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I pinched my eyes shut, my heart racing.
When the phone picked up again, I heard his sigh before he spoke a single word.
“Ivy.”
“Father.”
“What is it? I’m right in the middle of something.”
At the collected way he spoke, my eyes slammed shut.
I hadn’t talked to him in well over a week, and I still felt the sting of disapproval from the last time I was at home. But I kept my voice even, wrangling in the emotions that threatened to choke me.
Lynches are above reproach, and I refused to come to him like a beggar.
I felt like one, though.
“I know you’re busy, but I was hoping I’d still be able to see you tomorrow after your meeting in Portland.” I exhaled slowly, feeling that damned hook underneath my chin again as I forced it an inch higher. “I’d like to show you where I’ve been spending my time.”
He was quiet. “My schedule changed, Ivy. I won’t be making the trip to Sisters anymore.”
For a moment, I waited to see if he’d say anything else. If he’d ask me anything else.
Anything. A single question would be the kind of crumb that I could live on, knowing there was a way for us to move past this. The kind of questions he used to ask me about school. About my classes. My projects. My groups and committees.
No matter what happened between us, he’d always wanted to know what I was doing to get better, smarter, to improve.
But silence bloomed thick, both of us quiet for very different reasons.
Mine was anchored in the agony of waiting.
His was wielded like a weapon.
When I sucked in a breath, I tasted that silence on my tongue—bitter and acrid.
This must be what it felt like to be of no use to someone. Not just someone—to the person who was supposed to love me no matter what.
My throat was blocked tight with a thousand things I wanted to say. There was only one thing that edged past all the others.
“Don’t you want to see me?” I asked quietly. “I’m … I’m trying, Dad. I’m here, even though I didn’t want to be.”
“Ivy,” he admonished.
“Answer the question,” I said.
“Don’t get hysterical.”
“I’m not hysterical,” I snapped. “I’m fucking pissed off, Dad.”
Even that wasn’t true.
But I couldn’t allow that particular thought any oxygen. It would set fire to something that I wasn’t prepared to contain.
I wasn’t angry.
Anger was the easiest emotion to grab at first because it was safer. Safer than the real thing crawling up my throat.
“What on earth could you be angry about?” he said, so calm, so collected, so very cold. “You’re practically on vacation, Ivy. You get to do whatever the hell you want for a couple of weeks in the middle of nowhere. Not all of us have that luxury.”
