I am growing tired of the constant comparisons to my mother lately. They make me doubly thankful for Bishop, who, when he looks at me, sees only me, not the shadow of some long-dead memory.
“You knew my mother, too?” I ask.
Mrs. Lattimer smiles, but it’s mirthless. “A smart woman always knows her competition. ”
Well, that answers the question of exactly how much Mrs. Lattimer knew about the relationship between her husband and my mother. Did her heart sing the day they found my mother hanging from the tree because her rival was finally gone? Or did it break because she knew that from that day on, her husband would never, ever be truly free of my mother?
“You hate that I’m the one he married, don’t you?” I ask.
Mrs. Lattimer sighs. “I hate that every time I see you, I see her. But whatever you might think, I’m fair enough to know that’s not your fault. ” She fingers the pearls at her throat, her eyes like chipped ice. “I want my son to be happy. And if you can do that for him, then we won’t have a problem. ”
I notice my happiness does not enter into the equation. And I know that if Mrs. Lattimer had even the slightest inkling of my plans for her son, she would not hesitate one second to destroy me. She, I think, is probably the most ruthless of us all.
Susan returns with a box of beads, which she shows to Mrs. Lattimer. There is some discussion about making a chain with them to wind through my hair.
“Pull it all up?” Susan says, eyeing my mane.
“No, I don’t think all of it up,” Mrs. Lattimer says. “That’s too severe for her. Having some down around her face suits her. ”
I look at her in the mirror and think I see a little give in her eyes as she looks at me, a very minor softening. But when I try to give her a tiny smile in return, her face turns stern. “Hold still, Ivy,” she says. “We’re a long way from done. ”
As mid-summer begins its long, slow descent into fall, my life takes on a newly familiar rhythm. I wake early and eat breakfast with Bishop before work. At night we reverse the routine, eating dinner together before Bishop begins tinkering with whatever needs fixing around the house. There’s always some project requiring his attention. Some nights I retire to the screened porch and read. Others, I sit and watch him work; he’s efficient but not in a hurry. Bishop never rushes, never seems like he has anything to do other than what he’s doing at that moment. Just being near him calms my racing mind.
We are easier with each other than we were in the beginning. We talk about safe things—my job, the coming winter, the plans for his father’s birthday celebration. We do not touch. The lack of contact does not feel like the relief that it should.
I know my days with him are running short. My father has given me the time he promised. Time to come to terms with what he’s asking of me and what he expects. But he can’t afford to wait forever and I can’t keep dragging my feet. The three-month deadline is coming up fast. Whenever I picture Callie in my head, all I can see is her standing with her arms crossed, toe tapping impatiently. Get on with it, Ivy. Soon I will have to find a way into the gun safe, and then it will be too late to turn back.
But for tonight, I just long for something good to eat, some quiet conversation, to watch Bishop’s eyes light up as he smiles. There are no dinner smells drifting from the kitchen when I come in the front door, though. No lamps are on in the house and the rooms have a shadowed twilight glow.
“I’m out here,” Bishop’s voice calls from the screened porch.
I step through from the kitchen and he’s sitting on the floor, next to the squat table between the wicker couches. The table is covered in an old tablecloth that puddles onto the floor. On the table is an assortment of meats and cheeses, fresh fruit, cut vegetables, slices of bread. A cluster of unlit candles sits at one end, next to a pitcher of water.
“What’s all this?” I ask.
“Ice didn’t get delivered,” Bishop says. “Figured we might as well stuff ourselves before the food goes bad. ” He looks around the ivy-shrouded porch. “Semi-indoor picnic. ”
I smile, slip off my shoes, and join him. I sit across from him, the food-laden table between us.
“Dig in,” he says with a grin. We don’t bother with plates, creating little sandwiches, piles of meat and cheese, right on the tablecloth. Bishop pushes the entire carton of strawberries toward me and although I give a halfhearted protest, I end up eating them all. By the time we’re done, most of the food is gone and what’s left I couldn’t fit in my stomach anyway.
“Oh, I’m stuffed,” I say, leaning back against the couch behind me.
“That was the idea,” Bishop says.
“What are the candles for?” I ask, nodding at the table.
“I figured we could light them and pretend we’re at summer camp. ”
I can’t tell from his face whether he’s teasing me or not. “I never went to summer camp. ”
“Never?”
I shake my head. My father didn’t like Callie and me being away from him for that long. A less generous person might say he didn’t like it when we were out from under his influence. Either way, I was never allowed to attend the summer camp in the woods for kids aged ten to fourteen, not even for a single night.
“Well, now we have to light them,” Bishop says. He kneels next to the table and lights the candles, three short, fat pillars and two tall, slender tapers. Once they’re lit, he scoots back against the opposite sofa, his long legs breaching the space between us, so they lie almost against mine, his toes at my hip.
“What did you do at camp?” My voice sounds slightly breathless and I’m not sure why. I don’t want to think about why.