Authors: G. V. Steitz
Ivy
A Fresh Start
I wake up to people talking and laughing. I feel stiff as a board and hot. I open my eyes, stretching, I slowly look around trying to get my boundaries. Remembering I am at Dominic
’s house and I notice he is wrapped around me, practically holding me down with his leg wrapped around my leg and his arm crossed over my body diagonally with his hand tucked into my pocket to secure it there. Both of us still in the living room, wearing the same clothes as yesterday. I am laying up against his chest still, between his open legs and he is propped up against the back of the couch.
I slowly try to stretch and wiggle a little and Dominic’s grip on my tightens, making me giggle. Where am I going to run to? He seems to think he is holding me incase I dash off.
I hear people whispering in the kitchen and I smell yummy food being made and rich coffee brewing, making my stomach growl. After everything I ate last night, I can’t believe I am considering to eat again. I better start running again before I get fatter.
I look up and I see two marginally older looking Dominic’s peeking out from the wall in the kitchen staring at us. I smile and give a little wave. They both have green eyes and short thick, dark hair like Dominic. I gather from their looks, these are his older brothers.
They both quietly walk in and hold their hands to their mouths in the shhh, keep quiet fingers to mouth signal. I just roll my eyes. This should be entertaining. Each one of Dominic’s brothers walk over to us, one on either side of Dominic. They both squat down near his face, I twist to see what they are doing.
One of the boys free’s me from my grip of Dominic and the other sits in my place. I stand up and walk back a few steps to stay out of their way. The brother sitting in my place starts to wiggle up against him, making me giggle. And the other start whispering in his ear. “Oh, are you having a sexy, wet dream lover boy?” He says in a gruff low voice. The one between his legs, wiggling up against him brings his hands up and starts playing with Dominic’s hair and Dominic moans. The one whispers starts running his fingers lightly across Dominic’s arms and Dominic jerks up and looks around and see’s what is happening.
“What the hell is wrong with you two assholes?” Dominic yells at his brothers and then the three of them end up in a full on tackle of each other, both of them ganging up on Dominic.
“Michael! David! Let your brother alone right now!” Mrs. Cavalier runs in, holding a spatula yelling at the boys roughing up Dominic.
Dominic is yelling at both his brothers and the brothers start tickling him and teasing him about finally bringing a girl home. “Here we thought you were going to join the monastery or something.” They tease Dominic.
“Basta!” (Enough) Mr. Cavalier comes in and yells at the boys, whacking the brothers over the their heads.
The boys all dislocate themselves from Dominic, all three catching their breaths while their mother and I watch them all.
“Boys never grow up dear.” Mrs. C says to me. I smile. “Would you like some coffee sweetheart?” She asks me kindly. I nod, “thank you. May I use a rest room first? I would like to clean up a bit first if that’s ok.” I ask.
Mrs. C looks at me like she never hear such a crazy request. “My God, you are such a love. I wish I had just one of you. These monsters are never so sweet as you dear.” She tells me as she walks me over towards the bathroom.
I grab my bag and disappear into the bathroom. After using the toilet, washing up a bit, brushing my teeth, I change my clothes into what I brought to wear here today. After combing out my hair, putting it into a high pony tail, I crack my neck and back and slowly peek out of the bathroom door. What I see is just a shock to me since I don’t come from this type of family.
Everyone is yelling first of all. I’m not sure if it’s because they are fighting or mad or I just don’t know. Everyone has their hands flying all around as they all yell at each other. Mrs. C is cooking and slapping the boys as they walk over to steal food she is cooking and then they plant a chaste kiss on her cheek each time, making their mother laugh or wink and smile. Mr. C is talking foot ball with their youngest one and the three older ones are still roughing each other’s feathers up, putting each other in head lock and tormenting each other with play punches I think. Or at least I hope. I quietly stand off to the side, trying to hide behind the wall, not to get into their way at all and doing my best to stay unnoticed. I start to wonder if I could just quietly sneak out since I feel like an intruder here at their family gathering. No sooner did that thought occur to me and Mrs. C caught my eye and smiled.
“BOYS! You are all scaring Ivy into the corner over there. Stop this nonsense.” She yells at all of them, making everyone freeze and 6 pairs of eyes all look over to me and stare.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.” I whisper.
Dominic stalks over to me, while rolling his eyes.
“I’m so sorry Ivy, my brothers act like cavemen.” He says as he rubs his hands up and down my arms trying to relax the tension I just realized I was holding. Mrs C comes dashing over, pushing Dominic to the side and takes my hand, pulling me into the kitchen. “MIchael, David, this is Ivy. Dominic’s friend.” Mrs. C tells them looking at me. “Don’t pay attention to this group of misfits here. You remember Joseph, my husband and our youngest, Joseph Jr.” She points her wooden spoon towards the table. They all wave, say hello one by one while Dominic comes over, putting his arms protectively around my body, holding my against his side with his hand wrapped around my arm. “You ok?” Dominic whispers in my ear. I just nod. I look back over to Mrs. C, where she has resumed cooking more food. There seems to be enough food already out to feed an army but she keeps cooking and I have no clue why. “Do you have more company coming?” I ask Mrs. C. “Can I help with something?”
Mrs. C looks over her shoulder towards me smiling. “More company? No just you sweetie, why?” She asks, getting back to her bacon frenzy.
“You just have so much food, looks like you can feed 50 people here is all.” I look over everything and I hear everyone just bust out laughing loud and hard, startling me.
