by Lily Zante
The woman folded her arms even tighter across her chest. “It’s been tough on us all, him especially,” she said, “being so young and all.” Her words made Ava feel even more guilty. “I unders—,” she stopped herself in time. “I’m sorry that this happened to your son.”
“Sorry isn’t going to pay the hospital bills. And I hope he hasn’t suffered any long term brain damage.”
Brain damage?
Ava blinked. “He had a bump on the head.”
“A nasty bump on the head. You shoulda seen it. The size of a golf ball. You’d feel real bad if you’d heard how much he cried. How he hollered when he fell off and landed on that hard wooden floor. You shoulda seen the bruising along his arm.”
Ava lowered her head, imagining the very scene the woman had painted, but with Elisabetta. If she were in this woman’s shoes how would she feel? And yet he had only fallen. No broken or fractured arm.
“Did he suffer a concussion?”
“He was crying, and he was drowsy, and he just wasn’t himself. They kept him in overnight for observation. Think about it, a baby so young. He can’t tell us what hurts or how he feels.”
“Of course not,” said Ava, agreeing. Seeing your child hurt had to be one of the hardest things for a parent to bear. No wonder Gwen Harding looked like she wanted to rip her to shreds. “I expect it was unbearable for you all. I feel terrible, and I wish there was something I could do.”
Don’t talk about the lawsuit. Don’t be seen to making a bribe. Connor’s last words to her, when she’d told him she wasn’t going to change her mind. “I wish him a speedy recovery.” Although, by now, she expected the baby to be fully recovered.
“Is that why you’re here?” The woman asked her as they still faced one another.
“What do you mean?” Ava asked. Then the penny dropped. “I’m not trying to buy you off, if that’s what you think.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t want you thinking you can come over here and be all nice to me and hope we won’t sue, because we are. You can’t get away with this—”
Ava shook her head. “That’s not why I’m here.” She had to be careful with the words she used. “I don’t make the cribs. I only sell them, and I didn’t know there was a problem until it was too late. It’s the truth, and I don’t blame you for not believing me.” But as she spoke, she noticed that the woman’s gaze fell to the large diamond on Ava’s engagement ring, and then her watch, and then the bag she carried. She was scoping Ava out.
Instinctively, Ava folded her arms, hiding her watch and ring. She had been undecided about what to wear for this visit and in the end chosen a pair of trousers with a jacket and blouse. She had wanted to look smart and professional but here, in this woman’s home, she looked too business-like.
Flashy.
Polished.
Made of money.
Maybe sticking to her maternity clothes might have been more appropriate.
The woman said nothing. She didn’t need to, her hard face and disbelieving expression told Ava all she needed to know. “Look, Gwen,” she said in a last ditch attempt to reach out. “The moment I found out, my team and I started to recall all the cribs sold with this particular problem. I got on a plane and I’m here, and it might seem odd to you—it sure feels odd to me now to be standing here in your home—but I’m a new mom myself. I feel for you, even though I’m not in your shoes.”
“You have a baby?”
Ava nodded. “She’s almost three months old.”
“You flew here? Where’re you from?”
“Oh, no, I drove here from Denver but I don’t live in the US anymore. I’ve moved to Italy.”
The woman’s eyes opened wide. “You came all that way to see me?”
Ava nodded. “I came all that way because I needed to fix this before another baby got hurt.” The woman blinked a few times as if she was considering what Ava had told her. “Denver’s quite a distance away.”
Ava nodded.
“You want some iced tea, or something?”
“A glass of water would be good.” The woman disappeared only to return again with some water. “Thanks,” said Ava, taking the wet glass that was offered to her. Then, the sound of a baby crying suddenly broke the awkward tension in the air.
“Perry’s up. I’ll go and get him.” She reappeared a few moments later holding her son in her arms. He had a head of mussed up blond curls and he was chubby and adorable, even more so when he rubbed his eyes. Seeing him made Ava instantly long for Elisabetta. “Hello, Perry,” she said, softly. “How are you?” The child blinked at her then moved closer to his mother.
“He needs his milk, don’t you little buddy?” said Gwen, rubbing noses with him. She disappeared into the small kitchenette and Ava followed. Gwen seemed to struggle to balance the baby on her hip while she made up his milk.
“I can hold him, if you want,” offered Ava.
After a moment’s hesitation, Gwen handed her baby over and much to Ava’s surprise, he came to her easily. She couldn’t help but grin back at him. He looked fine. Just fine. Just as she’d expected him to.
And that was when she understood it. Did his mother think taken Ava’s visit here to mean that she was checking out the baby, as if she didn’t quite believe her? It would explain her coldness, and her exaggeration of the boy’s fall. The woman was suspicious of her and it didn’t matter that Ava had explained the real reason for her visit. The woman had already made up her mind about Ava long before she’d even turned up.
“I’ll take him now,” she said. They returned to the living room and sat down. Ava took the couch opposite and watched the baby grab his bottle and start drinking noisily. A part of her felt as if this had been a wasted journey and she wasn’t sure what she had intended to achieve or what she should do next.
