When the Morning Glory Blooms (6 page)

Raw eggs. Crawling up her esophagus.

“Two more months. Then you’re on your own.”

He took a step toward the door, paused, then resumed walking away from where she stood.

A dot of toilet paper stained with a drop of dried blood floated to the speckled green linoleum in his wake.

She felt his every footfall as he descended the concrete stairs from the apartment units on their floor to the street level. For such a slight man, he walked heavy.

Ivy pulled the apartment door shut behind her and tested the lock. The cloying smell of dry-cleaning fluids and steamed wool filled the stairwell and short hall, closing its fingers around her throat. Living above a dry cleaner had its advantages in the winter with rising heat that kept their floors warm and their radiators relaxed. Now, with Minnesota summer humidity thick enough to make a decent soup, the location lacked benefits.

From the top of the stairs she could see daylight beckoning through the open doorway. He had left the door open. He’d known she’d soon follow.

He’d turned left, toward the center of town. At the bottom of the stairs, she would turn right for the six-block walk to the old folks’ home.

Her feet were damp already in her rubber-soled shoes. But they thumped softly in her rapid descent, cushioning the spots where her father had clumped.

She turned sideways to allow Helene from apartment C to skirt past her heading up. Helene’s youngest straddled his mom’s hip. Mothers must develop a permanent hitch in their spines, carrying toddlers.

Ivy pressed against the wall, stiffening at the ammonia smell. How long had that child been in that diaper and those rubber pants?

Children should be seen and not smelled
.

Ivy lurched out the doorway and onto the sidewalk. Half a block and half a thought later, she leaned over the low bushes at the edge of the empty lot and threw up.

Ivy cupped her hand over her mouth, blew a puff of air, then took a breath. More spearmint than the other. The chewing gum was working. Her stomach settled from tidal wave to rough seas, but the heat didn’t help. She passed the red soft-drink cooler outside Farraday’s Rexall Drugs and considered spending a nickel for the benefit of something cold to press against her forehead, the back of her neck, to tuck in her brassiere, crowded as it now was in there.

The walk to work seemed longer every day. She looked down. Her feet conquered one square of cement sidewalk after another, crossed at one corner after another. The cement was not wet and heavy, as it felt.

The downtown became neighborhoods, the kind that wagged their fannies as Ivy passed, reminding her she’d never have a yard like that, a regular house, a whitewalled DeSoto in the carport, kids riding bicycles with playing cards clothes-pinned to the spokes of the wheels and rainbow streamers flying from the handlebars, kids with skates strapped onto their Keds.

People like her lived in sweaty apartments with hollow, crusty stairwells and rutted linoleum. People like her got evicted at twenty-one by their own fathers.

People like me should stop coveting porches and be grateful for a saggy iron bed and a closet door, even if it doesn’t shut all the way
. Where would she be in two months?

A breeze teased the once-tight, now-limp curl of her bangs, but abruptly died out. Hope did that, too. Showed a little promise, then evaporated before she could enjoy it.

Drew came into her life. Korea took him away.

On a quiet street just a block from work, for no known reason, she smelled bus fumes like those from the wheeled monster that took him from her on the first of April. April Fools’ Day. Miserable irony. She’d clung to his drab-green wool lapels, buried her face in his army-issued shoulder, marked the spot with her tears. He’d dampened her hair with his own. Then he’d pulled away, threw his shoulders back like a good soldier, and—as if she could live without him—climbed the stairs into the belly of the monster.

She’d pressed her white gloved hands over her mouth to keep her heart from clawing its way out as the bus belched and growled and overcame longing’s inertia. Drew kept his gaze riveted to the arched ceiling of the vehicle, or somewhere beyond its roof, so Ivy’s last view of him was his profile only, as if she’d already lost eye contact forever.

Three months ago.

She could still smell the bus fumes.

The idling bus had coughed noxious fumes in their faces as Ivy Carrington and Drew Lambert clung to each other and to their last few moments together.

“I’ll write you every day, Ivy.”

“No, you won’t.”

“I will. I swear it.”

Ivy loosened her grip on Drew’s uniform lapels, fearful of wrinkling the coarse wool, but more afraid of losing her grip on him.

“Don’t swear it, Drew. You can’t write every day. The war?” Ivy’s sarcasm twisted the tourniquet of an already tense scene.

“Conflict. The government frowns on our calling it a war.” His eyes teased.

If he wanted to lighten the mood, it wasn’t working.

Ivy’s reply gathered speed and volume as it readied itself in her throat. “Tanks and helicopters and guns and minefields and H-bombs—”

He tucked her hands tighter in his. “There won’t be another H-bomb, Ivy.”

