Past Lies

by Bobby Hutchinson

  Ivy shuddered. The extent of Mavis’s injuries…they were horrifying.

  “Physically, Mavis healed. But mentally, she deteriorated,” Frances explained. “Her husband disappeared, she couldn’t take care of herself—she was placed in an institution.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Ivy lifted her glass to her mouth, but she found she couldn’t swallow.

  “Before she brought Mavis back here, Cait asked me how I’d feel about it. Well, Mavis had no other relatives who were willing to take her in. I’m afraid I was anything but gracious.” Frances’s smile was sad.

  “Cait brought her anyway.” Ivy was having trouble letting go of the smoldering anger she’d felt ever since Tom had told her his part of the story. “You’d think Aunt Cait would have respected how you felt, Mom. After all, you were family.”

  “So was Mavis. Your father felt deeply responsible for what had happened to her, of course. Cait signed her out of the awful place she was in and brought her back to the lodge. It was hard at first, Mavis cried continually and wouldn’t see anyone. But gradually, she got better. She started cooking again, and that helped. But she’s never been able to be around me. She gets hysterical. That’s why I seldom go there, and when I do, Cait makes sure Mavis isn’t around.”

  Ivy’s head was swimming. There were so many layers to this, so much she’d never understood. So much she’d assumed without knowing the real truth.

  “In those days, I didn’t understand at all about depression, Ivy. Not many people did. It wasn’t until you were a teenager that I finally got the courage to see a psychiatrist. You remember the trip we took to New York for your sixteenth birthday?”

  “Yeah.” Ivy made a face. “Man, I hated New York. And I made sure you knew it.”

  Frances laughed. “You were pretty awful, all right, but the trip was good for me. The psychiatrist diagnosed depression and gave me medication. It helped, although it didn’t get to the root of the problem. It was Libby Santana who helped me confront the things I’d been running away from most of my life.”

  “Libby? But I thought Libby was a nurse.” Ivy’d never really gotten to know Frances’s friend. She hadn’t bothered to get to know any of her mother’s friends.

  “She is a nurse, she’s a psych nurse. She’s also a really wise woman.”

  “I don’t understand what you’ve been running from.” Ivy regretted the words before they were even out of her mouth. She ought to know better than to push her mother about the past. Frances would close down, cut her off, make her feel stupid. Ivy got to her feet, reached for Frances’s plate. “I guess I should clear this away, it’s cold by now anyway.”

  But Frances stopped her. “Don’t, please. I want to tell you everything. But if you can wait to hear it, let’s eat this wonderful meal you’ve prepared first. We can microwave our plates, can’t we?”

  “I’ll stick them in.” At least Frances had found a gentler way of avoiding what she didn’t want to talk about.

  They ate, chatting about the job Frances was going to in New York and the tourists Ivy had taken on the eagle tour, both of them carefully avoiding mention of Tom. When they were done, Frances helped clear the table and insisted on washing up the few dishes. Afterwards, she dried her hands and rubbed lotion into them.

  “Is there coffee? And maybe we could finish up that great wine,” she added with a rueful smile. “Truth is, I might need more than a little liquor to get through what I have to say.”

  Wondering what was coming, Ivy brought a tray to the living room and poured coffee for them both, automatically adding the rich cream and sugar both she and her mother liked. She refilled their wine-glasses and sat across from Frances.

  Her mother was visibly nervous. She twisted her rings, fiddled with her heavy silver bracelet.

  “You know I came from a small town in Ohio.”

  Ivy nodded. “Yes, Brigham Falls.” And that was all she knew. Her anticipation was growing, and her dread. What was so horrible that her mother couldn’t speak of it?

  “I was born into a religious community that believed in polygamy,” Frances said. Her voice was trembling. “I was the twenty-sixth child of Leander Mathews, born to his fifth wife, Evelyn. My mother was sixteen when she had me—I was her second baby. My sister, also Evelyn, was only ten months older than me. The last time I saw any of them, I was fourteen years old.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I think about you a lot and I get homesick sometimes. I hope the money I left lasts until I get back.

