Wild Swans - Jessica Spotswood Page 0,8

There are hardly any photos of the whole family, just one at the English department Christmas party. Erica’s skinny arms poke out of a velvety black dress. Granddad looks mostly the same, still tall and bearded, just thinner and less gray. Grandmother wears a purple dress and pearls, her brown hair tumbling down around her shoulders. She and Granddad stand close but not touching in a way that seems purposeful.

You could write it off as a bad night, a moody teenage girl and an argument, if you didn’t know what was coming.

Six months later, my grandmother was dead, and a few months after that, Erica got pregnant with me. It was a one-night stand; she didn’t even know my father’s last name. I was an accident. A mistake she was glad to leave behind.

I wonder if she’s dreading today as much as I am.

“Ivy?” Footsteps clomp up the attic stairs, and Alex’s head pokes into my room. “Hey. Professor said I could come up.”

“Hey.” I’m sitting cross-legged on my bed, sweat soaked and anxious. Still wearing the red tank top and plaid shorts I slept in, my hair straggling out of yesterday’s braid. I haven’t been downstairs yet except to grab a blueberry muffin and the photo album. Granddad must be pretty worried if he’s sending Alex up to my bedroom.

“I don’t know how you breathe in here,” Alex complains.

A fan whirs lazily in the corner, but it’s still about a billion degrees. “I’m used to it.”

He makes a face. “Ma said you didn’t come down for lunch.”

“Not hungry.” Which isn’t like me. Ivy’s healthy as a horse, Granddad likes to say. He cannot abide girls who pick at their food.

Alex plops down on the bed next to me. “Ivy, you look like shit.”

“Gee, thanks.” We haven’t talked for a couple days—not since the thunderstorm. I’ve been kind of hiding out. “My mother’s coming today.”

“I heard.” He frowns. “I’d ask if you’re okay, but…”

I’m fine, I want to say. But I can’t make the lie come out of my mouth. Not to Alex. He’s had a front-row seat to all my hurts and heartaches over the last fifteen years. He can tell when I’m lying.

I pick up the photo album and flip a couple pages. “This is what I looked like the last time she saw me.”

Alex glances down at the picture. It’s me as a toddler wearing a pair of jeans and a fuzzy orange sweater with a pumpkin on it. My brown curls are pulled into tiny pigtails, and I sit in Mama’s lap while she reads me The Poky Little Puppy. In the picture, she’s smiling down at me. A month later she was gone.

“You were real cute.” Alex pokes me. “Still are.” I don’t smile, and he puts a hand on my arm. “Screw her, Ivy.”

“I know.” Claire’s been texting me the same thing since she found out, except she doesn’t say “screw.” You don’t owe that woman a fucking thing. She left you. Forgiveness isn’t really in Claire’s skill set. Since her dad walked out on her mom, Claire has refused to see him. He bought her a car when she turned eighteen, and she sent it back to the dealership. Abby, on the other hand, is the optimist. The peacemaker. Try to keep an open mind. Maybe she’ll surprise you.

I throw myself backward, stretching out on the rumpled blue quilt. It’s easier to talk about my feelings without Alex looking at me. “I want her to hug me and say how sorry she is for leaving. That it wasn’t my fault. But if she were that kind of person, that kind of mother—”

“She wouldn’t have left in the first place.”

“Yep.” I sit up again and close the album with a crack. “I’m so mad at her. For leaving. For never once getting in touch. But what am I supposed to do? I can’t change what happened. I’ve just got to suck it up and make the best of things.”

“Do you? Seems to me she’s the one ought to be walking on eggshells to make things easier on you, not the other way around.”

“From what Granddad says, she’s not the type to walk on eggshells. More like smash them.” I let out a frustrated sigh. “It’s so pathetic! I just want her to like me! Since when I do care so much about what people think?”

Alex runs a hand through his dark curls and laughs. “Since always?” He shakes his head. “She’s not some random