by Claire Adams
Now, it almost looked like the place could have been featured in some catalog. For the first time, I realized I really needed to add some more personalization to it. Maybe I’d have some of Ava’s photos printed out and hang those up. Once Ava was feeling better, when I had more time.
As weird as it was to have Mom there, I really appreciated her help. She cooked us a big breakfast on Sunday morning, and then she looked after Ava, playing with her, while I worked on a couple of pieces for the newspaper. I was just glad that I wasn’t feeling sick either. If I caught whatever Ava had, I would have been miserable.
I could tell that at this point, Ava was milking the cold for all that it was worth, though. I knew the difference between her real cough and her fake cough at this point, and I knew she was just trying to get her Grammie to coddle her. But I hid a smile, not trying to stop it.
At least, not until I walked in on her negotiating with Mom to watch Ghostbusters. “But the doggies are so cute!” Ava pleaded.
Mom frowned at the computer, reading the movie synopsis. “I don’t know, Ava. This sounds like it’s made for older kids,” she said.
“It is,” I said. “That is not something for you, little munchkin.”
Ava pouted. “But doggies,” she said.
I glanced at my watch. “I think it’s nap time anyway,” I said. “I bet if you think really hard about it, you can dream about doggies. And that’ll be more fun than watching that movie anyway.”
Ava looked like she wanted to fight me on it, but then she yawned and rubbed at her eyes.
“All right,” I said, scooping her up. “Nap time, it is. Let’s go.”
“All right,” Ava said, giving an exaggerated sigh. She blew a kiss toward her grandma, letting me carry her off into her room.
Once I’d settled her into her nap and picked up a few things in her room, I went back out to the living room. “Coffee?” Mom asked.
“I’d love some,” I said gratefully.
I followed her into the kitchen and sat at the table while she made up two mugs, putting in just the right amount of cream and sugar.
“Ava really is a smart one,” she commented. “And sneaky, too.” Her eyes glittered with amusement, and I had to laugh.
“She is that,” I agreed. “She’s usually pretty good, but she knows she’s got you wrapped around her finger.”
“It’s a grandmother’s right to spoil her granddaughter!” Mom said, also laughing. She shook her head. “And what about Ace? How are things going with him?”
I sighed. “You were right,” I said. “I have to tell him the truth about Ava.” I glanced toward Ava’s closed door, gnawing at the inside of my cheek. “I don’t know how I’m going to tell him, but he deserves to know.”
“He does,” Mom agreed, her eyes serious.
“I was going to break up with him,” I admitted. Even though that wasn’t my plan anymore, it still hurt to even think about.
“Things aren’t working out between you?” Mom asked.
“No, things are great, actually,” I said, rubbing at my forehead. “That’s just the problem. I feel so guilty. I’m not really lying to him, but I know I need to tell him the truth.” I paused. “I’m already nearly in love with him,” I confessed. “So breaking up with him is already going to break my heart. Whatever he thinks, even if he gets mad at me or if he decides that he doesn’t want to have anything to do with Ava and never wants to see me again, there’s no way to get out of this without a broken heart.”
“Give him the benefit of the doubt,” Mom suggested. “Maybe he’ll surprise you. After all, he’s met Ava. He knows you have a child. And he hasn’t run away yet.”
“True,” I agreed. I paused. “But I don’t want to let myself consider that things could work out with Ace if he knows the truth. Because if it doesn’t happen, that’s going to hurt. And it’s going to hurt even more if I get my hopes up.”
“Oh honey,” Mom said sadly.
I gave her a half smile. “Come on; you’re supposed to tell me that you knew I should have told him, even back when I first found out I was pregnant.”
Mom shrugged. I could tell that there was something else she wanted to say.
“What is it?” I asked.
Mom sighed. “I hate to say this. And I’ve never met the guy, so don’t think that I have something against him. But before you tell him about Ava, are you sure that you’ve considered everything that might happen?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.
“Custody,” Mom said. She grimaced. “I know you have rights as a mother. But if he wants that little girl to be his, and you didn’t even tell him about her when you first found out that you were pregnant, he could fight you for custody.”
I swallowed hard. “I know,” I said. “And I thought about it.” I shook my head. “But I didn’t tell him about her because he didn’t want to have kids.”
“Still, he might be able to prove that he does now,” Mom reminded me. “And if he’s just out of the military and has a stable life now, the court could look at him as a responsible, financially sound choice for her parenting. You might at least end up with shared custody.”
“I know,” I repeated, my voice quiet. I tried to think of a way to explain. “The truth is, if he wants Ava that bad, I’m not going to fight him on it,” I told her. “Ava’s my whole world; you know that. But if Ace wants to know his daughter, if he wants to be part of her life, then I can’t stop that.”
Mom hummed in response. “I think that’s a very mature way of thinking about it,” she said.
I ran a hand back through my hair. “The thing is, I feel bad for having kept her from him,” I admitted. “You should have seen him with her last night. He was so great.”
Mom raised an eyebrow. “You asked him for help before you asked me?” she teased.
I laughed and shook my head. “Never,” I promised. “But he called, and I told him Ava was sick, and the next thing I knew, he was on the front doorstep with soup and juice and everything.”
