Wild Swans

by Jessica Spotswood

  It’s probably not cool to want to define what’s happening between us, but I do. And I know he’s working at Java Jim’s this afternoon.

  I’m in no hurry to get home anyhow. Dinner last night was a disaster. I made gazpacho and served it with some of Luisa’s homemade bread. It was lovely for about ten minutes, till Erica warned Isobel that the bread would go right to her hips. Iz stormed upstairs and slammed her door, and Gracie cried because Mama hurt Izzy’s feelings. Then Granddad started railing about the damaging way Erica talks to Isobel, how she’s going to encourage an eating disorder and doesn’t she realize she’s going to pass on her unhealthy relationship with food to her daughter, and also did she really need to drink half a bottle of wine with dinner?

  While I did not disagree with Granddad’s points, I thought the middle of supper was maybe not the best time to make them. I ended up hiding out in the kitchen with Gracie, eating the rest of the vanilla ice cream and watching funny YouTube videos of cats.

  “I miss Daddy,” Gracie said plaintively at one point, as Erica hollered at Granddad, and I wondered if maybe it would be better to have the truth come out then and there if it meant the girls would end up back with Gracie’s dad.

  It’s not my choice to make, and I don’t know how Erica was before she showed up on our doorstep, but she seems to be unraveling fast. She’s been going out every afternoon, supposedly to fill out job applications, but she comes back hours later reeking of cigarettes and already a few drinks in. Granddad offered to talk to Robby Griffin down at the Cormorant about whether they could use another hostess, but Erica pitched a fit about him trying to run her life. I’m still waiting for the explosion when she finds out that he signed Gracie up for those gymnastics and drawing classes.

  Mostly I just keep my mouth shut and feel like I’m being disloyal to everyone, including myself. Between Granddad and Erica’s shouting matches, Isobel’s scowls, and Alex’s disappearing act, home isn’t much fun anymore.

  I pause in front of the picture window of the Book Addict, pretending I’m checking out their “If You Like Game of Thrones, Try This” display, but really I’m trying to see if Judy is at the register. The owner of the Book Addict is the biggest gossip in town. There is no way in hell she hasn’t noticed that Erica’s back, and I am not up for being poor-deared to death about it.

  Her co-owner, Susan, sees me and waves me in. They’re a funny pair. Judy’s tall and loud, with a mop of brassy red hair and an endless supply of gauzy scarves. Susan’s tiny, wispy, and whispery, with striking, almost waist-length white hair. She always dresses in all black, so when I was little I thought she was a tragic widow, till one morning I saw her over on Water Street watering her roses while her husband read the Gazette on their front porch.

  “Ivy Milbourn!” Susan whisper-shouts as I walk in. “Judy, look who’s here!”

  I put on a smile and look to the back of the store.

  It’s worse than I’d imagined. Judy has my sisters cornered in the children’s section.

  I start panicking immediately. What are they doing here? What is my mother thinking, bringing them into town? I guess it’s not realistic to keep them cooped up in the house all summer, but it’s not realistic to try to keep this secret either. She should’ve thought of that before she lied.

  Gracie is petting the Book Addict’s fat tabby cat, Sir Toby. Isobel is slouching against a rack of Elephant & Piggie books.

  “Ivy Milbourn!” Judy shrieks. “I was just telling your sisters about the concert in the square tomorrow night!”

  I barely hear what she says after your sisters because my heart starts pounding so hard it echoes in my ears.

  I told Erica this was a stupid plan. I told her the truth wouldn’t stay secret. I told her.

  But Isobel is looking at Judy like she’s a bit dim, not like she’s revealed a life-altering family secret. Maybe I can play this off like Judy misunderstood and assumed we were sisters since Iz and I are so close in age. Judy is mid-monologue about the bluegrass band scheduled to perform tomorrow night when I grab Gracie’s elbow and start towing her toward the door.

  “Sure, that sounds super fun. We’ll bring a picnic,” I lie. If we escape the bookshop, there is no way we are going to that concert. We’d be sitting ducks for Judy and all the other old gossips. “You like picnics, right, Gracie? There’s a farmers market this afternoon. Let’s go get some peaches to bring with us!”

