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“Then why was there poison in your house?” Erin demands.
“I don’t know,” Bishop says with a sigh. “I don’t have an explanation for it, but I know she’s not guilty. ”
I want to reach through the intercom and touch him. It’s a kind of torture knowing he’s right upstairs and I can’t get to him.
“She says she is, though,” President Lattimer says. They must all be here. Are my father and Callie up there, too?
As if the thought summoned her, I hear Callie speak. “I didn’t want to say anything before. But now I think I have to. ”
“What is it?” President Lattimer asks.
“Ivy’s always been…different,” Callie says. My hands curl into fists in my lap.
“Different?” Erin’s voice is sharp. “What do you mean?”
“Unstable,” my father says, and with that word I hear the last brick fall. My fate well and truly sealed. It’s what I wanted. It’s what had to happen. But my family’s betrayal still cuts like a sharp blade. “We did what we could for her,” my father continues. “But she’s always been up and down, impossible to predict. We hoped that she would outgrow it. That it wasn’t a permanent part of her personality. ”
There is silence for a moment, and then Erin bursts out, “Just like her mother. Crazy like her mother!” I am glad we are not in the same room, because right now my fists have a mind of their own.
“Erin, stop it!” President Lattimer barks.
“Ivy is not crazy. And neither was her mother,” my father says. “But…it’s not completely out of character for her to do something like this. ”
“She felt very strongly about the arranged marriages,” Callie says. “That they were wrong. She might have thought this was an appropriate response. There’s really no way of knowing exactly what was going on inside her head. ”
There’s a moment where no one speaks. “Bullshit,” Bishop says flatly into the silence. “That’s utter bullshit. ”
“Bishop!”
Even with my entire life spiraling out of my hands, I have to smile at Bishop’s words, at his complete faith in me, at his mother’s appalled response. He can still, after everything, make me smile when I least expect it.
“I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but what you’re saying about Ivy isn’t true,” Bishop says. “Either you don’t know her at all or you’re lying. I lived in that house with her every day. I slept next to her. And there is nothing wrong with her. She—” His voice breaks and I turn away from the intercom. I know how carefully Bishop guards his emotions, protecting them from those who don’t deserve to see beneath his surface. I hate that I am the one who has forced him to reveal himself this way.
“We lived with her, too, Bishop,” my father says. “For a lot longer than you. No one knows her better than we do. ”
“Then how could you let her marry our son?” Erin demands. “Knowing that she’s unstable?”
“That wasn’t our decision, if you’ll recall,” my father says. “He was supposed to marry Callie. But he chose otherwise. It wasn’t up to us. ” So smug, so confident, even with his plan falling to pieces around him. There’s no way he can kill Bishop now, or at least not in the near future. After what I’ve been accused of almost doing, my father can’t risk the finger of suspicion pointing back at our family so soon.
“Regardless, you had an obligation—”
“Be quiet. ” Bishop’s voice whips out of the intercom and everyone falls silent. “Just be quiet. ” There is a pause, and I hear a chair scrape back. When he speaks again, his voice is louder. Closer to Victoria? “I want to see Ivy. ”
“No,” I say before I can stop myself. I spring out of my seat, clawing at the intercom, but they can’t hear me. “No!”
“I want to see her,” Bishop repeats. “Now. ”
“Give me a minute,” Victoria says. “And you can’t go inside the cell. ”
“Thank you,” Bishop says. More rustling and the murmur of voices. The intercom goes dead.
I’m curled into a ball, facing the wall, when he arrives. Victoria never came back to get me, but David escorted me to my cell. I tried to tell him I didn’t want visitors, but he said that wasn’t up to him. The late afternoon light coming from the tiny window gives the cell an autumn glow, even though we’re still in the last hazy days of summer. I close my eyes against the burnt orange light when I hear his voice.
“Hey,” Bishop says softly. “We need to get you out of here. There’s definitely not room on that cot for both of us. ”
It takes me a long time to turn over, push myself to sitting. His is the last face I want to see. The one face that will undo me, that has been undoing me from the very first moment we met.
I finally look up, and his familiar, beautiful face looks back at me. “Bishop…” My voice is hoarse, like I haven’t spoken in weeks. “You shouldn’t have come. ”
