Wild Swans Read Free

pictures from when she was my age.
    Maybe she took them with her.
    Or maybe she threw them away. Maybe she didn’t want the memories any more than she wanted us.
    When I was little, I prayed for her to come home.
    But I’m seventeen now, and this is way too little, way too late.
    â€œI know,” Granddad says. He’s the one who raised me to believe that family is everything: duty and love and legacy. “But we have to think about your sisters.”
    â€œ Sisters? ” I clutch the flashlight, knuckles white. “More than one?”
    â€œCame as a surprise to me too. Isobel is fifteen. Grace”—his voice wobbles. That was Grandmother’s name—“is six.”
    I’ve got sisters. Two of them. I wonder if they are perfect little Milbourn girls with marvelous talents. I wonder if they know that I exist.
    â€œI know this won’t be easy for you, Ivy. It won’t be easy for me either. But Erica and her husband are getting divorced, and she lost her job, and she needs a place to stay. It took a lot for her to ask. I couldn’t turn her away.” He avoids my eyes and fiddles with his big, silver watch.
    Those are his tells. Granddad is a terrible poker player.
    â€œYou already said yes,” I realize. “When are they coming?”
    â€œSaturday.”
    That’s four days from now. I run my fingers through my long hair, catching at the tangles. “I see.” My voice is frosty.
    â€œIt’s only temporary. Just till she can earn some money and get back on her feet. I’m sure she’ll want to get the girls back to their schools in September.”
    â€œSeptember? But that’s the whole summer!”
    And this summer was supposed to be perfect .
    Every summer, Granddad signs me up for activities: writing camp up at the college or watercolors at the Arts League or a production of Oklahoma at the Sutton Theater. This year I put my foot down: no classes. I’m volunteering at the library and I’ll be swimming every day. I need this, I told Granddad—a real summer. A break before senior year and all its pressures: captaining the swim team, copyediting the yearbook, taking three AP classes, and applying for college. And most of all (though I didn’t say this part) I am desperate for a break from the restless, relentless search for my talent.
    Granddad agreed, as long as I promised to submit some of my poems for publication.
    How am I supposed to relax with my mother and newfound sisters living here all summer long.
    â€œCan she do that?” I ask. “Take them out of New York? Their dad won’t mind?”
    â€œI don’t get the sense that Isobel has a relationship with her father, and Grace’s dad—” Granddad clears his throat, avoiding my gaze again. “They don’t live in New York. Haven’t for a while. They’re over in DC now.”
    â€œOh. I see,” I say again.
    And I do. Clear as day. My mother’s been living two hours away, and she still couldn’t be bothered to come visit. To join us for Thanksgiving dinner. To cheer me on at one of my swim meets.
    I’m not even worth a tank of gas.

Chapter
Two
    Bong. Bong. Bong.
    The doorbell gives another stately chime, and I give the table one last glance. I’ve set it with our blue-flowered china and plunked a vase of daisies in the middle. With rain pattering on the windows and a loaf of French bread baking in the oven, the kitchen is downright homey.
    I might be a mess, but there’s no reason perfect Connor Clarke needs to know that.
    Bong. Bong. Bong.
    â€œIvy, can you get that?” Granddad hollers from his office.
    He’s on the phone with Erica. They’ve been talking for a while now, his voice rising and falling like choppy waves against the dock. They’re already fighting.
    Maybe he’ll tell her she can’t come.
    â€œGot it!” I hurry down the hall, past the living room we hardly