The Wishing Tree

by Marybeth Whalen

  She ignored the voice, focusing on Shea instead of her own problems. This wasn’t about her. She looked at her sister, thought of her in that dressing room, demanding that she leave. “What did you have to think about?” she asked.

  “Oh, you know, the typical stuff brides think about: lifelong commitment, whether I made the right choice, if I have something blue for the ‘something blue’ category.” Shea grinned. “Stuff like that.”

  Ivy went for the easiest point. “I thought you were wearing Grandmama’s blue hairpin in your hair?”

  Shea nodded. “Yeah, I am.” She laughed a little, knowing that Ivy was hesitant to touch what she had revealed. Shea elbowed her. “Go ahead and ask me about the rest of it.”

  “Are you really having cold feet? You?”

  Shea sat up straighter. “Why not me?”

  Ivy shrugged. “Because you’re … Shea. And Owen. You go together. You’re the most likely to …”

  “To what?”

  Ivy laughed. “I don’t know. Be together forever. Ride off into the sunset. Have 2.5 children and a house with a white picket fence. All of it.”

  “Then I guess you’d be surprised to know that I think the reason Owen proposed to me on national TV was because he was betting I wouldn’t say no if there were cameras filming the whole thing.”

  Ivy thought of that moment in her living room alone, watching Shea live every little girl’s dream on live television. How envious she’d been. How alone she’d felt watching it with no one to share the moment. How far away from her family she’d seemed. She’d never once considered that her sister wouldn’t want what Owen was offering.

  Shea continued. “Haven’t you ever stopped to think about why Owen and I aren’t married by now?”

  Ivy sat in stunned silence, backtracking over all the thoughts she’d had about her sister and Owen in the years that had lapsed since she left. She’d always seen them as the perfect couple, her sister stepping into the role she’d walked away from, their wedding inevitable and certain. She’d always thought it was a matter of timing, of finding that perfect timing. She’d thought that Shea was waiting because it was the right thing to do, never because getting married to Owen might be wrong for her.

  “Are you going to call it off?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder just in case. Her heart was racing—a mixture of dread at the thought of another wedding being called off and excitement at the thought that she wouldn’t be the only one.

  Her heart slowed as she saw Shea start to shake her head. “No. I decided not to.” She turned to face Ivy. “Am I crazy to go through with it?” Her eyes begged Ivy to offer her assurance. Even in the dark Ivy could see evidence of the tears she’d shed throughout the day.

  Ivy thought of her anger at Elliott, her fear of a future without him, her regret over breaking it off with Michael. She thought of the tweets her husband had been sending her, of the reminders of the love they’d once felt for each other. She thought of the wishing tree tags she’d collected in the past weeks—all those wishes for a happy future for Owen and Shea, all those people who were rooting for them. And somewhere in all of those things there was enough hope for her to tell her sister what she wanted to hear. “You’re not crazy at all,” she said. “You and Owen have something special.”

  “I thought you and Michael had something special too, though.”

  Ivy just nodded, unsure of what to say. “I think we did. I just didn’t know it. I didn’t have enough life experience—nothing to compare it to. I convinced myself there was something … better out there.”

  “And was there?”

  The question hung in the air between them. Ivy could almost see it there, like a cartoon bubble with the words inside. She wanted to tell Shea the truth about Elliott, about what he’d done and what had happened since, about how she’d run away from him the same way she’d run away from them years ago. But something kept her from blurting out the details: pride or shame or privacy or, very faint, the possibility that she and Elliott could resolve things, and she didn’t want her sister to hate him. She stared down at her hands.

  “I’ll just say this. There was something different out there. But different and better are not synonymous. Just because something’s known doesn’t mean it’s wrong. New does not equal improved.” She looked up to find Shea staring at her, reading between the lines as only a sister can do. She backpedaled, doing damage control. “I mean, I just don’t want you to think that there’s someone better out there for you than Owen.”

