What Happened to Ivy (5 page)

Ivy waves her hands. “Haw! Haw! Haw!”

“Let’s have a fire,” Mom says. “Ivy does love a fire.”

“Sure.” I hold out my bowl for extra berries. “Let’s do what Ivy wants for a change. We hardly ever do what Ivy wants.”

Dad gives me a look.

After supper, it takes several tries to get the damp newspaper lit, but once the flames take hold of the kindling, the fire gets going pretty quickly. Somewhere far off, an owl hoots. Ivy hoots too.

Mom brings out a bag of marshmallows, Dad gathers a bunch of sticks, and I spread a tarp over a damp log for me and Hannah to sit on.

I watch her ram a marshmallow onto her stick and twirl it over the flames. When it’s roasted crispy brown on the outside and all gooey inside, I watch her pull it off the stick and put it in her mouth. I touch my chin to tell her she got a bit of melted marshmallow on her chin. She wipes it off with her finger and pokes it into her mouth, staring at me full on the whole time. Sitting on that log, our thighs are touching, and she knows I’m not a table leg this time.

I’m just pulling a third marshmallow off my stick, thinking maybe I’ll feed this one to Hannah and imagining what her lips on my finger would feel like, when she jumps up and shouts, “What’s wrong!? Something’s happening!” She drops her marshmallow into the fire.

Ivy is convulsing – harder than I’ve ever seen. Her back arches, throwing her head hard against the back of her wheelchair. Her eyes roll up and disappear into her head and her whole body keeps on jerking – hard, and harder still. It’s like she’s being electrocuted.

Sounding extremely calm, Mom says, “It’s okay, Ivy, you’re okay. We love you, darling, and we’re here.”

Tears stream down Hannah’s face. Dad looks like he could cry, too. I can practically feel the juddering all up and down my own arms and back.

Mom’s voice keeps on, low and even, “It’s alright, Ivy. It’s going to be okay.”

Gradually the convulsions loosen their grip. Blood trickles from the corner of Ivy’s mouth. Finally, after what feels like ages, she slumps over in her chair, limp.

Wiping tears off her face, Hannah asks, “Is she okay?”

Mom says, “She will be.”

How
? How can Ivy ever be okay?

Dad breaks his marshmallow stick and tosses it on the fire.

“Hannah,” I ask, wiping blood off Ivy’s lip with my sleeve, “are
you
okay?”

She nods but her face is pale.

Dad lifts Ivy from her wheelchair and carries her into the cottage, her arms and legs limp, her head hanging limp against his shoulder. As they pass through the door, Mom reaches up to stroke Ivy’s limp hair.

It’s just me and Hannah outside now, with the flames crackling and the moon shining overhead. But all I can do is douse the fire.

Out on the lake, a loon cries.

Chapter 11

The sun’s shining when I wake up and I can hear Ivy banging on the jack-in-the-box and yelling, “Bop! Mucky fuh. Bop!” It seems she’s no worse off for last night’s seizure.

Maybe today I can persuade Hannah to come with me to the dunes.

I get up, get dressed, brush my teeth and head into the living room. “Where’s Hannah?” I ask.

Mom says, “She went for a run up toward the highway.”

“Bop! Mucky fuh. Bop!”

“I didn’t think she could be sleeping through that.”

I get the
Encyclopedia of Perennials
from my room and look up plants that flower in the fall that might be good in my garden, adding them to the list in my notebook.

Eupatorium
because the mauve would look good behind the dark green mugho pine.

“Eeep! Eeep! Eeep! EEEP!”

The birds again.

Caryopteris
because it’s gray-green leaves look good even when it’s not blooming.

“Kreeeeeee!”

Helianthus
because it attracts butterflies and birds.

“Aw-aawwk!! A-awk! Kreee, kreeeee!!”

Forget
Helianthus.

Hannah glistens all over when she gets back from her run.

“Kreee!”