  From letters written by Roy Nolan,

  April, 1972

  IVY WAS DUMBFOUNDED. “Oh, Mom. Oh, my God.” She’d imagined so many things over the years, but she could never have come close to this incredible truth.

  “God, indeed.” Frances’s smile was enigmatic. “They believed they were following His instructions, as in, go forth and multiply. They weren’t evil, Ivy. They were just so convinced their way was the only way.” Frances lifted her coffee cup to her lips, holding it with both hands to keep from spilling.

  “When I was fourteen,” she went on, “my father married me to a fifty-six-year-old who had seven other wives.” She shuddered. “I loathed the man, and I begged my mother, but she had no say in the matter. So I did the only thing I could do. I ran away.”

  “Oh, Mom.” Ivy took her mother’s hand. The feel of her soft, smooth skin moved Ivy to tears. “Mom, I’m so sorry.”

  Fourteen. She’d have been unprepared and terrified at fourteen. That was when she’d been learning to fly—her father teaching her everything he knew about safety.

  Frances gripped Ivy’s hand tighter. Her eyes were infinitely sad. “While I was hitchhiking, making my escape, I was raped by a truck driver. He felt guilty and gave me some money, which is how I finally made it to New York.”

  Ivy could feel the fine tremors in her mother’s hand.

  “I got a job washing dishes at a greasy spoon,” France said. “One day on the 57th Street crosstown bus, the wife of a staff photographer for Vogue saw me and asked if I’d pose for her husband. At first I thought it was a trap of some kind, I’d gotten pretty streetwise by then. But she convinced me. And it turned out I had some instinctive connection to the camera, and they gave me a lot of help. Gertrude and Sam Balkin. They took me into their home and treated me so well. Two years later I was on the cover of Vogue.”

  “You were just a kid.” The story broke Ivy’s heart.

  “I grew up fast. I was almost sixteen by then, that’s actually mature for a fashion model by today’s standards.”

  “But being famous—it must have been such a change for you.”

  “It was. We didn’t earn the huge money that today’s megamodels earn, but it was still more money than I’d ever dreamed of.” Frances shook her head, her eyes haunted. “And oh, Ivy, it did me so much harm.”

  Ivy waited silently. This was like hearing about a stranger. Frances was a stranger, she realized with a sense of wonder. This woman had given birth to her, but Ivy knew so little about her.

  “As I became more and more popular and in demand, I started to think I was really somebody. I wouldn’t take any advice from Sam or Gertrude, and after a quarrel about a man I was dating, I moved out of their house and into his apartment. I was running with a fast crowd. I did drugs. I got hooked.” She wasn’t looking at Ivy now. Her head was bowed, her hands fisted into knots. Ivy had to strain to hear her.

  “I got pregnant. I had abortions.” At the agony in her mother’s voice, Ivy reached across and squeezed her arm. “Three, before I was twenty. The last one caused a serious infection. The doctors said I’d be lucky to ever have a full-term pregnancy.”

  Frances was watching her face now, watching her reactions, and hard as she tried she couldn’t hide her shock and horror.

  “I couldn’t have more children after you were born. It was a miracle I had the two of you.”

  Ivy couldn’t think of anything to say. Her heart actually hurt for her mother, an
d she pressed a hand to her chest.

  “You see why I couldn’t ever bring myself to tell you all this, Ivy?” Frances asked. “I couldn’t bear to talk about it, I was so ashamed. So dreadfully ashamed. I thought you’d hate me if you ever found out.”

  Would she have, Ivy wondered? Or would it have made her feel what she was feeling right now: overwhelming compassion and pity…and love. So much love it was painful.

  “Anyhow, of course I crashed,” Frances said. “What with the drugs and the abortions, and the man I thought I loved seducing girls I thought were my friends right in front of me. I was so desperately unhappy I tried suicide. I swallowed pills. One of the other models found me, took me to hospital. That was just before I had to come to Alaska for the photo shoot.”

  “When you met Dad,” Ivy whispered.