  “Sure,” Gracie says, and Iz allows me to herd them toward the door, though she rolls her eyes at my sudden enthusiasm for produce.

  “Oh, that’s a wonderful idea. Stan’s got fresh cherries too,” Judy says. We weave through the mystery section and are almost at the door when she adds: “It must be real nice for you to have your sisters home for the summer, Ivy.”

  Isobel stops short, giving me a disdainful look. “We’re not her sisters.”

  Judy laughs. Laughs! Like Iz is trying to trick her. “Of course you are, honey. Half sisters, I guess—we never did hear who Ivy’s daddy was—but Gracie looks just like your mama when she was little. And you—well, Erica used to sulk all around town too when she was your age.” Judy turns back to me, utterly oblivious to how much I want to strangle her. “I always felt awful sorry for you, sweetheart, growing up in that big old house all alone. It’s about time Erica came home and made amends for the way she ran off.”

  Isobel is staring at me now with those big, brown eyes rimmed in black eyeliner. I can never do eyeliner right. I rub my eyes and it smears or gets in my contacts, and then I’m left blinking and blind all day.

  “I think you’re confused,” Iz says carefully to Judy. “Ivy’s mama died when Ivy was just a baby.”

  Gracie nods. “That’s how come Mama won’t let me learn to swim, ’cause our grandma Grace drowned. Mama named me after her.”

  “That’s right,” I say loudly, glaring at Judy, daring her to contradict me.

  Susan catches on and clears her throat. “Judy, come over here and look at this Ingram order for me, will you?”

  “What order?” Judy asks. Susan gestures her over with wide, insistent eyes.

  “What was she talking about, Ivy?” Isobel’s voice is shrill. “She’s confused, right?”

  I’m silent. I can’t—won’t—lie. Not when she’s asking me straight out. “I think we should go home.”

  But the answer is pretty obvious now, and Isobel’s smart. “She’s not confused at all, is she? Mama lied to us. You lied to us. Granddad lied to us, and—”

  “I’m sorry.” I keep my voice low. Susan is fiddling with some paperwork, but Judy is watching the drama unfold from behind the counter. “I hated keeping it from you.”

  “But you did. Everybody in this whole stupid town knows the truth, don’t they? Everybody but Gracie and me.”

  “I really think we should go home. Erica ought to be the one to explain.” I gesture to Grace, who looks bewildered. I am horribly conscious of Susan and Judy standing on the other side of the cash register, listening to every painful word.

  I am embarrassed, and I am angry. So angry. Erica should have been the one to explain this. Weeks ago. Years ago.

  Why did she have to keep me a secret?

  “Why do you call her Erica when she’s your mother?” Isobel asks. “Is that just in front of us? Like, for show?”

  “I call her Erica because until last week I hadn’t seen or spoken to her in fifteen years. We’ve never had any kind of a relationship.” I lean down to Gracie. “But I am so glad—so glad—to get to meet you two. I’ve always wanted sisters.”

  “This is really fucked up,” Isobel says, and I cannot disagree.

  Gracie’s eyes go wide. “Izzy said the f-word!”

  “Sometimes when people get mad, they cuss. It’s okay. She’s not mad at you. Right, Iz?” Isobel has the right to be mad at everybody else, but Gracie is so little; this must be super confusing for her.

  Isobel leans down and gives Gracie a quick, distracted hug. “No, �
��course not.”

  “Let’s go home, okay? We’ll talk to Erica. She can explain why she—”

  “She’s not at home,” Isobel says. “She’s at that coffee shop.”

  She pushes out the door, and I stare after her for a minute before I realize what’s happening.

  “Wait. No. Isobel, please!” I chase her down the brick sidewalk. Gracie grabs my hand and runs with me.

  Please don’t let her make a scene.

  Iz bursts into Java Jim’s. Marches through the shop to the little courtyard out back, where Erica is having a cigarette and an iced coffee. Half a dozen people are enjoying the afternoon sunshine at little wrought-iron tables. Ginny West’s mom is over by the fountain with Cooper Sutton’s mom, chatting over blueberry scones and iced tea. My retired third-grade teacher, Mrs. Summers, is playing chess with her husband. Charlotte Wu is here with Katie Griffith, another one of the girls from swim team. Katie waves at me but I don’t wave back. I’m too busy scanning the courtyard, hoping that Connor is on break or out sick or something, anything, to keep him from witnessing this.

