I march over to the phone and grab it away from Ivy.

“Micah! Why are you being such a jerk?”

There’s silence on the other end. Ivy stares at me, her eyes filling with tears.

“He hung up,” I say.

“I don’t like him anymore,” Ivy says. The hurt on her face makes my heart ache. I put my arm around her and give her a squeeze.

“Me either,” I say quietly.

Chapter Sixteen

We spend the weekend helping my parents in the garden. Ivy and I clean Rainbow’s stall, and then I read to them for hours while Rainbow grazes and Ivy braids his mane. He wasn’t too excited about his bath and rolled in the grass as soon as we rinsed him off, but he smells better now and is a lot less dusty. I help Ivy make obstacle courses for her bike in the driveway and give her different challenges to try. We play Monopoly again and I let her win, but not quite as easily. We don’t call Micah to celebrate.

Late Sunday afternoon, after we’ve helped weed the entire garden, my dad suggests we go for a swim. We pile in the van and drive to the beach. It’s late enough that not too many people are there. My dad runs into the water wearing his dirty garden shorts, and Ivy hollers, “Charge!” as if she’s heading into battle and runs in after him. My mom stands at the shoreline with her toes touching the water. She’s wearing her garden clothes still, and I wonder if she even owns a bathing suit anymore.

“You going in?” I ask.

She has soil on the tip of her nose and on her left cheek. The creases in her forehead are dark where she’s rubbed the dirt in when she wiped the sweat away.

“I like standing here,” she says, looking back out at the water. “You go ahead and cool off.”

“Mom,” I say, a little hesitantly. “Are you OK?”

She doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she cranes her neck as if she’s trying to see something in the distance, far beyond the rope line. I feel a worry that’s been deep inside me turn into an ache. Seeing her like this scares me. It shouldn’t take her so long to answer.

“Life’s just challenging sometimes,” she finally says. “But we’ll manage.” The more she says this phrase, the more it sounds like she doesn’t believe it anymore.

She touches the side of my face in her gentle way. “I promise,” she says, as if she knows I’m not so sure.

Her reassuring hand makes the ache slip back where it was, even if it feels temporary.

“I wish you’d come in the water. It’s fun!”

“Maybe in a bit. You go on.”