  But it didn’t work. Shea pounced on the scrap of revelation. “Ivy, why are you here? And why don’t you ever mention Elliott? Would you just tell me what’s going on?”

  Tears filled her eyes. “I can’t really talk about it yet.” She shifted away from Shea, her knees pointing toward the door she wanted to run through. “Okay?”

  “I’m sorry for whatever it is,” Shea said. She reached out and squeezed Ivy’s hand. “And I’m sorry I sent you away that day when we went shopping. I was mad at you, about Grandmama’s dress. Mom’s dress.” Shea ducked her head. “I’ve been mad at you about a lot of things.”

  Ivy nodded. “Because of what happened with Michael.” This was the conversation she’d been waiting to have for five years. They would finally say what they’d both needed to say, finally lay it all out on the table. And once it was out, maybe then they could put it all away.

  “I was sad about Michael—mostly sad for him because he was so upset. Because I care about him, of course. He’s like the brother I never had, and I’m not real keen on how you’ve been messing with his mind lately.” Ivy nodded, bracing herself for what was next. “But mostly I was mad at you for having the courage to do what I never could.” Shea looked over at her. “You went off and made this whole other life. You broke free from the … sadness that hung around here after Mom and Dad split. And I was mad because I felt like I had to stay here and pick up the pieces. Like because you left I had to stay—and all my fantasies about doing exactly what you did went up in smoke.”

  Ivy tried to take in what Shea was saying. She wasn’t mad for the reasons she’d always thought. “You weren’t mad at me for breaking things off with Michael? For marrying Elliott?”

  Shea gave her a “duh” look. “If you didn’t want to be with Michael, I wouldn’t have wanted you to marry him. I knew you did the right thing for you.”

  “Wow” was all she said. “I never thought—”

  “You never asked.”

  “I just assumed that you were mad. That you took Michael’s side and you didn’t want any more to do with me.”

  Shea chuckled. “And I assumed that you were so blissed out up there in the mountains, you’d forgotten all about us. That you didn’t care about coming home.”

  “I thought I wasn’t welcome here. I thought you all would never forgive me for what I did.”

  Shea reached out and wrapped her arm around Ivy’s shoulder. “How could you think that? This is your home. We’re your family. We might not agree with your decisions. We might have to talk things out. But we’ll get through it.” Ivy let that sink in. All this time, she’d had a family. She’d had a sister. It was like looking for her sunglasses when they were sitting on top of her head.

  And then Shea said something that resounded in her heart. “Ivy, you took off before we could fix everything.” And in her mind’s eye, she could see herself packing to leave as Elliott watched, as he begged her to stay.

  “I had no idea,” she said. “All this time I thought you were angry at me.”

  “More hurt than angry, but I do get angry at you. I always will. But I want to be able to talk to you and work it out with you. Because you’re my sister and I love you.”

  Ivy reached out and gave Shea a real hug, inhaling the scent of her perfume mixed with the ocean air. “Thank you,” she whispered. She pulled back, making a joke just to defuse the intensity of the moment. “And to think I came out here to help you.”

  Shea rose
from her seat. “You did help,” she said. “Just by coming back here, you helped.”

  Ivy rose and followed Shea back into the house, both of them yawning and stretching. “I’m glad you’re not calling off your wedding to Owen,” she said to Shea’s back.

  Shea turned with a smile, her hand on the door. “Yeah, me too. He’s a keeper.”

  “So what dress did you end up buying?” Ivy asked.

  Shea waved her hand in the air. “That basic white dress. It’s pretty enough.”

  She shrugged as Ivy smiled. “I know you’ll look beautiful,” Ivy said.

  “We both will,” Shea said and slipped into the house, blowing Ivy a kiss good night.

  Ivy looked up. The sky was completely dark, the night that preceded the day.

