“I’m so glad you’re okay,” he said, hands kneading her tense muscles. “God, I was so worried something happened to you.”
She didn’t respond, but Cole could feel little hitches in her chest warning at the nearness of tears.
“Ava, I’m sorry,” Cole whispered, his mouth almost against her ear. “So sorry about what I said and did. I was wrong… I know that. All right?”
“‘S’okay,” she mumbled.
“No... no, it’s not,” Cole said, pulling back to look at her. He stroked his thumb against her cheek. “But I want us to be okay. Can we... talk about this sometime? Just you and me?”
Ava nodded, eyes glittering with unshed tears. Cole reached for her hand, and this time her fingers tightened around his, holding on tight.
: : : : : : : : : :
Chim and Suzanne were waiting in the lobby when Ava was released. Chim rushed toward them the moment Ava and Cole walked out together, hand in hand. He pulled Ava into a hug, then released her, his eyebrows dropping in annoyance, nostrils flared.
“Goddammit, Ava,” he chided, “I can’t believe you’d PULL something like this again. I mean, you really fucking SCARED me this time!”
His voice had the older brother tone he sometimes used with her; responsibility and frustration wrapped up in love.
“Chim,” Cole said, hand on his arm, “it's okay.”
“No,” he barked, shrugging off Cole’s touch. “No, it’s not!” (The calm from before, Cole realized, had been an act for his benefit.) “Seriously, Ava. You can’t keep pulling shit like this! You’ve gotta grow up!”
His cheeks were blotchy with colour.
“Sorry,” she muttered. She stared at the floor. Voice empty.
“Not good enough,” he grumbled, stepping toward her. “I swear to God, Ava, if your dad knew tha—”
“Marcus!” Cole snapped, stepping between the two of them, “her mom died!”
Chim stopped, his face draining. He hugged Ava again, holding her tight to his chest.
“Oh god,” Chim gasped. “So, so sorry. I didn’t know...”
: : : : : : : : : :
They drove back to Ava’s apartment, the high-pitched buzz of the little car their only sound. It was just after midnight and all of them had classes in the morning. Cole offered to stay with Ava, and Chim and Suzanne quickly said their goodbyes. Ava didn’t quite know what to do with Cole’s offer... or whether she wanted him there or not... but she said nothing, and that was taken as yes.
She didn’t want to decide anything anymore. She was too tired.
“Thanks for letting me stay,” Cole said as they walked up to the front door, his hand on her lower back.
Ava saw him watching her and she dropped her eyes again. Things were still weird, and she wasn’t sure how to get back to normal. She needed time to think... or sleep... or finish sobering up. ‘All of them probably…’
“Yeah,” she muttered, punching in the code and leading Cole inside.
In minutes they were at the entrance to her apartment. Ava dropped her backpack on the floor while she fiddled with the lock. After two unsuccessful tries, she leaned her cheek against the door, wearily closing her eyes. She couldn’t get her key to fit. She jumped as Cole’s hand brushed her arm.
“Hey,” he said gently, “I’ll go, alright? I just wanted to make sure you were inside, safe. I’ll, uh... I’ll call you in the morning.”
Ava turned to him, eyes shining in the dim light of the corridor.
“No,” she answered, “I want you here, but I think… I think we should talk now, not later. Okay?”
Cole nodded, expecting Ava to pass him the keys, but instead she pulled out a mostly-empty pack of cigarettes and a lighter from her bag.
Cole frowned.
“You don’t smoke.”
Ava laughed tiredly.
“I do tonight.” With a sigh, she hefted the bag back onto her shoulder, heading toward the fire escape. “C’mon,” she called.
: : : : : : : : : :
They sat side by side, Ava talking through the events of the last weeks. Her voice rose and fell in a quiet tempo, trying to make sense of the blur of time. She described the first meeting with her mother after so many years apart. How Ava had gotten angry enough that she’d raged at her during the session, finally telling her everything that she’d felt as a child. How much she’d hated her. How terrible Shay had been. How much of the abuse she actually remembered.