  He’s here. Clearing glasses from a table. He looks up and sees me and smiles.

  “You lied to us,” Isobel accuses her mother. Loudly.

  Erica glances from Isobel to me. She pushes her sunglasses to the top of her head. “You little bitch. I told you to stay out of this.” Her voice is part furious and part admiring. As if she can’t believe I had the gumption to disobey her. As if this is something she would do.

  Maybe she’s still looking for little pieces of herself in me.

  I hope she never finds them.

  “You’ve been lying to us our whole lives,” Isobel continues. “That is really messed up.”

  Erica ignores Iz, her eyes locked on me. “I can’t believe you told them. I didn’t think you had it in you.” Like wrecking my sisters’ lives is something I would do. Something I would relish.

  Isobel steps between us, waving her arms to get her mother’s attention. “It wasn’t Ivy, okay? The lady in the bookstore told us. Did you really think we wouldn’t find out? That you could bring us here and still keep it secret? Why would you do this?”

  I glance around the courtyard. The Summerses have abandoned their chess game. Mrs. West is eating her scone and staring at us like she’s at the movies. Everyone is staring—including Connor.

  “Please,” I whisper, slouching, “can we talk about this at home?”

  Erica lifts her chin. Raises her voice. “Oh, I’m sorry, are we embarrassing you?”

  She’s so spiteful. So childish. But why am I surprised?

  “They’re not. You are,” I snap. “But that’s not new. I was embarrassed by you before I ever met you.”

  It’s a mean thing to say, but I am past caring.

  Grace is huddled close to the prickly pink rosebush, like she’s trying to blend in. “I don’t understand, Mama. Why did you tell us Aunt Ivy is our aunt and not our big sister?” Her voice is small.

  Erica leans forward. “Because your daddy wants to take you away from me and keep you all to himself. If you lived with him, you wouldn’t get to see Iz or me except for visits. If a judge heard about how I gave up Ivy—”

  “You’re lying. Dad wouldn’t do that.” Isobel folds her arms across her chest. “He wouldn’t separate Grace and me. He’d keep both of us.”

  “He doesn’t have any right to you,” Erica says. “He’s not your father.”

  Gracie throws herself at Iz, knocking her back a step, wrapping her arms around her big sister’s waist. “No! I don’t want to go live with Daddy by myself. I would miss you too much!”

  “I wish you weren’t my mother,” Isobel chokes out. “I hate you.”

  Erica glances at me like she’s fully expecting me to say I told you so.

  I think it, but I don’t say it. Not out loud.

  Erica gives Iz a glittering smile, sliding her sunglasses back into place. “Watch your mouth. Soon I might be all you’ve got.”

  “That’s not true. That will never be true.” I turn to Isobel and Gracie. “You have me. And Granddad. We’re not the kind of people who leave.”

  “No,” Erica says. “You’re the kind of people who drive everyone away.”

  Chapter

  Twelve

  There’s a part of Erica that loves this, I think. Making a scene. Breaking things. Even if those things are her own daughters.

  Still, I’m shocked that she aims her arrow so true. You’re the kind of people who drive everyone away. Erica doesn’t know me, but she’s managed to zero in on my greatest fear: that I’m not enough, will never be enough, for anyone to love.

  I have to get out of here. Now. I can’t be in the same place as her another minute. Even outside, there’s not enough air.

  I run. I’m halfway down the block, past the Cormorant and the SunTrust, before Connor catches up to me.

  “Ivy! Ivy, wait!” he calls.

  “I can’t. I have to go.” I can’t look at him. I don’t want to see the pity on his face. I concentrate on my feet instead, on not tripping over the uneven brick sidewalk in my polka-dot flats.

  “Let me at least walk you home.”

  I steal a glance. He’s still wearing the brown Java Jim’s apron. Did he just walk out in the middle of his shift?

  “I’m not going home.”