“And men dying on both sides. What would you call it?” She regretted the harsh edge to her voice. This isn’t how she wanted him to remember her.

“I’d call it  . . .” His coy smile faded as he trolled for an answer. “I’d call it the only thing that could come between us.”

She fought to pinch back tears, her efforts as futile as a facial tissue against an open hydrant.
No, Drew. The war isn’t the only thing that could drive a wedge between us
. She carried the other possibility deep within her.

Within weeks of Drew’s unit’s departure for the alternating dust and damp of the hills of South Korea, Ivy Carrington’s “possibility” became a certainty. She mourned not having told Drew her suspicions. Now it was too late. How could she put news like that into a letter?

Ivy couldn’t risk it. She might as well paint a bull’s-eye on his uniform, as vulnerable as he’d be if distracted by her bomb of information and its consequences. Staying alive. That was his focus. She’d have to keep quiet and deal with it alone.

And that meant leaving town and moving in with her father. She couldn’t risk running into one of Drew’s friends from the
paper mill or his gossip-glutton mother or sisters. The only thing worse than Drew’s finding out would be his hearing it from someone other than Ivy.

The deception repulsed her. Like castor oil—a necessary evil.

So many eventualities might eliminate her need to tell him  . . .  ever. She hadn’t ruled out the idea of “disposal.” Illegal, but not out of the question. She could find a way. Not an option that gave her any peace. But then, maybe peace was too much to hope for.

If the baby died on its own, if she miscarried  . . . 

What kind of person saw that as an
answer
? A dead baby? Why couldn’t she think straight? Nothing made sense anymore. It was the baby’s fault. No. It was her own fault for letting the passion of a moment override her common sense.

Ivy knew Drew would blame himself. All the more reason not to tell him. He’d already apologized a dozen times for that night. It wasn’t fair for him to bear the weight of responsibility. She was a willing partner. A few minutes of what she thought was happiness. And it would cost her a lifetime of regret.

Half a continent, an ocean, and thousands of rice paddies separated them now. But the secret created the greater distance.

She stared at what she’d written, cringing at the omissions and half-truths that stared back at her. Inventive by necessity, Ivy’s airmail letters to Drew lacked the risk of vulnerability.

Dearest Drew,

I moved! I’ve been so lonely since you left that I thought a change of pace might do me good. So I’m on an adventure. I found a
job as a nursing assistant at a really nice old folks’ home in Clairmont. My supervisor has rental properties all over town and gave me a good price on a small apartment above the dry cleaner (note my new return address). It’s warm most of the time, from the steam and the mangle (that’s the machine for pressing the clothes, in case you didn’t know). I’ll appreciate the steam more midwinter. It’ll cut down on my heating bill.

You’ll like Clairmont. There’s a great diner just a couple of blocks from my apartment. I eat supper there on days I work late. Only ninety-five cents for the special. Depends on the day. Monday’s usually spaghetti. Tuesday’s pork chops. Wednesday’s meatloaf. Thursday can be chicken chow mein (looks disgusting but tastes pretty good) or sometimes Swedish meatballs, depending on the cook’s mood. Friday is always fish  . . .  for the Catholics, but I like it, too. I suppose I shouldn’t have mentioned the food, being as you’re probably choking down cold beans and canned meat every meal.

I don’t have a problem walking to work. It’s only six blocks. I sold my car—poor, sad thing—to pay for the first month’s rent, since I won’t get a paycheck until I’ve been at the home for two weeks. I don’t miss the car much, except on rainy days. I might change my mind come winter. Maybe I’ll take the bus then. Seems silly, since it’s such a short distance. We’ll see.

She’d filled two pages of onion-skin stationery and successfully avoided the one subject that occupied almost every waking moment. No mention of the fact that the smell of dry cleaning chemicals made her nauseous or that she’d moved in with her dad. Or that writing the word
meatloaf
gagged her. Or that the six blocks to work sometimes caused her ankles to swell, even this early in her pregnancy.

Have you decided yet what you want to do when you’re discharged, Drew?

What were the odds his response would be, “Start a family”?

I hope you’ll be able to finish college, like you planned. Clairmont isn’t far from the Minnesota State Teachers College. You could commute. I bet my supervisor would have something for you to rent. She owns a couple of apartment buildings—one here and one in Westbrook. Do you want me to ask her about it? No commitment or anything. Just for information?

It’s probably hard for you to think about the future while you’re over there. I think about it a lot. I miss you. I pray for you every day.