She gulps down a gallon of water, then hits the shower.

“A-awk a-a-awk! Eeep! Eeep!”

After Hannah has breakfast, she takes her magazine out to the hammock. I close the encyclopedia and my notebook and wander outside.

“Are Ivy’s bird calls getting to you, too?” I ask.

Hannah shrugs. “A bit.”

“We could go for a walk,” I suggest.

“Good idea.” Hannah follows me inside to get her sandals.

Dad is marking his students’ essays. Mom is washing out Ivy’s clothes that got messed yesterday.

“We’re going for a walk,” I tell them. “Me and Hannah.”

“Oh, can you pick up some eggs, David?” Mom asks. “I forgot to put them in the cooler when I packed it. We could use some more bread, too.”

“Kreee, kreeeeee! A-awk!!”

There’s no point arguing. No point saying the store isn’t where I was planning to go. At least she can’t make me take Ivy because the gravel road would bung up her wheels. Still, I can’t get us out of there fast enough. Hannah is right behind me as I push open the screen door. Suddenly it’s quiet, then—

“Baba, Ga-beg. Baba, Hahn.”

Hannah stops. “Hey, did you hear that? She said my name! Hahn – that’s me! I didn’t know she even knew my name. Did you, David?”

On some days I might be impressed, but today Ivy’s too under my skin for me to care. “Let’s go.”

Hannah runs over and kisses my sister on the forehead. “Bye-bye, Ivy.”

Away from the cottage, it’s so quiet. Dodging puddles, Hannah and I stroll along the road.

“I finally got an email from Casey,” Hannah says, “just before we came up here.”

“Who’s Casey?”

“A friend from my old neighborhood who’s been away on holidays since before Mom and I moved here. Well, not here. To our new house. Where your old friend used to live.”

I won’t ask if ‘Casey’ is a girl or a guy. Instead I ask, “When school starts up, will you be going to Meadowview?”

“Yeah, in grade ten. Is that where you go?”

“Yeah.”

“What are the teachers like?”

“Well, you don’t want Doyle for English. He assigns way more essays than Barclay.”

“I wouldn’t mind that.”

“Hanley’s the best, if you’ll be taking Music.”

“It was my best subject at my old school. I was in stage band and the choir.”

“I’m in choir, too,” I tell her. The way she just nods I can’t help feeling like some over-eager puppy trying to please its person.

By the time we get to the store, the sun has dried the wildflowers growing in the ditches at the side of the road. We get the bread and eggs and I pick up a couple of packages of candy, too. Licorice twists for me and Hannah, and gummy bears for Ivy.

On the way back to the cottage, I swing the bag of candy at my side. Carrying the eggs and bread, Hannah says, “The blue of those flowers in the ditch reminds me of the flowers we were tying up a few days ago.”

“Yeah. The delphiniums.”

“And what are these?”

“Cornflowers. They’re nice with the Queen Anne’s lace here, aren’t they?”

“Maybe you should plant some Queen Anne’s lace with your delphiniums,” Hannah says.

“I think it’s a weed, isn’t it?”

“You’re asking me?” Hannah smiles. It’s like she knows what a geek I am and doesn’t care. Maybe she even likes it. And even though a cloud is casting a shadow across the road, I feel like the sun has never shone brighter.

I’d move the bag of candy to my other hand and take hold of Hannah’s, except the bag has made mine all sweaty. Okay, so that’s lame. So, I’m chicken and I’ll probably die wondering if I ever had a chance with her.

“Want to drop off our stuff and walk some more?” Hannah suggests.

Is grass green? Is the sky blue?

Just as we’re about to turn down the dirt track toward the cottage, I hear a vehicle coming along the road toward us. White. Lights on top.

An ambulance.

Hannah and I keep to the side of the road to let it pass.

It doesn’t. It turns down the dirt track to the cottage.

Ivy.

Hannah drops her bag.

Crack!