“He sounds like a really great man,” Mom said, her eyes twinkling.
I nodded. “He’s really great,” I told her. “Like I said, I’m falling in love with him.” I paused. “But that only makes me feel guiltier about the whole Ava thing.”
“Then you have to tell him,” Mom said.
“I know,” I sighed. “But I have to do it in person. And one thing at a time. I want Ava to feel better, first and foremost. Then I’ll start figuring out how to tell Ace about her.”
“I think you’re doing the right thing,” Mom said. “And I know it’s not going to be easy, but I am proud of you. And I’ll do anything that I can to help you out, with getting Ava back to tip-top shape or anything to do with Ace.”
“Thanks, Mom,” I said, smiling over at her.
Mom grinned back at me. “But you are going to have to have him over for dinner sometime so I can meet him,” she added.
“One thing at a time,” I said, laughing.
I still was worried about how telling Ace the truth would go, but at least I felt a little better about it. Like Mom had said, she had never met Ace before, but she seemed to think that things were going to work out in the end. And I had to hope that she was right.
I remembered the previous night, watching Ace in the kitchen. He’d looked so comfortable there, as though there wasn’t any question that he belonged there. And for a moment, I allowed myself to consider what it would be like if we continued down this path, if everything worked out between the two of us, if he wasn’t upset when he found out that Ava was his. Would we get married? Would we have more kids?
But I couldn’t allow myself to think about that. Just like I’d told Mom, I was afraid of getting my hopes up too high, of being disappointed. Better that I approach the conversation expecting that telling Ace the truth would be the end of our relationship. At least I could stop feeling so guilty about keeping secrets from him.
I just hoped we c
ould work things out.
28
Ace
By Tuesday, I still hadn’t heard from Harper. It was starting to bug me. I wanted to go over to her place again, to bring by more food or come up with some other excuse to see her, but I had to respect that she had told me she would call me once Ava was feeling better.
I wondered if maybe Harper was sick now, too, if that was why she still hadn’t called. But even if she was, I knew her mom was over there to take care of her. I didn’t need to intrude. And I wasn’t sure that I was ready to meet Mrs. Dawson yet either. I’d never met a woman’s parents before. The thought of it wasn’t entirely unpleasant; I just wasn’t exactly sure where Harper and I stood in our relationship. And again, I was trying my best not to scare Harper by taking things too fast.
I went to my therapy meeting feeling more relaxed than I could remember being for one of these things. For the first time, I wasn’t worried that she was going to ask something that I didn’t want to answer. I felt calm and sure of myself.
“You seem like you’re in a good mood today,” Nancy commented.
I shrugged. “It just feels like everything has been working out since I moved back here. I didn’t expect things to feel this good, honestly.”
“I take it things are going well with George, then?” Nancy asked.
“Yeah, they’re going really well,” I told her, smiling. “We’re expecting to get the new training facility up and running really soon. George has found the perfect place for it and had the company sign made up and everything. And he’s got plenty of contacts with the military and the police force. I think we’re going to be busy.”
I was excited about it. But that wasn’t exactly what I wanted to talk about.
Fortunately, Nancy seemed to realize that. “And things with Harper?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. I paused, sheepishly rubbing the back of my neck. “I feel like maybe she thinks I’m moving too fast, but then I have to wonder if maybe the reason I think she’s thinking I’m moving too fast is that I’m just afraid of commitment and looking for some way to not fully commit to her.”
Nancy hummed. “You seem pretty committed to your career,” she pointed out. “Is it just relationships that you have a difficult time committing to?”
“Yeah,” I said, the words coming in a rush. “I didn’t have the best childhood. My mother died when I was really young, and my dad didn’t cope very well. He started drinking a lot.” I paused before admitting the one thing that I’d never told anyone else. “He beat me. My whole childhood. Just for stupid stuff, just when he’d had a bit too much to drink. I hated him.”
Nancy looked surprised for a moment. I knew that I couldn’t be the first person to confess something like that to her. She was probably more shocked to hear me offer the information without her having to draw it out of me. “And that’s how you ended up in the foster care system?”
“It was a little more dramatic than that,” I said wryly. I shook my head and took a deep breath. “One night, I came home from school. I was late. I was working on this project with a friend. I’d tried to call home to let my dad know, but he wasn’t in when I called, and I guess he never checked the answering machine. So when I got there, he was pissed. Wanted to know where I’d been, if I’d been fucking around, that kind of thing. And he started beating me.
“But what he hadn’t counted on was, at that point, I’d hit my growth spurt, and now I was bigger than him. I had the upper hand for the first time.” I grimaced. “I almost killed him. I just kept punching and punching and punching, and he was bleeding, and I knew there was a lot of blood, and after a certain point, he wasn’t even really fighting me back.”
“But you didn’t kill him?” Nancy said as I fell silent.
I stared down at the carpet for a long moment, still thinking back to that night. I could still picture it all so clearly, all these years later. I could practically feel it still, the punches, the blood, the carpet burn on my knee from where I’d fallen when he’d first hit me.
