Page 61 of Beautiful Place By the Sea

Iwake up to my phone ringing on my nightstand. Cracking open one eye, I see that it’s my mother calling.

“Damn it,” I mutter blearily. I never acknowledged her message from yesterday afternoon. I got too distracted by my walk with Oliver.

Oliver. His name shoots like fire through my chest. After he left Beach Haven, my night had been restless, filled with lots of self-doubt and questioning and strange longing sensations. I’d hoped that the morning would bring some relief.

Apparently not.

My mom’s voicemail yesterday was pleasant enough, but her gentle, “Hey, Ivy, thinking about you and Laurel. I had something to ask you. Please call me back,” was tinged with something that sounded a lot like desperation.

I haven’t spoken to her since the middle of June, when she called to wish me a happy birthday. I’d told her about my plans to go to Ogunquit with Laurel, and that was about it. She generally tries to give me the space to call her when I’m available, never wanting to get in the way of what she seems to view as my very important, busy life.

Ever since she broke my father’s heart, I haven’t found much of that space at all.

But I’m feeling more than a little broken inside myself, and there’s just something about taking a call from my mother that seems like the right move. Aren’t we all programmed to want our parents when the world beats us down or we’ve lost our way? Even if it’s tremendously subliminal and buried deep in our psyche, I think that biological tendency is always there.

And besides, she and I have never actually acknowledged that I’m angry with her. Not out loud. Sure, we used to talk almost every day, and that stopped abruptly after November when she asked my dad to find an apartment. She must suspect there’s a reason I don’t call anymore, but it’s not like I’ve ever told her I’m furious that she’s ripped our family apart for seemingly no reason.

Still, I know I can’t ignore her forever, no matter how wounded and confused she’s made me feel over the last year. At some point, we’re going to have to work through this.

I answer on the last ring.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Ivy.”

Guilt slices through me at the relief in her voice. She didn’t think I was going to answer.

“What’s up?” I’m trying to modulate my tone to sound more cheerful, and less like it’s partially her fault that my insides have turned into a raw, aching mess.

She swallows hard. “I was cleaning in the basement and found a box of your old artwork. I was curious if you wanted it.”

Mom’s been working through the countless piles of ephemera in the damp basement of our Dover house. It’s where I was raised, and, up until last fall, I thought it was where my parents were going to grow old together.

After my mother told my dad she wanted a trial separation, he got an apartment ten minutes down the road, like he was resisting the idea of giving her up with every fiber of his being. Mom stayed in the house, but she’s made it clear, with no reconciliation on the horizon, that she’s cleaning it out with the intent to sell.

I close my eyes, fighting back the urge to cry. “I’ll take it, sure.”

“Thanks. I can bring it by your condo when you get back from Maine.” It’s a statement, but she makes it sound like a question. Like she’s unsure whether she’ll be welcome.

I’m not sure, either. But I just say, “Thanks.”

There’s an awkward silence, and I want to fill it by asking her why. Why she was suddenly so unhappy that she had to break up our family. Why it had to happen just as Dad was dealing with the loss of his mother, with closing out her estate. Cleaning out his childhood home and ridding himself of the memories. Couldn’t she have left him with some shred of his former life, rather than ripping the last vestiges of it out from under him all at once?

But I’m not certain I’m ready, either to ask the question or to understand the answer. So instead I say, “I got a job at a bookstore.”

I can practically hear her smile through the phone. Her heart, so tentative, brightening back up a little with the promise that maybe I don’t hate her after all.

“Ivy, that’s wonderful! Tell me all about it!”

So I tell her about Shoreline, which she remembers immediately from our many trips to Maine, and Maisie, who she says sounds lovely. I don’t mention Oliver, because I’m not even sure what I would say.

“Are you going to work there until you go back to school?” Mom asks.

I haven’t told her much about what happened at Farnsworth; just the high-level stuff. She knows Kyle and I are broken up, and that I was feeling a little lonely, but that’s about it. Taking a deep breath, I reply, “Possibly. I’m actually applying to other jobs for the fall.”

“Oh! I had no idea.”

Of course she didn’t, because I didn’t tell her. “Yep. Just thinking that maybe it’s time to move on. I want more of a challenge.”