The House That Ivy Built Encyclopedia

Ivy's Concept of Family


Seeing as how Ivy had a very unique upbringing and continues to have a very unique life, it stands to reason that her concept of family is also one of a kind. She does a lot of thinking about what family means to her and how it applies to her life. This section explores that.

In the first book, Ivy’s home with Adele and the crew is the only family she has ever known. They are the first of her “eight families.”

Book 4, chapter 16
Adele was pretty close to my mother, but then who might I call my father? Alix? Yeah right. Were Weaver and Dax my older brothers? Neptune my older sister? Tab and Thursday my younger siblings? . . . We were a family, but not that way.

Being that the group raised her, taught her everything she knows, and has members who have each forged a special relationship with her, it is obvious that “the crew” is the only group who could originally claim relations with Ivy.

This changes when she meets Nina’s family. Of course, her first reaction is one of feeling separate:

Book 1, chapter 6
I felt a little detached, observing the family without being a part of it.

Although then Francis Fairchild moves in quickly to call her “dear,” which starts to make Ivy feel included:

I felt as if I were her daughter for one absurd moment.

In Book 1, Ivy continues to be accepted by Francis, though Nina’s brother more or less ignores her and Nina’s father dislikes her. But most notable is Ivy’s reaction to Nina:

Book 1, chapter 12
I really wanted to have someone around that considered me special. I wanted to be with someone who needed me, someone I could teach things to and have fun with. A person who could be as close to me as the little sister I’d never had . . . someone like Nina.

Book 2, chapter 1
Even though Nina had (indirectly) caused me more trouble than anyone else I could think of, I still wanted to be part of her life. Sometimes I pretended in my head that I was her big sister, but I never told her about it.

Book 2 and the beginning of Book 3 have Ivy and Nina a little estranged from each other because of misunderstanding and bad feeling, but soon enough they come to an understanding. By Book 4 they are closer than ever, and her father is having a hard time with it:

Book 4, chapter 19
“I think I should have you over for my birthday dinner, even though Daddy says it’s s’posta be only family.” . . . “You are family to me.”

Since this comes to pass and Francis actually includes Ivy in the birthday celebration, Nina’s father throws a fit.

Book 4, Chapter 26
“Now we’re lettin’ that girl share a birthday with our daughter?”

When he begins to make demands that she leave, Nina defends Ivy:

“I already told you Ivy is like my family! She might not look like me or be from the same place but she understands me like a sister! And I don’t have a sister. You let me have her!”

During the ensuing one-on-one discussion, Carl makes this assertion:

“I don’t even know what goes on over there, it’s this big secret from me, but then my daughter considers your place a second home, and she thinks you’re her goddamn sister! There’s somethin’ messed up about this!”

Nina’s father suggests that Ivy latched onto Nina because she has no family. She then reveals that by this point in the story she HAS found her family. But none of that makes Nina any less important to her. The two finally find their wavelength, and from that point on Ivy really feels like an unofficial sixth member of the Fairchild family. When Ivy counts her “eight families,” the Fairchilds—not just Nina—are one of them: Family number 2.

Ivy also has a sister-like relationship with Bailey. When they first meet, Bailey admits that she rarely talks about her ability because she only uses it around people who don’t matter. Ivy replies, “Would you mind if I was the first person who mattered?”

Book 1, chapter 18
I found that I really liked the way she talked to me; she talked in a straightforward manner and was interested in what I had to say, and she seemed to have a sense of humor about her, just like I figured I did. In everything she said and in all of her mannerisms, I could almost see a part of myself reflected.

Ivy wonders whether she’s latching onto Bailey because she wanted someone to fill the hole Nina almost filled, but then she realizes that they really are two of a kind in several important ways. They’re both NYC-native pranksters with strange abilities and a penchant for beating up anyone who might compare them to elves. When Bailey moves into the house, she shares Ivy’s room.

Book 2, chapter 11
Bailey was an incurable prankster, and she was still almost like my sister.