It was time to go back home to her baby.
Nico had been right. This journey had been pointless. Connor had been worried that her visit might be construed as her trying to buy them off but the truth was that hadn’t been the motivation behind it. It wasn’t in her nature to bribe anyone.
“I can arrange for a new crib to be sent out to you, if you would like,” she offered.
“A new crib?” Gwen looked at her as if she’d said something offensive.
“The correct one, this time. But you probably won’t ever want to buy anything from me again—and that’s fine, too,” she said quickly.
“We don’t mostly buy things online,” said the mother. “Everything we need we get from Wal-Mart.”
“Wal-Mart is good,” said Ava.
“But see, this time my folks wanted to give us something for his birth so they offered to buy us the crib. My dad insisted on helping us out and my sister told me about your site. She’s always on the internet. I don’t know where she finds the time.”
“Has anyone arranged to have the crib shipped back?” Ava asked. “We would obviously refund you in full.”
“My husband told me to keep it here for proof.”
“For proof?” But just as she asked the question, the answer dawned upon her. Proof. For the lawsuit.
“I see,” Ava replied quietly as the baby guzzled his milk. It made her think of Elisabetta and she wondered how her mom was doing looking after her. She didn’t intend for today to be yet another long working day. She had a few hours of work to do at the warehouse before she went home. “I should go,” she said, springing into action and getting up. “I’ll see myself out,” she waved a hand towards Gwen, as if to stop her from getting up. “Thank you for your time.”
“I appreciate you coming.” The woman’s unexpected words raised a smile on Ava’s lips. As she approached the door, she heard the sound of a key turning and then the door opened. A stocky man wearing builder’s overalls with a safety helmet in his hands, stepped in.
“Who are you?” he asked, suspicion layered thick in his voice. He stopped in his tracks with the door still ajar. Gwen came up behind her still wit
h the baby in her arms. “She’s the lady we got the crib from.”
“That’s your store?” The man gave Ava a menacing stare and closed the door.
“I was leaving,” said Ava, feeling uneasy with the way he was looking at her.
“What do you want?” he barked.
“Nothing.” She clutched her bag to her stomach, a weak form of protection. “I came to see your baby.”
“What for?” He took a step towards her, forcing her to take a step back. “Is that ‘cos you think we’re lying?”
“Donny.” Gwen’s voice had a warning tone to it.
“Did she get you to sign something?” he asked his wife. Gwen shook her head. He turned to Ava. “Isn’t it wrong for you to show up on our doorstep like this?”
“I never meant to cause any offence.” Now she knew she should never have come here. “I admit it was for purely selfish reasons. I have a young child myself and I felt sick when I heard what had happened. I didn’t come here to buy you off or to silence you. I came here as a mother and because I feel bad for what happened to your baby.”
“We’re going to sue you,” he snarled. “We’re going to expose you.”
Ava blinked at him in surprise. “Expose me?” Now it was her turn to get angry. “Expose me for what?”
“Selling them things when you shouldn’t have been.”
“There is nothing to expose,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “But you’re welcome to do what you feel you must.” It wouldn’t do her any good to lose her temper now, and her fear still lurked somewhere beneath the thin veneer of anger. “I don’t make the cribs, I only sell them and I sold them in good faith. We never meant for any of this to happen. You’re right, I didn’t have to come here. Perhaps I should have listened to everyone and not come here. But I didn’t listen and I dragged my 3 month old daughter all the way from Italy just so I could try to fix this problem quickly. I didn’t have to come and see you, and I haven’t offered you any money, or bribed you or advised you on what to do. I am sorry that this happened but this was a genuine mistake. You need to do what you feel is in your best interests and I have to do what’s right for me, and coming here today, to meet with you—even if it was for my own selfish reasons—was something I felt compelled to do. That’s all I have to say. And now I must get back to my baby.”
She glanced at Gwen who now held the baby to her shoulder, and the knowing looks exchanged between husband and wife didn’t go unnoticed by her. “Excuse me,” she said, managing to raise her voice only slightly as she edged towards the door. The man stepped away and it was with some relief that she opened the door, and stepped out. Gwen came up behind her. “His bark is worse than his bite, but we only want what’s right for us.”
Ava nodded. “Thank you for seeing me,” she said, then left. She couldn’t wait to reach the safety of her car and once she was inside she breathed out slowly, her body sinking into the soft leather seats as she exhaled loudly. It wasn’t until this moment that she realized how tightly wound up she’d been. After a few moments, she took out her cell phone and saw the missed call from Nico. A feeling of relief washed over her, calming her frayed nerves and she pictured his face before her and wished he was here beside her. She called him quickly, desperate to hear his voice.
“Are you alright?” It was the first thing he said.
No. Was the first thing that came to her mind but Nico sounded worried and so she replied, “Yes. Why?”
“You went to see them, didn’t you?”
Kim or Rona must have told him. “I did.” She closed her eyes and braced herself for his telling off.
