“Ivy.” That was all Adam said—just her name—but she responded like he’d said something else.
“No, Adam. If she’s never going to trust me, if she’s set on hating me forever, she might as well hate me for the right reason.”
I don’t hate—
I couldn’t even finish the thought, because suddenly, Ivy was talking again, and it was very hard to breathe.
“You’re my kid.” She repeated the words. “Mine, Tess.”
I told myself that she meant that I was her responsibility now.
“I’m not your sister.” Those words were harder to misunderstand. “I was never your sister.”
I don’t understand.
I don’t want to.
“I was seventeen.” Ivy’s arms encircled her waist. “He was young, too, recently enlisted. It was the first, last, and only time I’d ever really let go. And then, when I found out . . .”
Found out. Found out. Found out. The words echoed in my mind.
“I was your age, Tess. I was a kid, so when Mom and Dad decided that the best thing would be for them to raise you, I said yes.” She repeated herself then. “I said yes.”
I remember my parents’ funeral.
I remember my sister carrying me up the stairs.
I remember my head on Ivy’s chest.
Except Ivy was saying that they weren’t my parents. They were her parents, and she wasn’t my sister.
She was my mother.
“I am going to keep you safe,” Ivy told me, her voice shaking. “I have to.”
I stood there, staring at Ivy, a hundred thousand thoughts and memories and moments rushing through my head.
And then I got on the plane.
And then I shattered.
CHAPTER 53
For the longest time after the plane landed, I just sat there, staring straight ahead, feeling like a hitchhiker in someone else’s body. My limbs had grown unbearably heavy. I felt like I might never move again.
I was seventeen, Ivy had said.
I didn’t want to replay the words. I didn’t want to picture Ivy at my age. I didn’t want to think about the one year we’d lived in the same house, before she’d gone off to college and it had been just Mom and Dad and me.
Not my mom. Not my dad.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that they’d died, and it wasn’t fair that Ivy had taken the few memories that I had and twisted them until I didn’t recognize them anymore.
My parents died when I was little. How many times had I said those words? But it wasn’t true—none of it was true. I wasn’t an orphan. I’d never been an orphan. The woman who’d given birth to me wasn’t dead. And my father?
He was young, too, recently enlisted.
Six words—and that was all I knew.
My parents were never my parents, I thought, forcing my brain to actually form the words. And my grandfather . . . I thought of Gramps forgetting that I existed and mistakenly believing that I was Ivy and that Ivy was his daughter.
Gramps knew, I realized suddenly. Of course he knew. He’d lied to me.
They all did.
I closed my eyes, memories flooding over me. I remember the funeral. I remember Ivy carrying me up the stairs. I remember sitting on the floor in front of Ivy while she brushed my hair. I remember Ivy kneeling down next to me. I remember patting her wet cheek.
I remember Ivy crying, then giving me away.
Having your entire life rewritten in a heartbeat was an impossible thing.
“You can’t sit there forever, kid.” Bodie had given me my space, but now I felt him slide into the seat next to mine. I couldn’t bring myself to open my eyes to look at him, because I didn’t want to see the way he was looking at me.
Like he felt sorry for me.
Like I was broken.
The minutes ticked by before Bodie spoke again. “She saved that ranch of yours, you know.”
She as in Ivy. My eyes stung under my eyelids. I swallowed, trying to shut out what he was saying.
“She hired someone to look after things, checks in on it herself every day.” Bodie’s tone was casual, like he wasn’t effectively reaching into my chest and ripping out my heart with each word.
Ivy had saved the ranch. Ivy, who was my—
“Stop,” I said. My tongue felt thick in my mouth. I forced my eyes open. “Why would you tell me that now?”
Bodie propped one leg up against the seat in front of him. “Got you to open your eyes, didn’t it?”
I couldn’t argue that point. “Where are we?” I asked flatly.
Bodie rested an arm on the back of my seat, but kept his gaze focused straight ahead. “Welcome to Boston.”
Boston.
My grandfather looked exactly as he always had. In the three weeks I’d been in DC, I’d tried calling him a half-dozen times. We’d spoken twice. He’d only recognized my voice once.
But today was a good day.
“You’re looking like something the cat dragged in, Bear.” Gramps sat at a small table near the window. The suite was private—more condo than hospital room—but there was no kitchen, no stove, and the nurses were right down the hall. “Got a hug for an old man,” he said gruffly, “or were you raised in a barn?”
It was an old joke, because, of course, I had been raised, at least in part, in a variety of barns. I managed a small smile and was blindsided with one emotion after another: longing and gratitude; loneliness, emptiness, hope I knew better than to let myself feel. Hurt and betrayal. Anger that he’d lied to me for so long. Fear that if I let myself be angry, I might somehow be wishing away one of his last good days.
Swallowing down the lump rising in the back of my throat, I walked over to the window. I willed my arms to wrap themselves around him, but they were dead weight by my side.
Gramps was here, and he was himself. I loved him. He was in me and part of me, he’d made me—but I couldn’t make my arms move.
“How are they treating you?” I asked, my voice rough.
“It’s not the Four Seasons,” Gramps replied. “But it’ll do.”
“I tried,” I said, the words working their way out of the pit of my stomach. “I tried to keep you at home.” If I could focus on that—the older hurt—I didn’t have to deal with the new one.
“You’re a fighter,” Gramps commented. “Always have been.”