The Wishing Tree (16 page)

“Oh, well, that’s too bad,” Leah responded. “I could’ve followed you!” Leah closed out of the Twitter screen and turned to face Ivy. “Let’s go taste some cake.” She rubbed her hands together and grinned, easily mustering the enthusiasm necessary to ooh and aah over her own cakes.
That must be what it feels like to do what you love
, April thought as she followed Leah out to greet the potential clients. She had only truly followed her heart one time, and that hadn’t turned out to be her best decision. Not by a long shot.

She watched as Leah greeted the bride and her mother, wondering why some people could make a go of things that mattered, and others—like her—fell flat on their faces. She
thought of Michael’s face last night, the push me–pull you nature of how things were between them, a mixture of hope and despair battling in her heart. She had to figure out how to put things right with Michael, and forget Elliott Marshall ever existed.

The weekend passed without any heart-to-heart between Ivy
and Shea. Ivy had tried to talk with her, but Shea dodged the deeper problems, declaring she was perfectly happy with the simple dress she’d found. Not wanting to add to her sister’s stress, Ivy didn’t press the issue. And when Shea didn’t bring up their mother’s dress, she didn’t either.

The family was hitting warp speed in this last week before the big day. All the hubbub created a needed distraction, but more and more, Ivy wondered what she would do after Owen and Shea waved good-bye and rode away like Cinderella and her Prince Charming. Without the excuse of the wedding, she had no more reason to be there. Eventually she’d have to tell the truth, or go back to Asheville and perpetuate the myth that was her life.

April had said there was a small unrented cabin she could
live in for the summer if she wanted it, but that prospect felt like repeating the past. The longer she stayed at Sunset, the more she wanted to spend the summer there. And the longer she was around Michael, the more time she wanted to spend with him. At church on Sunday they had actually chatted like the old friends they were, the tensions slowly melting away as they found common ground in their dual duties of helping with the wedding. He did a good job of keeping things on the surface, focused on Shea and Owen, but she had hopes that it would become more.

On the Wednesday before the wedding, she checked Twitter as she was in the habit of doing each day, accessing Elliott’s handle and scrolling through both his tweets and the comments that mentioned him, an odd form of torture. She had to hand it to him, he wasn’t giving up. But she couldn’t ignore the fact that something very well could’ve sprung up between him and one of these women who told him what he wanted to hear.

She scrolled through the tweets. His messages had gone from yearning and apologetic to more serious. Some of his tweets spoke of what he was learning from his counselor. Thankfully he kept his revelations general enough that no one reading could guess at the exact nature of his offense. She didn’t need the whole anonymous Twitterverse to know she’d been cheated on. He claimed he was dealing with his issues, that he was willing to work on their relationship, that he would take full responsibility for his actions. Of course she’d be a fool to believe his empty promises. His other tweets mentioned their past—the promises they made to each other, the memories they shared, the faith they tried
to follow. Try as she might to divorce herself from her feelings as she read his allusions to the love they used to have, the pain crept in, her heart clinching at his words.

One thing she was glad for, Elliott had been kind enough to never address her directly, never let his followers know who she was. He’d protected her anonymity, shielding her from his followers who sometimes sounded like they were out for blood because she wouldn’t forgive him. “How can this woman resist you?” one woman had written. Another had written, “You say the things I never got to hear. Your wife should count her blessings, not your transgressions.”

These women just didn’t understand. There was so much more to the story.

She closed out of his account, then checked her Twitter account just in case there was anything she needed to see there. She saw she had a direct message from a Twitter handle she didn’t recognize and clicked on it. A thumbnail photo came up of a very attractive woman. Her name was Vivienne White, and her bio said that she was a reporter for the same major network that was covering Shea’s wedding.

Ivy read the message from @VivReports with a lump forming in her throat: “Are you the wife of @ElliottIdiot? If so, I’d like to hear your side for the story I am developing about the response to his tweets.”