The girls play tricks on each other as well as team up for tricks on others, and they have been known to bicker as well as have heartfelt chats. On more than one occasion Ivy has played big sister for giving advice.

Book 3, chapter 28
“Ivy, how come you weren’t here to talk to me sooner? I coulda spared myself all these worries and stomachaches.”

Through much of Book 4, Ivy is absent from Bailey’s life, but when she comes back to the house for a visit, she notices that her “sister” has grown up quite a bit and has begun to act a little embarrassed of her abilities, again hiding them while at school. Bailey admits her wish to be like everybody else:

Book 4, chapter 43
“I’d really like to be normal. If I didn’t have it I wouldn’t be hiding anything.”

Ivy mostly doesn’t understand what makes Bailey so interested in being normal at this point, but she makes Bailey feel better about being alone:

“I know what you mean about having . . . unique perceptions, it does get lonely. I hope one day you’ll meet someone like you.”

In the same chapter Bailey agrees to be part of Ivy’s Handprints group, where they’ll try to figure out what’s the best way for each of them to deal with the outside world with respect to having strange abilities. In Book 5, Bailey gets a boyfriend and asks the group for help figuring out when’s the best time to tell him about herself, and then Ivy ends up in a similar (though not romantic) relationship with Todd, struggling for an answer on when (or whether) to spill the beans. Again, the two end up in the same boat and can share advice and common experiences. Through Ivy’s eyes, their relationship is like this:

Book 4, chapter 35
My almost-sister. The only other person I’d ever met with my ears and my sense of humor. How could I not think of her as family? We’d shared so much over the short time we’d known each other, had sibling-like rivalry and everything. My little sister, almost.

Overall, Ivy’s relationship with Bailey is very sister-like, and it means a lot to her to have someone looking up to her, someone to watch over, and someone to tease. Bailey is her third “family member.”

Next on the list is Miss Margaret. Now, the first “parental” person Ivy can remember for most of her life is Adele. It was Adele (and to a lesser extent, the pre-house crew) who mothered her and took care of her. But in Book 2, Ivy discovered there was a “mother” a little further back in her past. She re-met Miss Margaret by accident and had some bread and milk, and suddenly she started to remember:

Book 2, chapter 7
A sudden rush of déjà vu smacked me so hard that I thought I had fallen into another dimension. A flood of images ran through my mind’s eye: The woman’s face, younger and more streamlined, framed by her hands looking at me the same way she was now; the same smell of baking bread that was now filling my nostrils; the feeling of my bare toes sliding along a fake wooden floor in the middle of winter; a warm fireplace and marshmallows, sitting with two people I’d forgotten about totally. I remembered, without looking up, that their ceiling was textured with tiny bumps, and I recalled the confused ecstasy of early childhood, when everything was magic. I remembered a giant Christmas tree that I crowned with a star, and I remembered cold mornings when customers would come into the bakery and the little girl and I would have to stop playing our games. I even remembered a long summer day, and smelling the tender aroma of bread being destroyed by the hot stink of the New York morning. I gasped softly as a door opened in my mind and I was finally able to float right through it.

Being that Margaret took care of her when she was young, Ivy immediately recognizes that this woman has some parental claim to her—in the emotional sense—even though she’s not incredibly clear on all their memories together. Nevertheless, deep down she feels that Margaret is a family member.

I’d never cried in front of a stranger before; I rarely cried in front of anyone, I considered it embarrassing to show my soft inside when everyone thought I was tough. But it was different with this woman. She made it okay to cry. . . . How could I be so easily comforted by someone who was essentially a stranger? My heart knew her but my mind really didn’t.

This is mutual for Margaret:

“I couldn’t help but want to take you in, you were an absolute angel of a child, all that long blonde hair and those big green eyes.” . . . “You visited regularly for several seasons, and then I never saw you again. That saddened me quite a bit, I wondered where you’d gotten to.”

