Ivy Goes Home

Chapter one:

Ivy didn’t trust cars. Or automobiles of any kind, for that matter. Her aunt Hanna shouldn’t have, either. Ivy had lived with Aunt Hanna since she was three, when her parents were killed in an automobile accident. Hanna really should have known better, but she always said she had no choice but to take the bus. Downtown, where Hanna worked, was too far to walk from their apartment. Ivy tried to tell her that they didn’t belong in the city at all, but no matter how much Ivy argued Hanna refused to move back to the country, where Ivy had grown up. Hanna was a city girl, by nature if not by birth. Ivy knew that they belonged in the country, far from cars and loud noises and foul-smelling smog. But Hanna never listened. She was better at talking than listening.

It was summer, late summer, and on Tuesday morning Ivy had seen Hanna to the door as usual to say goodbye. “If we lived in the country, you could ride a horse to work,” Ivy had said solemnly.

Hanna laughed. “Goodbye, Ivy,” she said, smiling as she shut the door. Ivy stood staring at the closed door for a second, the slightest hint of a frown on her face. Hanna never listened. Ivy had been trying for years, but Hanna never listened. With a sigh and a shake of her head, Ivy walked back to the kitchen table, where she was doing math. Hanna always made Ivy do a little bit of schoolwork every day, even in summer. If it were up to Ivy she would play with her plants all day. But she had promised to listen to Hanna.

Ivy finished the problems Hanna had set out for her to do, and then she made herself a morning snack. Ivy never ate breakfast, but she usually liked tea and a cookie around ten o’clock. Hanna always rolled her eyes whenever she saw the solemn little girl pouring herself tea. Hanna rolled her eyes a lot. She didn’t understand Ivy. Hanna was gregarious and full of laughter, and she would roll her eyes and toss her long blonde curls with a shake of her head whenever Ivy acted on her strange habits or made one of her odd statements. To Hanna, her queer little niece made no sense at all. She loved the child, but she didn’t understand her.

After her snack, Ivy carefully washed the dishes and stacked them in the dishwasher to dry. That was another of her odd habits. She never used the dishwasher to actually wash the dishes, but she liked it very much as a drying rack. Hanna shook her head whenever she saw Ivy washing dishes by hand. That was another thing that Hanna didn’t understand. But that was okay. Ivy loved her anyway.

When she was done, Ivy went onto their small terrace to play with her “garden,” a small terracotta pot full of herbs. She had rosemary and basil, a little cilantro, some sage, and her prize: lavender. She loved the lavender best of all. It was a pretty purple color, and it smelled sweet. She liked to tuck a small sprig into her hair when she went to school, but she stopped when the other children began to make fun of her. Ivy didn’t like to be made fun of. She didn’t mind being ignored, but she would not be made fun of. She refused.

Ivy liked to talk to her plants. She’d tell them stories, spin them tales to amuse both them and herself. She never wrote her stories down, although Hanna tried to encourage her to. She had no use for them once she’d told them. She didn’t like hearing stories more than once. She didn’t mind so much if Hanna was reading to her, she’d listened to Jane Eyre hundreds of times, but she didn’t see the point in writing stories down just so they could become tired. Tired stories were like wilted basil: no good.

Around two o’clock Ivy became hungry again. She made herself a small bowl of soup from the can, adding precisely ten oyster crackers. She tore some lettuce for a salad and added a little cilantro. She cut herself while slicing a radish, but she didn’t mind. She tied a bit of paper towel around her thumb and continued. Ivy didn’t mind pain too much. It was bothersome, to be sure, but usually it went away rather quickly. If it didn’t, she told Hanna, who helped her. Ivy always thought Hanna ought to have been a nurse, not a secretary. Hanna was wonderful at distracting Ivy from hurts or amusing Ivy when she was sick. But Hanna said being a nurse would be too hard, take too much school. It sounded to Ivy like she was more afraid of becoming a nurse than being one. School wasn’t so bad, really. Ivy didn’t mind hers too much.

As Ivy ate, she tried to think of ways to convince Hanna to move to the country. Ideas were slow in coming. She had been trying for years. Ivy had liked living in the country, with her parents. They had lived in a small cottage just outside a little town. Her mother had kept a garden with tomatoes that Ivy would pluck off the vine and eat raw, and her father had a patch of flowers he would let Ivy help tend to. He could bicycle to work when the weather was nice, and he often did. Her mother had stayed at home, keeping Ivy company. They had a large, shaggy dog and a stuck-up, standoffish grey cat. Ivy had been happy. She wanted to go back. She didn’t like the city. She wanted to go home.

After lunch, Ivy wandered downstairs to see their neighbor, a little old woman who insisted that she call her Grandma. Grandma always had cookies, and she liked Ivy. She would let Ivy play music on her old-fashioned Victrola, and sometimes when Ivy was feeling silly they would dance together. Grandma kept three cats, and Ivy would tell them stories when they seemed willing to listen. Often they would get up and leave in the middle of a story, but Ivy didn’t mind. She’d simply go home and talk to her herbs instead.

Ivy stayed later at Grandma’s than she usually did. She had talked to Grandma about how she was trying to convince Hanna to move to the country, but Grandma never had any suggestions. Grandma had stopped giving Ivy suggestions after the first time she tried to say that perhaps she should stop asking Hanna to move back to the country, when Ivy stopped speaking to Grandma for over a week. But she listened to Ivy talk about what she remembered, and she let Ivy take home some cookies. Grandma always gave Ivy extra cookies.