  You’re the kind of people who drive everyone away. It plays over and over in my head.

  Granddad never talked about Erica much, and I figured that was because their estrangement was painful for him. As I grew up though, everyone else started to tell me stories about her. How she was selfish. Reckless. Troubled. Part of me wondered if they were trying to convince me that something broken in her made her leave, not something broken in me. But both must be true. She is awful, sure, but I am the reason she left. She hated me so much that she didn’t tell my sisters I exist—even before Grace’s custody was an issue. And seeing me again hasn’t changed her mind one bit.

  “Ivy.” Connor grabs my hand and hauls me to a stop. “Where are you going?”

  I study the roses in front of the post office, afraid that if I look at him, I’ll start crying, and I can’t—won’t—cry in the middle of town. Although I don’t know why I’m trying to save face. The scene back in the courtyard will be all over Cecil by suppertime. How could it not?

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you want me to call your granddad?”

  “No!” Granddad will find out soon enough, and then there will be more I told you so’s and more fights. Probably more wine and cigarettes and slammed doors. Right about now, I’d trade them for all the loneliness and unanswered questions of my childhood.

  Iz and Gracie will never know a childhood without all the drama, I guess.

  Or was Erica different—better—before?

  I swallow hard. Maybe when I’m not around, my mother isn’t a monster.

  “My apartment’s right over on Queen Street. Do you want to go there?”

  I finally look up. There’s concern in Connor’s pretty brown eyes, but not pity. And his fingers are threaded through mine. “Don’t you have to get back to work?”

  He shakes his head. “My shift’s almost over. I’ll text Kat. She’ll cover for me.” He reaches over and tucks a wayward curl behind my ear, his fingers brushing against my neck. Even now, even when I am a complete mess, his touch sends tingles all the way down to my toes.

  “Yeah.” I take a deep breath, clutching his hand. “Okay.”

  Connor doesn’t let go of my hand till we get to his place and he has to fish in his pocket for keys. He’s renting an old two-story house that’s been divided into apartments, one upstairs and one down. Inside, there’s a cluttered living room with an ugly, blue-plaid couch, some plastic crates that serve as end tables, and a big TV with an Xbox hooked up to it. Java Jim’s coffee cups are scattered on every surface, and books are stacked knee-high along the front wall beneath the curtainless windows.

&n
bsp; Connor shoves his keys into his pocket and starts picking up some of the empty cups. “Sorry it’s kind of a mess.”

  “I don’t care.” I flop down on the couch, sinking deep into the cushions.

  “Do you want to talk about what happened back there?” Connor asks. “I can leave you alone if you want. If you need some space. My roommate won’t be home for a while. He works up at the college for the IT department.”

  “I don’t need space.” Not from him anyway.

  He puts down the stack of coffee cups and sits on the other end of the couch, leaving a good two feet between us. “So. That was your mom, huh?”

  I can’t help it. I burst into tears.

  “I’m sorry,” I sob, burying my face in my hands. “I don’t want to cry in front of you.”

  He moves closer. Puts his hand on my arm. “Do you want me to go?”

  “No. It’s just—she was so mean.” I sound like a little kid. “I-I think she likes pretending I’m not hers. That I’m just her annoying little sister. Granddad’s s-second-chance girl.”

  “Second chance?” Connor moves closer, and gravity and the couch cushions sort of dump us together till we’re pressed against each other from hip to knee. “Ivy, the Professor adores you. He brags about you all the time.”

  I peek out from between my fingers. “He lies. Like telling you I’m a writer. I’ve only written one poem in the last two months. Nothing I’ve written is good enough to submit, and it only counts if it’s good. Milbourns don’t do okay. It has to be extraordinary.”

  “Ivy, if I thought everything I wrote had to be extraordinary, I would never write anything ever again.” Connor shakes his head. “Half of what I write is total shit. You revise it. Or you steal that one good line for another poem. You can’t expect yourself to be perfect. It’ll just set you up for failure.”

  I look right at him, at his handsome, square-jawed face and his crooked nose, and I confess my most shameful truth: “That’s what I am—a failure.”

  “What? Why would you say that?” He grabs my hand. “Why would you think that?”