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“Best Christmas present you’ve ever gotten?” I asked.
Ivy pulled her hand back and shook her head, smiling slightly as her gaze tracked over my face.
“Why are you asking these things?” she whispered.
I could kiss her. We were close enough.
But I didn’t. Instead, I studied every inch of her face and committed it to memory.
“Tells me something about you. And like I said before, I want to know you.”
Her brow pinched slightly in a furrow. “Simple as that, huh?”
Instead of answering, because we both damn well knew it wasn’t simple, I simply waited for her to answer, my hand resting over her ribs.
She pressed her face deeper into my pillow and inhaled slowly. “Best Christmas present I ever got was a doll from my housekeeper,” she said quietly. “I was eight.”
“Was it a surprise?”
Ivy got lost in thought for a moment. “It was. She saw me looking at it through a shop window one day. We were shopping for a dress for my dad’s Christmas party. It wore this green velvet dress with a black bow and little white buttons. She had dark brown hair and big brown eyes. When my dad got home from work that day, I told him about it…” The furrow deepened, and she swallowed roughly. “Ruth gave it to me a couple of days before Christmas. I think she knew I wouldn’t get it otherwise.”
“Why not?”
Her eyes landed on mine. “No matter how my dad may have been an imperfect parent, because God knows he didn’t really know how to parent me on his own, he never spoiled me. Just because I asked for something didn’t mean I got it.” Her lips softened into a tiny grin. “Ruth was the one who spoiled me. She’d sneak me extra desserts and let me watch soap operas with her after school when she knew my dad would be furious.”
I didn’t like her dad much.
But getting mad on her behalf would only push her away. Her life was exactly that—hers. No matter how much I wish she’d had something different, none of us could wish away the hard things that the people in our lives experienced.
Maybe her hard came with a bigger bank account, but it was as clear as a blinking sign above her head—earning love, to Ivy, meant fitting into a very specific role defined by someone else. It’s what she had been taught her entire life. And the only way to unlearn that lesson would take patience and time.
One, I had in spades.
The other was rapidly disappearing.
“He still coming for a visit soon?” I asked.
She was quiet, tension seeping into her frame. I wasn’t sure if she even realized it.
“I have no reason to believe otherwise. I haven’t spoken to him since I got here, but he hasn’t said he’s not coming anymore.”
I tried to imagine a world where I went more than a week without speaking to my parents.
“Say it,” she said dryly.
I smiled. “What?”
“You’re judging. I can feel it.”
I exhaled, tilting slightly to my side so I could see her face again. “He’s punishing you, isn’t he? By not talking to you.”
She swallowed. “Maybe a little.”
“It shouldn’t be like that,” I told her in a gentle voice.
“What should it be like then?” she asked. Her eyes held a warning edge to them, but her voice was still soft, her body language unchanged.
I sighed. “Parents aren’t supposed to punish their adult kids for making choices. Especially not the one you made.”