Ava laughed bitterly.
“I didn’t think Terry would ask me back again after that.” She took another drag on the cigarette in her hand, holding the smoke in her lungs before blowing it away. “But she… she wanted to get well. She did, Cole. And Terry said that this was part of that process for her, so…”
The sentence ended mid-thought. Ava turned to Cole. There was an odd expression on his face, not quite sad, but somehow hurting.
“And so you went back,” he prompted.
She nodded, letting the taste of the cigarette smoke bring her father to mind as she inhaled.
“There was another message from Terry when I got home. So I went back the next night, and she was waiting.” Ava paused, lifting her hand up, thumbing her eyebrow, the low-burning cigarette dangling. “Didn’t expect that, I guess. I just kind of... talked to her. She – my mom, I mean – she never said sorry. Not that I expected her to. I mean she hadn’t really changed, even though I had. Addiction’s a funny thing.”
Ava laughed angrily and Cole’s expression grew uncomfortable.
“She never said sorry?”
Ava shook her head.
“Nope... but that wasn’t what I was looking for, anyway. I just wanted to have my say. To be able to tell her: ‘this was the fucked up shit you did to me, and it was never EVER okay’. ” She lifted the cigarette with shaking fingers, rubbing away a tear with her free hand. “And then… and then she went and fucked it all up anyhow. Took off and OD’ed in an alley downtown. Just an addict, screwing up one last time.” Ava took a sobbing breath, cheeks shining with tears. “That was it. She was gone.”
“God, Ava, I wish you’d told me,” Cole said, sliding closer. She nodded, flicking ashes into the wind and watching as they swirled down into the night.
“Yeah, well, me too.” She gave a short, harsh laugh. “But here we are.”
Cole put his arm over her shoulders.
“Yeah, here we are.”
Ava drew the warm burn of smoke into her lungs, coughing and blowing it away before continuing.
“Part of me wants to say it was just a fucked-up waste of time to even meet with her. She didn’t get clean, after all. But there were all these things that I got to talk about. These things I’d never said to her, or anyone. Things I was sure I couldn’t say... and I’m… I’m glad for those.” She reached down, tapping ashes onto the stair’s grate. “I mean… I got to tell her about Dad, and how amazing he was when I was growing up, and how I turned out just fucking fine without her. I needed to say that.” Ava dropped her face down, lips twisting into a cynical smile. “For a while she... she just kept trying to rationalize it all. About why the abuse happened… why it wasn’t her fault.”
Cole’s arm tightened on her shoulders.
“God, baby, I’m sorry.”
Ava shrugged.
“Yeah, well, people are people. This thing that Terry set up,” Ava said, ashes rising as she gestured, “it was supposed to help her get clean, but the truth is, Cole, it was never about her… it was about me. So I just kept talking, and whenever she’d start in on her shit, I’d walk out the door.”
Cole laughed.
“Sounds like me.”
Ava sniffled.
“Well... a better choice than punching her, which was what I wanted to do,” she admitted.
She smiled morosely.
“I kept thinking one day I’d show up and Terry would say she wouldn’t see me, or she’d tell me to fuck off, that she was done, but she never did. I just t
alked... getting it out... letting go of that pain and anger... and when I couldn’t deal with it anymore, I’d come home and paint—”
“You painted?” Cole asked in surprise. Her hair hung down in strands and he reached up, brushing it back behind her ear so he could see her eyes.
“Yeah... my studio’s packed with them,” Ava said wearily. Cole kissed her temple.
“I’d like to see them sometime.”
She reached over, crushing out the cigarette on the metal grate. She flicked it into the night with a shower of sparks.
“I’m not sure you would. They’re dark. And, uh... not all of them are on canvas.”
He grinned.
“Boy, Chim would have had your ass if you’d been caught at the train yards.”
Ava snorted, rolling her eyes.
“I can handle Chim just fine,” she said with a tired chuckle. Her smile wavered, and she turned to him, the wariness returning. “It’s you I’m not so sure I can manage.”
