Evercrossed Page 3

  He drove silently to the parking lot at Chatham Light.

  It's just the anniversary, she wanted to tell him. If's just the time of year stirring up these memories. Everything will be all right. But she couldn't say that, because she wasn't sure it was true.

  The sky over the ocean was dark blue, the first stars emerging in the east. In the western sky, the last splash of orange was fading fast, leaving the long spit of beach that ran south from the lighthouse painted in mauve. They walked the beach close to the water, carrying their sandals.

  "We got an e mail from Philip," Will said at last. "You, Beth, and me. He wants us to look up his blog."

  "His blog!" Ivy replied. "Hey! Some respect, please! I read it—it's an insightful commentary on summer camp. I just hope the counselor he calls "Tarantula Arms" doesn't hear about it."

  Ivy laughed. "I guess the counselor's kind of hairy."

  "And very mean, at least to a ten year old. He assigned the boys their buddies. Philip's buddy threw up on him."

  "Oh!"

  "That was after the other kids bet the buddy that he couldn't eat four hot dogs in four minutes."

  "I see. I guess summer camp is where boys train to be frat brothers."

  Will grinned at her, and she slipped her hand in his. "Philip's group is called the Badgers. He's the best pitcher and hitter of the Badgers."

  "Of course he's the best. He's my brother." Will laughed. "He likes rowing. I can't wait till he comes for vacation—I want to take him kayaking on Pleasant Bay."

  Ivy turned to look at Will. His dark hair whipped in the breeze. He had the longest lashes, which softened his intense brown eyes. "If I remember right," she said, "you promised him that you two would dress up as pirates."

  "Right, well, maybe he'll forget about that part." Ivy shook her head, grinning.

  "Philip doesn't forget that kind of promise. I hope you two don't terrorize girls sunbathing on the beach." Will laughed and put his arm around her shoulder.

  They walked on, talking about Philip, then shifting their conversation to some of the week end's quirky guests. "The people in the starfish room," Will said, re-ferring to the suite decorated in a scallop and starfish motif. "Was that woman his wife or mother?"

  "The only thing I'm sure about is that she wasn't his younger lover."

  "Maybe he is her younger lover," Will suggested. Ivy laughed out loud. "Beth's going to be filling up her notebooks with characters."

  They found the easy rhythm they had known for nearly eight months, walking and talking together.

  Strolling back to Will's car, Ivy gazed up at the lighthouse, its double beacon turning against the starlit sky. "It's beautiful," she said. "So are you," Will replied softly, pulling her toward him.

  Her arms slipped around him. He lowered his head. She would have known Will's kiss blindfolded—gentle, loving, asking, giving. She knew the curve of his upper lip, the place between his neck and shoulder where she often rested her head, the space between his knuckles that she liked to trace, and the way her hand fit into his. Ivy knew and loved these things, as much as she loved Will's kiss.

  But she could not stop thinking of Tristan.

  AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER, IVY STOOD ON THE cottage doorstep, watching Will as he whistled his way back to his; room in the renovated barn, where he hoped to get in some painting. Needing time and space to think, Ivy walked around to the ocean side of the inn. With just two couples staying on until Monday, the Adirondack chairs on the porch and lawn were empty. Shrubs edged the lawn, then gave way to scrub trees and brush that covered the steep side of the bluff down to sea level. At the end of the yard a vine covered arbor led to wooden steps, fifty two of them—Ivy had counted—running down to a narrow boardwalk that connected to a path through grassy dunes.

  Halfway down the steps was a landing, a small platform with facing benches built into it. Ivy sat down, facing north. During the day, the view was spectacular, the ocean sweeping in behind a sandy point, making a sparkling inlet where lobs term en and pleasure boaters moored. On a moonless night like tonight, the boundaries of land, water, and sky were nearly indistinguishable; the dunes and beach were so deep, Ivy couldn't hear the waves break. But the ocean was present in the salty tang and damp breeze. It was like that when Ivy thought of Tristan—she couldn't see or hear him, but still, she sensed his closeness.

  Ivy swallowed hard. What was wrong with her? She had dated Will much longer than she had known Tristan, so why couldn't she stop thinking of Tristan?

