Chapter Forty-Nine Ivy

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Ivy

" I vy …"

"Ivy …" a voice says again. A firm, warm hand rubs my arm and my eyes fly open. I look at the clock. Seven a.m. Thursday. The only day we don't get up at the crack of dawn because Cole handles the morning chores and I don't have to be at the barn until eight. After Wade made me the dinner of my dreams, before we made our way to bed where he reminded me one more time how hard it is going to be to ever leave here, I fell into a fast, deep sleep, so much so that I didn't even wake up through the night, much less to my phone buzzing on the nightstand just now. I pick it up just as the call ends and heads to voicemail. I focus and jolt up in bed. Wade, sensing something is wrong, jolts up beside me.

"What is it?"

"Fourteen calls from my mama. What the hell?" I don't even have time to rub my eyes before it rings again. Dread fills my soul as I answer.

"Mama," I say frantically. "What's wrong?"

"Ivy …"

I blink at the voice that doesn't fit on the other end of the line.

"Brad?" I ask, not knowing how to make sense of anything right now.

Wade growls beside me.

"Where's my mama?"

"She's been in a car accident."

"What?" All the blood drains from my face and I feel like I'm floating. "Where is she? Why did they …?" Wade grips my thigh to settle me. I breathe.

"Where are you?"

"She's in x-ray. We're at the hospital in Pendalton," he says, mentioning the hospital a few counties over from Jellico. What was she doing so early in the morning near Pendalton?

"She's asking for you, she's in and out. She's got a pretty good bump on her head and her wrist is all fucked up. I think the glass cut her up a bit too. I've been trying to call for almost an hour," Brad adds.

"Fucking shit, shit, shit." I'm somehow already standing as I mutter under my breath, and so is Wade, tossing on his own clothes as I do and he has no idea what's even going on yet.

"I'm on my way," I say and then I hang up.

An hour and fifteen minutes later, Wade and I are pushing through the doors at Pendalton Community Hospital. It's a miracle I even have shoes on; I don't even remember the drive here, I just know I have to get her into a program. What if someone else was hurt because she was drinking and then got behind the wheel? What Wade must think of her. He hasn't really spoken other than to ask me if I'm alright or tell me she's going to be okay. After a thirty-minute phone call with Cassie to fill her in, where she proceeded to tell me this isn't the first time my mother has driven drunk, I was grateful for the silence because if I tried to talk after that I would've burst into tears.

As I'm speeding through the waiting area, I'm muttering under my breath, "I should've been here. I should've made sure she got the help she needed."

"You can only help people as much as they want to help themselves," Wade whispers in my ear, squeezing my shoulder as we make our way to the reception desk. I don't know if he heard me mutter that or he was just assuming he knew the thoughts running through my head, but just those words threaten to make me lose it. I've already lost my dad; I can't lose my mom too.

I make my way across the small emergency waiting room to a glass enclosure. The nurse behind the reception desk has dark curly blond hair and types quickly into his computer, ignoring my existence. I wait a few minutes and then begin to tap my nails on the counter without thinking, Finally, he finishes and looks up at me, pushing his glasses up his nose as he speaks.

"Are you looking for someone?"

"My mother, Glenda Spencer, was brought in a few hours ago from a car accident."

He nods and goes back to typing. "She's being stitched up right now, and your fiancé is here. You can go back to see her, Room C-22."

I don't miss Wade's grunt at the word fiancé. Nonetheless, he slips his hand over mine to remind me we're in this together, and we start to move. I realize somewhere in the back of my mind that this will be the first time Wade meets my mother. The last time I saw her was in November and she was a little worse for wear when I went home for a visit. I've meant to get back more, we've just been so deep in training. A wave of embarrassment for my mother's addiction and guilt for her choices washes over me—that is until I turn the corner to my mother's room and see Brad at her bedside looking like he's actually worried, waiting for her to return from being stitched. Now the only feeling I have is rage.

Wade posts up beside me like we're a unit waiting to attack when Brad stands. I can feel the anger radiating off of him as he squeezes my hand.

Brad wastes no time and comes over to me quickly but Wade is quicker.

"That's close enough, tell us what happened and then leave."

Brad scoffs, but Wade doesn't waste one millisecond entertaining him; he towers over Brad and grips his shirt collar tight. I can see the restraint in his eyes. Brad's hat tumbles off his head to the floor but I don't move. Part of me wants Brad to know he isn't going to fuck with me anymore, and Wade is doing a mighty good job of showing him just that right now, so I let him for just a moment.

"We're not going to fuck around here, no more games. I know every single filthy fucking thing you did to her, and I'll tell you that it's by the sheer grace of God and the fact that we're in a public place that I'm not pummeling you into next week right now. The only words out of your mouth will be what happened to Glenda, and then you will fucking leave before I put you in the room next door. Is that fucking clear?"

"Look, I don't know what she told you, but I never treated her poorly. I loved her when no one else—"

"Wade, let him breathe so he can tell me what happened," I say as calmly as possible. I've heard enough. A true narcissist never admits they're wrong. "He isn't worth it," I add.

Wade lets go but he's emitting steam as he backs up one foot and sets his jaw expectantly.

Brad picks up his hat and dusts it off nervously as he talks. "EMS called me this morning. They tried your phone number that was listed in your mom's phone as her emergency but it was disconnected." He eyes Wade as he says this, then looks back to me.

