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IVY
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IT’S BEEN A MONTH SINCE Scott was at the house for the first time, but he’s been back twice and is always happy to tell stories over dinner about his time at Ivy Hill. He says he doesn’t get to the house much because of all the paperwork at his office in the museum across the street. But he has been working on the exhibit to show off David’s time in the Army.
I am putting the kids down for a nap when I hear someone at the door. I know Brian will get it, so I take my time putting Clara to bed and snuggle with her a bit. The more I think about the museum and the possibility of a life without David, the more I think I need to cuddle these little pieces of him, and they love it as much as I do.
I head downstairs to find Scott. He is studying me closely, and it makes me a bit uncomfortable.
“Hey, Scott, is everything okay?”
“I’d like to show you something at Ivy Hill if you have time this afternoon.”
I look over at Brian. “Oh, I have the kids. Go, Ivy!”
On the drive over to Ivy Hill, I remember when I brought David here and start to see it a bit through his eyes. I see our Ivy Hill from 1967, not the museum it is now. It feels like coming home.
We make our way to the house, and people stop Scott to talk about this or that, but as we walk through the front door, I see it with all new eyes. Having sections blocked off and people touring it is just weird. I see our nights on the couch watching TV, I see David practicing music on the piano, I see Helen and James eating dinner with us at the dining room table, and my eyes start to water.
I turn to act like I am looking at the stained glass roses to get my emotions in order before looking back at Scott, who is watching me.
I smile. “I love roses. The stained glass there has always been my favorite.”
“So, you have been here before?”
“Oh, I’ve toured it many times. Brian got me an annual membership for my birthday because I love the house so much.”
“Come on, I want to show you something upstairs.”
He opens the stairs, and I hesitate. The upstairs is blocked off to the public. The family says it’s because David died up there, so it’s a private area. Will it look the same? Will I be able to keep my emotions in check? What if this has to do with his mother?
I offer a timid smile and follow him up the stairs and down the hall to David's room, our room. He opens the door and stands to the side. I slowly walk up to the doorway and have to lean against the doorjamb for support. I couldn’t stop the tears in my eyes this time if I tried. I see the bed and knowing he died there brings tears to my eyes thinking he could have truly died here, and I still don’t know.
I’m shaken from my thoughts when Scott speaks. “I had a feeling you’d been here before.”
My eyes snap to his, and he is watching me. “Go look.” He nods toward the room.
On shaky legs, I take a few steps into what I know as David’s and my bedroom. Not much has changed since the last time I saw it. I guess I expected him to get rid of all of this before that day in August. Knowing this has been here all this time while I was walking around downstairs all these years is enough to blow my mind.
I take in the photos crowding the nightstand and walk over to take a look. Most of them match mine; the birthday cake one is still front and center. There is also the one with us and the kids that Brian took. It starts to sink in that Scott has to have seen all these. I look around the room and, on the wall, across from the bed, is the wood sign I gave him on our wedding day surrounded by photos of us, including the one on our wedding day and one from our honeymoon. There are a few new photos of myself and David that I don’t recognize. It’s an odd feeling seeing yourself having done something you have yet to do. It’s a feeling I’m sure David is familiar with by now.
I take a shaky breath and look at Scott, who has been watching me this whole time. “That’s you, isn’t it?” He gestures to the wall of photos with his chin, and all I can do is nod.
“How?”
“I found a loophole.” I walk over to the photos on the wall and look into David’s eyes. To think he might be in this same spot looking at me in 1967 causes more tears to fall. I reach up and trace my finger down the frame of our wedding photo.
Scott walks up and looks over the photos. I wait for the questions on how and why. I am preparing in my head how to explain the time travel. I don’t expect the question he finally asks.
“Will you tell me about my dad?”
The shock must have registered on my face, but when I look at him, I see the vulnerability of the little boy I was playing with just a few months ago.
“Please, I’ve only heard stories from my grandpa and Mom, and she wasn’t his biggest fan.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Well, I guess not if she ever saw this room.”
I look back at the photo of David and me by the pool. “We met once, you know. You were about five, and your mom brought you here, trying one of her stunts. While she was talking to your dad, you showed me the waterfall...”
“And you played trucks with me. Grandpa sat on the couch. That's why you looked so familiar to me that first day.”
“I can’t believe you remember that. Out of curiosity, do you remember the song I taught you that day?”
“No.”
“I had ‘John Deere Green’ stuck in my head, and you suggested if I sang it might help. You loved the chorus.”
He chuckles. “To this day, that song makes me think of that room in the house, and I never knew why.”