She closed Twitter and shut her laptop a bit too forcefully. She didn’t want to talk to reporters about her husband’s public apologies or the women who loved what he had to
say. She didn’t want to dissect his infidelity on national television or in any way draw attention to who she was or where she was or what her side of the story was. And how in the world did this woman figure out who she was anyway?

She walked over to the window of her room and peered out. A news truck was parked on the street, getting ready to take shots of Shea and Owen that would be used in the footage they would air before the wedding was broadcast. As she watched, Shea bounded out of the house to meet Owen as he came up the stairs to fetch her, throwing herself into his arms and laughing as she nearly knocked him down. They were disgustingly cute together. The TV photographer jumped out of his truck, snapping photos as he did, catching the touching moment on film.

Ivy took a moment to listen, making sure the house was really empty. Her mother had gone out earlier, claiming a coffee date with friends, but Ivy suspected she was off to meet her secret love. She had looked too nice when she left the house. With both her mom and Shea out of the house, Ivy could place a call without anyone hearing. After hearing from the reporter, she knew she couldn’t avoid it any longer, and the truth was, she’d already gone much longer than she’d thought she would.

She went downstairs and drank a cup of coffee for fortification. Then she dialed the number, her fingers expertly moving over the keys after years of practice, then pressed the phone to her ear and listened to it ring. Her heart raced as she tried to think of what to say. The last time Elliott had made her this nervous, he was standing too close to her in the hallway of her hotel that first night. She closed her eyes.

He answered on the fourth ring, breathless. It was all she could do not to ask why he was out of breath, insinuate that he was with someone, and hang up the phone. But acting that way would only make it sound like she was jealous. That was
not
the attitude she wanted to project.

“Hello,” she said.

“Ivy.” He breathed her name, relief evident in his voice. This didn’t sound like a man who was with someone else at that moment. “You called.”

“Well, not for any other reason except to tell you that I was contacted by a reporter wanting my side of your ridiculous Twitter …” She couldn’t think of what to call what he was doing. “Have you heard from her?”

He was quiet for a moment. “Yeah. She contacted me. We’ve talked.”

“I don’t want you pursuing this, Elliott,” she said. “You claim to care about me. To be sorry. Then prove it by putting a stop to this. I don’t want this woman snooping around me or my family. If she’s found out who I am, then what’s to stop her from finding out where I am?”

She waited for him to say something in response, but he was quiet.

“Are you there?” she asked. She knew he was there. She could hear him breathing.

“I’m just trying to think of what to say to you now that you’re finally talking to me. I mean you cut me out of your life. You cancelled your phone, your email, blocked me from your Facebook. I had no way to communicate with you. And I had to tell you how sorry I was.”

“Well, you’ve made your point, so you can stop now.”

“I can only stop if I’ve convinced you to come home and give me another chance.”

She laughed out loud, unable to keep it inside. “Fat chance of that.” He was crazy if he thought she’d make the same mistake twice.

“So you’re saying you’re never coming back?”

“Well, of course I’ll have to come for the rest of my things at some point. But no, as far as living in that house with you, I do not intend to come back.”

His voice was quiet. “I see.”

“Do you see, Elliott? Do you see what you did?”

His response was instant. “Of course I do. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you these past few weeks. I know you’ve seen at least some of what I’ve written. April told me you knew about it and were reading some of the tweets.”

April and her big mouth. She shook her head. She’d never admit that she’d read every single one, even going so far as to read the comments from women who were following him. He didn’t need to know that; it would only give him false hope that she really cared. “I’ve read some of it. I think it’s ridiculous. But what do I know? You obviously have plenty of female fans who think what you have to say is great.” Now she just sounded jealous and bitter. She switched tactics. “But none of that matters. What matters is you and I figuring out how to amicably part ways. I know you’re sorry. Maybe you can apply what you’ve learned to your next relationship.”

That sounded much more grown-up. She was about to congratulate herself when he said, “I don’t want another relationship. I want
our
relationship.”

