Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World

by Ashley Herring Blake

  “They’re coming, but they want me to take him to urgent care and meet us there.”

  “How are you going to get there?” Ivy asked. She didn’t know where the closest urgent care was, but she was sure it wasn’t within walking distance. Especially not with a baby in tow. They had no car. Dad borrowed Jasper’s pickup truck to take Mom out.

  “I told Mom that Gigi was here and that she could drive me.”

  “Yeah, of course,” Gigi said.

  “What about Evan?” Ivy handed Aaron over to Layla and peeked at Evan in his bed. He was totally conked out, oblivious to his twin’s woes.

  “Mom’s calling Robin and asking her to come stay with you,” Layla said.

  “What? Why? Just let us come with you.”

  “She’s calling Robin,” Layla repeated while she grabbed the diaper bag. “Mom doesn’t want to have to worry about you and Evan right now, Ivy. Just stay here, okay? And don’t wake him up.”

  And then they left, taking Ivy’s screaming baby brother with them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Questions

  Ivy curled up on her bed and took out her yellow notebook. She stared at a blank page for a long time. Except for Evan’s sleepy baby breaths, the room was silent.

  She picked up a pencil and started to draw. She didn’t even think. She started making lines, just like her mom taught her.

  “When there are too many thoughts swirling around in my head, I let my hand take over,” Mom had said a few years ago. “I put a pencil between my fingers, and I let it do the work for me. You’d be surprised what you come up with.”

  So that’s what Ivy did. She couldn’t figure out what she wanted to draw, only that she needed to draw to keep back all the thoughts. The quiet made her mind fuzzy with worry, but she kept drawing. Lines, curves, small and large, her hand flew over the page.

  Pretty soon, Robin knocked on the door, but Ivy kept drawing. It was like the pencil marks were holding her together.

  Ivy heard the door open and the soft pad of feet across the hardwood floor.

  “Hi, hon,” Robin said.

  Finally, Ivy’s hand stilled. She looked up at Robin, who was dressed in pajama bottoms covered in pineapples and a plain light gray T-shirt.

  “Hi,” Ivy said.

  “Have your parents called the room?”

  Ivy shook her head, her hands limp on her notebook.

  “Babies get fevers all the time,” Robin said as she walked over and checked on Evan. “I’m sure Aaron’s fine.”

  Ivy nodded and shrugged at the same time.

  “Were you drawing? I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Robin said. She took a step closer to the bed and looked down at the notebook. “That’s lovely, Ivy.”

  Ivy looked at what she was drawing for the first time.

  It was the profile of a girl’s face. Her eyes were staring upward, as though searching for her favorite stars in the sky, and tears were rolling down her cheeks.

  Her hair was short and shaded pencil-lead dark, with a single tiny braid curling over her ear.

  Robin squeezed Ivy’s shoulder and then started digging in her bag, a huge black canvas thing with tiny red strawberries all over it. She pulled out a deck of cards.

  “Rummy?” She held up the cards, one eyebrow raised.

  “Yeah, okay,” Ivy managed to whisper. She closed her notebook, sending June’s face into the dark. Layla and Ivy used to play rummy with their grandma before she moved to Florida. Grammy kicked their butts every single time.

  Robin handed Ivy the deck, and they settled on the floor in front of the sofa. The cards felt crisp and new and had a bunch of illustrations of lady authors on the back. Ivy spied Emily Dickinson with her hair parted down the middle and pulled into a tight bun.

  Ivy dealt them each seven cards, but she couldn’t concentrate on the game. She couldn’t stop thinking about June, how Ivy just started drawing her face like it was a habit or something. Mom said that sometimes what she drew when she let her hand take over helped her understand herself better. Ivy never understood what her mom was talking about and still didn’t. Drawing June like that just made her feel more confused.

  Robin flipped cards back and forth in her hand, arranging them just so, and Ivy caught a glimpse of a ring on her finger.

  A diamond ring. It was small, but super sparkly; a circle of smaller diamonds surrounded the big one in the middle and trickled down the silver band. It was kind of vintage looking and really pretty. She hadn’t noticed it when she was in Robin’s office that time.