I sigh. “That was only a few months ago for me.” I walk over to the nightstand and pick up that first picture we ever took together of me sitting on his lap the morning I left, the one of him and his birthday cake, and the one where he named Ivy Hill.
“I know you’re an adult now, and you deserve the truth. You may not like me much after this, and you might blame me for so much of your childhood, and that’s okay, but before I start, I need you to promise me you will let me tell you the whole story. You deserve the whole story.”
“I want the whole story, good, bad, or ugly. I’ve always felt like people were keeping things from me and not telling me everything.”
“Your grandpa knew the truth. Your mom didn’t, though I’m sure she had her own wild version of it.”
I walk over to the couch and stare at it and smile for a minute, remembering our wedding night before sitting down. Scott walks over and closes the bedroom door and comes over to sit next to me.
“I met your dad in 1957, just a few months after he bought this place, but he hadn’t named it yet. We spent ten days together and fell madly in love. The kind of love you are lucky if you find once in a lifetime. The love that survives anything. My heart broke the day I had to walk away because I had no idea if I would ever see him again. This photo was taken on my phone the day I left. Three months after I left, he named the house Ivy Hill. Seven months later, I did get to see him again.” I show him each picture.
I stop and smile, lost in my thoughts as I remember that day. The look on his face as he stood in the front door and that kiss.
“We spent a month together before he got his draft orders and went to France. We spent every minute together.” I walk into the closet, hoping what I’m looking for is still here, and I find it. I walk out and hand it to Scott.
“I wrote to him every day he was gone and gave the letters to him when I saw him two years later after he came back. He did the same. I have the letters at home.”
“Why didn’t you mail them to him?”
“It’s hard to mail letters from 2010 to 1958.” I smile and watch his eyes go big. Then I see the wheels turn as he is putting it together.
“He met your mom while in France. The letters at the back of that box hold the truth of what happened if you want to know. The truth of it is she hurt a lot of people—your dad, his parents, and myself included—because of her lies.”
He takes the envelopes from the back of the box and looks at me, then opens them. I let him read them, and my eyes wander around the room as he reads. When he is done, he looks at me, his eyes a bit misty.
“This picture with the cake that everyone tries to pin down?”
“You know?”
“I took that photo. It was taken the day after he got back from France. His parents wanted to have a small get-together for his birthday. I took him out for the day, then came home, and his parents had put this all together.
“I knew he would end up marrying your mom, and I wouldn’t stop that because you had to be born. I refused to change history, but when I told him he would have to marry Anna... It broke him in a way I have never seen before.” I walk over to a spot a few feet from the bed and kneel. “He fell to his knees here, head to the floor, and just cried. He begged me not to make him do it many times. All I could do was hold him and cry with him. He asked me to marry him that night.” I rub my rings and show them to Scott.
“You recognized these rings, and for good reason. They are my wedding rings to your dad. We never were able to be married legally, but he always said... says that we are married in every way that matters. Heart, body, and soul. He is my husband. We were married on April 14, 1960.”
“Over a year before he married my mom.”
I nod. “The ceremony was in the backyard. David's parents, Brian, and Kevin were there, and his dad married us. We went on a honeymoon in Hawaii and California.” I point at the honeymoon photos. “Then he did the most amazing thing. He took me to Maryland where we met my grandparents, who raised me but are no longer alive. We had dinner with them, and I can’t describe the feeling of having that with them after thinking I’d never see them again. He kept in contact with them, and that is how they ended up with his footlocker. Though I didn’t know until last month that it was his. When I left that time, he made me promise to come back before he got married. I found out just after that I was pregnant with Adam.”
I watch Scott's eyes water. “He’s my brother?” I nod. “And Clara?” I nod and watch him wipe the tears from his eyes.
“I chose not to tell him about Adam because those four years would be too hard as it was, and I was terrified of him turning to drugs. It was the hardest secret I ever kept when I saw him before he married your mom. I met her on that trip. I guess she saw how David looked at me, knowing he never looked at her that way, and things got bad. He lied to her and said he was working, but we went away to a cabin he had in the woods just to get away from her. That trip was the first time I saw your dad perform. It was at the concert here in Nashville with Johnny Cash. He put it on for me because I wanted to see Johnny Cash perform. He had a way of captivating his audience in a way I’ve never seen before. Leaving that time, pushing him to her arms, it felt wrong. But I knew you had to be born, and I wasn’t going to stop that. I found out I was pregnant with Clara a few weeks after I got home that time.”
I place my hand on his arm. I try to convey I did it for him, and I don’t regret that one bit.