"I've talked to my mom with my new number—this makes no sense," I say.

"She still had your old one in there listed as Ivy, I had to search through her text messages to find you—your new number is still just a number. My ranch number was the second point of contact, so they called me. I came right away, and when I got here and figured out your number, I started calling you."

You'd almost think he was genuinely concerned, but I know him better than that, this is just a means to an end to get to me. He never cared about my mama when we were together and he sure as hell doesn't now.

"Miss Spencer?" A man's voice calls to me from the doorway, I spin around to face him.

"Yes?"

"I'm Dr. Terry Evans, I have been treating your mother this morning."

"How is she? Is she—" How do you ask if someone is drunk without making them sound terrible.

"She's okay, she almost hit a deer, around five this morning, swerved to miss it and got a nasty bump on the head when she hit the ditch. Her airbag has given her a fair bit of fabric burn, and I had to set her wrist as it was broken in two places." I wince, having my ankle just sprained was painful, I can't imagine breaking a bone in two places. "We also had to give her quite a bit of blood, she lost a lot to a cut on her leg and she's a rare type—AB negative. EMS thinks it was about sixty minutes before anyone noticed her and called it in."

"Like a blood transfusion?"

He nods in response. "Yes."

"Was anyone else hurt?"

The doctor looks at me with a question in his eyes.

"No, she was alone, and she's doing well, all things considered. A little shaken up, of course. They'll be bringing her down momentarily. I'd like her to stay a night or two to keep watch on her."

I look from Wade to Brad and then back to the doctor, not wanting to ask this in front of either of them but not really having a choice.

I close my eyes and go for it.

"Is she … was she … under the influence?"

The doctor flips open his paperwork and skims through it. "She's been very coherent, I wouldn't think so, no. Ah yes, here we are, your mother's blood alcohol level was zero."

She wasn't drinking? Zero? I don't remember the last time I saw my mother where I could say her blood alcohol level was zero. Is she trying to quit drinking again?

"That's what I was going to tell you," Brad says from behind me. "She said she's seventeen days sober. She was going to an early morning AA meeting in Pendalton."

Tears well up in my eyes as I wish that this could be the time she makes it through. The doctor smiles and nods.

He isn't out the door for more than a few seconds when I turn to speak, fire rising in my gut. I've been tiptoeing around this for months, but if my mama can be so strong all on her own, so can I.

"Brad, thank you for answering that call and for reaching me. I'll be sure to remove your number from her phone, but I don't ever want to see you again. You were terrible to me, you abused me and I won't forgive you. Don't contact me anymore. Don't use my new number. If you do, or you get your family to, I'll be seeking a restraining order." I cross my arms over my chest and stand as strong as I can for eight in the morning, on no coffee and a shit ton of adrenaline.

Wade stands firm beside me, and I know it takes everything in him not to hit Brad, but he doesn't, he just rubs my back, maintaining his control as he speaks, backing me up.

"And Brad, if you ever have a time where you forget what Ivy just said, I'll break every bone in your fucking body just to remind you, and you know what? My smile will grow with every single snap."

Brad motions to get the hell out of this room; his jig of the caring ex is up and he knows it.

"She's all yours," he mutters, squeezing by Wade and out the door.

"That's fucking right, she is," Wade says in a tone I wouldn't ever want to fuck with.

I breathe out a sigh, knowing that this may actually be the last time I see Brad. He would never want to run his father's name through the mud, and a restraining order would do just that. I am wiping a tear off my cheek, reminding myself Brad Bellingham isn't worth one single tear, just as my mama comes around the corner in a bed on wheels being pushed by a nurse.

I go to her immediately and hug her as best I can. Her face does have fabric burn on the entire left side and her wrist is in a cast. Her one eye is black and blue and she has what I assume is that nasty cut the doctor mentioned wrapped on her thigh, but she actually looks healthier than I've seen her look in a long time. Her eyes are bright and free from under-eye bags, and her smile is clear and full.

"Baby, I'm so glad you're here. That was the scariest thing that's ever happened to me. I'm sorry I didn't add your number in properly and Brad had to come," she whispers in my ear.

I let her go when the nurse clears her throat.

"I'm supposed to get Mrs. Spencer set up so she can rest.Pain meds will make her sleepy."

As if on cue, my mom yawns, and the nurse must sense my hesitation because she turns to me and says quietly, "Give me twenty minutes to settle her, go get a coffee, then you can sit by her side." She pats my arm and smiles. "She's going to be just fine. Looks worse than it is."

It's those words that sucker punch me right in the chest, so much so that the moment we're outside the door, I break and Wade pulls me in close to his chest as I cry, stroking my hair and murmuring how strong I was and how proud of me he is.

I pull back from his now-wet shirt, and he wipes my tears off my cheeks.

"She was sober, she is sober. She was just trying to do the right thing and she stayed there all alone for an hour? She must have been terrified," I sniff.

"She's okay, she got here and she hasn't had a drink in over two weeks, Ivy, that is something special."

I nod; she's never made it that long before. As far as I know, the longest she's made it without a drink since my dad passed was eight days. I look into the room while the nurse and personal support worker help her get comfortable.

"I just feel so helpless, I wish there was something I could've done, something I could do."

Wade tucks a piece of hair behind my ear and kisses my forehead.

"Come on, Trouble, I've got something we can do."