A Sister's Heart

Chapter 17

The rest of the day passed pretty much without incident as did the two that followed and before they knew it, it was Thanksgiving. They had all planned to watch the parade together before all pitching in with dinner and hopefully a fun night with family.

"Breakfast's ready!" Ivy called, placing a tray full of pancakes on the counter next to the jar of syrup and the plate of bacon. Her sisters had already eaten and had headed back upstairs to change.

"Yes! Pancakes!" Cried Matthew as he jumped up onto one of the bar stools. Lauren followed, again glued to her phone.

"Something wrong?" Ivy asked, hoping her daughter would finally be honest. As Lauren glanced up, their eyes met and Ivy saw how worried her daughter was and couldn't help but wonder why. She shot her daughter a look, silently pleading with her to open up.

There was a moment of hesitation, then Lauren spoke. "Dad called again, but I didn't answer. I don't want to talk to him." Matthew flashed his sister a confused look, completely clueless as to why she wouldn't want to talk to their father, as tears glistened in the corners of her eyes.

"Oh honey." Taking the phone off of Lauren, Ivy put it in her pocket and pulled her daughter into her arms. "I'll take care of it okay. For now, eat your breakfast." She made sure that both of her children were eating before quietly retreating into her father's old study where she retrieved the phone, which she had just taken from her daughter, from her pocket and dialed her ex-husband's number.

He answered after three rings. "Lauren. Thank God you called me back. I was getting worried." For a moment, Ivy remained silent holding the phone to her ear. "Hello? Lauren?"

Finally, she found her voice. "Not quite." Now Brad was the silent one and Ivy couldn't help but a let a slight grin form on her face. "Look, Lauren doesn't want to talk to you right now, okay?" She continued. "So can you not call her for a while; let her come to you."

She hoped he had got the message, but he still wasn't saying anything. A few moments passed without a single word passing between them until Brad spoke. "WHAT?" He sounded outraged. "Why wouldn't she want to talk to me? What have you been telling her?"

"Nothing." She lied.

"Yeah right!" He snapped back. "The only reason I can think of is that you turned her against me!" Was he kidding?Me, turn Lauren against him. What a joke.

To hell with it Ivy thought. She wasn't going to let him bully her into submission anymore. "You did this to yourself Brad! All I did was tell our daughter the truth about the kind of man her father really is. She's fifteen and she can make up her own mind about who she does and does not want to talk to, and right now that is not you!" Without another word, Ivy ended the call and struggling to remain calm, almost hurled the phone across the room.

She was interrupted by a knock on the door. "Everything okay?" Diana asked, moving to stand just inside, worry etched onto her face.

"Not really." Talking in a hushed tone, she ushered for her sister to come closer. "I just got into it with Brad again. I had to tell him that Lauren doesn't want to speak to him, and let's just say that he didn't take it well. He accused me of turning her against him." Ivy was shaking, as was her voice, and Diana could tell that she was still angry.

"What? Is he for real?"

"Apparently. Anyway, I had a go at him and then I hung up. Not my finest moment, but he deserved it!" At this, the sisters shared a smile, knowing that Brad had indeed done plenty to illicit such a reaction from Ivy, who somehow now knew that Diana was proud of her for standing up to her douche-bag of an abusive excuse for an ex-husband.

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Author's Note - So, I have been struggling with writer's block recently and so updates will be maybe once or twice a week instead of three times from now on. On another note, hope you all enjoyed the chapter x