Chapter 14 - Ivy Asked the Mysterious Guest His Name
Months passed before Ivy met Silas again.
He came to Elena’s house one afternoon carrying a small cardboard box.
Ivy hid partly behind Elena.
Not afraid exactly.
Curious.
“You were at my birthday.”
“Yes.”
“You punched anybody?”
Silas looked offended.
“No.”
Elena laughed for the first time all day.
Ivy continued.
“Mom said you knew Dad.”
Silas’s expression softened.
“Very well.”
“Were you his friend?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t I know you?”
That question hurt.
Silas answered honestly.
“Your grandmother and I had a bad argument a long time ago. Your dad and I became friends again later, but quietly.”
“Why quietly?”
“Because grown-ups sometimes make simple things complicated.”
Ivy accepted that faster than Elena expected.
“What’s in the box?”
Silas opened it.
The white sugar bird.
Not edible anymore.
A decorative replica made from Evan’s original sketch.
The actual topper from the first cake had been destroyed after investigators examined the swapped materials.
Silas had commissioned a keepsake version.
Not secret.
Not explosive.
Not hidden.
Just the bird.
Ivy took it carefully.
“Dad drew this?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He said every birthday cake needed one thing that belonged only to you two.”
Ivy smiled.
Then looked suspicious.
“Did Grandma hate it?”
Silas coughed.
Elena answered:
“Yes.”
Ivy grinned.
Children enjoyed certain truths too much.
Silas did not become a substitute father.
That mattered.
He became what he actually was.
An old friend of Evan’s.
Someone who could tell Ivy stories Elena did not know.
Stories of Evan being twenty-one and ridiculous.
Getting lost on a hiking trail.
Ruining a suit in a fountain.
Trying to cook and setting off a smoke detector.
Those stories gave Ivy something Veronica’s bloodline obsession never understood.
May you like
Family continuity did not require ownership.
Sometimes it was simply another person remembering someone you loved.