  “I was very fragile, and Tom was so strong, Ivy. So reliable, so different in every way from the men I knew in New York. He saved my life. He helped me kick the drugs. He’d seen so much of it in Vietnam he knew exactly what to do.”

  “Did—did you love him?” It seemed so important to know that.

  Frances didn’t hesitate. “Of course I loved him. I still do, Ivy. Tom is the only man I’ve ever loved. The only man I could ever love.”

  The declaration eased some deep pain in Ivy. “In spite of the affair?”

  “I didn’t think so for a long while, but now…” Frances slowly nodded. “I understand now how frightened and alone he must have felt. I was so immature, such a child, Ivy. I had nothing to offer, I was just not there for anyone, least of all myself or him. He’d just lost his son, he had you to take care of, he was overwhelmed… I see that so clearly now.”

  “Then—then why can’t you stay with him? Why can’t you work things out with Dad?” Ivy didn’t feel like an adult at this moment. She felt like a little girl who wanted nothing more than her mother and father, together.

  “I can’t, dear.” Frances thought for a moment. “Leaving isn’t about not loving him, or not loving you,” she said. “It’s about me. I need to see if I’ve got what it takes to grow up, finally.”

  “Couldn’t you stay and do that here?”

  “Oh, Ivy.” There was despair in Frances’s voice. “I’ve been trying to, for about five years now. Ever since I started teaching, ever since I started working with Libby. I’ve tried to get Tom to go to counseling with me, but he won’t.”

  This Ivy understood. She knew her father, knew exactly how he’d react to that suggestion.

  “Libby warned me that when one partner in a marriage begins to change, it’s very hard on the other person,” Frances explained. “Unless they change as well, the relationship can’t survive.”

  Ivy slowly nodded. “Not just in a marriage. In any relationship.” She looked at her mother, woman to woman. “Dad really isn’t into change. Or talking to a stranger, either. He even hates that word, relationship.”

  “I know. But even if he agreed to counseling, I’d still have to leave, Ivy.”

  “Yeah.” Her sigh felt as if it came from her toes. “I see that.” It sounded so familiar. “Alex said exactly the same thing before he dumped me.” And with that, Ivy couldn’t hold it together any longer. She burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably.

  Her mother had never been demonstrative. Ivy smelled L’Air duTemps, her mother’s perfume and felt Frances’s arms encircle her tentatively, then tighten.

  Frances didn’t say anything. She patted Ivy’s back and murmured wordless loving sounds that slowly penetrated the misery and eased the pain in her daughter’s heart.

  Finally Ivy pulled away. She went into the bathroom and composed herself, blotting at her eyes as she came out.

  Frances was waiting in the living room, still sitting on the sofa. She patted the cushion next to her and Ivy sank down, pulling her legs up under her.

  Frances had poured fresh coffee. She handed a mug to Ivy and said, “Tell me exactly what happened with Alex, please.”

  Ivy went through it all. She knew it off by heart, word for word. “And he said when he got back to Valdez he had to pick up his Jeep anyway, so he’d probably see me. Maybe even for two days before he took off again, lucky me.” As miserable as recounting it made her feel, Ivy couldn’t miss the stricken look on her mother’s face.

  “And this happened when?”

  “Two nights ago. No, three.”

  “I met him that very afternoon.” Frances sounded guilty.

  “He told me.” Ivy felt hot color stain her cheeks when she remembered the unkind things she’d said about Frances.

  “Ivy, I think I made a terrible mistake that day.” Frances got to her feet and walked to the window. With her back turned, she said, “I think it was my fault that Alex left the way he did, said the things he did.”

  Frances turned from the window, faced Ivy. “You see, I—I told Alex you were in love with him.”

  Ivy thought that her capacity for surprise was on overload, but she was wrong. For a moment, she just stared at her mother in disbelief. Then she sprang to her feet, pacing as she digested this latest piece of news.

  “Why? Why did you do that, Mom? How did you even know?”

