What Happened to Ivy by Kathy Stinson Page A

believed in heaven? Hannah’s idea of heaven sounds better than the idea of angels singing and playing harps and stuff. The day of Ivy’s funeral she said she thought heaven could be different things for different people. Like for me it might be a garden and for Dad it might be someplace where he could actually live like the ancient Greeks and Romans, and not just give lectures about them.
    In the shade of a large maple, I spot a bench and sit down. I’ve been wandering the gardens for a long time and I was beat before I started.
    On a nearby pond, water lilies open their petals to the pale sun. Nymphaea something – I forget what the white ones are called. Perched on their shiny leaves, fat frogs bask in the warmth. Dragonflies dart back and forth over the surface of the water.
    A warm breeze strokes my face, my hands feel heavy, resting beside me on the bench. On the far side of the pond cattails sway, and I feel my eyes beginning to close.
    From far across a huge field, Ivy is running toward me with a pack of dogs – little, big, red, yellow, and blue – just like the dogs in her favorite book. There’s one brown dog, too. As clearly as anyone anywhere has ever spoken, Ivy calls out, “Is that you, Livingston?”
    The brown dog barks, “To the tree!” And into the tree Ivy flies like a bird.
    The dogs in the tree are wearing hats. Ivy shouts, “A dog party!”
    Something tickles the back of my hand. A feather from a party hat.
    I open my eyes.
    A dragonfly has landed on my hand. Its eyes are huge. They take up a good part of its head. And I can see how each separate leg is attached to the dragonfly’s long slender body. Its wings are like stained glass, a bunch of tiny panes all knit together with intricate black lines. Ivy would have noticed the tiny rainbows in the wings that are both delicate and strong. They sparkle in the sun as the dragonfly leaves my hand.
    Water laps against the reeds growing at the edge of the pond. Water, lapping the shore.
    Too bad my dream of Ivy’s heaven was just that. A dream.
    “Do you mind if we join you here?” Two nuns smile down at me.
    “No, it’s okay,” I say, getting up. “I was just leaving. Seriously. Nothing personal.” I hurry then around the pond and through the Japanese garden toward the tea house.
    Just approaching the door as I get there, is a woman pushing an old man in a wheelchair. I don’t recognize him at first, till he lifts a hand and smiles. “David!”
    The woman with him says, “You must be the young man Mr. Paley has been telling me about. I can’t tell you how pleased he was that you called today. I’ll leave you two to chat alone for a while. Say, half an hour?”
    “Sure. Yeah.” The sight of Will in a wheelchair is still a bit of a shock.
    The tea house hostess leads us to a table on the patio. When she goes to move a chair to make room for Will, he says, “I’d like to be facing the coreopsis, please.”
    “You always did like the yellow flowers best, eh?” I settle in across the table. “So, Will, what’s with the wheelchair?”
    Will shakes his head. “My first night in the home, I fell going into the bathroom.”
    “I guess it was good you were there then.”
    Will dismisses my comment with a shaky flick of his hand. “You didn’t call me up today to talk about the foolish frailties of an old man. Tell me, what are your new neighbors like? Nice people living in my old house, I hope?”
    I can’t bring myself to talk about Hannah. Not now.
    “Yeah. Turns out it’s someone Mom used to know.”
    Will orders tea and I order a root beer. We talk a bit about the library at the seniors’ home – it’s so-so – and the meals. Pretty good. We talk about school starting up soon and music the choir might do this year. The waitress brings us our drinks and Will gets me to do the sugar in his tea. Tapping his fingers together, he says, “I’ve lost a little something here. Coordination.” He asks me about my garden.
    Again