  She remembered what Tristan's mother had once said to her: "When you love someone, it's never over. You move on because you have to, but you bring him with you in your heart."

  Ivy had thought she'd succeeded in moving on. What pained her even more was that Will thought so too.

  Ivy loved Will. But did she love him enough if she didn't love him the way she loved Tristan?

  Maybe her idea of love was too lofty; maybe she expected too much of herself and Will.

  Ivy descended to the sand, then walked to the edge of the water, finding release in the ceaseless rush and draw of the sea.

  She had no idea how much time had elapsed, but when she finally returned to the cottage, she saw Beth standing on the front step, cell phone in hand. "Ivy! Thank God you're back!"

  "Is something wrong?"

  "We've got to get to Kelsey before she does something stupid. Stupider," Beth corrected herself, grimacing. "Get your car keys. I've got the address, sort of."

  "Where's Dhanya?"

  "With Kelsey. And only a little more sober than she is."

  "Where's Aunt Cindy?" Ivy asked. "Out still."

  Beth's cell phone rang. "Here we go again." After a moment of listening, she said, "Dhanya, I told you before. Take the keys away from her. Throw them in the ocean if you have to. No, no! it's not a good idea for you to drive!"

  "Back in a sec," Ivy said.

  "Should I get Will?" Beth called after her.

  "No, he's painting, and it'll take too long for him to clean up."

  Ivy returned with her keys and wallet, and they sprinted to the car. "Where are we going?" Ivy asked, starting the engine.

  "To a road somewhere off Route Twenty eight."

  "Beth, three quarters of Cape Cod is off Twenty eight!"

  "She said Marsala Road. But I've never heard of it." Ivy entered it into the GPS, with Orleans as the town, then Brewster, then Harwich. "Nothing's coming up."

  "She said they passed a lighthouse. Try Eastham and Chatham—they have lighthouses. Chatham first. My cousin always goes where the money is."

  "Marsala Road, come on, Marsala Road," Ivy said

  "Morris Island Road!" Beth exclaimed suddenly. "I bet that was it. She was slurring her words. I think there's a place in Chatham named Morris Island."

  Ivy typed it in.

  "I have an idea for a new app," Beth added, "one that interprets directions from drunken party girls." She pointed to the highlighted route on the screen. "There it is, south of the lighthouse."

  Ivy pulled out of the crushed stone driveway and onto Cockle Shell Road. "I know the way as far as the lighthouse. Will and I walked that beach tonight."

  Ivy wound her way through the community. Once they got to Route 28, she pushed the speed limit, glad it was 11:50 p.m. and the weekend crowd had departed.

  "I could strangle Kelsey," Beth said. "I could just strangle her."

  "Try to get her on her cell."

  "I did—I couldn't."

  "Then try Dhanya again. We need an address."

  As Ivy drove, she thought about Will. He'd be upset with them for not asking for his help. But Ivy couldn't ask one more favor, knowing all that he had already done for her, knowing that while she was kissing him, all she could think of—

  "She's not picking up," Beth said.

  "Keep trying." They drove through the commercial edge of Chatham and passed the lighthouse. Beach houses lined both sides of the road, most of their windows dark. "Stage Harbor should
be coming up on the right," Beth said, looking at the GPS screen. "There it is. The road we're on goes directly to Morris Island. "

  A minute later they entered the island's wooded community. Ivy's headlights showed a narrow, winding road and stripes of trees. "Want me to keep going? It's not that big of a place, just a few streets," she said, glancing at the map.

  "Maybe we can go slowly and listen for the party."

  They rolled down their windows. Ivy slowed to a crawl whenever they saw lights through the trees, and listened intently. The road ended with a pair of driveways. As Ivy turned the car around, Beth tried to call Dhanya again.

  "I've got her! Dhanya, listen to me. We're close. What's the address? . .. Well, ask somebody! Who the heck is giving the party—they must know where they live!"

  Beth turned to Ivy. "Unbelievable! She's trying to find the person whose booze they've been drinking." Ivy shook her head, and drove slowly down the road they had just scouted. It wasn't going to be a fun ride back to the inn, she thought.

  "Ivy, look out!"