  “Tom told me.” The three words were quiet. “You’re what we talk about now, Ivy. You’re what we have left, the best part of our marriage. I asked what was going on with you, and Tom told me you were in love.”

  “I didn’t tell him, because I guess I knew it would drive him away. He told me in the beginning not to pin any hopes on the long term.”

  Frances’s face showed the anguish she was feeling. “I’m so awfully sorry, Ivy. I thought it was reciprocal between the two of you, and I wanted Alex to know that I—I cared about you, that I was concerned for your happiness.”

  Ivy could hear the sincerity in her mother’s tone, but it didn’t ease the hurt.

  “I also sensed that Tom had some issues with Alex, and I guess in some selfish way, after I’d met him I wanted Alex to know that your parents weren’t united on that score. That I’d come to my own conclusions about him.” She got up and stood in front of Ivy. Her eyes were sad. “Do you want me to leave?”

  “No. Stay.” Ivy was surprised at her immediate response. “But I need to move. Let’s go outside, okay? Let’s go for a walk.”

  They put on jackets and boots and headed down the quiet street, their long strides unconsciously in synch. They didn’t talk much. Several neighbors passed them and made comments on the weather—chilly today and windy. More rain forecast. Frances responded with appropriate comments so Ivy didn’t have to.

  Walking didn’t change anything, but it made her feel less desperate. They’d been gone about a half hour when she said, “Maybe it was the best thing, Mom. It would have happened eventually anyway, and it would have hurt just as much. So don’t feel guilty about it, okay? I’ll get over it.” She managed a wry laugh. “Part of it’s just my pride—I’ve always been the one to do the dumping. It’s really hell to be on the receiving end.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “You got dumped?” She turned and stared at her mother.

  “Big time.” And for the next ten minutes, as they made their way down to the wharf, Frances told her such a humorous story, Ivy couldn’t help laughing.

  She hadn’t forgotten about Alex, but at least she could laugh again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The weather’s still no hell, rainy and cold, but with May almost here it’ll soon get warmer. At least there’s no bugs, so it balances out.

  From letters written by Roy Nolan,

  April, 1972

  ALEX WAS WET to the skin and fed up to the teeth. He’d just forded a swift-flowing, icy-cold river, and he’d lost his footing.

  Weighted down by his pack and unable to get enough leverage to stand up again, he’d had a few desperate moments when he thought he was going to drown. And in those moments he fully appreciated what could have happened to Roy Nolan. There were innumerable ways to die in
this unforgiving country.

  “You’re a damned fool,” he told himself after he’d struggled out of the water and stripped off his dripping jeans and shirt. Shoulders hunched against the icy wind, he tugged on dry clothes, shivering so hard he could barely do the buttons up on his shirt.

  Thank God he’d had enough foresight to roll his extra pants and shirt and socks in plastic, so they were relatively dry. His gun, too, was wrapped in oilskin and then plastic. The survival manuals he’d studied had recommended that.

  He made the change as fast as possible, not only because he was freezing in the cold wind, but also because he felt really vulnerable being bare-assed naked in a place where bears could appear without much warning.

  It was one thing to confront a grizzly while you were fully clothed, gun in hand. Quite another with your balls bare. He’d seen one not twenty feet away earlier that day, and it was hours before his heart had stopped hammering.

  Chewing on a protein bar, he studied the map Theo had given him that showed the location of the public cabins. He must be only a few miles from the first one, and the thought of sleeping under a roof was powerfully appealing.

  The going was rough. In spots the faint trail threatened to disappear completely, and the cold wind had picked up again. To take his mind off his physical discomfort, Alex thought about Ivy. He’d thought about little else the past two days.

  The farther away from her he traveled, the more his feelings intensified. At some point he’d admitted to himself that he loved her. He’d fought it, but it happened in spite of his intentions, and now it felt right. If he got out of this alive, he wanted to spend whatever life he had left with her.

  Alex knew from the letters that Roy came to feel the same way about his mother as he struggled along this godforsaken trail. Roy realized at the end that the deeper meaning he was searching for in his life really lay with the woman and baby he’d left behind.