To a lesser extent, Margaret’s daughter Charlotte is a bit like Ivy’s family because she has vague memories of growing up together. Ivy sees evidence of their friendship in some photographs:

There was one of us expressing childish joy in an enthusiastic hug, tangled in each other’s limbs. Wow, I’d had a friend. Why hadn’t I missed her?

Ivy renews her relationship with Miss Margaret and sometimes exchanges easy chores for companionship and advice.

Book 2, chapter 19
I finally realized how much this woman had actually cared for me. . . . I wished there was something I could do for her to pay her back for what she’d given me when I’d been too young to understand that I shouldn’t take it for granted, but she told me that as long as I promised not to disappear again, I was paid in full and forgiven. I played Brownie for her anyway and cleaned her house whenever I could, and as I swept the floor, I remembered with pleasure the texture of the fake wood from so many years ago. It was strange that I could have fond memories of cleaning a house, but I did. Miss Margaret always thanked me, but the real thanks I got was seeing her face as she stared at me like I was her lost daughter finally come home. It felt strange to belong to anyone. I doubted that people who were related by blood could possibly feel stronger bonds. I supposed I would never know.

In Book 3 Ivy comes to Miss Margaret for help regarding her romantic issues:

Book 3, chapter 4
“Hey, Miss Margaret, why are boys so dumb?”

And later, Miss Margaret encourages her to use her talents where they’re needed:

Book 3, chapter 22
“I just think you need to do something good with your magic. Something no one else can do. Otherwise, it’s so much of a waste.”

Just like a parent would, Miss Margaret “sponsors” Ivy and gives her the money to go on a quest. Later Ivy tries to pay her back, and she doesn’t like this gesture because she’d given the money to her with the same expectations as a mother:

Book 4, chapter 39
“Ivy, that money wasn’t a ‘loan,’ you don’t have to pay me back. I gave it to you.”

Miss Margaret eventually agrees to take her money back since Ivy has “a truckload,” but she pays her off in advice and reassurance:

“You have a sense of magic about you that just comes out in your interaction. You have a unique slant on life and a refreshing way of looking at the world. It’s like a breath of fresh air to be around you . . . even if you never moved things without touching them, I’d be willing to bet people would still say, ‘There’s something special about that girl.’”

So, in the end, despite years of absence, Miss Margaret and Ivy still share a family bond, which Ivy ponders from time to time:

Book 4, chapter 35
I felt warm fuzzies when I thought about her; my experiences in her bakery were just at the fringes of my memory. She’d lovingly taken me in and dressed me in her daughter’s outgrown clothes, and fed me, provided me with a bed and a good deal of something I thought of as love. I was still welcome there, and I still ate free whenever I came, in return for an easy chore or two. A second mother? A first mother since I didn’t remember my first one? I loved her and I felt like she could somehow protect me, and I thought she had all the answers. Was she the meaning of “mother”?

Ivy’s “other mother” is her fourth “family.”

Next in line is Ruben. Late in Book 3, Ivy applies for a special effects job, looking to find something satisfying and admirable to do with her energy. She ends up acquiring a lifelong friend in addition. In their first conversation, Ruben makes a nearly prophetic statement:

Book 3, chapter 25
“I think you and I have a good chance of being pretty good friends as well as work partners. I think I can tell already.”

She responds almost incredulously:

“Is this how it’s going to be? You’re really going to treat me normal even though you just met me?”

The two forge a fast friendship based on Ivy’s ability to open Ruben’s eyes and Ruben’s already wide-open mind.

Book 3, chapter 27
“It’s been my understanding that most humans think the world is about ten feet tall.”
“I hate thinking like a human.” . . . “You make me realize how retarded I am.”

Ruben and Ivy become close friends very quickly and both of them wonder if there might be something vaguely romantic going on. After Ruben offhandedly suggests they share an experimental kiss, they both agree that it did nothing for either of them.

“We don’t have to worry about stupid things like dating. It’ll never be there for you and me so we can just be friends.”