And we run.

Chapter 12

A paramedic is kneeling on the ground at Ivy’s head. Her wet hair is splayed out across the sand. An oxygen mask attached to some kind of squishy balloon thing covers much of her face. Dad, in wet trunks, paces the sandy shore, clutching his arms to his chest, his jaw moving as if he’s shivering badly or else talking to himself. Mom looks paralyzed, standing to one side and clenching the phone in her fist. Another paramedic presses down on Ivy’s chest, rhythmically and hard. I almost yell, ‘Not so hard, you’ll hurt her.’

But now the paramedics are lifting Ivy onto a stretcher. Her skin doesn’t seem pink enough, but she’ll be alright. Won’t she?

Dad stares at the ambulance as it pulls away, his mouth hanging open. His eyes are dark hollows in his face. Gulls hang in the air above the shore.

For a moment everything has stopped. There’s no sound, no movement. It feels like there’s no air to breathe.

Then Mom rushes toward Dad.

“Stephen, let’s go!” When he doesn’t move, Mom grabs him by the arm and yells, “I’ll drive.” He stumbles with her to the van, mumbling something about a seizure. Hannah and I still haven’t moved.

I can hear the wheels of the ambulance crunching onto the gravel road and the van following. The lake laps the shore as if nothing has happened.

What
has
happened?

Hannah and I went to the store.

We strolled back along the gravel road with bread and eggs and licorice twists and gummy bears. And now…Is Ivy…?

I’m still clutching the bag of candy I bought.

I can eat it all myself now.

Stupid!

I fling the bag to the ground.
Stupid!!

I charge into the lake, bashing the water with my arms. It’s heavy against my thighs. I hurl myself forward and start kicking.

My clothes are leaden. I thrash through the water till my lungs ache.

A voice on shore calls my name. “David!”

It sounds far away. I don’t care. I keep on swimming, farther and farther out. In my ears the buzz of a motorboat bee-lines down the lake. And in my chest, wanting to explode.

I roll onto my back, gasping. I float. Like a dead man. I float until my lungs stop burning. I fill them with air and I start making my way back to shore.

When I get there, Ivy will grin. She will shout my name, ‘Ga-beg!’ And together we will eat licorice twists and gummy bears.

My legs tremble as I plod through the shallow water close to shore. Stepping onto the beach, I stub my toe on a rock. Water streams from my shorts and t-shirt. The hot sand burns my feet. I’ve lost my shoes in the lake.

Hannah staggers toward me. “You idiot!” she cries. “Didn’t you hear me calling you? I thought you were going to drown, too! What were you doing? You
idiot!!
”

I trudge past her and into the cottage. I wanted to be with her. If I hadn’t wanted to be with her, none of this might have happened. If we hadn’t gone to the store…if we’d hurried back…if we had all been here…maybe…I can’t think any more.

I change into dry clothes and stay in my room until I hear the van.

In the living room, Hannah is sitting tightly curled in a chair in the corner, biting the ends of her fingers. She looks up at me. “Sorry I went kind of hysterical on you.”

As if that’s what matters now.

When the screen door opens, I turn. Despite Dad’s tan, his face is white. His trunks are dry now. Mom’s eyes are puffy and red.

Together, my parents sit down carefully on the couch, like they’re visiting someone else’s home.

“So…?” I can hear that my voice is hollow and tight.

Dad says, “Ivy kept going on about the birds. The whole time I was marking my papers. But I was determined to get them done. I didn’t want them hanging over me the whole holiday.”

“Who cares about your damn papers? What’s happened to Ivy?”

Dad gets up and turns to leave the room.

“Davy…”

“Somebody just
say
it!” I can’t control the anger or the tears now.

Dad goes to the window, staring out. “She’s gone,” he says. He doesn’t look at me.

I look at Mom as if she might tell me something different. But she just wraps her arms across her stomach and rocks forward to stare at her feet.