by Amy Hatvany
He gave me a hard stare. “Brothers and sisters fight, Grace. I know you were older than Sam so maybe you didn’t, but it’s totally normal.”
“Stealing is not normal.” I paused. “I was talking with Melody about it—”
“Wait,” Victor interrupted. “You told Melody about this?”
“Yes. I needed someone to talk to. You were at work.”
He threw his hands into the air and stood up, taking a couple of steps away from the couch. “Great! She’ll tell Spencer and he’ll want to talk with me about something he never should have known about. Thanks a lot.”
I took a deep breath, knowing that Victor was on the defensive and not wanting to anger him further, but getting Ava the help she needed was more important than how things ended up between her father and me. “She’s acting out,” I said. “And stealing could just be the beginning.”
“What are you saying? That she’s going to turn into some kind of delinquent? Her mother just died. You need to cut her a little slack.”
I stared at him a moment, trying to steady my rattling pulse. “I cut her plenty of slack. When she rolls her eyes at me or talks down to me, I let it slide. She’s upset, I get that. She’s in pain, and she’s obviously not managing it well. She also knows we’re engaged. Did you tell her?”
“Of course not. Did you?”
“No.” I paused. “Maybe Kelli did. Or Diane.”
“She hasn’t seen Diane.”
I thought about telling him then about my trip to Kelli’s house with Ava. Maybe she’d gone back there without our knowing. Maybe, as Melody and I had, she’d run into Diane, who’d assumed we’d already told the kids. I opened my mouth to confess all, to tell him everything, but the cold, hard look on his face stopped me. “However she found out doesn’t matter,” I said instead. “I’m worried about her. Maybe we need to get her into counseling.”
“Suddenly you’re the parenting expert around here?” The disdain in his words was clear.
“I’ve spent more time at it than you,” I shot back, and immediately wished I’d kept my mouth shut. It was a low blow, and I knew it. He worried about how little time he’d spent with the kids when he was still married to Kelli, and now how overwhelmed he felt having them with us full-time. But that didn’t change the truth—that with the ten years I spent taking care of Sam, it was likely I was the more experienced of us two.
Victor’s face closed up, his eyes a hard wall as he looked at me. “Look. I’m tired. You’re tired. We’re going to end up saying things we don’t mean. You’re choosing a bad time to talk about this.”
“There is no other time, Victor! We never see each other.”
“Jesus!” he said, reaching up to rake his fingers through his hair. “Can you quit complaining about things for five minutes, please? I know things are rough. I know this isn’t the life you expected! Okay? I get it. But if we’re going to stay together, we have to learn how to find our way through hard times, too. And accusing my daughter of being a thief isn’t helping anything.”
I stared at him, my eyes filling with tears. I tried to tell myself all of this was only temporary, like a television station announcing it was having technical difficulties. Our regularly scheduled program—or, in this case, our previously scheduled life—would eventually resume. But it seemed there was no use in trying to get him to understand. He was going to protect Ava no matter what.
Seeing my tears, his expression softened. “I’m sorry.” He took a step toward me and reached out his hand, but I moved so he couldn’t touch me. He sighed, then dropped back down to the couch. “I didn’t mean to snap at you,” he said. “I’m just so exhausted. I love the kids so much, but I’ve never really done the full-time father thing before. Kelli always took care of them.”
“I know,” I said quietly. “I get that this is all hard for you, too.”
“It is,” he said. “I was used to the schedule we had, you know?” He shook his head. “God, it makes me sound like such a horrible person, but after I finally left Kelli, I was relieved to get my life back. She sucked so much out of me. I didn’t realize how much until I was gone.”
“You’re not a horrible person,” I said.
“Thanks, but it feels like I am.” He gave me a weak smile. “Honestly, honey, I thought handling their fight without you was better, so you wouldn’t have to bother with it. I guess I was trying to shield you from the stress out of pure habit, the way I always had to shield Kelli. I didn’t give you enough credit, but that was about me, not you.” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to find my way through this. And I’m scared . . .” He trailed off, dropping his gaze to his lap.