They develop an interesting “work” relationship when Ivy is not sure how to deal with being ordered around; Ruben tends to be bossy when he’s directing. But eventually Ivy begins to respect that, and understands that Ruben is a serious artist. She feels honored to have a place in his art:

Book 3, chapter 32
“I guess . . . it seems like you really have so much to say, Ruben. And when I’m helping you with what you want to say, it seems like . . . like I’m saying it too, and that’s good because I’ve never been good at making statements.”

Later in the book Ivy is not incredibly sure she doesn’t want a romance:

Book 3, chapter 34
“I like you. And I feel like that means I should want to kiss you. So can we try again?”

But after a second kiss brings up no romantic feelings, Ruben finally convinces her that that’s okay. She moves into his house and finishes up the play with him, and then begins to let him lean on her support going into the next book. In an almost spouse-like way, Ivy takes care of Ruben, cleaning his house and cooking for him. He doesn’t really know how to take it:

Book 4, chapter 1
“You’re a freakin’ dream come true, but why are you doing this for me?” . . . “See, you don’t owe me anything. Your inspiration, the unique privilege of being with you, is enough even if you wouldn’t even flush your own shit down the toilet.”

Ivy tries her best to express to Ruben why she does everything for him:

“You understand? Why I’d go out of my way for you? Friends are really hard to come by, especially really close ones . . . and for me it’s even harder. I don’t—I just don’t get accepted by many people. Outside my ‘family,’ you’re the only person I can ever remember encouraging me to be myself.” . . . “You never make me feel strange. I guess that is one of the biggest reasons I owe you.”

The two come to the conclusion that they’re in this together:

“I’d come with you as long as I was invited. There’s nothing here for me but you anyway.”
“Listen to us, we sound like we’re married!”
“You’re right! Someone kill me! I promised myself I’d never go drippy over some guy!”
“Aw, well, I’m drippy over you too, Ivy. I wouldn’t trade you for all the money in the world.”

Ivy moves to California with Ruben and manages to get the money to fund his dream. They establish their world together and Ruben’s devotion to his art makes her a little alienated, so she pursues other interests (in this case, finding and bonding with Max). In her absence, Ruben acquires a new friend: Jesse. Ivy doesn’t like it and reacts like a jealous wife:

Book 4, chapter 29
“You’re just acting like you don’t even miss me, you found my replacement with this Jesse guy. You’ve got a new best friend.”

They do eventually reconcile, though in the mean time Ivy’s friend Nicholas has told her that Ruben is very important to her future.

Book 4, chapter 40
If we were interpreting it right, it looked like Ruben wasn’t going to just ignore me and live an artsy life with his newfound twin. The cards said he’d be in my future. That was really reassuring, even though I’d never believed in Tarot cards before.

Ruben’s workshop projects end up inspiring Ivy to start the Handprints club, and though she does continue to be a little jealous of Jesse she does have a very special place in Ruben’s life. She describes it thus:

Book 4, chapter 35
Someone I’d loved enough to literally give a fortune. Someone I’d spent so much time with, someone I’d learned so much from. My first home after home had been with him. He’d helped me straighten out my feelings so many times. He understood me sometimes as if we were brother and sister, and sometimes it seemed we had companionship on the level of some romantic couples. What was the meaning of family if he wasn’t it?

Because they’ve lived under the same roof, had a partnership together, and contributed to a life together, Ivy considers him more than just a friend; he’s her family the way a husband would be. He makes person number five in her octet of families.

From here, it makes sense to move on to Max. Overall, Ivy doesn’t actually like Max all that much—or rather, sometimes she doesn’t—but she can’t deny that they share something no one else can understand. He is the first person to really share her ability. After seeing evidence of this for the first time, Ivy has the following reaction:

Book 4, chapter 13
I sat there on the bed, a bit shocked. I was glad I’d gotten to see it so quickly. It was strange to have seen someone else do something like that, though . . . almost unreal. I could see why it startled people sometimes.