  Robin had more than a crush. She had a whole girlfriend. A fiancée.

  “Um, how is… Jessa doing?” Ivy asked, hoping she remembered the name correctly.

  Robin flicked her eyes up to Ivy’s and smiled. A huge smile that filled her eyes and showed all her teeth. “She’s well. Busy, but she’ll be here in a couple of weeks.”

  Ivy laid down three aces, and Robin stuck her tongue out at her.

  “Do you miss her when she’s not here?” Ivy asked.

  Robin nodded. “It’s hard, living in two different cities. She travels a lot for work, but I think it’ll be easier once she moves here.”

  “I like your ring.”

  Robin looked down at her ring and grinned. “Thank you. Jessa actually picked it out herself.”

  “Did you…” Ivy frowned. How did it work when two girls were getting married? Did both of them get rings? Ivy’s head clouded with all the things she didn’t know and didn’t know how to ask.

  “Did I get her an engagement ring?” Robin asked, and Ivy nodded, grateful that Robin seemed to read her mind. “I did,” Robin said. “We both wanted one, so we thought, why not?”

  “That’s nice.”

  Robin laughed and twisted the ring on her finger. “I think so.”

  They played a few more rounds, and Ivy ended up winning. While Robin shuffled for a new game, question after question popped into Ivy’s mind, stuff she couldn’t ask Keeper. How did Robin and Jessa meet? Were their parents fine with everything? Were their friends? Did they ever feel weird holding hands in public? How would the wedding work? Would they both wear white dresses? Would they wear dresses at all?

  Robin hummed a little as she dealt the cards. Ivy picked hers up and tried to focus, but there was one question that kept bubbling up, bigger and bigger, and Ivy couldn’t seem to pop it.

  “Robin?”

  “Hmm?” She laid down a ten, a jack, and a queen of hearts.

  “How did you… I mean… you and Jessa… how did you…” Ivy swallowed hard, and her fingers felt sweaty on her cards. When she looked up, Robin was watching her, her hand frozen on the discard pile. Ivy kept waiting for her to fill in the question like most grown-ups seemed to love doing, but Robin just waited.

  Ivy sipped at the air, and then she just said it. Well, she whispered it.

  “How did you know?”

  For what felt like forever, Robin didn’t say anything. She didn’t even blink, and Ivy felt her face burning. If she drew herself right now, the sketch would be all the reds: dark pinks and mottled crimson.

  Then Robin’s face changed. It softened, and she sucked in a breath.

  “Ah,” she said. She picked up a card from the discard pile. “That’s a complicated question.”

  “I’m sorry.” Ivy drew a card and discarded another without looking at either one. “You don’t have to—”

  “No, no. It’s fine, Ivy. I don’t mind talking about it at all. It’s just different for everyone.”

  Ivy nodded. “What was it like for you?”

  Robin folded her cards and set them on the floor. “Well, first of all, there wasn’t this one big moment when I knew. I was around your age when I really started thinking about it, started realizing that I didn’t think about boys like my friends did. I didn’t think about them at all except as friends, some of whom smelled bad.”

  Ivy couldn’t help but laugh at that, but it was a jittery laugh. She couldn’
t tell if she was nervous or excited just to be having this conversation. She wrapped her arms around her legs and pulled her knees to her chest.

  “Then, when I was in ninth grade, I met this girl.” Robin smiled and shrugged. “And it still took me a while, but around her, I felt… well, I felt awful. Anxious and sick to my stomach. And I stumbled over my words. It was terrible.”

  Ivy’s nerves skipped around her body. “That’s how a crush feels, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I think it is.”

  “Did she like you back?”

  Robin’s smile faded a little. “No. Not as anything other than a friend. But that wasn’t her fault, any more than it was my fault that I liked her.”

  “And after that, you knew?”

  “I knew something. What, I’m not really sure. I didn’t actually come out until I was a senior in high school.”