  Headlights came out of nowhere. The person was driving crazily, as if no one else was on the road. Ivy stepped on the brake, then saw that stopping wouldn't help. She had to evade, but the road was too narrow. She accelerated, trying to get to a driveway and pull in.

  "Oh my God!" Beth screamed. Ivy yanked the wheel hard to the right. One moment she could feel the road under her car, the next, it was gone. Two wheels rose in the air as the car rolled, the world of night and trees turning around her and Beth.

  "Beth? Beth?" Dhanya's voice sounded small and far away as the cell phone bounced around the car.

  The driver's side slammed into something solid. Steel crumpled inward. Before she could cry out, Ivy's world collapsed into a black hole.

  Four

  FOR A MOMENT, IVY WAS AWARE OF NOTHING BUT darkness. It felt as if all of the night's weight bore down on her, then, unexpectedly, the pressure eased.

  "Beth? Beth, are you okay?" Her friend's eyes fluttered open. "Beth. Thank God," Ivy said with relief. "We've got to get out of this car. My side is smashed in. We'll have to use yours, okay?" Beth gazed at her wordlessly. "You with me?" Ivy asked, uncertainly. Beth continued to stare at Ivy. "I'll help you," Ivy said, trying to pull herself up, but she couldn't move. "On second thought, you may need to help me. I'm caught somehow."

  Beth looked at Ivy as if she couldn't comprehend what she was seeing. "What is it?" Ivy asked. Beth began to shake. "Beth? Answer me."

  But it was as if her friend couldn't hear or understand what she was saying.

  "Answer me! Beth, please!"

  Beth opened her mouth. She screamed and screamed.

  "It's okay, it's okay," Ivy told her, trying to calm her. But Beth started to sob.

  "We're going to be okay. Oh, angels, help. Tristan, help. Tristan, we need you," Ivy called out.

  At last she was free of the thing that restrained her. "All right, now." She touched Beth, then pulled back, surprised. She couldn't feel Beth's shoulder. She reached out again and gazed in disbelief as her own hand passed through her friend's.

  Then Ivy began to understand why Beth had screamed, why she was sobbing.

  Free of her body, Ivy was light, as weightless as a moonbeam and floating steadily upward. Looking down, she saw her body in the mangled car, the airbag deployed, and the metal frame of the windshield bent inward. She saw her head against the crushed frame, blood darkening it.

  The only pain Ivy felt was an intense yearning for those she loved. Below her, a night mist enveloped Beth and the twisted car. Along the narrow strip of road, another car raced away. The land and sea merged in darkness.

  The longing to say good bye was all that tethered Ivy to the night below. She spoke the names of those she loved, asking the angels to watch over them: "Philip, Mom, Andrew, Beth, Will, Suzanne... Tristan. Tristan."

  "My love."

  Ivy held still, suspended within a cathedral of starlight. The old world that turned beneath her grew still, as if time had stopped.

  "Tristan?"

  "My love."

  "Tristan!" Ivy closed her eyes, so that his voice would become stronger in her.

  "Can I really hear you? Is it possible? Oh, Tristan, even in death, I want you near me."

  "Even in death, my love."

  "Always, Tristan."

  "Always, Ivy." A gold shimmer enveloped her. "You told me I had to move on," Ivy said, half crying for the loss of him, half laughing with the joy of finding him.

  "You said I was meant to love someone else, but I couldn't."

  "Nor could I."

  "Every day, every hour, I have held you close in my heart."

  "As I held you," he said.

  "Don't leave me, Tristan," she begged. "Please don't leave again." She felt his warmth wrap around her. "I need you."

  "I'll always be with you, Ivy."

  She felt his kiss on her lips. "Don't let go!"

  "I promise you, Ivy, I'll always be with you," he said again. His love reached into every part of her, his pure heat burning within her. Suddenly, she felt her heart beating—beating wildly, like a caged bird, against her ribs.

  Five

  "WHAT ELSE DO YOU REMEMBER?" THE WOMAN police officer asked.

  Ivy gazed out the window of the hospital room at the pale yellow clouds of early morning. "That's it. The car—the vehicle," she corrected herself, since that was what they were calling it, "came from the other direction straight at us. Braking wouldn't help. He was going too fast. I had to avoid him."

