Now Zoey jumped up. She didn’t want her aunt to get dizzy. And she didn’t want to let Gabi set a precedent of waiting on Mark; she was supposed to be teaching her niece good boundaries. She didn’t especially want to make Mark a sandwich, either, since he was perfectly capable of making one himself, but she had to pick her battles. And she planned to save her energy for the war she was about to wage.
Because it was one thing for Zoey to keep her mouth shut when her aunt was turning a blind eye to Mark’s laziness or forking her money over to him so he could waste it on himself. It was quite another thing for him to take advantage of Ivy’s emotional vulnerability and twist her arm into altering—or giving up—what was stillherhouse.There’s no way I’m going to sit idly by while Mark hustles Aunt Ivy the way Erik hustled me.
“No, Aunt Ivy, that’s okay.I’llfix lunch,” she insisted. “Have a seat. You, too, Gabi. It will only take me a minute.”
She patted the cushion and Gabi returned to the sofa. Ivy took her usual seat in the armchair opposite Denny’s photograph portrait. And as Zoey left the room, Mark gave her such a smugly victorious look that she would have liked to add a few ofhisteeth to the dentil molding.
Chapter Three
Ever since Mark mentioned meeting with the carpenter to discuss kitchen renovations, Zoey had been waiting for an opportune moment to bring up the topic with her aunt. She wanted to spare her the hassle of listening to a high-pressure sales pitch from Mark and whatever swindler he knew from high school if all she wanted was a new stove. In which case, Zoey could research stoves online, order the model her aunt wanted and a technician from the appliance store undoubtedly would install the new one and take the old one away.
But she had difficulty finding the right time to mention it, since Ivy was prone to intense bouts of weeping, especially in the mornings when she first rose and realized she’d have to face another day without Sylvia. Having lost her own sister, Zoey understood how overwhelming that must have been. Especially because in the past sixty-some years, the only time Ivy and Sylvia had ever spent more than a few hours apart was when one or the other of them had to be hospitalized.
As for the evenings, on both Tuesday and Wednesday after climbing the stairs to go to bed, Ivy experienced chest pain. Although she’d suffered from it on occasion before, it was rare for her to have two consecutive episodes. The nitro pills her cardiologist prescribed helped within minutes both times, but once her discomfort let up, Zoey didn’t want to agitate her by discussing what was potentially a distressful subject.
That left the afternoons, which were also inconvenient because that’s when Mark dropped in. Surprisingly, on Wednesday after gobbling down the Philly cheesesteak sandwich Ivy made him for lunch, he intimated to Zoey that it was his turn to keep their aunt company. “Why don’t you go run your errands or do something by yourself for a while?” he suggested.
Zoey was immediately skeptical. Was he going to work their aunt over about selling the house while she was at the grocery store?Will I find aFOR SALEsign on the front lawn when I come back?she wondered.
But Gabi was jet lagged and had gone upstairs to nap, so Mark’s presence gave Zoey the opportunity to walk to the market in town without rushing home to check on Ivy. It wasn’t that her auntcouldn’tbe left on her own, but when she was she had a tendency to be overcome with sadness. Sometimes she cried so hard she got a headache and Zoey was concerned she might wind up with angina, too.
So, she left and when she returned an hour later, Ivy and Mark were in the living room, playing cribbage. After they finished, he took off for the golf club and Zoey unabashedly asked her aunt what they’d discussed while she’d been shopping. Ivy said they’d been too busy playing cards to talk about anything in particular.
Maybe I’m too suspicious of him,Zoey thought.It could be that he truly enjoys playing cribbage with Aunt Ivy. Or maybe he’s just frittering away an hour or two until his friends are free to meet him at the club?
But her suspicion that Mark was up to something intensified when he hung around again after lunch on Thursday. “You and Gabi should take a walk down to the harbor,” he recommended. “Enjoy this gorgeous weather before she starts school tomorrow.”
Gabi jumped at the idea, so Zoey gave in, hoping some quality one-on-one time would do the teenager good. On hearing the news—via Zoey, since Gabi was refusing to answer the phone to her stepmother—that her dad had officially checked in to the recovery center, Gabi had seemed indifferent, but Zoey sensed her attitude was a façade. She hoped while the two of them took a walk, she would open up about what had been happening at home. Or how she felt about going to a new school the next day.
“Your skin is so fair, Jessica. I have sunblock in the bathroom cupboard if you need it,” Ivy offered before they set out.
“That’s not Jessica,” Mark immediately corrected her. “That’s Jessica’s daughter, Gabi.”
Ivy rattled her head. “Oh, did I call you Jessica? What am I thinking?”
Mark raised an eyebrow at Zoey, as if to say, “I told you she was losing it.” Which was absurd—Gabi looked so much like her mother that Zoey had to stopherselffrom calling her Jessica on a number of occasions. It was a slip of the tongue, not confusion.
“I already put sunblock on. In California, I wear it every day. But thanks for the reminder, Auntie.” Gabi answered sweetly.
Why would such a gentle-spirited girl attempt to take her father’s car?Zoey wondered as they descended the hill. More importantly, how could she make sure Gabi didn’t get into the same kind of trouble here?
“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” she asked, struggling to match her niece’s long-legged stride.
“Not really.”
“That’s good. I’ve heard wonderful things about Hope Haven High. But, if anything goes wrong, you can talk to me about it. You can talk to me about anything. Anything at all.”
“You mean like my dad going into a recovery center or why I’m not answering Kathleen’s phone calls.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yeah, like that,” Zoey responded frankly. “I’m happy to just listen or to provide help if I can, whichever you need, whenever you need it. And you can count on me to keep whatever you say between the two of us.”
“Thanks, but I don’t want to talk about that stuff right now,” her niece told her and Zoey nodded, indicating there was no pressure. Then the girl deadpanned, “But you don’t have to worry about me stealing Aunt Ivy’s car from the garage or anything like that while I’m here.”
Sometimes, she’s too perceptive for her own good,Zoey acknowledged to herself. “I know I don’t, honey.” She linked her arm through her niece’s. “And do you know how I know that?”
“Because you trust me?”
“Idotrust you. But that’s not how I know.”