  Come out. Ivy had heard that phrase before, but never really thought about it much until she overheard that conversation between Layla and Gigi. Coming out, the grand revealing where you told your friends and family that you liked girls. Or boys. Or whoever. Where you told them you were different.

  “Was it hard?” Ivy asked. “Telling everyone?”

  Robin nodded. “Yes. I won’t lie to you, it was. I grew up here, and it wasn’t easy being a queer girl in a small southern town, much less a black queer girl in the South. It’s still hard. I was lucky, though. My parents were and still are very supportive. But I got plenty of heat for it elsewhere. Some people didn’t like that I shared a locker room with their daughter or that I still went to church with my parents every Sunday. Even now, Jessa and I are…” She pressed her mouth flat. “Well, we’re just very mindful of where we are and how we act when we’re in public. It’s not fair, but that’s how it is right now. But it’s getting better, I hope. We can get married, legally, and that’s huge.”

  Ivy’s arms tightened around her legs, and she tried to imagine holding June’s hand at school. Like, holding holding her hand, their fingers tangled up instead of wrapped around their palms. She tried to imagine telling her parents or Layla. Or Taryn. Or even Robin, right now in this very moment. Anyone with eyes and a mouth and ears, someone more than just blocky words on a page left in her locker. What would they say when she told them?

  Suddenly, Ivy was ravenous for more of Robin’s story, for anything she could get.

  “Did any of your friends freak out?” Ivy asked.

  Robin tilted her head at Ivy. “What do you mean?”

  “Did any of your friends think it was weird or wrong or something?”

  Robin blew out a breath. “Well, I did have a few friends who struggled with it at first. It just surprised them.”

  Was that what happened with Layla and Gigi? Was Layla just… working through it all, and now they were back to normal?

  “In the end, this was about me, not them,” Robin said, tapping her chest. “And the people in my life could either accept that or they could live without me.”

  Ivy swallowed hard. “Did anyone choose to… well…”

  “Live without me?”

  Ivy nodded.

  Robin smiled sadly. “One friend. And it hurt. It hurt a lot. But if she couldn’t love me for me, then I didn’t need her in my life. I know that’s easier said than done, and it took me a long time to really believe that, but it’s the truth.”

  “What about Jessa?” Ivy asked.

  “Well, Jessa’s journey is a little different. She didn’t come out until she was thirty, just two years ago.”

  Ivy’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  Robin nodded. “She’s bisexual. Do you know what that means?”

  “I think so… that she likes girls and guys?”

  “Or anyone,” Robin said. “Jessa grew up with a very strict family, so she didn’t have as much freedom to question herself or who she might like or might not like.”

  “Oh.”

  “You can ask her about it when she visits if you want.”

  Ivy nodded and chewed on her lip. Her mind was whirling, storming, funneling into a twisting tornado.

  “Ivy?”

  She lifted her head and met Robin’s probing gaze.

  “Is there anything particular you’d like to tell me about?”

  For a second, Ivy thought she wanted to tell Robin about June and holding hands and Keeper and how she hoped June was Keeper and how she was also scared that June was Keeper and how she couldn’t figure out what she felt about anything anymore. But she didn’t think it was about June. Not really. It was about Ivy herself, and that was the scariest thing of all.

  She shook her head and curled into an even tighter ball.

  “Okay,” Robin said softly. “That’s fine. But if you ever do, I’m here.”

  Ivy nodded, her throat too tight to say anything.

  “May I say one thing before I try to redeem myself in the game of rummy?”

  “Sure,” Ivy whispered.

  Robin folded her arms around her legs just like Ivy was doing, like they were two girls sharing secrets at a slumber party. “If a person was questioning all this stuff, that person doesn’t have to know all the answers. They don’t have to be sure about anything. They don’t have to label themselves as anything but a human being if they don’t want to. Does that make sense?”

  “I… I think so.”

  “That person can just let themselves feel and think about what they need to. It’s okay to wonder. To be curious. And it’s okay to be sure too. But you—that person—don’t have to be, all right?”