And I could still hear the ambulances. One of the neighbors had heard us fighting and called the police.
“I didn’t kill him,” I said quietly. “I was just sitting there, and I was so angry at him for everything that he’d done. But then something came over me. I just realized he wasn’t worth it. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in jail. And I just didn’t know what would happen. Would they consider this to be self-defense? I just didn’t know. So I got up off him and went over and sat on the couch, and that’s how the police found us.”
Nancy nodded but didn’t say anything, letting me choose what I wanted to talk about.
I shrugged after a moment. “That’s how I ended up in the foster care system. Just for a couple years.” I paused and grinned wryly. “And that’s how I ended up in the military, too.”
Nancy frowned, trying to connect the dots. “Did the foster care system push you into that?” she finally asked.
I shook my head. “Nah, they didn’t really care what I did with my life. And I bounced through so many different school districts that I don’t think anyone really thought I was even going to graduate high school, let alone go to college. I think they all figured I was just going to be another ‘going nowhere’ boy, working some dead-end job there in West Virginia.”
“Why didn’t you end up there?”
“One of my foster dads was in the military. Army. Not the nicest guy, very disciplinarian. But I figured it was a steady job, and it was my ticket out of West Virginia. And if I did my time, they’d pay for me to go to college and all those other things. The perks were great for someone like me. I didn’t exactly have any other prospects.”
“Do you regret it?” Nancy asked.
“No,” I said seriously, looking her in the eye. “I needed that. And to be honest, it’s opened all the doors that I had hoped it would open. I’m making friends here with a bunch of ex-military people. And all of my dog training experience has come from my time in the service. Besides, it gave me a direction. It let me grow into myself. I needed that.”
Nancy nodded slowly. “You know, I think this is the most I’ve heard you say at any of these sessions,” she said. “What’s brought on this breakthrough?”
“Harper has a daughter,” I said.
“You mentioned,” Nancy said, nodding again. She paused. “Are you worried that you’ll turn into your father if you get close to her?”
“No,” I said honestly. “I used to worry about that. But then I met Ava.” I paused. “I think she’s my daughter.”
Nancy’s eyebrows shot up toward her hairline. “Really?” she asked.
“Really,” I said, nodding. “I don’t know for sure. Harper hasn’t told me anything. But one of my friends pointed out that Ava kind of looks like me. She has the same eyes, the same smile. And she’s definitely mixed race; her skin isn’t nearly as dark as Harper’s.” I paused. “And I did the math. It lines up. Harper was in Kuwait four years ago. Ava is three. It all kind of makes sense.”
“Be careful,” Nancy cautioned.
“Of what?” I asked in confusion.
“I don’t want you to get your hopes up, thinking that Ava is yours, only to find out that she isn’t,” she said delicately.
I nodded. That was a good point. But I wasn’t worried. “The thing is, I don’t really care either way,” I told Nancy, trying to figure out some way to explain. “What’s important to me is, a few weeks ago, if I’d even had the slightest thought that Ava might be mine, that I might have a kid, I would have freaked out. But I’m not freaking out.”
“What are you feeling?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I really just want to know the truth. I can’t seem to stop thinking about it, just wondering if Ava really is mine.”
“Have you tried talking to Harper about it?” Nancy asked.
“Ava’s been sick, so she’s been busy, and I’m letting her have her space,” I told
her. I smiled, remembering the other night. “I brought over some soup and juice and things. Harper said something about, for someone who never wanted to have kids, I was doing a pretty great job of it.”
“That’s good,” Nancy said. She paused. “But I do think you need to talk to Harper. Sooner, rather than later.”
“I know,” I agreed, nodding.
“About more than just Ava and the possibility that you’re her parent,” Nancy added. “Obviously everything about your childhood has shaped you into who you are today. And I’m guessing that Harper doesn’t know the details of it either. You need to let her know that you’re open to the idea of parenting. But in order to really do that, you need to tell her what your initial hesitations are. She deserves to know that.”
“I know.” I paused. “I don’t know how to tell Harper about some of the stuff, though. I don’t want her to think of me that way.”
“You think it’s going to change whether she lets you around Ava?” Nancy asked.
“No. Or at least, I hope not. I just don’t want Harper to know all the bad stuff.” I paused. “I’ve tattooed over pretty much all of the scar tissue, at this point, but I looked pretty terrible for a while there.” Outside of myself and my tattoo artist, she was the only person who had ever known about the thick scars that had cut across my body, especially along my back. I knew that Harper must have felt the scars there. But she didn’t know what they were from. She had never asked, and I doubted she ever would.
“You met her in Kuwait, didn’t you?” Nancy reminded me. “I hate to point this out, but I’m sure she’s heard worse things than the story of you almost killing your drunken, abusive father.”
Her words were matter-of-fact, but they didn’t really bother me. Instead, I felt something settle inside of me. “I should tell her,” I agreed slowly.
“If nothing else, it’s not good to keep all of that anger and resentment inside of you,” Nancy said. “I know that talking to me is something, but I can tell that you want to be close to Harper. Telling her about yourself, the most intimate things that you hardly ever share with anyone, is a good way to harbor trust.”