  Twenty-One

  Everyone slept late the next morning, including Ivy, since the bakery was officially closed for a few days so that Leah could focus on the wedding. But Ivy decided to drop by anyway. She let herself in with the key Leah had given her, stopping in the doorway to watch as Leah moved efficiently around the kitchen area, the radio, as always, playing.

  Leah glanced up and caught Ivy’s eye, her face breaking into a wide smile.

  “T minus two days and counting,” Ivy quipped.

  “I hope you came to help,” Leah said. “I’ve got a mess here to fix.” She gestured at Shea’s ruined cake in the middle of the worktable. The middle was sunken and the edges were scorched.

  Ivy walked closer, her eyes on the cake as if it might jump up and bite her. “Any idea what happened?” she asked.

  Leah shrugged. “Sometimes it’s pointless to spend too much time figuring out what happened or why. It’s a mess and that’s all we need to know. The main thing we gotta do is figure out how to fix it.”

  The look that passed between her and her aunt told her that Leah was talking about more than just the cake. Resorting to humor as a defense, she pretended to roll up sleeves she didn’t have. “Guess we better get busy then.”

  “Heard you found Shea last night,” Leah said as they got to work making a whole new cake.

  “I didn’t find her. She came home. But yeah, we had a good talk last night.”

  “Got things sorted out, maybe?”

  She thought about how good it had been to clear the air with her sister. “Yeah, we talked about a lot of stuff.”

  Leah peered at her over her glasses. “So I guess you found out that your sister’s not mad at you like you thought?”

  “Yeah, I did.” Ivy eyed her aunt. “Why didn’t you tell me that if you already knew?”

  Leah gave her a sassy look. “You never asked.”

  She laughed in spite of herself. “You think everything’s going to be okay?” she asked, staying focused on the work so she didn’t have to look Leah in the eye.

  Leah, apparently sensing that she was asking about more than just Shea and Owen, gave her an answer that applied to them both. “I’ve always known you girls were going to be just fine.”

  “Even though Shea ran away? Even though the cake got ruined?” She looked over at Leah. “She thought that it was some sort of sign. It really freaked her out.”

  “Does she still think that?”

  Ivy shook her head.

  “Some mistakes mean something. And some mistakes are just mistakes. The trick in this life is to figure out which is which.” Ivy thought about Leah’s advice in light of all that had happened with her and Michael, and her and Elliott. Which one was a mistake that meant something and which one was just a mistake?

  Her aunt thought about it for a minute. “I see couples in and out of here all the time. I’ve got a good nose for which ones will make it after all these years of baking their wedding cakes.”

  “So, will Shea and Owen make it?” Ivy asked.

  Her aunt smiled. “I’ll tell you something, I know Shea and Owen will make it the same way I knew you and Elliott would. I’ve got a sense about these things.” She winked at Ivy and turned back to her work, singing along with the radio.

  You’re so wrong, Ivy thought, but she kept working.

  “Have you thought of what you’ll say for the toast at the rehearsal dinner?” Leah asked, making conversation. Her aunt knew that making public speeches was one of her least favorite things to do.

  “Umm, can I just write something good on a tag for the wishing tree and leave it at that?” Ivy tried to keep her voice light but it was obviously shaking.

  “I don’t think your sister’s going to be satisfied with that. Tradition dictates that the matron of honor make a toast. And you know this family and their traditions.”

  Ivy knew it was pointless to argue with Leah about it. She was only the messenger. She glanced up at the old-fashioned cake topper Leah kept in the shop, the one that had once stood on top of her wedding cake when she was a young bride, before her husband was killed in Vietnam. Leah had loved her husband but had only had a few short months with him before he was shipped off to war, never to return.

  A sharp knock at the door made them both jump and Ivy looked up to find Lester there, holding flowers, his face as open and earnest as a young man. Gone was the frown he usually wore and in its place was an expression of hope as he held out the flowers to Leah when she let him in. “For you,” he said and bowed as Leah blushed and glanced over at Ivy.

