Ivy of Our Hearts

Twenty-nine

"We should show him," Margaret said. She lay on her back with her legs crossed and the letter held before her. "I would want to know," she said, giving it back to me.

In the front room, Manderley scraped the door wanting to be let out. I gathered the letters, making sure the one of his mother was on top. "Are you coming?" I asked, getting to my feet.

"Yeah." She kicked back the covers. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she said, "We should think about what we're going to say first."

We were quiet, thinking. I couldn't figure out a way to get around the wound the letters would fester. Phillip had been abandoned, and how we talked to him wouldn't change that.

"It's better to do it now than later," I said, pulling open the door.

"My heart aches for him," Margaret said. As she came from the bed, she almost stepped on my beetle. She picked it up. "What's this?"

"A gift from Manderley."

She turned it over in her hand. "Is it real?"

"I think so."

Scrunching her nose, she dropped it onto the nightstand and wiped her hand on her dress. I let her go out first. Since I'd found the letters, I should tell him. And like Margaret said, thrusting them into his lap wasn't right. I had to be gentle.

Manderley had woken him with her scraping. He sat up as we came in. "Good morning," he said. He'd slept shirtless. Every other morning, he'd been dressed before everyone. I'd never seen him like this. Flustered, I thumbed through the letters. "You guys are up early," he said, as Margaret plopped down onto the couch next to him. Grinning, he scooted over to make more room. I didn't move from behind the couch.

"What do you have there, Ivy?" he asked.

I swallowed and held the letters up. "I found these," I said, which wasn't what I'd planned to say. But seeing him shirtless and in a better mood had produced a host of butterflies inside me. Oh God. This would ruin his day. "Margaret and I found them in the nightstand," I said, eyes on her now. She gave me an "are you kidding me?" look. And I gave her an "I panicked" look back.

Phillip held out his hands for them. He'd seen the exchange between us.

Margaret held his arm. "Before you read them, remember that we want you to feel better about this."

"Never mind that. I want to read them," he said.

I gave them to him. We watched as he read each one. When he finished, he gave the letters to Margaret and got up. He went to the bookshelf where he took down a thick, red leather-bound book, a photo album. I moved closer to see as he sat with it. He flipped through the pages, until he came to a photo of a handsome, young black man.

"Is that Frederick?" I asked. Right away, I noticed similarities between the photo I'd found of Nora and this photo. It had been taken on the same day.

"I think so," Phillip said.

Frederick stood tall and proud and with a wide grin on his face, so unlike Nora's uncertain posture in her photo. He wore a newsboy cap, but beneath it his eyes glimmered with as much virility as any boy his age. Phillip turned the page. In the last photo, Frederick and Nora stood side by side, his arm wrapped around her waist in a way that said, "We are in love." The Frederick in this photo and the one before it would have answered Nora's letters had she sent them. They were happy. They were young. They were in love.

Phillip slammed the book closed. He rubbed his eyes. "She'd begun to lose her mind," he said. "And I couldn't help."

"It wasn't your fault," Margaret said. She took the album from him and handed it to me.

I flipped through it. Most of the photos were of Nora. Nora as a baby. Nora as a five-year-old. Nora as a young woman. There were a few of Nora and Phillip. Those few photos warmed me. She'd loved him like he'd been her own. Even if the paintings or the letters weren't true, Nora and Phillip were as contrary in appearances as Frederick and Nora had been. His eyes were blue while hers were gray. Her graying hair had once been blonde while his had always been the color of night. There were no pictures of another man who could have been his father, so maybe Nora hadn't lied about that part.

Nora had lived in these woods on her own. I could imagine, after so many years of being without Frederick, finding someone who'd love her back without doubt. I could imagine the way baby Phillip had curled into her breasts, already in love.

Phillip stood. "I need to clear my head," he said. "I'm heading down to the lake. If you need anything, help yourselves." He grabbed a change of clothes from his bag and took them into the bathroom. I went and sat next to Margaret as the faucet sprang to life.

"Look," I said, pointing at a photo of Phillip and Nora. In the photo Phillip stood on a chair with a toy car in his hands. Nora stood beside him, her arm around his shoulders. "Smile for the camera," she must have said minutes before the timer went off. He smiled, big and toothless, happy, and unknowing that Nora might not be his real mother.

"So sweet." Margaret laughed. We went through the photos one by one, marveling at the young man who'd we'd both come to love. He'd always been as vivacious, as good-looking, and his half smile had grown with him.

"Manderley should be back soon," he said now, one foot holding the door open. "Would you let her in for me?"

"We will," I said.

After a slight wave, he left. He didn't come back until the sun had begun to dip below the trees. By then, I'd already decided that I would help him in whatever ways someone could help a friend. I'd never used the word friend to describe anyone other than Margaret.

I had a full heart now with them near.