Chapter 112 You And Ivy

Chapter 112 You And Ivy
Chapter 112: You And Ivy
Leo

“Mommy!”

Callum launched himself through the front door the second I got it open, a small missile in sneakers, and hit Maddie at full speed. 

I’d gone to pick her up from the airport. Ivy had stayed behind with him. At the time it had felt like the least complicated arrangement.

It wasn’t.

Maddie scooped him up immediately, hugging him so tight his feet left the ground. “My baby!” She laughed into his hair. 

I glanced past them toward the house. Ivy wasn’t in the doorway. She was inside, probably perched on the edge of the sofa trying to decide whether to look like a professional or a sister or a woman who’d spent the last two days walking like she still felt me. 

“I missed you,” Maddie cooed, brushing Callum’s hair back. “Did you miss me?”

He nodded so hard I thought his head might come off, then dug a folded piece of paper out of his pocket like he’d been saving it for this exact second.

“I missed you, Mommy. Miss Ivy even helped me make a painting of Mommy and Daddy and Callum!”

Maddie’s hand froze on the paper. She looked at it. Then at me. “What does he mean?” Her voice stayed light for Callum’s sake, but her eyes didn’t. “It can’t be what I’m thinking, right?”

“Let’s go in first, Maddie.” I nudged her toward the door. “Don’t create a scene in front of your son. There’s a lot you don’t know yet. Don’t rush it.”

She wasn’t happy. I could feel it in the way her shoulders locked. But she put on a good performance, because that was what she did when Callum was watching. What we all did.

“Wow, baby. That’s such a pretty picture. Good job.”

The walk from the driveway to the front door was short. Callum made it feel like a debriefing. He didn’t stop talking. 

He filled her in on everything she’d missed: the blue dinosaur, the juice boxes, his latest cartoon fixation, and—most fatally—Miss Ivy. 

Miss Ivy this. Miss Ivy that. Miss Ivy helped him spell. Miss Ivy sat with him. Miss Ivy went into Daddy’s room on the first day to have a word and came out looking messy after a serious fight. Miss Ivy screamed in daddy’s room. Miss Ivy stayed for mac and cheese. Daddy took him to see his uncle.

Every sentence was a spilled secret delivered in a four-year-old’s cheerful voice.

I had never wanted to spank my kid until that walk. I didn’t even believe in it. I’d just never understood how mouthy a child could be when the timing was catastrophic. 

Maddie kept giving me side glances. I kept my face neutral. There was no version of this where I came out clean.

The moment we walked in, my eyes found Ivy across the room. 

She was on the sofa, legs crossed and angled to the side in that elegant way that somehow still punched the air out of my lungs. Skirt neat. Hands folded. Trying so hard to look like she belonged here as staff and not as the woman whose teeth were still a fading mark on my shoulder.

Then she saw Maddie and stood immediately. Smoothed her skirt once. Stepped forward.

“Hi,” she said. Awkward. Small.

Callum looked between them, delighted by the novelty of having both in the same frame.

“Isn’t she pretty, Mommy? But Mommy is the prettiest!”

Maddie reacted like she’d seen a ghost. She just stared. Didn’t blink. Didn’t speak. The drawing was still in her hand, crumpled a little now at the edge.

I cleared my throat.

She exhaled, forced her face into something civil, and stretched out a hand. “Hello. I’m Callum’s mom.”

They shook hands. You wouldn’t have believed they were sisters. You’d have thought they were strangers who’d been told to be polite at a school meeting. 

“I know,” Ivy said. “Good to see you again, Maddie.”

Maddie nodded. “Same. Good to see you too.” Then she turned to me, smile still glued on. “Leo. Can I have a word with you in private?”

I sighed. Nodded. I’d expected this. I’d been expecting it since Wednesday, if I was honest, and doing nothing about it except hoping time would make it easier. 

Time hadn’t. It was a bitch after all. 

Maddie touched Callum’s shoulder. “Baby, wait here with Miss Ivy. Mommy and Daddy need to talk about something important, okay?”

“Yes, Mummy!” He was already climbing back onto the sofa, utterly unbothered, like this was just another Tuesday.

Maddie practically dragged me out of the living room and down the hall. She pulled me into my bedroom and shut the door hard enough to make the frame complain.

She arched her brow. “Care to explain?”