“Of what?” I asked him, feeling my hurt ease as he expressed his vulnerability. He was just as afraid as I was. Unsure of himself as a father, worried how to handle bringing me into his children’s lives.
He chuckled softly, still not looking at me. “More like what am I not scared of,” he said. “I’m scared I’m not a good enough father for Max and Ava. I’m scared I’m like my own father—that somehow having his blood run through my veins might make me too weak to help my children through their pain.” He finally raised his eyes and met my own. “But that’s scared me for years. What scares me now is that I might lose you. That you might give up on me and having this life together. That I’m too screwed up for any woman to want to be with at all.” He whispered that last sentence, as though admitting it to himself for the first time. It struck me then how similar Victor’s insecurities were to mine.
“Kelli loved me,” Victor continued. “But it was in such a needy way, you know? I always felt like I wasn’t enough for her, no matter what I did, no matter how much I took care of her. And then you came along, so independent, and I thought, Wow. Here’s a woman who can be my partner. We can take care of each other. But now I’m messing that all up, too.”
“You’re not messing anything up.” I felt how much he cared for me, how much he needed someone to be there for him.
He hesitated a moment before leaning over and lowering his head into my lap. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “I love you.”
I ran my fingers through his thick, dark hair, feeling the warmth of his scalp and the wet of his tears on the top of my thighs. Filled with a deep sense of tenderness, I suddenly couldn’t imagine doing anything but staying there. “I love you, too,” I said. I would tell him what I suspected about Kelli’s past later. Now wasn’t the time.
“I’ll talk with her, okay, Grace? I’ll ask her what happened and we’ll go from there.”
Ava
I woke up the morning after Grace found the money in my backpack with swollen eyes and a sick feeling in my stomach. I couldn’t believe the way she’d yelled at me—no matter what I’d done, Mama had never talked to me like that.
Mama. I closed my eyes and all I could see was her face hovering over me. “Wake up, love,” she’d say. “Time to greet this beautiful day.” If I concentrated hard enough, I could almost feel her breath on my cheek as she kissed me awake; I could smell the faint echo of her strawberry shampoo. “I miss you,” I whispered into my pillow. The muscles in my throat thickened, the way they always did when I allowed myself to think about her too long. “I want you to come back.”
My mind strayed to one of my favorite memories of her, before Dad had left: curling up on the living room couch and reading her favorite cookbooks with her. She’d read the recipes aloud, like a story, and I could almost taste the meals she described. “One cup of basmati rice,” she read. “Cook in coconut milk instead of water, add chopped Thai basil and a chunk of ginger for spice.”
I loved times like this alone with Mama. Max was at a friend’s house and it was just us two. “Your dad loves Thai food,” she told me. “Shall we surprise him? You can help me stir the rice and make the peanut sauce, okay? We’ll even pick up some chopsticks at the dollar store.”
She kissed the top of my head, and I nodded, snuggling closer to her as she flipped throu
gh the pages. Later, in the kitchen, after we’d picked up everything we needed to make dinner, Mama turned up the radio and danced around, using a ladle as a microphone. She grabbed me from my stool and made me dance with her, spinning around in circles until we both were giggling and dizzy. Daddy walked in from work just then and joined us, his long arms around Mama and me both. “My favorite girls,” he said, laughing.
“Ava?” My dad’s voice came through my bedroom door, snapping me out of that happy, remembered moment. The hinges squeaked as he entered, and I pulled the covers up over my head, turning onto my side to face the wall. He sat down on the edge of the mattress, the weight of him rolling me onto my back and pulling the covers off of my face. I wasn’t his favorite girl now. That much I knew for sure. “Kitten, look at me, please. We need to talk.”
“I don’t feel like talking,” I said, keeping my eyes glued to the ceiling. I was terrified he was going to yell at me too, since I was positive that Grace had told him what I’d done.
“Did you take the money from Grace’s purse?” he asked. “Tell me the truth. Lying is only going to make things worse.”
Nothing could get worse. My eyes filled and I pressed my lips together, hard, and bobbed my head once.
