Wild Swans - Jessica Spotswood Page 0,71

way I tower over her. It makes me feel powerful. “It’s a little late for motherly advice, don’t you think?”

“Maybe.” She ashes her cigarette onto a pretty tile coaster that Amelia gave us, a souvenir from a trip to Madrid. “But I don’t want you making yourself sick like I did. You know what I weighed after Mama died? Ninety-four pounds. And what was Dad worried about? What people would think!”

I remember the picture of her at the English department Christmas party, six months before Grandmother died: already rail thin, her long limbs poking out of the black velvet dress that swallowed her up. There aren’t any photos of her at her high school graduation or the summer afterward or pregnant with me. Nowhere in the house. I’ve looked.

I remember Granddad praising my healthy appetite. I can’t abide girls who pick at their food.

But I also remember Isobel slumped at the kitchen table, staring miserably into her bowl of grapefruit. That’s not Granddad. That’s all Erica.

“I don’t think I’m the kid you need to have the eating disorder talk with.”

“Iz?” Erica shakes her head. “She’s fine. She could stand to lose a couple pounds and get off her ass instead of being on her phone all the time. She didn’t grow up with all these expectations. You’re the one wound up tighter than a tick. I know a miserable Milbourn girl when I see one, and you’re headed for a meltdown.”

Ready for a meltdown? Me? I am not the type of girl who melts down.

“That’s ridiculous. I’m not miserable,” I scoff. “I’m fine.”

But it doesn’t sound convincing. Not even to me.

“Are you?” It’s Connor who asks, not Erica.

I can’t believe he’s siding with her. I whirl on him and he takes a step back.

“Look, maybe I should go,” he says.

“No, I’ll go.” Erica rises and saunters toward the door. She pauses. “You need to get the hell out of this town. You’re a smart girl, right? Good at school. I never was. You want to go to college, go somewhere else. No one out in the world cares that you’re a Milbourn. They don’t even know what a Milbourn is.”

“That’s your advice? To run away?” I snap. “Leave my family like you did?”

“You’ll come back,” she says. “Holidays. School breaks. Vacations. You don’t owe him any more than that. Dad’s not a saint for you to devote your life to.”

“I never said he was a saint, but he’s the one who stayed. He raised me. He loved me.”

There’s a look on her face that I’ve never seen before. Regret? Guilt? Whatever it is, it doesn’t last. She walks away, and a minute later I hear the fridge opening. Probably time for her morning Bloody Mary.

I go stand in front of the french doors, trying to catch the breeze coming in off the Bay. The air is suffocating. It feels more like August than mid-June. “Don’t you ever take her side again. That was not okay.”

“I’m on your side. Always,” Connor says. “But I’m not sure Erica’s the enemy here.”

“Are you kidding me? She straight up said she doesn’t care about me or my feelings. I don’t know where this urge to give motherly advice came from, but it’s not because she wants what’s best for me. She just wants to stick it to Granddad.”

“What if sticking it to him is what’s best for you?” Connor suggests. I open my mouth to protest and he puts up an ink-stained hand, forestalling my argument. “I don’t believe that the Professor’s half as bad as what she said. But what do you think will happen when you tell him you have to pull the poem? If you tell him that you don’t want to be a poet? What is the worst possible outcome?”

“He’ll think I’m like her.” I whisper it like the curse it is. “That I’m selfish.”

“Because you made a mistake? Because you don’t want to live your life to please someone else?” Connor shakes his head. “Ivy, that’s not selfish.”

My heart is racing like I’ve been swimming long distance. Sweat pools at the small of my back and I sweep my hair into a ponytail. “You don’t know what it’s like to be part of this family, Connor.”

He sips his iced coffee and watches me. “No, I don’t. But every family comes with its own expectations. I didn’t play sports. Didn’t want to study business or accounting. I was never popular, not the way my sister is. You have to figure