“I want you to know that I stayed away the entire time he was married to your mom. There was a time he was in rehab about the time your mom filed divorce papers? He came to visit me. Your mom was withholding you from him and making everything really hard. He wasn’t in rehab. He hadn’t taken drugs up to that point even though your mom tried to supply him with plenty. I want you to know your dad fought for you as much as he could. He had so few rights back then, it makes me sick.”
Scott nods. “I know that now. Grandpa explained it.”
“I was back at Ivy Hill the day the divorce was final from your mom. He was broken and just not himself. It took a while for him to be David Miller again. I need to know you want to hear the rest because it will change everything, and I still don’t know the outcome.”
“I want to know everything,” he says, his voice shaking.
I pause and send up a silent prayer David will forgive me for this, and that it won’t all backfire in my face. He seems to be soaking in the information, but I expected him to walk out on me and tell me I was crazy long before now. I take the leap of faith and continue my story.
“As I said, your mom was the one trying to supply him with the drugs. He promised me several years before he’d never take them, but it was about this time we had an idea. Let the public think he was taking them and doing the rehab visits because we can’t change history. Rehab then turned into time with me and the kids.”
“He’s been here to visit?”
“Yes, see my David... isn’t dead yet. When I go to visit him, it’s 1967.” I point at a few photos I don’t recognize. “These photos haven’t happened yet for me. We are hoping the rumors and whispers of the cover-up and all are because his death was a cover-up and allows us to be together. So, you realize this story can never leave this room. It can never be told.”
“Then why tell me?”
I point at the pictures. “How else would I explain this? Plus, you are his son. You deserve to know him, the real him. He is an amazing man, but he gets painted in a bad light because of what your mom did, and what she keeps trying to do to his reputation.”
Scott stands up and looks at the photos on the walls again. “God, you must hate my mom!”
I laugh. “Some days, yes but in general, no. I knew from day one he would marry her, and this would be our story because you had to be born. Look at everything you have done to this place. Knowing a piece of him is walking around is calming in a way I can’t explain. You are half her and half him, and I love him more than I hate her, if that makes sense. Knowing he will live on in your kids and their kids. I wouldn’t change that.” There are tears in my eyes again.
Scott walks over and stops in front of me and hesitantly reaches out and then pulls me into a hug. After a moment, I step back and pull out my cell phone. “Can I take a picture with all this in the background to show your dad when I see him next?”
This time Scott's eyes water. “You are going to see him again?” I nod. We take the picture of us with the wall of photos behind us.
“I don’t know when I will see him again.”
“I want to write him a letter. Will you give it to him?”
“Of course.”
“I can meet my brother and sister formally as my brother and sister?”
I laugh. “I’d love nothing more. We just can’t tell them quite yet. They can’t keep a secret to save their life.”
I look at the bathroom door and walk over, taking a deep breath before walking in. My bath products are still on the counter mixed with his, and I lose it. Scott comes up and rubs my back.
“We left everything in this room untouched, down to the dirty laundry in the hamper there.”
“It’s hard to see my bath products still mixed with his. It’s why he loved roses so much.” I walk out to the hallway to try to get myself in order. “I want to see the memorial garden before we go, please.”
Scott nods, and I follow him down. He has security block the area off and halts the tours to give us a few minutes of privacy. I walk up to the graves and stop at Helen's. It’s the first time I’ve been to her graveside since she passed.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there, Helen. I should have been there that day, for you, for James, for David. I still haven’t forgiven myself for mixing up those dates. You were like a mother to me and the most amazing woman I’ve ever known. You accepted me with open arms, and I’m so sorry you never got to meet your grandkids. I love you, Helen, only you know the truth now and how this story ends. I love you.”
Next is James’s grave. “I’ll see you in a few months, old man. We have the fight of our lives coming up.”
Last is David’s grave. August 29, 1969. Just over two years from now. We will know the truth if it’s truly David in this grave. I kneel next to the gravesite.
“You listen to me, David Adam Miller. It better not be you in there. You better fight because I need you, your kids need you. All three of them. Do you hear me? If it is you in that grave, I won’t be far behind. We have a love like Johnny and June, baby, only our story is ours alone. I love you.”
Standing, I wipe my tears and try to smile for Scott. Not a word is spoken on the way back to my house, but once there, the whole mood shifts. Watching Scott interact with Adam and Clara, I tell Brian and Kevin he knows the truth and is welcomed into our little circle. After dinner, he spends time and writes David a five-page letter, front and back.
Before he leaves, we make a promise to get together weekly for family dinner. He wants to hear every story I have about his father, and the kids love hearing about their dad too. It’s a weekly tradition I can’t wait to start.