He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, a gesture I’d begun to notice he only did when he was tense. “Can you tell me why?” I shrugged. “Ava.” He sounded drained. “Please.”
“I needed it for dance team. We have to pay for uniforms and away trips and the bus.” I paused to take a heaving breath, finally looking over to him. He stared at me, his gray eyes dark and unreadable. “Do you hate me now?” My voice shook.
“Oh, honey,” he said, reaching out and cupping my face with his hand. “Of course not. I’m just worried about you. Stealing is wrong—I know you know that.” He pulled his hand back. “Why didn’t you just ask me for the money?”
“I didn’t want to bother you,” I said in a small voice. “I just . . . you know. Mama used to give us an allowance, and if we needed money we asked her and I just didn’t know how to talk with you about it. You’re so busy and stressed out from the restaurant and you said people aren’t eating out as much as they used to, so I was afraid having us live here was already costing you enough money. I didn’t want to make things worse.”
“Sweet girl, you can ask me for anything. I should have thought about an allowance, but you’re right. I’ve been busy. We’ll figure that out, okay?”
I nodded. Maybe he isn’t going to yell. Maybe I can talk my way out of what I did. “I’m sorry,” I said, and I realized this was true. I felt awful. I still felt a flicker of anger, but this time it was toward Dad instead of Grace. If he’d been a better husband to Mama, if he had never left us, none of this would have been happening. He never would have met Grace. And Mama would still have been alive. And even though I thought this, I was too afraid to speak the words out loud.
Dad pulled his hand from my face and set it on my hip, patting it once. “I’m glad you’re sorry. But it’s Grace who needs to hear that. Do you understand me?” I nodded. There was no way around it. I was going to have to apologize to her. “And one more thing,” he continued. “How did you find out that we’re engaged? Did your mom tell you?”
I shook my head, pressing my lips together. “I ran into Diane. She brought it up like I’d already know.” I hoped he wouldn’t ask me where I’d run into her; I was in enough trouble, and his finding out I’d gone back to Mama’s house definitely wouldn’t go over well. I gave him a reproachful look. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
Dad sighed and rubbed my leg. “We were going to, the weekend right after I proposed to her.” He paused. “But then your mom died, sweetie, and we just didn’t think it was the right time. You had enough to deal with.”
I pulled myself up, tucked my legs to one side, and sat against the wall. “Diane said Mama was really upset.”
Dad nodded. “She was. But your mom got upset about things pretty easily . . . right? You remember that, don’t you?”
I didn’t want to think about how easily Mama got upset. “Do you think . . .” I faltered, not knowing how to ask what it was I wanted to know. I swallowed, trying to push down the lump in my throat. “Is that how she died? Did she . . . ?” I searched his face with pleading eyes, hoping he would tell me the truth. I needed to know if she chose to leave us.
“Did she kill herself, you mean?” Dad said quietly. I nodded, and he shook his head. “The doctor said her heart stopped because of a combination of things. She wasn’t eating well and her body’s systems were beaten down. When she added in the medicine she took to help her sleep, her heart just couldn’t take it.”
“But . . . did she take too much of it?” I asked, and he froze a moment, his gray eyes cloudy. I could almost hear the debate in his head over what to tell me.
“There’s no way for us to know for sure,” he finally said. “And that’s the truth, Ava. That’s what the doctor told me. We don’t know what happened. I wish we did.”
“She was really sad, Daddy,” I said. The corners of my mouth dipped downward and my chin began to quiver. “She was crying all of the time and I didn’t know what to do.” I told him about how little she slept and ate, how I found her hysterical on the floor of her closet. “It’s my fault she’s dead. I should have told you. I should have asked for help.”
Dad pulled me into his arms and I pressed my cheek against his strong chest. “Oh, Ava. None of this is your fault. None of it.” I pulled away, sniffling. A few tears ran down my cheeks in hot streams. He looked at me intently, his hands gripping my arms. “Your mom was a grown-up, and no matter what, if she needed help, it was her responsibility to ask for it. I’m sorry I didn’t see how bad things had gotten with her. I wish I had paid more attention.”
