Evercrossed

?I don?t need anything from anyone.? ?A shirt, sweatshirt, and shorts,? she went on, ?socks, shoes, underwear… a towel. What else?? He stared straight ahead, his fists in his lap. Ivy reached for her purse in the back of the car. ?Listen, I know this doesn?t solve any of the larger challenges you?re facing, but it?s a start.”

Guy exploded. ?My larger challenges? You talk like a freaking psychiatrist!?

?Would you prefer that I call them unsolvable problems??

?Wouldn?t that be more honest???

?Only if you think they?re unsolvable,? she said. ?Next you?ll be lecturing me on the twelve?step program. Step one: admit you have a problem.?

?That?s a good beginning,? she replied. He grimaced. ?Not just the admitting part. It tells us that somehow you know about substance abuse programs. If s a clue.?

?A clue telling me what?? he asked incredulously. ?That my father was an alcoholic? That my brother — or was it my friends, or was it my mother — did drugs? Maybe I did! Or maybe this clue tells me simply that AA made a presentation at my school and I happened to be listening that day. It tells me nothing!?

Ivy struggled to remain patient. ?Obviously, one puzzle piece has no significance in itself. But once you start putting it together with other pieces, it will make a picture. Pay attention when you suddenly come up with a puzzle piece — don?t push it off the table in a rage.? She dropped her keys in her purse.

?Are you coming??

?No:?

?Don?t make such a big deal out of it — you can pay me back later. In the meantime, you can?t go without a shirt and decent shoes.? She waited thirty seconds longer, then got out of the car.

He poked his head out the window. ?Nice outfit,? he called to her. Ivy glanced down — the bathrobe! She started to laugh. ?Hey, it?s my beach wrap.?

Using Will?s sizes as a guide, Ivy flipped through the brightly colored T?shirts and cotton shorts. Guy was scared, she thought; anyone who?d leave the hospital — a roof, a bed, and food — when he had no other place to go was very afraid of something.

His bouts of anger came from his fear and his hurt pride. If Will were in this situation, would he act this way? She wasn?t sure, but Tristan had had that kind of pride.

Ivy added to her list of purchases a large backpack, a pair of cargo pants, sunglasses, and a second towel. At the checkout counter she used her debit card, asking for cash back. Then she stuffed the money, the receipt, and other items in the pack.

Emerging from the store, she walked slowly toward the car, mulling over the situation. When she looked up, she couldn?t believe it — Guy was gone. She looked around quickly, as if he might have gotten out of the car to stretch his legs, but he had disappeared. She gazed into the green shade of the woods that bordered the parking lot. His escape route — to where? Guy himself probably had no idea.

He had left her T?shirt on the car seat. Ridiculous, stupid pride! Taking a pen from her purse, she wrote the name ?Guy? on the backpack, then picked up the pack, and with all her strength, flung it toward the trees. Afterward, she drove to Nauset Light Beach, where she ran through the pounding surf until she was exhausted, wishing her jumbled emotions could drain into the sea.

“YOU COULD HAVE CALLED,” WILL SAID TWO HOURS later. ?You should?ve had your phone on. You had us worried.?

He was working next to the large garden between the cottage and inn, sanding an old bookcase he?d found among Aunt Cindy?s stash of furniture. Beth sat nearby in an Adirondack chair, a book opened facedown on the chair?s flat arm.

?I told you I was fine,? Ivy replied. ?Your appointment was hours ago. I thought something was wrong?”

Ivy removed her shoes and shook the sand out of them. ?I went to the beach.?

Will?s mouth held a straight line and the muscles in his forearms shone with sweat as he sanded furiously. Beth looked from him to Ivy, then back to him.

?Why would you assume that something was wrong?? Ivy asked. ?Given your track record. Ivy, why would I assume things were okay??

She didn?t reply. ?If Beth, who wasn?t even hospitalized, had gone for a follow-up appointment and arrived home three hours after you expected, wouldn?t you have worried??

?Okay, fine, you win,? Ivy said, hoping to end the discussion. Will looked up from his work, his anger gone, but his deep brown eyes troubled. ?I?m not trying to win. I?m just trying to understand what?s going on.”

?Me too,? Ivy replied honestly, and headed into the cottage.

Ten

?BUT YOU LIKED TO KAYAK ON THE RIVER AT HOME,? Ivy said to Beth at noon on Sunday. With only a few guests staying past the weekend, they had finished work and were returning to the cottage, following the stone path through the garden. ?Billingsgate Island sounds so mysterious, rising out of the water at low tide — and that sunken ship!? For the past week, Beth had been complaining of writer?s block. ?They?ll inspire you,? Ivy added encouragingly.

?I guess,? Beth replied without enthusiasm.

?Maybe it?s not the kayaking,? Ivy said, after a moment of thought, ?but the person you?re doing it with. Has something happened since the ice?cream date with Chase? You seemed to really like him then.?

Beth shrugged. ?He texts me a lot.?

?Meaning too much,? Ivy concluded. ?And you?re too nice to tell him to back off.? Beth turned to Ivy.

?You know you?re too kindhearted,? Ivy said, smiling at her friend. ?You don?t even swat at flies.?

?I might swat this one,? Beth said as she entered the cottage. Ivy retrieved a paperback mystery, one of the many left behind by visitors to the Seabright, and carried it around to the inn?s porch.

Oceanside, running the length of the inn and wrapping one comer, the porch had its own special light. In the early morning it was an airy room adrift in the marmalade and yellow of the sunrise, but gradually it became as cool and blue as the distant streak of sea. When no guests were around, Ivy liked sitting there.

Tilting back in a wooden rocker, her feet up on the porch railing, she gazed past the green edge of Aunt Cindy?s yard to the ocean and cloudless sky, her mind drifting.

It?s such a great feeling, Ivy. Do you know what it?s like to float on a lake, a circle of trees around you, a big blue bowl of sky above you? You?re lying on top of the water, sun sparkling at the tips of your fingers and toes.

She had pictured it so many times, floating with Tristan at the center of a sun-spangled lake, that the dream had become as tangible as the real memories she carried of Tristan.

Why had she thought that escaping to Cape Cod would put distance between her and her memories? There was water everywhere, and everywhere that there was water, she thought of Tristan.

Ivy sighed, opened her book, and stared at the words without reading them. A week ago she had awakened in the hospital certain that she had been kissed by Tristan.

That had been no comforting dream as Beth had suggested; rather, it had made her long all the more for Tristan! And it made painfully clear the difference between what she?d had with Tristan and what she felt for Will. The weekend visitors and full work schedule had helped her and Will get through the last few days, but now that they had time to be together, she had been relieved when he said he was headed into Chatham to shop for art supplies.

?Hey, girl, get off your sweet bum and come running with me,? Kelsey called to Ivy, shaking her out of her thoughts.

Kelsey had trotted around the side of the inn and jogged in place for a moment.

Her auburn hair was pulled high on her head in a bouncy ponytail.

Ivy smiled at the invitation, which she suspected wasn?t real, and shook her head no. ?How far do you run? ?

?Today I?m doing five miles on the beach, which is like ten on the road, then twenty minutes of hard swimming and an hour of biking. I?m thinking of doing a triathlon in September.? ?You?re amazing,? Ivy replied. ?You don?t have to tell her that,? Dhanya said, stepping onto the porch, carrying a bowl of frosty?looking blueberries leftover from the inn?s breakfast. ?Kelsey already thinks it way too often.?