Besides that, they also share a physical resemblance in some ways:

“So, Ivy, I couldn’t help noticing how you and me could almost be brother and sister.”

She starts thinking of Max as maybe her cousin, though after he really begins to be in control of his talent she feels closer to him. He doesn’t react well to achieving better control, however, and even though she says what he feels is normal, he doesn’t agree.

Book 4, chapter 21
“It ain’t normal. Ivy, there’s nothin’ normal about us.”

She teaches him some things about how to appreciate his new talent, and eventually (after a lot of denial and a little psychiatric help) he comes to terms with it. She thinks of him a bit like a person who’s in her family but not in such an emotional way (though she does care for him).

Book 4, chapter 35
People had seemed confused when I claimed not to be Max’s sister. We looked so much alike. He had the exact same power turned down a few hundred notches. Both from New York, my mother city. Both confused in some way about how to deal with our powers and the world. Both glad to have found each other. Were we somehow related?

In the most recent book, Max develops a few more tricks with his ability, making Ivy feel less alone. This feeling that there is someone of “her kind” in existence is what keeps Max on her list of family members. He is number six.

Now for Nicholas. Meeting him actually set Ivy off on the whole concept of family; he claimed to be her brother in the name of the wind. He’s small and gnome-like while she resembles a refugee from Lothlórien, but nevertheless they’re very alike inside. They share a bond through wind art.

Book 4, chapter 34
“We are somehow kin, in the spiritual sense.” . . . “We understand the soul of the air and our minds interpret wind as artistic expression . . . we are related by these circumstances as we are to no one else.”

After meeting by chance by the ocean and making winds together, Ivy ponders Nicholas’s suggestion that they are siblings through their sharing of ability rather than blood.

Book 4, chapter 35
Did Nicholas really deserve to claim my last finger in the family handprint? A brother in the name of the wind? Ridiculous. Why did it sound right? Because he could relate to me, I decided. He could feel what wind was like inside his head, just like me and completely unlike anyone I’d ever met. He was a billion years older than me and he was a crazy old hermit, but there was no denying that he did indeed deserve my last finger. . . .

There is more on Ivy and Nicholas’s relationship in the section on wind art. After they’ve met and it’s time for Ivy to return home, she feels she must maintain contact with Nicholas and brings him to her house. There, he also strikes up an immediate bond with Adele, which angers her because that’s exactly what happened with Nina. She expresses her jealousy:

Book 4, chapter 36
I went out the front door and over the ocean, and I made a storm by myself with the water and wind. I tried not to think about how I wished I had a partner with me now, because that partner would have had to be Nicholas and right now I was glad to be away from him. I didn’t want his brain holding hands with mine when he was too busy having Adele fulfill his destiny or something.

Later, Nicholas accepts Ivy’s gift of a deck of Tarot cards and gives her her first reading, alerting her to the importance Ruben has in her life, among other things. His grandfatherly advice, his expression of concern for her, and his sharing of her perception of wind makes him a definite member of her family. Seven so far.

And the eighth, an obvious one, is Ivy’s “real” family: Her mother, Meri Lin Ling; her father, Fred Fisher; and her brother, Ben Fisher-Ling. Her biological mother finds her again through a tabloid story and reaches out with a letter, imploring Ivy to contact her. Her first reaction is mainly a sort of angry denial:

Book 4, chapter 19
Mom, Mother, Mama, I thought. What would I call her if she really was? How could I think about this? I was always motherless, I always had been, except for Adele, and I called her Adele. Hey, if this lady was my mom, how come she had given me up, and what did the bitch want with me now? She’d abandoned me and now she wanted to screw with my feelings? What the hell was this anyway?

Ivy realizes that she never quite stopped wondering about her origin:

The last time I’d really wondered was so long ago I could barely remember it, and now I felt like I had a wound that had never quite healed.