An ironic little laugh escaped her lips. “Forgive me if I don’t want to run right back to our relationship. You might want to make it out to be something great, but I remember, Elliott. I remember all the nights you refused to come to bed with me. All the nights we sat on the couch and stared like zombies at the TV so we didn’t have to talk. All the meals you ate in front of the computer while I ate alone. That doesn’t sound like something I’d ever go back to. It’s not just that you cheated on me.”

She expected him to argue in response. Instead he just said, “You’re right. I didn’t know how to do this marriage thing. When you got all busy and the romance was gone, I didn’t know what to do, so I pulled away.” He sighed. “You know what I’ve been doing? I’ve been getting to know you again. Through social media, if you can imagine that. I see what you love on Pinterest and what you read on Goodreads and how you spent your days on Twitter. And you know what? I’m falling in love with you all over again.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “I forgot how much I liked you. What an interesting person you are.”

She looked over at the wishing tree, growing fuller each day, the tags hanging from the branches bearing wishes for a marriage that might or might not live up to its expectations. She and Elliott hadn’t had a wishing tree, but they’d had wishes. Wishes to be different from her parents. Wishes to be good to each other. Wishes to bring out the best in each other. Wishes to grow old together, their own branches intertwining in such a way that made it impossible to tell just whose branch was whose. She supposed every couple started off with wishes such as these, but sadly, very few saw theirs realized.

The back door opened, and the tags on the wishing tree fluttered in the breeze that came in with the open door. Ivy looked over to see her mother coming into the kitchen.

“I’ve got to go,” she said quietly into the phone. “Just call off that reporter. And stop tweeting about us. It’s not going to change anything.” She hung up the phone without waiting for his response and got up to greet her mother, who was wearing a bemused expression on her face. Ivy looked back at the tree and noticed that one of the tags had fallen to the ground.

“Did you have a good morning, Mom?” she asked as she walked over to pick up the tag and replace it.

“Hmm?” Margot asked, taking the sponge from its perch on the kitchen sink and beginning to absently wipe down the pristine kitchen counters.

“Your morning?” Ivy asked again. “How’d it go?”

Margot waved the sponge in the air. “Oh, fine. Nothing special.”

“Coulda fooled me,” Ivy quipped. She looked down at the tag in her hand. “May you always find the space in your hearts to forgive each other,” it said. Ivy nearly threw the tag in the trash. That was not what she wanted to hear at that moment. She hastily replaced it on the tree and went back to the kitchen.

“Are you going to tell me your secret, Mom?” she asked.

“What secret?” Margot asked, looking shocked. She returned the sponge to the sink and dried her hands. When she tried to leave the kitchen to escape to her bedroom, Ivy blocked her way.

“Something’s going on with you that has nothing to do with this wedding and I know it. I wish you’d just tell me.”

Margot cocked her head for a moment, studying Ivy’s face. “You mean like your telling me what’s really going on with you?” she asked.

Ivy inhaled sharply, her mother’s response lodging in her solar plexus. Margot drove the point home. “Ivy, I’m your mother. It’s pretty hard to pull one over on me. I know there’s more going on than you’ve let on. I just figured you’d talk about it when you were ready.” Margot crossed her arms as Ivy had done. “I’d like to think you can do the same for me.”

Ivy blinked at her a few times. “Okay,” she managed. “I guess I can do that.”

Her mother nodded. “Good.” She started to go to her bedroom but stopped and looked back at Ivy. “I really would like to hear what’s going on with you, when you’re ready to talk about it.”

Ivy nodded, wondering when that would be. “And I’d like to know who your mystery man is,” she joked back.

Margot didn’t answer, but Ivy saw the smile that played at the corners of her lips as she retreated from the room. She was glad her mother was happy. It gave Ivy hope that she could be too—that even after a disastrous marriage, healing could come.

She headed upstairs to shower and go to work, even as Elliott’s words about not knowing how to do marriage repeated in her mind. She couldn’t shake the feeling that he didn’t just blame himself for that one. And the truth was, neither did she.