  Something in Ivy’s chest loosened. Her arms unclenched from around her legs and fell into her lap. And then that loose thing in her chest made its way up her throat and into her eyes, and suddenly she was crying. Not just crying, but deep, heaving sobs that were almost silent because she couldn’t get enough air to make them any louder.

  “Oh, honey,” Robin said. She scooted closer to Ivy and pulled Ivy into her arms. Ivy went like a boneless fish. Robin smoothed her hand over Ivy’s wild hair that her mom hadn’t braided in months. Ivy rested her head on Robin’s shoulder, hiccuping and not even bothering to wipe her face.

  And it felt good.

  Ivy was scared and kind of freaking out, but it felt so good just to cry and have a real person hear her.

  Then Robin kissed the top of Ivy’s head, and Ivy pulled back and wiped her face with her arm, and they went back to playing rummy. Just like that. The world was still here, and Ivy was still here. Robin was still Robin. Ivy’s mind was full, and she thought her heart might be trying to beat right out of her chest, but she was still Ivy, questions and wild heart and all.

  Ivy glanced at the clock glowing an icy blue on the little table in between the beds. It was barely seven thirty. Layla and Aaron had only been gone for about an hour.

  “Robin?” she asked.

  “Ivy?” She stacked up the playing cards and slipped them back into the box.

  “Do you think I could call a friend to come over for a while?”

  Robin smiled. “Absolutely.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Sent Away

  Robin settled on the sofa with a book, throwing Ivy a wink or a smile every now and then while Ivy and June sat cross-legged on one of the hotel beds. Ivy was certain Robin recognized June from that picture she had drawn earlier, hence all the winking and smiling, but Ivy found she didn’t mind.

  When Ivy called June earlier, June’s voice had sounded small and tired on the phone. But her mom let her walk over to the inn, and she immediately started working on her Resilient Helenwood project, pulling papers and colored pencils out of her bag. She didn’t seem to want to talk much, but that was fine with Ivy.

  She watched June’s hand color the little shards of glass she had just drawn an icy blue. The glass girl from her poem wasn’t actually made of glass. Underneath all that, she was flesh and bone and smiling and alive. Ivy didn’t think she could’ve drawn the picture better herself. The girl was s
tanding in a large field, bright green grass surrounding her like the ocean, and she had her hands lifted to the sky. Pieces of broken glass were everywhere. In the air and at the girl’s fingertips, stuck in her hair and in blades of grass, like she had just broken free.

  “This is perfect,” Ivy said, swiping her hand over the not-glass girl’s face.

  June smiled. “It’s not as good as your stuff.”

  “Good is subjective. That’s what my mom always says, anyway. This is what you meant it to be, isn’t it? Which means it’s perfect. It’s a story.”

  June stopped coloring and looked up. She stared at Ivy and then back down at her drawing, and then suddenly tears were streaming down her cheeks.

  Ivy just sat there, wondering what to do. She shot a glance at Robin, who lifted concerned eyebrows in their direction.

  Ivy reached out and took June’s hand, palm to palm, no lacing or tangling at all. Just comfort. Just friends.

  “I’m sorry,” June said, wiping her face with her free hand. “It’s just… this drawing. It is perfect, but it’s just a drawing, you know? A picture. It’s made up. Like you said, a story.”

  Ivy squeezed June’s hand tighter and nodded. No matter how much comfort Ivy got from drawing her treehouse pictures, they were make-believe too.

  But maybe they didn’t have to be.

  “Even made-up stories are about the truth,” Ivy said. Her mom had said something like that a long time ago, and Ivy finally knew what she meant. “You could tell your mom. You could tell her how you feel.”

  “I’ve tried; she doesn’t get it. I’m doing this whole Resilient Helenwood thing for her. I just hope she really sees it, you know?”

  Ivy nodded again. “June, can I ask… why—”

  “Why is my mom such a freak?”

  “Um, well, I was going to say why is she so protective?”

  June smiled and pulled her hand out of Ivy’s. She wiped her eyes with both hands before picking up the blue colored pencil and rolling it between her fingers. It was so quiet, Ivy worried she’d asked the wrong question. Maybe she should mind her own business. Maybe everybody should.