IAN LOVED HIS FATHER. He really did. And one thing he loved about his father was his speeches. They were equal parts entertaining and long-winded. And tonight Ian knew the speech would be especially long as his father had decided—without telling him—to run for the US House of Representatives instead of for reelection as a state senator.
Well.
Good for Dad. Meanwhile, Ian needed Flash’s body and he needed it five minutes ago.
While everyone else in the room was laughing at a particularly funny but good-natured jab at the governor, Ian slipped quietly out of the room and up the stairs. He’d been on edge all night as Flash met his extended family. The last time Flash had come to an Asher party it had ended in disaster. He’d told his entire family before she arrived that he was dead serious about this woman, and if anyone even stepped one toe out of line around her, this would be the last Asher party they’d be getting an invitation to. And every last one of them had behaved perfectly, treating Flash like she was already one of the family. He hoped by this time next year she would be.
Thoughts of their future together put a smile on his face as he snuck up to the second floor, looked around for any party stragglers and then strode to the door of his childhood bedroom.
When he opened the door he didn’t find Flash in his bed like he’d hoped. Although there was a woman in his room.
“Oh, my God...” he breathed as he walked around the metal sculpture that stood over five feet tall.
This was Flash’s sculpture of his mother. It had to be. The piece was ivy vines that had been sculpted into the shape of a woman’s body, one arm extended as if reaching for something or someone. Vines as veins. One long vine ran from the bottom of the woman’s left heel all the way up to the neck. And it was that central core of steel, the spine, that anchored the entire sculpture. He could see through the various leaves at the hollow core of the sculpture. But it wasn’t entirely hollow. Where the woman’s heart should be was a single ivy leaf hanging from a metal chain suspended in the chest cavity. Engraved on the leaf was one word—Ian.
“It’s your mother, isn’t it?”
Ian spun around and found his father standing in the doorway.
“Yeah,” Ian said. “It is. This is Flash’s sculpture?”
His father nodded. “You told me to go to the gallery to see your girlfriend’s art. I did. I wasn’t expecting...” He stood in front of the sculpture as if to look the woman in her ivy eyes. “I wasn’t expecting this.”
“It’s... I knew she was good, but I didn’t know she was this good,” Ian said. He felt like someone had punched him in the throat. He could hardly speak.
“I saw your name written on the heart,” his father said softly, his voice choked with emotion, “and I had to leave the room for a few minutes.”
Ian blinked back tears.
“You bought this?” Ian asked.
“I did. For you. For us. For our family. I want this in our family.”
“Flash said an art collector from Seattle bought this. She was so happy.”
“I didn’t want you knowing I’d bought it. It would have ruined the surprise. I saw you two sneaking up here. I wanted to catch you before you saw your Christmas present. I guess I was too late.”
“A little. I...” Ian walked around the sculpture again. “She called me her muse. She told me to give her an idea for a piece, and I said I wanted something of my mother since I never got to know her. I never imagined she’d do this.”
“I never stopped loving her,” his father said. “Even after all these years it still feels like an open wound. I shouldn’t have cut you off from her family. When she died...when the accident happened, she was coming back to me. She’d taken you to her parents’ house and I called and begged and begged for her to come back. And she wanted to come back but she wasn’t sure yet. She left you with her parents and she was on her way to meet me, to talk it out with me. She died coming back to me.”
“Dad...”
“And your grandparents, her parents, they did not want to give you back to me. I just lost my wife, and I was facing the possibility of losing my baby boy, too? We fought. It was an ugly fight.”
“They filed for custody?”
“They did. I won, but you lost. I blamed them for a long time for her death. That was unfair of me. My parents were as unhappy with us eloping as her parents were. And then I punished you by keeping you away from your grandparents because I couldn’t forgive them for trying to take you from me. I spent too many years seeing Ivy’s parents as the enemy instead of what they really were—my son’s family.”
“Dad, don’t you think you should be downstairs talking to the reporters?”
“You are more important. This is more important.” He pointed at the sculpture. “I want you to contact your grandparents. They’re still alive. I have their phone number, their address. They should see this sculpture. They should know their grandson and his girlfriend who made it. I have everything down in my office. Whenever you’re ready, I’ll give it all to you. And I hope you can forgive me for being so selfish with you the past thirty-five years. It was hard to forgive the people who tried to take my son from me. It was too easy to think about my own pain and my own grief instead of remembering they’d lost their daughter and were acting out of pain and grief just like I was. I don’t know if they’ll forgive me, but they’ll love you and that’s all that matters to me.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Nothing to say. I was wrong. And you know how hard it is for a politician to say he’s wrong.”
“Christmas miracle.”