Today Will Be Different(39)

“We don’t know what’s so charming about a bear crashing around a house while children are sleeping—”

“It’s our life, Ivy. It’s us.”

“—or waiting in a car while Ted Bundy is on the loose. And why on earth would you make me relive Parsley being hit by a car? You know how much I loved that dog.”

“I loved Parsley too!” Eleanor said. “Okay, I get it. Bucky feeds on insults and now he’s got you doing the same.”

“I finally found a man who treats me the way I deserve,” Ivy said. “You’re allowed to have that, but I’m not? And where was Joe during the christening?”

“Now Bucky has a problem with Joe?”

“Eleanor, everybody noticed Joe wouldn’t come inside.”

“Joe was tormented by nuns as a child and he’s not a fan of the Catholic Church. You know that!”

“You,” Ivy said. “Mocking the namesake of our son in front of tourists. Oh, Eleanor, even I couldn’t defend your sarcasm. I can see it in your eyes, when you’re going in for the kill. You delight in your nastiness and you always take it out on those weaker than you. I’m done with it and so is Bucky.”

“I have a message for that walking joke—”

“Eleanor,” Ivy said. “You’re talking about my husband. Bucky is my husband.”

“Tell him he’s won,” Eleanor said, reddening. “The two of you will have to find someone else to mine for grievances. Because this is the last time you see me. Watch how serious I am.”


Preservation Hall was thirty feet by thirty feet. The walls were water-stained and covered with pegboard; the thick wood planks had survived their share of floods. There was no stage. Only fifty listeners could pack in; those on mangy cushions in the front row tangled feet with the band. Joe was one of the fortunate who’d snagged a chair. He sat against the wall, his body moving like a bag of bones to the jaunty, brass-heavy Dixieland jazz. Eleanor appeared at his feet.

“Promise me,” her lips said through the trumpet solo. “Promise me we’ll never fight again.”


A month later, Katrina hit. Eleanor picked up the phone. Ivy answered. The fight outside Leah’s Pralines was never spoken of again.


The phone calls with Ivy grew more cordial and less frequent. Ivy had gotten a job as a docent at a local museum. After unsuccessful back surgery, Mary Marge was put down. John-Tyler had three birthdays. Eleanor dutifully sent what Ivy instructed.


Late one night, the phone rang, a 504 number. It was Lester, from a New Orleans hotel. He’d spent the day with Bucky and Ivy.

“That night of my party,” Lester said. “In New York. When Ivy went back to his hotel. I knew then it was all over for you.”

“Why are you saying this?” Eleanor asked. “What happened?”

“When was the last time you saw them?”

It had been three years.

“Why?” Eleanor said, panic seizing her chest. “What happened?”

“Don’t you see?” Lester said, drunk and not making sense. “He’s trying to plant your fingerprints on his crime scene.”


Eleanor called Ivy the next day and asked how she was. How she really was. Ivy gave an unexpected answer: on pills.

“Drugs?” Eleanor asked.

“Medication,” Ivy corrected. “Eleanor, it changes everything! In the past, something little would happen, like Taffy screwing the lid too tight on the raspberry jam. I’d try tapping it on the counter, running it under hot water and John-Tyler would be asking, ‘Why are you crying, Mama?’ And I’d think, I can’t even open a jar of jam without my misery rippling out into the world. But now that I’m on medication, it’s a jar of jam! I’ll eat my toast with cinnamon sugar! What a strange product of the modern age I’ve become. They should make a movie about it. A medicated woman going through her day with normal reactions to ordinary life and at her side is her former self who completely breaks down at the very same things.”

“Gwyneth Paltrow can play both parts,” Eleanor said flatly.

“See, there’s an example,” Ivy said. “The old me would have burst into tears because I’m an actress. I should play both parts. But the improved me? I think, yes, Gwyneth Paltrow would also be wonderful in the role.”


Matthew Flood died of liver failure at the age of sixty-six. He’d been sober for a decade. The lady from Dallas in whose guesthouse Matty and the girls had lived couldn’t make it to the memorial service. But she’d arranged for a convoy of red Jeeps to meet the mourners at Wagner Park and four-wheel them to the top of Aspen Highlands. There, they’d scatter Matty’s ashes on his favorite run, the Moment of Truth.

A dozen of Matty’s AA friends, joined by Ivy, Eleanor, and Joe, zigzagged their way up the snowcat roads through the spring slush and arrived at the picnic bench that had been there forever. Welcoming them was an orange-and-blue Broncos wreath, barbecue from the Hickory House, and the Bobby Mason Band playing Matty’s favorite song, “Please Come to Boston.” The lady from Dallas had remained mysterious but loyal to the end.

There was champagne for fifty but Ivy was the only one drinking.

To Eleanor, these friends of Matty’s were graciously free of judgment toward the two daughters who never visited. Joe wept upon seeing the canister of ashes on the bed of white Aspen branches sprouting with lime-colored buds; Eleanor felt nothing.