Cole nodded.
“Fair enough.”
She swallowed hard, closing her eyes.
“I know I should have told you about my mom... I get that. But I needed to do this... do it for me.” She looked back to him as she spoke, holding his gaze. “I needed to find forgiveness.”
Cole's mouth hardened at that, jaw tightening angrily.
“How can you talk about forgiving her, after what she did to you, Ava?” He grabbed hold of her hand, squeezing hard. “She fucked up your childhood! How could you ever get past that?”
His tone was outraged and hurt, and Ava turned her hand over, lacing her fingers with his. This, right here, was why she hadn’t told Cole.
“In a way, my forgiveness has nothing to do with her,” she explained. “I needed to let go of that anger I was carrying around. Because forgiving didn’t mean you’re saying that what the other person did was okay.”
Her fingers tightened in Cole’s hands, eyes on his face. A muscle in his jaw was jumping, his eyes bright and unsettled. It hurt her to see it.
“What my mother did to me,” Ava continued, “is never EVER going to be okay! But forgiveness is about me moving past what happened when I was a kid. Learning to be okay with myself, and letting those emotions go.”
“But, how?” Cole cried. His face was raging with unspoken hurt, anguish in his eyes.
“I needed to let that anger out of me to get past it,” she said, her voice breaking, tears starting to draw wet lines on her cheeks. “She doesn’t get to own me, Cole... not ever! Not anymore any way. She has no more control. It’s my life now. I’m done with hating her.”
Ava took a shuddering breath, her face sad but peaceful.
“My mother may have fucked up her detox. She may have screwed up rehab and died in the end. But I don’t have to feel bad about that. I tried for ME, Cole. Does that make sense? I let her go on my terms. And the truth is, I’m glad about it. It’s over... the pain is gone. And I’m glad.”
Next to her, Cole pulled her into a painful hug, his body quivering. He was breathing harshly, almost in tears himself. Ava could barely make out his words when he whispered them.
“So what do you do if the person you need to forgive is already dead?”
Chapter 18: The Darkness Between
There was a long moment after Cole said it... admitted to the anger he’d been feeling for years. Ava just stared at him in confusion. In the dim haze from the security light, the blue of her eyes was so dark it seemed almost black. Dreamlike.
“You’re angry at Hanna?” she asked, perplexed.
Cole sighed, shaking his head. It came to him that he’d never really said this aloud... not in years. Not since his mother’s funeral. Even then, he didn’t get to say it clearly. (His father hadn’t wanted to hear it.)
“No, not Hanna...” he admitted.
Ava’s expression shifted as the rest of the story appeared. He could actually see the moment she understood.
“Your mom.” This time it wasn’t a question.
The secret hung between them like the mist from their breaths.
Cole nodded.
“Yeah. You can’t believe how angry I was at her...” He stumbled. “...how angry I am at her.”
Ava reached for his hand. She was frowning like she was trying to solve a difficult equation without a calculator. Cole realized that though he had told her about the facts of his childhood, he really hadn’t said much about what he felt like when it was happening.
“You ever talk to Marta about it in your sessions?” she asked. “Or the ones with your dad?”
The suggestion was disconcerting and he choked, the cold air turning his breath into white clouds.
“Twice,” he muttered. “Dad freaked out.”
She nodded, her thumb rubbing circles into the back of his hand. She chewed the inside of her lip, eyes unfocused, as if gnawing away at an idea. He had the urge to kiss her, here on the grated step of the fire escape. His heart ached with all the things he wanted to tell her... needed her to know and understand about him.
“What do you talk about in your sessions with your dad?” she asked gently.
He shrugged.
“Hanna mainly... Dad has lots to say about her.”
Ava's smile was pained, as if the thought hurt her. Somehow that made Cole feel better, that she wasn’t making light of this. He leaned in, kissing her chastely, then pulled back again. He hadn’t let go of her hand.
“How do you feel about Hanna?” she asked.