Ivy talks to Adele about whether she should try to meet her mom, wondering why this woman would be inviting her back into her life. She suggests maybe this lady’s just trying to cash in on her money; obviously Ivy hasn’t yet figured out the meaning of family. Finally she screws up her courage and calls her mom, but gets her brother instead.

Book 4, chapter 22
“My name is Ivy, and your mom wrote to me recently. She—she thinks I’m her daughter. If I am . . . we’re brother and sister. . . . ”

After finding out from her brother that none of her family shares her odd features or her powers, she suffers a disappointment.

My brother thought I was weird, there was no way he had any of my traits himself, and probably didn’t know anyone who did. Apparently my family was pretty normal, which meant I was going to be the oddball. I was used to that but I had so been hoping it wouldn’t be the case when I finally found out where I’d come from. Finding my family may have been like a dream, but it wasn’t exactly a fairy tale dream come true.

She accepts a dinner invitation, then tries to come to terms with what’s just happened to her:

Wow, I have a little brother. Just like Nina, I thought. I remembered how Nina had played with her brother’s toes and how she said she sang to him. I had a little brother and I’d never gotten to do any of those things. If Ben was right I would have only been three when he was born, but still, I felt like something had been taken from me. I burst into tears, thinking of all the experiences I’d lost. Things that were gone forever and ever, things that could have happened in my life that I would now never see. I tried to comfort myself by thinking of all the times with my brother I could still have, not to mention my parents. I held my elbows and rocked myself a bit, sniffling.

Worried about her upcoming visit, she thinks she might have to hold off on using her power or else she might freak out her family. But then she has another realization:

Book 4, chapter 23
I felt calm now. I’d realized something. I was who I was, and nothing was going to change that. My parents, if they were going to have a loving relationship with me someday, would have to love the weird parts of me too. I was a package deal, and individual parts were not labeled for resale. They couldn’t take the teekay out and still sell it as an Ivy product.

When her brother lets her in the door and she finally meets one of the people who is part of this mythical “family” of hers, she can hardly believe it:

I realized suddenly that what I was going through was like meeting a legend. . . . My long-lost family, the one I wasn’t sure even existed until a week ago. All of a sudden I had this wave of happiness, like I had fulfilled some forgotten dream. Like my life had been a puzzle and I’d just found the lost piece under the couch. As the piece slid into place in my head, I felt a strange euphoria that I’d never felt in my life.

The new siblings turn themselves over to their emotions for a moment:

He stood up and plopped down in the chair right next to me, and his arms went around me like they belonged there. Almost like a reflex, my arm slipped around his shoulders, just as naturally as if we’d grown up together. I held my little brother for the first time ever, but it didn’t feel like a first time. It really felt like a reunion. Even though the mop of black hair under my chin didn’t resemble mine in the slightest, even though I was so pale next to him that I felt like a ghost, even though he’d grown up in a New York apartment and I’d been raised for most of my life in a cave, I knew we were family. I didn’t know when I’d started to cry but by the time our first embrace was over I had tears all over my cheeks.

Ivy looks at pictures with Ben and realizes what she’s missed all these years:

I saw pictures of little Ben with his new birthday toys and sloppily blowing out the candles . . . and I felt jealous. I’d never had a birthday cake.

When their mother comes home, seeing Ivy makes her faint from surprise. After she wakes up they have a chat, and Ivy finds her mother a bit formal and standoffish but definitely something special. She realizes how much her early disappearance affected her mother’s life; despite the fact that she freaked her parents out, they continued to look for her after she was gone.

“Do you think that just because I was scared of you and scared for you, it would stop me from wanting you back? You were my child. You are, still.”

Ivy’s still unsure of how to deal with having a mother:

“Mom? Meri Lin? What do I call you?”

And “family” is such a foreign concept to her:

I knew that despite our common blood, these people were really strangers to me. I didn’t know them yet. I didn’t—couldn’t—love them yet. I didn’t know their ways of life, their parenting practices, their religious preferences, their likes and dislikes. Weren’t those things the meaning of family? The blood meant almost nothing.