“Oh good Lord, you are a love, aren’t you.” Mrs. C comes over to hug me. “These are growing boys, they have bottomless stomachs. They will eat you out of house and home if you let them. And there is nothing for you to do, but grab some food before these monsters devour everything in sight.” She tells me as she pushes a plate into my arms.
After breakfast, which I was shocked to see Mrs. C was actually right about her family. I was more entertained watching all the boys eat like the haven’t eaten in a month and this was their last meal. I soon found out that their yelling, wasn’t really yelling, they all just “talk loud” according to Mr. C because everyone talks over each other and no one can hear the other. Joseph Jr. was a cutie. He was the quietest one of all of them. I sat next to him and on the other side of me was Dominic. Joseph Jr. told me all about him making the football team at his school and how he had practice after they all finished breakfast.
It felt good to be in the middle of all their loving madness. I felt welcomed and they didn’t leave me out of their conversations. I found myself laughing and joking with all of them over our breakfast and after it was all done, it looked like a tornado went through the kitchen. All the boys kissed their mother’s cheek, thanking her for the delicious breakfast, and then they all scattered like flies. Mr. C took the little one to practice and I sat looking around the kitchen at the mess while Dominic ran upstairs to clean up and change himself.
Mrs. C. stood up, and began to clear the table. I certainly wasn’t going to sit there and not help so I got up and followed her lead. “Oh Good God, you are not helping me with this disaster dear. You go relax.” Mrs. C told me as she nudged me towards the hall.
“Please, Mrs. C. I would be grateful if you allowed me to help clean up. Just for a while. I need something to do, and I don’t want to leave you with all of this. You put so much work into making such a beautiful meal, I can’t just leave you like this.” I told her as I placed my hand over hers that she had on my arm. She took her other hand and patted my hand on hers, and laughed. “You are such a treasure.” And allowed me to follow her back into the kitchen. I began picking up and stacking dishes around the table, putting caps back on bottles, lids on containers. Getting into my own system and Mrs. C was really sweet.
“I bet your mother much be so proud of you. I wish I had a daughter as thoughtful as you are.” She told me as she filled up the kitchen sink with soapy hot dish water, slipping the cutlery in the sink to soak, then the plates one by one.
“I suppose. She works a lot. I don’t see her too much. She travels for work a great deal, and it’s just me and her so there isn’t much to sort out.” I explain, keeping busy with collecting the glasses and scraping the leftovers into the garbage.
“Dominic told us about you having lost your brother dear, you have my deepest sympathy.” She said softly to me. I smiled back at her. “Thanks. Mitchell was my only sibling. He was five years older than I was. He was in his second year of college, and I just began my freshman year at high school when he passed.” I whispered, trying to not get too emotional and scaring the poor woman at the mess I have myself in.
“I can understand your loss actually dear. I lost my twin sister to a drunk driver when we were only 16. So long ago, but still sometimes… It feels like it was just yesterday. You know?” She says, as she continues washing and rinsing dishes. I move over to dry as she stacks them in the sink next to the one filled with water.
“I’m so sorry Mrs. C. That must have been very difficult for you to go through.” I say with sincere sympathy for her.
Mrs. C. nods, “Yes and there will always be a part of me who will miss her. You know? But you as well I know, if it were the other way around, and if it were us who lost our lives… We wouldn’t want the ones we loved, left behind to stop living. It’s almost more important to live a better life in honor of them is the way I see it. As if I were doing the best I could for both of us. Me and my sister. You know? She lost her life, and I feel it’s almost left me to live for both of us.” Mrs. C softly explains her theory and it really gives me a new approach to how I see things.
“I can understand that. Thank you for that. Ever since I lost Mitchell, I just…” I pause. “I just feel all alone and lost. My parents couldn’t handle the loss. After we buried Mitchell, my parents went around as if he never existed. How was I suppose to deal with that? Then they divorced. My father found a new wife, and they now have a new baby boy, a new life… He just left me.” I offer in a whisper the last part.
I don’t know where my mind was at that point, I don’t even remember what I was doing but all of a sudden I felt a warm embrace around me. It was a motherly feel. It was Mrs. C. And it felt so good to just be held like that. I felt my head fall to her shoulder and I wrapped my arms around her and cried into her. Mrs. C soothed me with her gentle words and her warm touch to rubbing my back. Running her hand down my hair. Things my own mother used to do and no longer does. I don’t know how much time had passed, but we were sitting on the couch in the living room. I looked around and I felt so embarrassed.
“Oh God, I am so sorry Mrs. C. I don’t know what came over me. Please forgive me.” I started wiping my eyes, I began to fidget, feeling like I shown too much of myself.
“My goodness sweetheart, you carry all that heart ache around with you and you still apologize to me? You have nothing to be sorry for sweetie. I hope you can believe me when I tell you, if you ever need to talk to someone, I am always here sweetheart. I think you are the sweetest thing I have ever met. Lord knows Dominic is smitten with you.” Mrs. C says with a wink.
“Have you broken down my poor girl friend long enough Mother?” I hear Dominic say from across the room, looking pretty hot in his dark jeans, and fitted black t-shirt. With his hands stuffed in his pockets. I keep my eyes fixated on his. I must of not heard that right. I mean yeah, I am a girl. I am probably a friend. Right a girl and a friend. Makes sense right, girlfriend. I watch Dominic stroll into the room and smile at me.
“Do you think you can share her with me Ma?” Dominic asks his mother, making me laugh out loud.
“Of course dear. Just don’t go far with her. You will stay tonight for dinner won’t you sweetie?” Mrs. C offers.
“I really need to get home. I appreciate the offer…”