chase the golden girls?”

  “Why does Suzanne chase Gregory?” he countered.

  Ivy smiled. “Same reason Ella chases butterflies, I guess.” She watched the cat’s leaping ballet. Ella was very much at home in Reverend Carruthers’s garden. In the midst of snapdragons, lilies, roses, and herbs, Tristan’s father had planted a little patch of catnip.

  “Is Saturday night a problem?” Tristan asked. “If you’re working, we could make it a late movie.”

  Ivy sat up. Tristan came first with her, always. But with their plans set for Friday night and Sunday too—well, she might as well blurt it out, she thought. “Gregory has invited Suzanne, Beth, and me out with some of his friends that night.”

  Tristan didn’t hide his surprise or his displeasure.

  “Suzanne was so eager,” Ivy said quickly. “And Beth was really excited, too—she doesn’t go out very much.”

  “And you?” Tristan asked, propping himself up on one elbow, twisting a long piece of grass.

  “I think I should go—for Gregory’s sake.”

  “You’ve been doing a lot for Gregory’s sake in the last few weeks.”

  “Tristan, his mother killed herself!” Ivy exploded.

  “I know that.”

  “I live in the same house with him,” she went on. “I share the same kitchen and hallways and family room. I see his moods, his ups and downs. Lots of downs,” she added softly, thinking about how some days Gregory did nothing but sit and read the newspaper, thumbing through it as if in search of something, but never finding it.

  “I think he’s very angry,” she went on. “He tries to hide it, but I think he’s (furious at his mother for killing herself. The other night, onethirty in the morning, he was out on the tennis court, banging balls against the wall.”

  That night, Ivy had gone out to talk to him. When she had called to him, he turned, and she had seen the depth of his anger and his pain.

  “Believe me, Tristan, I help him when I can, and I’ll keep on helping him, but if you think I have any special feelings for him, if you think he and I—That’s ridiculous! If you think—I can’t believe you’d—”