“I wish you’d have listened to me, Ava.” She went quiet, hearing his words, her senses still reeling from meeting with the Hardings. Nico berating her did nothing to ease her mind and she half-wished she’d called Kim instead.
“Ava?” he asked, when she fell silent.
“I’m listening.” She didn’t have it in her to fight, not when the outcome clearly pointed to him being right. There had been no point wasting a day coming here. Even seeing the baby who was now completely recovered had upset her, because it made her miss her own daughter.
She’d left Elisabetta for this?
“Say something.”
“You’re right.” There. She hoped that made him feel better.
“What’s wrong?”
What’s wrong? She’d called her husband because she missed him and all he did was have a go at her. “It’s a long drive back. I should go.”
“What is it, Ava?” She sat in the silence, contemplating what had happened back there. “You were right. I shouldn’t have come here.”
His voice turned anxious. “Did they say something? Did they do something?”
“No.” What were they going to do? “It’s nothing,” she said, knowing he would jump to conclusions. “They didn’t do anything, but they weren’t exactly happy to see me—I know you already told me this and I’d rather you didn’t rub my face in it.”
Silence filled the air like a slowly inflating hot air balloon until finally she said, “My phone will probably die soon. I should go.”
She thought she heard him let out a disappointed grunt. “Drive safely. I don’t want you thinking of what happened back there. I’ll call you later.”
“Okay,” she said, and hung up, without even asking him how his day had been. As an afterthought, she called Kim to quickly get an update on the crib recall.
“We tracked some more down,” Kim told her.
“Excellent,” said Ava. Good news in an otherwise crappy day. “Anything else?” She had changed her mind about returning to the warehouse and now she looked forward to going home to be with her daughter.
“Are you coming back here?” Kim asked and the way she said it told her that she needed to.
“No,” she said, her body tensing, bracing itself for the news that was sure to follow. “I wasn’t going to. Why?”
“In that case you’ll want to know—” said Kim, being uncharacteristically vague.
“Know what?”
“Another parent called this morning to report that their baby had been injured. The mom said the baby fell out and fractured her shoulder.”
“A fractured shoulder?” gasped Ava. “How old was the baby?”
“Thirteen months only.”
“I can’t see how that would happen,” said Ava, trying to imagine a baby just over a year old, falling out with enough force, from such a short height and fracturing a shoulder.
“What else did the mom say?”
“It was difficult to make out. She was being hysterical. She just yelled down the phone and kept saying it was our fault.”
“How’s the baby?”
“The mom said it could have been really bad—”
And at that moment, Ava’s phone battery died completely.
Ava slumped back in her chair and all of a sudden it stopped; her breath, her movement, her thoughts. She'd read about the dangers of drop-side cribs and of the fatalities when tiny bodies became entrapped, and her insides melted to a mush. She had never in a million years envisaged being in a situation where she had indirectly caused this to happen.
For the first time ever it suddenly seemed as if the store was too much for her. The pressure was getting to her and the constant juggling of it as she thought of Elisabetta at home with Grandma—all of these things together now slowly crept out from the hidden corners of her mind.
She didn’t need this.
Nico had been right. Why was she killing herself, spreading herself too thin, trying to make everything and everyone happy, except for herself? Lately, the worry over her business hung over her like a guillotine. What would it be like not to have any more Gwen Hardings to deal with? No more reports of injuries. No more irate parents yelling at her.
What would it be like to be a lady of leisure?
If she sold the store, she would never have to deal with things like this again. She started the engine
and drove away, still thinking about the idea.
Chapter 26
Why the hell was he signing this off? Nico stared at the invoices he’d just scribbled his name onto; they were for the software and hardware Demetrio needed. Gina could have done this. Why hadn’t she? There was something not quite right between the two of them and he would get to the bottom of it in time. For now, he trusted Gina and knew she would come to him if she had a problem.
For now, company dynamics were the least of his worries.
He pushed the paperwork away and browsed through his email inbox once more.
There was nothing.
Nothing from Ava, at least.
There had been a time once when the two of them had sent one another emails hot enough to make him lose focus for the day. But now there was nothing new from her except a photo of Tori sitting next to a sleeping Elisabetta. Ava had sent this a few days ago and he’d stared at it a million times already because this days’-old picture was the most recent one he had of his daughter.
He felt for Ava, now that he had some idea of what it was like to look after a baby. It couldn’t be easy even with Elsa helping out during the day, and from what he understood, Elsa returned to her own place in the evening. He knew that working long hours and having business worries to contend could eat away at a person, like starving maggots burrowing through and he wished he could be there for his wife to help alleviate the stress. The more he thought about it the more guilty he felt and he felt really bad for the way he’d spoken to her earlier after she’d visited that family but he’d been worried about her.
Couldn’t she see that?
He knew how nasty people could get and he wanted to protect her. He’d waited up until 2am just so that he could call her again but when he did she’d been busy with Elisabetta. At least, that had been her explanation for not being able to talk to him. He didn’t blame her. Maybe she was still mad at him. Their disagreements were becoming the norm, even despite the physical distance between them. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one bit.
Something had to change.