  She watched with amusement as Leah, flustered, tried to find a container to put the flowers in. She finally settled on a flour bucket, filling it up with water and sticking the flowers in haphazardly. Ivy tried not to stare so Leah didn’t feel even more uncomfortable. She was clearly embarrassed about Lester’s romantic overture.

  But Lester, on the other hand, seemed relieved to be out in the open with it. He put his arm around Leah and pretended to stick his finger in the batter as she slapped it away. The way they related to each other told Ivy that there was a history between them.

  Lester attempted to whisper to Leah, but his deep voice had a way of defying a whisper. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know your niece was here.”

  Leah looked over at Ivy and winked. “It’s okay,” Leah whispered back.

  “I hoped you’d be done,” he said. “I wanted to take you to lunch.”

  Without thinking, Ivy answered him. “Oh, you can take her to lunch. I can finish here.” Their faces answered her in two different ways: Lester looked relieved as Leah looked panicked. It was bad enough her secret was revealed. Worse yet that she was being asked to surrender one of the most important cakes she would make all year. A cake for her niece. A cake that would be on TV. And yet, as Leah looked at Lester, Ivy could see she saw more than that—she saw the potential for her own happiness, apart from the bakery, apart from even the family she loved. After flooding Ivy with advice on the cake, she let Lester escort her from the bakery. Leah, in that moment, was choosing something just for her.

  It reminded Ivy of the time she’d done the same thing—when she’d decided to choose Elliott over Michael or her family. She’d been so happy when she married Elliott, dancing their first dance as husband and wife at the party that April threw for them while the guests gathered to watch. She hadn’t even minded that the only guest who’d actually come for her was her aunt. Her attention had been fully on her new husband, this man who had captivated her attention and imagination. In his arms she’d felt vulnerable and transparent yet safe and shielded.

  They’d danced to “All the Way” by Frank Sinatra and felt—more than heard—the words. This was what intimacy was, she’d thought. Eventually other couples joined them on the makeshift dance floor but she’d barely noticed. There was a time, she remembered, when things had been good between them. And that time had happened when she didn’t withhold any part of herself.

  She turned her attention from the cake to the icing, her eyes falling on that cake topper again. The plastic bride and groom looked like they were dancing. She wondered if it made Leah sad to see it, a reminder of what was lost, or of what she once was bles
sed to have. She only felt sad when she thought of dancing with Elliott, and the words to the song they’d chosen to dance to. “When somebody loves you, it’s no good unless she loves you all the way.”

  Her eyes filled with tears as the icing blurred in front of her. She hadn’t kept her end of the agreement. She hadn’t gone all the way, holding a part of herself back “just in case.” Just in case she ended up like her mom—alone and sad, Carly Simon playing endlessly.

  To love the way Elliott wanted was to take a risk that terrified her. She hadn’t loved him all the way, and he’d known it—their genuine love had become a cheap counterfeit. And cheap counterfeits didn’t last or have any value. He’d known it, and now she did too. The question was what she should do about it now that she did. It was impossible to love someone all the way without getting hurt. Michael would’ve been the safer, smarter choice—and this was her chance for a do-over.

  She hurried through the remaining tasks of the day with her mind on the wedding ahead, turning up the music to drown her thoughts. She worked steadily and danced along.

  That reporter, Vivienne, was in the front yard with Michael when Ivy got home. She was leaning too close to him, her smile an invitation that anyone with eyes could see. Ivy didn’t know what made her angrier—that she was making a play for Michael or that she was there at all.

  Ivy pulled around the news truck nearly blocking the street and into the driveway, shoving the car into park and sitting for a few minutes as she waited for one or both of them to notice that she was there. When neither of them did, she opened the car door and slammed it shut. Michael looked up at the noise, but Vivienne kept her eyes on him. Ivy and Michael traded looks. Hers said: Be careful. His said: It’s none of your business. She walked right by them, keeping her head high as she climbed the stairs into the house.