“I wish you’d never left her,” I whispered, dropping my gaze from his. “I wish you’d stayed because then maybe she wouldn’t be dead.” Terror gripped its icy fingers around my stomach as I spoke those words, but I couldn’t hold them back.
Dad briefly closed his eyes, and when he opened them, they were shiny with tears. “Sometimes I wish I’d stayed, too. Leaving was the hardest decision I’d ever made. But the problems your mom had ran much deeper than just my relationship with her. And she refused to get help with them. She wouldn’t see a counselor or talk about her past. I hoped that if I left, if she had to start taking care of herself without me doing everything for her, she might finally deal with her issues.”
“But she didn’t,” I said, starting to cry again. “She just got worse. And then you got engaged and she died.” I sobbed the last word, and Dad reached over to try to pull me into another hug, but I stiffened, forcing myself to stop crying. I didn’t want him to think I was like Mama. I wanted him to believe I was stronger than that. I longed to tell him everything I’d found out about Mama—how she’d never been a cheerleader and how her parents sent her away to the all-girls school—but in doing so, I’d have to tell him how I’d found it out, and I was terrified of how he’d react.
“I’m sorry you’re hurting, honey. I wish I could fix everything for you.” Dad wiped at his eyes with the tips of his fingers. “I’m not going to punish you for taking the money because I know things are really rough right now. But none of that is an excuse for that kind of behavior, okay? I expect better of you.”
“I know,” I whispered, wishing he could fix everything, too.
Kelli
Kelli didn’t set out to lie about her past. At first, she thought she could just outrun it. The moment she’d saved enough money, she left the tomb of her parents’ house and decided not to look back.
“You don’t love me,” she told them. Her voice shook. “There’s no point in staying here.” She waited for them to argue with her; she looked to her mother to stand up and beg her not to leave, but instead, they both were quiet, their shoulders curled forward, just as they had been the day they dropped her off at New Pathways. As though they wer
e relieved to see her go.
She bought a bus ticket to San Francisco, thinking she’d find a hostel to live in for a while, but then ended up renting a room in a huge house near the marina. The landlord was a skinny, balding man in his forties who’d stared too long at Kelli’s breasts for her to be comfortable, but when he implied he’d lower her rent if she went out on a date with him, she complied. The sex was quick and painless. It made her feel ill to do it, but it gave her what she needed at the time, and she told herself that was all that mattered.
After she got settled in her small room, she found a job cleaning houses and relished the hard work, which tired her to the point of almost falling asleep in the bowl of ramen noodles that typically served as her evening meal. She didn’t talk much to the other tenants, until one day she was sitting on the front porch, reading one of the romances she’d borrowed from the library, and another woman sat down in the other white wicker chair.
“Beautiful day,” she said. She was older and heavyset, with limp brown hair and bright pink lipstick.
“It is,” Kelli agreed, setting her book in her lap.
“You getting settled in okay?” She paused. “Burt sure seems to like you.”
Kelli picked her book back up, staring at the words as they blurred on the pages. She hated that anyone noticed he visited her room. Most of all, she hated that she let him.
“Ah, honey,” the woman said. “I don’t mean no harm.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Wendy.”
Kelli only hesitated a moment before shaking Wendy’s hand and introducing herself.
“You’re just cute as a button, aren’t you?” Wendy said. “Like a cheerleader.”
“I was a cheerleader,” Kelli said, the lie popping out of her mouth before she’d even realized she had the thought.
Sitting on that porch with Wendy in the late afternoon sun, Kelli spun a tale of her tryouts and ultimately being named captain of the team. I love to dance, Kelli told herself. It’s just a little white lie. Over the next six months, she began opening up more to the people she talked to—always referring to her high school years as being the best of her life. She made up details about the color of her uniform—royal blue with yellow braided trim on the sweater. She talked about the complicated routines she and her friends put together that were the talk of the whole school. She deflected questions about her parents, saying only that they were old-fashioned and didn’t approve of Kelli’s trying to make it in the world on her own. She told herself the story of the life she wished she’d lived—and eventually, she began to believe it was true.