He dropped to the ground next to Shannon and went to work digging out the next plant. The sun was warm but not too hot, the air still. Although she wasn’t happy to be destroying healthy plants, she would soon be replacing them with something that wouldn’t cause problems for Aaron’s client. Plus being outside and digging in the dirt was going a long way toward restoring her good mood.
“Thanks for getting me out of the office,” she said.
“I like the company as much as the help,” he told her. “Your company, specifically.”
She smiled at him. “Thank you. I feel the same way.” Her smile faded. “My mom’s still a mess. She’s not crying as much, but I can tell she’s upset.”
Cindy had returned from her visit to Ava in tears and had spent the afternoon locked in her office. Shannon had wanted to tell her she might feel better at home, but her mother had refused to speak to her or anyone. The next day hadn’t been much better. While there hadn’t been any crying, her mom had been quiet and uncommunicative.
“I can’t imagine what they talked about that would upset her so much,” Shannon continued. “I’m sure she feels guilty about what she did, but it was a long time ago. Everyone needs to move on.”
She paused, replaying her words in her head, then sighed.“Okay, that sounds a little harsh. I know for my mom, seeing Ava brought all the emotions back to the surface.”
“Makes sense. What they both went through was traumatic. Like a car accident or something. They got triggered, and now it’s like it just happened.”
She tossed another peony into the wheelbarrow. “I feel bad for my mom. I’ve never seen her this upset before. She’s always so calm and full of suggestions, but not about this.”
“She didn’t give you any hints about her conversation with Ava?” he asked.
“No. Just that she’d apologized, and that was it. I don’t know Ava at all, but I can’t see her going off on my mom.”
“Maybe the problem is your mom wants to make things right and she can’t. There’s no way to make the past up to Ava.”
She glanced at him. “That’s a good point. She can say she’s sorry for not letting Ava know she was having second thoughts, but as to the rest of it, they both have to live with the decision. She knows she hurt Ava, and that can’t be undone.”
She thought about the evening spent with the other couple. “They were nice.”
“Milton and Ava?” Aaron started on another peony. “They were. Rich.” He flashed her a grin. “That could have been you.”
Something she’d thought about herself. “I wouldn’t have been comfortable in that house.”
“You would have if you’d grown up there. It would have been all you knew.”
Something she couldn’t fully grasp—the concept of being her but also being someone else. A different version of herself. How would that work exactly? How much of her personality was because of DNA, and how much of it was circumstances and experiences? She supposed she would never know.
“I liked Milton,” she said, hearing the wistfulness in her tone. “He seemed kind. He and Victoria are close.” She sighed. “It would have been nice to have a dad around.”
“You have Luis.”
“It’s not the same. I’m talking about when I was younger. I had friends whose parents were divorced, but they all still had fathers. I was the only one who didn’t.” She looked at him. “They talked about their dads so casually, but every time, I would think about how I didn’t have one in my life.”
He bumped her shoulder with hers. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
“Me, too. But it’s like growing up rich, or rather not growing up rich. It’s all I know.”
Which was the mature thing to say, but in her heart, she couldn’t help wishing there had been a father around. Her grandfather had done his best to step in and be there for her, but by the time she’d started school, his health was failing to the point that he was bedridden.
Not that she wanted anyone else to be her mom. She was sure Ava was great, but she couldn’t imagine someone else loving her as much as her mother did, nor did she want to. And she couldn’t have a father without having a different mom because Cindy hadn’t been interested in having a man in her life.
She started in on the last peony plant. “Do you think my mom didn’t date because she felt guilty about what she’d done?”
“I doubt there’s any one reason. She was raising you, taking care of her dad, trying to hold it all together. It was a lot.”
“I agree, but she didn’t start going out with Luis until what, a year ago? She spent all her twenties and thirties not dating? That has to be a conscious choice.”
“Or an unconscious one.”
The only way to get answers was to talk to her mom about the past, and based on the past couple of days Shannon had no plans to start that conversation.