I laughed. “It was a coincidence. I didn’t know Ivy was going to be the tutor the principal recommended. I didn’t even know she taught there.”

She folded her arms. “So why didn’t you inform me beforehand? Callum is my son. His tutor is not just someone I should walk in on. I should have been aware from the beginning, Leo. That was our agreement when our son was born. Nobody hides anything from the other when it’s about him. It’s not fair. I looked like an idiot back there.”

“I’m sorry.” I meant it. “I just didn’t want you to start something. Besides, she only started Wednesday. Maddie, it’s been five years—”

“Start something?” She looked at me like I’d insulted her intelligence. “What do you take me for, Leo? I only request that you inform me about decisions that involve my child. Especially if it involves my sister too.” The last part came out quieter.

I frowned. “Wait. You’re not mad that I hired Ivy? You’re not angry that she’s here?”

She looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “Why would I be mad about that? As long as she gets the job done, and Cal actually improves academically, I don’t have an objection.”

I’m certain my face showed it. Surprise first. Then something closer to suspicion, because Maddie being reasonable was never free.

“Woah. I’m shocked. I thought you’d have lost it because of—”

She didn’t let me finish. She pointed a finger at my chest. “The only thing I’m going to strangle you over is you two fucking where my son can hear you.”

The hiss in her voice couldn't be missed. “Thought I didn’t understand what Cal was saying? Really, Leo? You fucked your kid’s teacher? On her first day? You really do love to set the bar high, don’t you?” She smacked my arm. Not hard. But still hard enough.

I laughed nervously and shrugged, which was the wrong combination of responses and also the only one I had. 

“It just happened, Maddie. Besides, Callum didn’t figure out what actually happened. He thinks Ivy and I fought.”

She rolled her eyes so far back I was surprised they came back at all. “So. You’re back together again? You and Ivy.”

“No.” The word sounded bitter. “She has a boyfriend, actually.”

Maddie laughed. “Some things never change. They just switch positions. She’s now cheating on her boyfriend with you?” 

I was about to answer that—badly—when the other thing surfaced. The thing I’d told myself I would confront her with the second she got home.

“She told me something interesting from five years ago. About you.”

Maddie’s amusement thinned. “What’s that?”

“Ivy said you claimed the pregnancy was mine when I was in the hospital. That you told her I’d gotten you pregnant. What was that about?”

She sighed like the whole subject was an inconvenience she’d already filed away.

“That was a lie I cooked up to get rid of her then. I was angry and confused and I hated her at that moment because of what she did. So I wanted her gone from our lives. I suspected she’d leave if she believed you’d betrayed her.”

The room went very quiet.

“Maddie.” I rubbed my forehead. “Why would you lie like that? She believed it until two days ago. Until I told her the truth.”

“Oops. My bad.”

She didn’t look apologetic. Didn’t look remorseful. She looked faintly amused, like she’d been caught in a prank instead of a five-year wrecking ball.

“Besides,” she added, “Callum is your son in every way except blood. Isn’t that so? So it’s not that far from the truth either.”

“I never said he wasn’t.” My voice came out harder than I meant. “I’m just not a fan of harmful misinformation.”

“I’m sorry. I should have set the record straight earlier.”

The apology lasted exactly as long as it took her to snap her fingers, remembering the next grenade Callum had handed her.

“Also. Cal mentioned you took him to see his uncle. What uncle? You don’t have a brother, Leo.”

There it was. “I don’t,” I said. “I took him to see his biological father.”

Her entire demeanor changed. The tired traveler vanished. The reasonable co-parent vanished. What was left was raw.

“What?”

I stepped forward. “Let me explain. He’s changed. He’s not the same—”

“Are you out of your mind, Leo?”

“It’s been five years. He’s a different man now. Maddie, he knows he was wrong. He acknowledges it. All he wanted was to see his—”

“He is not his son!” The scream cracked through the room. “And I don’t give a fuck what he wants! He lost all rights to my child when he abandoned me and left me to deal with the consequences of his own actions!”

“Maddie, keep it down. They can hear you—”

“I don’t fucking care!” Her finger was in my face now. “Don’t you ever take my son out to meet anyone again without my permission. The day you try that again, that’ll be the last time you ever see Callum. Ever.”

“Maddie—”

She wasn’t in the mood to listen.

She was already at the door. She yanked it open and slammed it so hard I thought the hinges might actually give.

The sound punched through the house. Shit.