Ava took a step back. The involuntary movement was all the information Victoria needed. She was right about all of it. And while she wanted an answer to her question—had her mother regretted her daily? More than that?—she wasn’t likely to get the truth. Honestly, what did it matter? Looking for more pain made her seem kind of pathetic.
“I want to say I get it,” she continued, “but I don’t. I can’t know what you went through. I can try to imagine, but it’s not the same, is it?”
Her mother dropped her arm to her side and shook her head. Her pain was palpable, and Victoria was sorry for inflicting it—only Ava wasn’t the only one suffering.
“Which means you have no idea what I’m going through either,” she continued. “You don’t know what it was like when I was younger. I always knew there was something, but I couldn’t figure out what. I tried, I asked, but you both told me you loved me and that I was looking for trouble.”
“We never said that.”
Victoria waved away the words. “Not exactly like that, but the implication was everything was perfect.” She stared at her mother. “It wasn’t, and you should have told me the truth.”
Tears filled her mother’s eyes, but they didn’t fall. Ava had perfected the art of not crying. Victoria admired that about her. In truth, she admired a lot about her mom, but there were also sides of Ava she didn’t like very much.
She glanced toward the hallway. “That’s why you kept the baby room the same, isn’t it? For a while I thought it was becauseyou were hoping to adopt another baby, but that wasn’t the reason. It was because that had been Shannon’s room.”
The catch in her mother’s breathing told her all she needed to know. Ava turned away for a moment, then reached for the carry-on bag.
“I’ll take this downstairs for you.”
For the second time in her life, Victoria didn’t mind about the elevator. Even when it shuddered halfway through the journey, she simply waited until it reached the main floor, then hop-stepped toward the open front door. Her mother was outside, placing the suitcase in the trunk while the Uber driver watched. Victoria carefully hopped down the main stairs, holding her crutches in one hand and the railing with the other. She was sweating by the time she reached the driveway, and her heart was thumping in her chest. When she was healed enough to start working out, she was going to have to get serious about replacing the muscle she was losing and getting back her endurance.
She walked to the open rear car door. Ava hovered there, her fingers twisting together.
“I’m sorry,” her mother told her.
“It’s okay, Mom.”
They looked at each other, then Victoria got in the car. Ava closed the door, stepped back and returned to the house.
Victoria stared unseeingly out the window. Traffic was light, and it didn’t take long to get to her condo. She had a brief argument with the driver who didn’t want to help her with her bag until she offered him an extra twenty dollars for a tip. He deposited it on her doorstep and stared at her until she hit the correct keys on her phone.
Not her best day, she thought as he left, and she unlocked her front door. She managed to support herself by leaning against the doorframe and dragging her suitcase. After closing and locking the front door, she maneuvered her suitcase to the center of the room where she let it fall to the carpet. She carefully lowered herself to her knees, unzipped the bag, then she dug out her prescription. She hadn’t been taking her pain pills for a few days but knew she needed one now.
Every part of her hurt including her heart, but the medication was only going to help with the physical aches. When it came to emotions, medical science couldn’t do much.
Once she’d swallowed the pill, she got herself into the bedroom and collapsed on her bed. She stared at the ceiling and willed the tears away. Only they didn’t listen, instead slipping down her temples and into her hair.
She remembered being fourteen and finding out her biological mother had been Ava’s maid. Until that moment, her birth mother had always been described as apoor young woman in trouble. A technical truth, Victoria supposed, but one that left out the salient facts. Back then she’d been so hurt to find out that her parents hadn’t actually gone looking for her. Milton had talked about how she was a gift—better than found treasure. But she’d been suspicious. Somehow she and Ava had gotten into it. She couldn’t remember the particulars of the fight, but it had been loud and angry, at least on her part. Her mother rarely lost control, which was fine. Victoria had been pissed enough for the two of them. She remembered screaming that Ava should have returned her when she’d had the chance. She’d been fourteen—with all the hormones and entitlement that went with the age. Her mother hadn’t fought back, but even now Victoria remembered the look on her face—an odd combination of pain and longing. With new information and hindsight, she wondered if her mother had been thinking of Shannon.
How many times had Ava looked at her and pictured what her perfect, tall, blonde daughter would have been like? A younger version of Cindy and herself. How many times had Victoria disappointed her instead?
As more tears fell, she recalled how her mother had frequently looked at her school picture and sighed. “Did you have to makethat expression?” Or “What are we going to do about your hair?” Victoria was sure at the time she’d simply rolled her eyes and had gotten on with her life, but now, looking back, she felt another wave of rejection.
There had been the time her parents had been looking for private high schools. She’d overheard them talking. Ava had agreed that the one Victoria liked was a good choice, only she would look terrible in the school uniform. Had her mother thought of Shannon then? How could she not?
There were so many small slights, so many misunderstandings, so many versions of I-thought-you’d-be-taller. But it all came down to a simple question—was it love when you didn’t have a choice?
Ava would always do the right thing. Being that person was in her blood, so of course she would love her child, regardless of how that child came to be in her life. But Victoria knew that, in her heart, her mother had never forgotten the child she was supposed to have. The one like her. Always perfect, always just out of reach. Always and ever, nothing like Victoria.
Ava called her office and said she wouldn’t be coming in, then spent a quiet day at home. There were always things to keep her busy, but today she found her mind wandering. Even as she went through Milton’s clothes to pick out what needed to go to the dry cleaner and as she planned menus for the next week, she found herself thinking about what had happened.
It had been nearly twenty-five years, she told herself. That was plenty of time for her to get over the loss. So why was the wound suddenly so fresh? She supposed it had been the shock of seeing Cindy after all this time. The other woman had looked almost exactly the same, and seeing her daughter, well, Ava was doing her best not to think about Shannon.
She went into her home office and made herself open the package from the kitchen designer she’d hired to help with the remodel that was at least three years overdue. She knew she would be grateful for the updated kitchen, but getting there was always so daunting. She didn’t enjoy the planning, and she loathed the disruption of construction. She and Milton had a comfortable routine, one she treasured. Since Victoria had insisted on moving out when she’d turned nineteen, it had just been the two of them. They’d always been careful to keep their social commitments limited to no more than three a week. Less if possible. Being with Milton had always been the best part of her day, and in nearly thirty years of marriage, that hadn’t changed.
Now she set the first of three heavy totes on her desk. Inside each was a notebook with color renderings of the suggested updates to her kitchen with pictures of appliances and plumbing fixtures. There were paint swatches, samples of countertop material and door handles, along with small versions of the cabinet doors.
She spread it all out, then looked at the pictures of the finished design. It seemed workable, but she wasn’t sure. And asking Milton wasn’t an option. He would simply smile at her and say he liked what she liked. When it came to the house, he’d always deferred to her, pointing out that as long as she loved him, he could live anywhere.