Ivy hurried upstairs, thinking that Hanna would be home and upset that Ivy had been gone when she got back. It was almost six o’clock, after all. But Hanna wasn’t home. Ivy was perplexed; Hanna almost always got home at ten til six. She didn’t understand what had happened. But, she thought, perhaps Hanna had missed her bus home, or perhaps it was late. Ivy had heard that buses weren’t always very reliable. She expected Hanna to be home soon, so she warmed up more soup for dinner.

But Hanna wasn’t home soon. In fact, she wasn’t even home by nine, which was Ivy’s bedtime. Ivy didn’t understand. Where could Hanna be? Ivy was worried, but only a little. She knew her aunt would come. She wanted to stay up and wait for Hanna, but she knew that if she wasn’t asleep when Hanna got back she would get in trouble. So she compromised, and went to sleep on the couch where she could hear Hanna when she came home.

Ivy dreamt that Hanna came back late at night and laughed at her for being worried. “I was at a party, don’t you remember? I told you I’d be late!” Hanna’s infectious laugh was still ringing in Ivy’s ears when she woke up. At first the little girl thought she hadn’t dreamt it, that it was real, but when she went into Hanna’s room the bed was still made. The clock said it was only seven, so if Hanna had come home she couldn’t have left yet. Feeling slightly sick, Ivy went back to the couch and laid down. She tried to sleep, hoping that when she woke up Hanna would be back to explain everything.

Ivy slept until almost ten o’clock. The apartment felt too large, too empty. It was so silent! Ivy drank her tea quickly and left, going to visit Grandma. She didn’t like the quiet of the apartment. Usually she didn’t mind, but today was different.

Ivy wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t tell Grandma that Hanna hadn’t come home last night. Maybe she didn’t want to worry Grandma. Maybe she was afraid of what the old woman might say. In any case, Ivy hardly talked. She ate more cookies than usual, and then she went to sit in front of the phonograph. It was playing something loud and exuberant, dancing music. Hanna would have loved it. Ivy sat and stared at it for hours, until Grandma began to worry. But Ivy said she was all right, so the old woman didn’t push the subject. She offered Ivy more cookies.

Finally Ivy decided she ought to go home. She hadn’t done any math today, and if Hanna came home and saw she would be disappointed. Ivy stood up abruptly, dumping the fat orange cat off her lap. She thanked Grandma and left, hurrying up the stairs. She didn’t know why, but as she got close to her apartment she began to run. She threw open the door, and saw—nothing. The apartment was as empty as it had been when she left.

Ivy never cried, but if she had been the type of child who did she surely would have burst into tears right then. She didn’t understand. Hanna had never not come home before. When Ivy made her angry she’d threaten to leave Ivy to fend for herself, but she’d never actually done it before. Had Ivy done anything wrong? She thought about it. She didn’t think so. Hanna had seemed cheerful when she left. She even gave Ivy a kiss goodbye, which she didn’t always do. No, Ivy hadn’t done anything that she knew of. But then why didn’t Hanna come back? And where was she?

Ivy didn’t feel like eating lunch that day. She ate a little celery with peanut butter, usually her favorite snack, but she couldn’t finish the stick. She went out and talked to her plants for a few moments, but she ended up sitting in silence on the terrace until sunset. She went to bed without supper, curling up on the couch again, and she dreamt that her basil sang to her as she slept.

Hanna didn’t come home while Ivy was asleep. They didn’t have a telephone, they couldn’t afford it, so Hanna couldn’t call to explain. Ivy wished she knew where Hanna was, but she didn’t know how to find out. Sighing, the little girl went to talk to her plants.

That night, she went to see Grandma. While she was waiting for her cookies, she saw the paper sitting on the table. It was a few days old, but Ivy decided to read it anyway. Hanna didn’t like the paper. She said it held nothing but bad news, so she didn’t order it. But Ivy liked it. She liked to read, in general, so she picked it up. When she did, she finally understood why Hanna hadn’t come home.

On the front page, it showed a picture of a car accident. Three cars had been crushed when a bus got out of control and overturned. The caption said fifteen people had been killed, but they had not yet been identified. Ivy didn’t know what bus Hanna rode, but she knew this was it. That was why Hanna hadn’t come home.

Ivy got up without speaking and walked back upstairs. Grandma looked surprised when she turned around and didn’t see her, but Ivy wouldn’t have cared even if she’d known. Ivy could only think about Aunt Hanna. She had warned her not to trust automobiles.

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Hello, all. This is an old story that I found on a friend’s computer. I started writing it last June/July. I’d give you an Honesty update (I’ve nearly finished chapter one, I think, and I’m in the mood to write) but I don’t have anything with me, so you get this instead.

In other news, Shimer College is wonderful and amazing and I never wanted my visit to end. It’s perfect for writers, because you read and discuss and write and truly learn in a way I’ve rarely seen before. I miss it; those 28-and-a-half hours made a strong impression on me. I haven’t felt this homesick since I was ten, when we came home to Michigan from a week spent at the ocean, and then when I was eleven and we flew back from Italy to life as usual. But like those times, I don’t want to go home. I want to come back to the magical place I just left.