  "Him?"

  "Or her. Or them. Head on like that, and in the dark, all I could see was the headlights." She remembered looking down on a vehicle and assuming it was a car—but the perspective of someone floating above her car and the road on which the accident occurred wouldn't make sense to the police. It barely made sense to Ivy—she knew rather than understood what had happened.

  The moment Ivy had become conscious again, her spirit had felt extraordinarily light, while her body had seemed a heavy and clumsy thing to her. She had clung to the memory of being with Tristan, afraid it would slip through the grasp of her earthbound fingers.

  "Do you remember anything about the sound of the vehicle?" the police officer asked.

  Jolted out of her thoughts, Ivy stared at the woman blankly until she repeated her question.

  "No," Ivy said. "Beth was screaming, telling me to watch out. That's all I remember hearing."

  They had already gone over why she and Beth were driving on that road. Ivy knew that both of them had been given toxicology tests.

  At that point, the nurse entered her room. Andy's genial face was the first Ivy remembered seeing after arriving at Cape Cod Hospital six hours ago. She couldn't recall anything about the ER, but had been told that Beth, Will, and Aunt Cindy had taken turns staying with her and sleeping on the waiting room sofas, and that her mother was on the way.

  "Ivy's had a tough night," he began.

  "I'm done," the policewoman said, standing up. "If more questions arise, I'll be in touch. Stay safe."

  Andy checked the record of Ivy's vitals signs on the room's computer, and shook his head. "Our own miracle girl! I like starting the work week with a miracle." The nurse was tanned, sandy haired, in his early forties, Ivy guessed. The lines around his eyes crinkled when he smiled. "Your numbers are good. How are you feeling?"

  "Great."

  "You wouldn't fake it now, would you?"

  "No. Well . . . maybe a little," she admitted. "Is this all I get for breakfast?"

  He lifted the lid and saw that the plate, like the tray, was empty. "I guess you're not faking it. You know, if word gets around, we're going to have religious pilgrim types flocking here, wanting to touch your head. I have no idea how that head wound stopped itself from bleeding, or how, given the EMS description of the amount of blood in your car, your hematocrit could be normal. But it is. The doctor said he's seen a case like yours before, but between you and me"—A
ndy lowered his voice—"the guy's full of it. He just doesn't like to admit that there are some things he and medicine haven't figured out."

  Like angels, Ivy thought. Had Tristan healed her? Had he saved her?

  "You have visitors. Mom and little brother first?" the nurse asked.

  "Please."

  Andy headed toward the door, then turned back to open a drawer next to Ivy's bed. He set an extra box of tissue on the table top. "You might need this."

  "Oh, baby!" her mother said, rushing in with Philip behind her.

  Andy was right. A handful of tissues later, Ivy said, "I'm glad you didn't wear your eyeliner, Mom."

  "Or lipstick," Philip added. His eyes, green like Ivy's, were now rimmed with red. "Or her cheek stuff. She left it all home."

  Maggie and her makeup kit were rarely parted. "I'm sorry I upset you, Mom."

  "She even forgot her comb," Philip said. "That's why her hair looks like that."

  Maggie patted her head self consciously. "My mind was all on you, baby. But don't worry, I did think to bring you something to wear while you're here."

  Uh oh, thought Ivy.

  "Fortunately, the nightgown and robe I gave you last Christmas looked barely worn."

  Mostly because they hadn't been. Ivy's friend Suzanne, who was in Europe for the summer, had suggested that Ivy wear the gown and robe combo to the senior prom—or a Halloween party. Of course, it was nothing compared to the bridesmaid dress that Ivy's mother had chosen for her when Maggie and Andrew were married. Scarlett O'Hara dropped in a bucket of glitter was what Ivy thought every time she looked at the wedding photos. But it made her smile, because among several informal photos stuffed in the back of the wedding album was a picture of Tristan, in waiter's garb, launching a tray of fresh vegetables over the bridal party.

  "Ivy, are you listening?" her mother asked. "Do you want me to help you get this on?"

  "I'll wear just the robe," Ivy replied. Like the gown, it was filmy pink and trimmed with lots of feathery stuff.