“You’re good with these kids. I hope you know that. They eat up those zany puppet shows. And I’ve seen others come out of that office like Emmet did. With a little hope and light in their face that wasn’t there before.”
Ivy ducked her head. “Oh, stop it. Why are you buttering me up? Need someone to fill in for car duty?”
Cheryl propped her hands on her hips, one corner of her mouth twitching. “Excuse me? When have I ever been guilty of such a thing?”
Ivy laughed. What Cheryl didn’t butter up, she sugarcoated.
“All I want to know is if you’re coming over for girls’ night.”
Ivy twisted her engagement ring around her finger. “I don’t—”
“Girl, don’t you dare put me off with some vague answer again. You said last week you would think about it.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to be there. It’s just Seth told me yesterday about this charity event. Key players in his firm are attending and—”
Cheryl pursed her lips. “Uh-huh. We’ve hardly seen hide nor hair of you since Mr. Fancy Pants put that ring on your finger.”
Ivy sighed, a feeble attempt at shoving away the weight settling on her chest. “I know, I know. Seth’s under tons of pressure from his dad to show he’s worthy to take over the firm. His dad’s giving him all these hoops to jump through.” She shrugged. “Seth needs me there.”
Cheryl raised a well-sculpted eyebrow. “Next time, then? I know you’d have more fun with us than at some stuffy shindig.”
“I’ll be there,” she said, knowing the promise was empty. Between the pressure from Seth and her friends, it was no contest. Her friends might be annoyed, but they wouldn’t hold it against her.
After the dismissal bell rang, Ivy tucked away her files and trekked across the sunbaked parking lot. She checked her phone as she sank into the leather seat of her car. The new-car smell, intensified by the trapped sunshine, wrinkled her nose.
Six missed calls from Mom. Ivy leaned her head against the headrest and closed her eyes. Last time Mom had blown up her phone like this, she’d wanted help transferring her contacts from her flip phone to her new smartphone. Who knew what it would be this time.
Her thumb hovered over the call back button, but then Ivy placed the phone on the center console. Whatever it was, it could wait. She needed those few minutes on the drive to unwind. To somehow transition from the counselor who sat on the floor playing a toilet game with a child to the role of imposter socialite who failed at small talk and sometimes forgot which fork she was supposed to use.
As she drove, she eyed the highway signs. What would happen if she took an exit ramp and drove until her car ran out of gas? Straight out of all the expectations pressing in. From her mom and dad who constantly tried to draw her back into their fold. From her fiancé who was intent on helping her discover his definition of the best version of herself—insisting she could overcome her small-town roots. Whatever that meant.
Instead, Ivy pulled into her designated parking spot at the gated community. Seth had secured the apartment for her after their engagement. It was a gorgeous place.
Still, she missed her quirky starving artist friends with tie-dyed curtains and her elderly neighbors who sat around gabbing in lawn chairs on the weed-infested green space.
Despite her protests that she was comfortable in her old apartment, Seth had insisted it wouldn’t look right for his future wife to be living on that side of town. There was never a soul out and about in her new picture-perfect neighborhood where even the blades of grass stood at attention.
Ivy exited her car and mentally prepared to trade her midi skirt, blouse, and flats for the black, sequined sheath dress and heels Seth’s mother had sent over the day before. She’d slip out of one life and into another, like changing skins.
CHAPTER
THREE
SEPTEMBER 8, 1994
After a twenty-minute hike from his camp, with the tiny babe tucked close, Harvey reached the corner of Nolensville and 41. He knelt behind a stand of bushes, hidden from the cars lined up at the stop sign to make their turn. Harvey settled the swaddled baby beneath the greenery.
He glanced over his shoulder at the yellow backlit shine of the bargain store. One hour until closing. Swallowing the bitter lump of pride rising in his throat, he scrawled his message on a scrap of cardboard under the light of a streetlamp. Harvey inhaled and steadied. He could do this. For her sake.
Forcing himself to make eye contact with the drivers, he held the sign in front of his chest. They averted their gaze. Blinker lights flashed in tempo with his pounding heart. Car after car filed past.
One lady gave him the number for a drug addiction hotline.
A man offered to bring him a meal from a fast-food joint.
“No, thank you, sir. But if you could spare some change—”
The man’s eyes narrowed, his face hardening—then came the whir of the automatic window rolling tight.
Harvey’s knees shook, bearing the weight of every judgmental glare, longing for the ground to open, or for the chance to explain. Infant formula and diapers. An abandoned baby. Beautiful. Delicate. Hungry. Deserving. His heart burned in his chest.
But if he voiced those things, the powers that be would swoop in, and the system would swallow this baby whole.
A woman with a car phone to her ear pulled forward and rolled down the window. She pressed a dollar into his hand, eyes trained forward. Into the phone, she said, “I helped a homeless man. It makes my heart feel so good.”
Harvey, he wanted to say. His name was Harvey, and someone was depending on him for the first time in his life.
He trained his eyes on the baby. The bundle in the bushes, still and silent. How soon did a baby need to eat after it was born? Sweat beaded and rolled down his face.
This would never work. Standing on this street corner, he was nothing but a beggar scamming for drug money. He clenched his hands until the cardboard collapsed in half.
Turning to face the bargain store, he placed a hand over the solitary dollar in his pocket. One by one the fluorescent lights flicked off until the store was dark. Darker still was the feeling growing in Harvey’s middle.
Tossing the cardboard scrap aside, he knelt and scooped the child into his arms, so fragile in his giant hands. He tucked her back inside his shirt, her downy skin against his. Warm. The delicate rise and fall of her back, a mystery. This new person, all potential. Blissfully unaware of her circumstances. Her eyelids twitched and her mouth stretched as though her dreams were sweet.
Harvey closed his eyes. “I’m so sorry. So, so sorry. I thought I could find a way . . .” His chin quivered, cutting away the words. He squeezed his eyes tight against the pain and gasped a breath that faltered in his chest.
How had this tiny person slipped through his ironclad defense so quickly?
Now alone at the empty intersection, he clung to the child under the glow of the streetlamp.
Harvey chose a road with a few houses ahead. Maybe there was one with toys in the yard. They would know what she needed.
He passed house after house, most of them dark. His feet wouldn’t stop.
A name. If he left her with a name, she would always have something from him. Harvey searched for inspiration in the darkness. A massive oak stood on the corner of the road he walked. English ivy wrapped around the tree, the foliage so dense the bark was hidden.