Beryl rustled the newspaper, which got thrown onto the porch every morning at seven. “There’s an art class up at the library you could take, if you wanted. Pencil sketching.”
Ivy bit into her toast. It was sourdough, from a bakery Beryl liked, the one with the blue door. Ivy steered her thoughts away from her door movie and considered the row of numbers in front of her. If she put a two in the fifth slot down, a three could go in the top left corner.
“Geena told me about your drawing. What do you think? Sound interesting?”
“No. Thank you, though.” Ivy bounced her pencil on her Sudoku book. She’d gotten addicted to Sudoku lately.
The old-fashioned clock ticked from its spot on the dining room’s credenza and the fan Beryl kept running on the floor whirred. Ivy spooned another blob of strawberry jam onto her toast. Even though it was store-bought, it was nearly as good as what Mom Evers and Grammy made, almost like eating the berries fresh. The tag on the top of the jar said $12.99, which had made Ivy blink when she read it. She tried not to be a pig about it, but Beryl said there was plenty more where that came from, and some mornings Ivy splurged.
Today was so peaceful—it was sunny and the wind chimes that hung on the side porch were tinkling and Beryl’s cat, Perkin, was dozing on the rug by the kitchen door—that the old Ivy might’ve chosen this moment as the best part of her day. For sure she would have been pretending she belonged here in this big old house with its wooden floors and pocket doors and stained glass windows.
The new Ivy did not pretend that. She didn’t choose best parts—what was the point?—or pretend anything either. She did treat herself to an extra helping of jam, however. She lifted the toast and the smell of berries filled her nose. She studied the puzzle’s rows and columns, double-checking her logic before she wrote the three in. She hated erasures.
“There’s a watercolor class too—”
Ivy shook her head and wrote in the three in the top left square. “I don’t think so.”
“Just thought you might get a kick out of it.”
Ivy skipped a glance at her like a stone skipped across water. “Thank you, anyway.”
The phone rang and Beryl clumped her leg down from the chair she had it up on and grabbed her crutch.
Ivy put her pencil down. “I can go.”
“No, I need to move. Stiffen up if I sit too long.”
Ivy nodded. Beryl was firm about being able to do things, almost prickly, and Ivy had learned in the week or so she’d been here not to argue.
In the den, Beryl said, “Patience! Yes, we’re fine. Eating breakfast.”
A moment passed. Then Beryl exclaimed, “Oh, my! A little boy. Or a big boy, I should say—nine pounds! That’s great, I’m so glad everything’s all right. Here, hold on, I’ll get Ivy—”
Ivy slid off her chair and slipped out the back door.
• • •
She headed for the swing that sat under a mammoth pine tree at the farthest edge of the yard, below a little dip the ground made on its way down to the goldfish pond. The seat had a thick layer of pine needles on it when Ivy found it. It’d taken half a day for the wood slats to dry out after she brushed them off.
She swept the needles off every day now. Sometimes she looked at the small quiet pond and the slowly swimming fish, but mostly she did Sudoku. She got two more done while she was there this time.
• • •
Beryl was back at the dining room table when Ivy went inside, working at her laptop. She wore half glasses with purple frames, and her eyes darted back and forth as she read. She didn’t look up when Ivy came in. Her work was something to do with analyzing stocks and start-up ventures and it sounded complicated. Ivy always tried to be extra quiet when Beryl was busy with it. She slid back into her chair and pressed the Sudoku book open to a new page. The puzzle was labeled Hard. She began to examine it.
Beryl took off her glasses. “So, the phone was Mrs. Evers. The elder Mrs. Evers.”
Ivy almost said I know. “Oh?” She looked Beryl in the eye and made sure not to fidget.
“Imagine my surprise to find you gone when I got in here.”
“I went outside.”
“So you did,” Beryl said. “So you did.”
She put her glasses back on and went back to work. After a minute though, she broke her disapproving silence—Ivy knew Beryl was disappointed in her, maybe almost as much as Ivy was disappointed in herself—and said that Mom Evers had the baby at eight thirty-six that morning, a boy they’d named Daniel Walton. He weighed nine pounds, two ounces, and was in perfect health. Also, according to Grammy Evers, he was extremely handsome and obviously highly intelligent. “All of which you could’ve heard firsthand if you hadn’t ducked out.”
Ivy rolled her lips in. Beryl frowned with her brows furrowed. Then she heaved a sigh that was like setting a heavy bag down and gave Ivy a rueful smile. “Dealing with life’s a real pain sometimes, isn’t it?” She pulled her glasses out of her hair and went back to work.
• • •
Ivy lingered at the table after dinner. She brushed crumbs off the tablecloth and straightened the candlesticks, which made her think of Mrs. Grizzby. She wondered how her daughter’s visit had gone. Maybe Ivy would stop by one of these days. Say hello, drink soda from a tiny jelly glass. See if she could make Mrs. Grizzby flash out that radiant smile that hid inside her.
Beryl was headed for the porch with a book. “What’s up?” she asked when she noticed Ivy lingering.
“I wondered if you have some pieces of paper. Blank pieces. And pencils. Colored pencils, maybe?”
Ivy expected Beryl’s eyes would light up and she’d start asking questions, but Beryl only said, “Sure. In the den, in the desk, bottom drawer.”
Ivy came back with a pad of vellum paper, a metal tin containing thirty-six colored pencils, and an unopened package of sketching pencils with a white gum eraser included.
“Ordered it all online after the accident,” Beryl said when Ivy held the things up questioningly. “Had an idea I’d entertain myself while I recuperated, get creative, tap into the other side of my brain. Never did get around to it.”
“I never saw paper this expensive before.”
“Use it. I’m never going to.”
“I don’t want to waste it.” The price tag was still on it: $39.99 for fifty pieces.
“Just sitting there, that’s what I call wasted. Make paper airplanes out of it if you feel like it. Anything’d be better than its current use. Non-use, that is.”
Ivy sat down and gently opened the pad of paper. She gingerly pried the lid off the tin box to reveal the pencils. She held up the package of sketching pencils. “These too? It’s okay? To open them?”
“I said so, didn’t I?”
Ivy opened the bag and slid the contents out onto the table and gazed at them with a feeling of quiet joy.
“I know what it’s like, you know.”
Ivy’s hand stalled above the 6B.
“Getting stopped, sidelined. Derailed, however you want to put it.”
Ivy nodded.
“You ever want to talk about it, you can.”
Ivy curled her toes inside her boots, which she’d put on before supper. It had seemed like she needed the company. “Okay.” She didn’t look at Beryl.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not right now,” Ivy said softly.
Beryl picked up her book from the table where she’d set it. “Fair enough. Just remember, the offer stands.”
Three hours later, Ivy leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms out.
She’d drawn the Everses in their kitchen. She’d made Daniel the size of a bag of flour, the closest thing to nine pounds she could think of. He was wrapped in a blue blanket in Mom Evers’s arms, and Mom Evers was smiling down at him. She looked beautiful, even though Ivy’d had to make her hair fall over most of her face to cover up how wrong her nose had come out. Prairie was grinning, dressed in her boots and jeans. Her shoulders were crooked and her chin was wrong, but it was obvious who it was meant to be. Ivy was proudest of Dad Evers. He looked almost exactly like himself: lanky and shy, with black hair that parted itself on one side. Grammy stirred sugar into a dimpled blue cup and Pup sat near the woodstove, licking his paw.
Ivy added one last hint of shading to the stove, then opened the card up and gazed at the blank inside.
After a minute she wrote Congratulations!
She tried to think of what else to say. In the end she just wrote Love, Ivy.