Wild Swans - Jessica Spotswood Page 0,78
many I’m sorrys.
That’s all it says. No clue as to where she’s going or for how long. She left Isobel’s cell phone sitting on top of the note, like a sparkly paperweight.
She’s leaving like a thief in the night. Like a coward. Again.
I hesitate, but only for a second. Then I run out the back door in my bare feet. Am I too late? Is she already gone?
The cold rain has me shivering in seconds.
Her beat-up Toyota is still in the driveway. She’s sitting inside, her face eerie behind the rivulets of rain running down the window. I try the passenger door and it’s locked. City habits run deep, I guess; nobody locks their cars around here. I knock on the window.
For a minute I think she’ll drive off and leave me standing here alone in the rain.
Instead she leans over, unlocks the door, and pushes it open.
I slide in. “What the hell are you doing?”
Her face is naked. No makeup. Without it, she looks defenseless. Defeated. “I’m leaving.”
“Where are you going?” I ask. “At least tell me where you’re going.”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe back to New York. I’ve got some friends there.”
I appreciate that she doesn’t lie and tell me she’s going to rehab when she’s not. “Come back inside. No one else has to know about this,” I say. “You can put your stuff away. I’ll tear up the note. Tomorrow we can figure out a plan, a place for you to go. Somewhere that’s not so far away. If you’re worried about money, Granddad will take care of it. He just wants—”
“For me to be my best?” Erica’s laugh is empty. “I think that ship has sailed, Ivy. No. I can’t. I can’t look at him and tell him I’m an alcoholic.”
She says it easily. Like the words are familiar, not a revelation. My surprise must register on my face because she smiles. “I’ve been doing AA for years. That’s how I met Rick, actually. He kicked me out when he found out I’d started drinking again. I tried to hide it but… God, I hate him for it right now, but he’s a good guy. A good dad. He’ll take good care of Grace.”
“And Iz?” I ask. “Please don’t separate them.”
“You think I’m a real monster, don’t you? Look, I’ll sign whatever I need to sign for Rick to have custody. Temporary custody,” she stresses. “I’m coming back, Ivy.”
I bite my lip. “You didn’t come back last time. You didn’t come back for me.”
Without the armor of my anger, I feel so vulnerable. Here it is: the truth. She left me, and I have never forgiven either of us for it.
She reaches over, tentatively, and puts her hand on my arm. “That wasn’t your fault.”
I’ve heard that before, but hearing it from her breaks something inside me. I start sobbing silently, shaking with the force of it.
And my mother—she sings.
It’s just like I remember, the low honey-and-gravel sound of it. The song is beautiful and sad and so, so familiar. It’s about going away and coming back home.
“Please come back,” I say when my tears have stopped. “Please don’t make them feel like this.”
“I will, baby.” Erica points out the window. The rain still patters against the windshield but less ferociously. The seconds between lightning and thunder have lengthened. “Storm’s slowing down. You better go back inside.”
“Are you sure this is how you want to do it?” I ask.
She nods. “I know it’s shitty, leaving you and Dad to tell the girls… I have no right to ask you this, but—will you try to explain that I’m doing this for them, so they don’t hate me?” I nod and she scrubs at her eyes. “Thank you.”
I open the door. “You’re welcome.”
It’s the first real conversation I’ve ever had with my mother. The first time I’ve felt heard. Loved. Mothered.
And now she’s leaving. I know she means well; I know she is trying. But I don’t know if I will ever see her again.
• • •
I don’t go back to sleep. I change clothes and make myself a cup of tea and read at the kitchen table till the sun is up. Then I go upstairs to wake Granddad, the note and Isobel’s cell phone clutched in my hand. He comes out of his bedroom as I raise my hand to knock.
We haven’t spoken much since I left Java Jim’s. When he came home and found out how Gracie almost drowned, he hugged me tight