Cole made a low, whistling sound as he exhaled, his body growing heavier as he thought about her. Hanna’s memory had been with him for so long; until recently, Cole hadn’t known how to think of himself without the perspective of his older sister. (The person he wasn’t.) In the last two months of counselling, he’d come to realize that much of who he was had been shaped by Hanna Thomas. As a result, his perspective had changed about her.
“What is she to you?” Ava prompted.
His eyes drifted out to the snow-covered city beyond the steps, velvet black lit by golden pools of light, coins thrown atop an ink-soaked sheet. That, he realized, was how he remembered Hanna: individual bright moments lighting the darkness. The group were linked together in a chain of meaning.
“I dunno,” he began. “I used to kind of idealize her like everyone else, but in the last few months... writing about my feelings, and talking about it with Marta, that’s changed. The shit Hanna used to pull... always taking risks she shouldn’t have...” He shrugged. “You know, that stuff has consequences, but she didn’t really care. I guess I’ve come to realize that she was just a messed-up kid like me.”
Ava slid closer, her body tucked tightly against his side. She leaned her head on his shoulder as he talked.
“Everyone’s messed-up, Cole... everyone.”
He chuckled.
“Hanna was great in a lot of ways… an awesome sister. I mean, I miss her... I love her.” He slumped lower, his limbs like an anchor, drawing him down to that darkness inside himself. “She was the cool older sister who kept care of me. When I was a kid, I used to get so angry with being compared to her, but Marta and I have been talking about how that’s more my Dad’s problem than mine. I never really wanted to be Hanna. Ever. It was Dad’s thing. I’m okay with that now.”
Ava turned to look up at him, her hair brushing his cheek like a paintbrush on canvas.
“But your issue with your mom…?”
Cole’s smile disappeared, like the sun going behind a cloud.
“Yeah, Mom…”
His voice disappeared. He stared out into the night. As much as memories of Hanna were points of light, memories of his mother were darkness. The emptiness between.
“You’re going to need to talk about your anger with her sometime,” Ava said quietly. “You’re got to deal with it, or it’ll never go away.”
She turned his hand over, tracing letters into his palm.
I…L.O.V.E…Y.O.U…
&nbs
p; Cole glanced down at her fingers, smiling.
“Yeah,” he answered, “I am. But it isn’t going to be good, Ava… it’s just not.”
She moved away from his shoulder to look him in the face.
“Why?”
He winced, trying to put it into words.
“Dad just... he has this thing about Mom. They might’ve divorced and all, but she’s a really sensitive topic for him.”
Ava shrugged.
“Maybe it’s because they divorced.”
“Maybe...” he answered, voice wavering. There was something else there. Cole had sensed it for years, but he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know about the thing in the darkness that no one spoke of.
Lost in his thoughts, Ava’s voice startled him.
“You need to push the issue, Cole,” she said firmly. “Tell him how you feel. Make him talk!”
He wondered for a moment where she got the strength to not give a damn about the consequences. Cole had spent his whole life running from conflict; Ava was always running toward it. He closed his eyes, imagining what would happen if he did tell his father about his feelings. If he pushed the issue as Ava’d suggested. His chest tightened at the thought.
There would be consequences.
“You have to,” she insisted.
He nodded.
Ava tipped her head to the side like a bird examining a crumb, her face losing the seriousness of seconds earlier. She winked and brightened.
“Your dad’s not so bad some days, you know... I’ve told him off and still walked away from it.”
Cole made a scoffing sound.
“Yeah well, Dad’s a little soft on you for some reason.”
She poked him in the ribs with her elbow.
“Maybe that’s because I call him on his shit and no one else does.” She raised an eyebrow. (It was the look of someone who’d just walked out of the candy store with their pockets full of candy.) “You ever think of that?”
Cole smirked.
“Yes, actually, I have.” He leaned closer. “I told Marta about it.”
Ava’s expression softened.
“You did...?”
“Yeah, in my sessions... not the ones with Dad.”
Intaglio: Dragons All The Way Down Page 12