Chapter One

Ivy pulled into Liberty, Mississippi’s one and only law firm, Alexander and Associates.  It wasn’t difficult to find in the town square.  This place was even smaller than she remembered.  She wasn’t always a big city dweller, as most suspected.  While she had worked diligently to separate herself from the city limits that she spent the first eight years of her life in, she had never been able to shake her southern drawl.  Ivy was in no hurry to walk down the cobblestone lined sidewalk of downtown Liberty.  She knew that the moment she pushed open that seemingly heavy wooden door, it would all become real.

                She had received a call from the law office a mere four days earlier telling her that her estranged father, Richard Price, had died.  She was still on the fence regarding how she should feel about the loss of a man that she had actually lost so many years ago.  Her parents had married young, and had her soon after the nuptials.  She didn’t remember their marriage or any interaction between the two, unless it concerned her.  Her mother was a saint in her eyes, from as early as she could recall.  She worked harder than most men, and was someone that everyone loved immediately upon meeting.  Maybe it was her warm, compassionate disposition.  Maybe it was her beauty matched with her charismatic wit and infectious laugh.  Ivy pulled down the sun visor in her red Mustang.  She stared at the reflection of the girl gazing back at her.  She did this often, but not out of vanity as some had grown to believe.

                She had never really known her birth father.  She knew that he was a cold man who was deeply troubled.  She had long noticed that in the pictures she had of him in his younger years, he always seemed brooding and disconnected.  As Ivy looked at the girl in the mirror, she saw his dark green eyes and fair skin.  She saw his strong, angled jaw line.  That’s where the similarities ended.  Instead, her face was filled with her mother’s smile and laugh lines.  They even had the same mischievous sparkle in their eyes.  She was thankful for that.  She didn’t want to see traits of a man who practically abandoned her after the divorce. 

                She overheard her mother and aunt discussing it once.  She was around nine years old, standing in the dark living room wearing her pink Power Rangers pajamas.  She did that most nights.  She was an only child and liked to pretend that she was a grown up too, sitting in the kitchen with her legs crossed and folded hands in her lap, occasionally sipping her chocolate milk that she pretended was coffee. “That’s what it is, you know.  You were the only woman he’s ever loved.  Well, you know, as much as he’s really capable of loving.  She reminds him too much of you.  He resents her for taking any of your affection and attention away.  He blames her for losing you.  It makes sense to him, somehow.  You have someone that you have to put first in your life, who will love you unconditionally, just as much as you love her.  That eats him alive”, my aunt said.  Ivy got lost in the empty moments that follow-  broken promises, no daddy to teach her to throw a baseball, uncles twirling her around at Father & Daughter dances.

                “WHY am I even here right now?” she asks aloud, to no one in particular.  Flooded with unwanted emotion, she slams the visor back into place and rests her forehead on the steering wheel.  This is the right thing to do.  I can do this.  I just have to get out of this car and go inside.  I can get this over with and get back to my life,” she says to herself.  With every ounce of energy she possessed, she reached over and grabbed her favorite knock off Michael Kors bag from the passenger seat and slowly stepped out of the Mustang.  Here goes nothing, Liberty.