Contradicting that thought, another image popped into my mind. Why had I experienced such a rush of emotion when I’d hugged my brother before? If blood really meant nothing, I had hugged a total stranger. I had never in my life experienced a feeling like that for another person. To accept that I felt that way about a stranger . . . I just couldn’t do that. There had to be something about “family” that I didn’t understand. Sure, Ben was a cool kid, but no one I would have hugged normally, especially so soon after a first meeting. How had knowing he was my brother changed how I thought about him? Why did someone I hadn’t grown up with feel like someone I belonged with? Even thinking about it now, the emotion was affecting me, even though I was trying to be so analytical about the whole thing. Why did blood ties matter? They just did, I decided. It felt right.

Thinking it over, she realizes how happy she is to have found her family:

There was a certain amount of pure joy associated with finding people in my family. I recalled that I’d never experienced this with anyone; not with Max, another telekinetic; not with Bailey, another elf-like girl who cursed too much; not even with Adele and the people I’d grown to love. Just knowing I had kin, real live relatives, made me feel so centered, so much like I’d found my roots, and it settled so many issues even as it brought up new questions. I hadn’t been abandoned. I wasn’t an orphan. I was elated to have a brother, to have aunts and uncles, two parents, and the first stage of my life explained. I had my past back.

Meeting her father is an incredibly odd experience:

“Come on and give your daddy a hug, sweetie.”

Pet names, hugs, and her father’s suggestions that she reactivate her numbers and get re-enrolled in “the human world” . . . all of this is too much for Ivy to digest in one sitting and she escapes for a while.

Ivy ponders whether she should accept everything that goes with being technically human, and Nina helps her center herself. Ivy’s father reaches out to her, wanting to have a father-daughter chat in a restaurant. She agrees because she wants to figure it out too, but she has some issues.

Book 4, chapter 27
My dad closed and locked the door behind him and began walking, so I followed, walking a little behind. I wasn’t sure how to walk with him. How did people interact with their fathers anyway? I hardly knew this guy.

He insists that she should go to school—education is very important to him—and that she should resume her identity. She reacts rather violently:

“How can you think I would just show up and immediately pick up a life I never lived, Dad? It isn’t like I was floating in a void all that time I was ‘gone’ . . . I was living.”

After realizing that his daughter has some special issues with getting a normal education, he suggests homeschooling her on certain subjects he deems important. She accepts, and they have a heartfelt chat.

“I think I’m going to like having a daughter,” he mused.
“I already like having a dad,” I said.

Through the rest of Book 4, Ivy encounters some rough times feeling natural with her parents and her brother. She thinks she might be making them uncomfortable, but everyone soon realizes they’ve all got to get used to how each other actually are rather than monitoring their behavior in an act.

Book 4, chapter 37
“We can see you’re not comfortable unless you can be yourself, and that means using that power of yours . . . we want you to get used to using it in front of us, so we can get used to you.”

From then on everything is a little smoother when she visits her parents, and in Book 5 Ivy continues with her lessons with her father. She continues to try to get to know her family as individual people and as whatever they mean to her as a “family,” and slowly but surely she’s getting it. In Book 5 she confides in her brother when she’s in the middle of her altruism streak; she meets her aunt Lissa Lee; and she gets invited to her father’s family reunion. All of this helps to cement her ideas about family:

Book 4, chapter 35
I had my new flesh and blood family. I hardly knew them. I didn’t know my brother too well yet, but I had emotions toward him. Mom had searched me out and finally found me. Dad wanted to give me the knowledge he thought was important. They wanted me to be in their lives and I wanted to be in theirs. Real blood family. Family.

So, as we’ve seen, “family” is not so simple an issue for someone like Ivy! But luckily, there are some good things about having so many family connections:

Book 4, chapter 35
I wondered if anyone was thinking of me the way I was thinking of them. Then I remembered how many family members I had, and I realized the chances that someone was thinking about me were very good.


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