Shannon stared at the cheerful yellow embroidery on the front, spelling out the baby’s name. “You were going to call me Victoria?”
“It’s Milton’s grandmother’s name. We’d already decided if we had a girl, that was what we’d call her.”
Which they had, Shannon thought, feeling a little strange about the name thing, but not sure why.
Ava removed a slim journal from the box but didn’t offer that. Instead she pulled out a blurry ultrasound picture and passed that over instead.
“Your mother let me go with her to all her appointments. I would pick her up at high school, and we’d go to the doctor, then stop for burgers. Most afternoons she came over to our place and did her homework. I was there for the first heartbeat, and I was the second one to feel you kick.” Tears filled her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. “It was a wonderful time.”
“I’m sorry,” Shannon said, feeling the words were lame but she had no idea what else she was supposed to say.
“Don’t be. You have been blessed with a warm, loving mother. And now you’re all grown-up and so beautiful.” Ava smiled. “If you’d like, I can go through the photos and give you some of them.”
“I’d like that.” Shannon ran her fingers across the fabric lid of the box. “Our lives are so digital. I like the idea of having something tangible for memories, like this box. Maybe I’ll create something like it for my kids.”
Ava smiled “That sounds fun. So you and Aaron are serious?”
“We’re engaged.”
The words came out of nowhere. Shannon hadn’t meant to say them, but she had and there was no calling them back. She stared at the other woman in horror, wondering what she’d just done.
Ava tilted her head. “It seems like that should be a happy statement, but you’re looking quite the opposite.”
“No one knows,” Shannon said quickly, as if by speaking fast she could undo what had been done. “No one. Just Aaron and me.” Well, and Javiar, but getting into that seemed to be a distraction. “With my mom marrying Luis and being so in love,we thought that it would be better to let them focus on each other and the wedding. Making an announcement would take away from that.”
Ava’s expression softened. “I promise not to say a word. You’re a wonderful daughter to want to celebrate your mother’s happiness that way.”
Which sounded lovely but left Shannon feeling faintly guilty because while she didn’t want to intrude on her mother’s wedding, she was more terrified of Cindy’s constant messaging on the whole double-wedding thing. She loved her mom, and at the same time didn’t want to lose her moment with Aaron.
“I feel badly about not telling her,” she admitted. “We’re so close, and we always have been. Maybe too close.” She paused as the words sort of hovered in the quiet. “Um, not in a bad way,” she amended quickly. “She’s great. Caring and supportive. You know how moms like to find mother-daughter outfits? My mom still does that. Our birthdays are only two days apart, and she’ll buy us matching T-shirts or maybe a cute dress. We’ve always celebrated our birthdays together. It’s kind of our thing.”
She didn’t mention that her senior year of high school, she’d asked her mom if they could, just that once, celebrate separately. She’d wanted a big party with her friends and no parents. But Cindy had started to cry, saying it was their tradition and how could Shannon want something else? Which had made Shannon feel guilty, so she’d let go of the idea of the party with friends and had instead spent the day with her mom. The trip away with Aaron had caused the same outburst, but both Aaron and Luis had insisted Shannon needed to go. Aaron had taken Shannon to Paris. But instead of enjoying her time away, Shannon had felt guilty and slightly unsettled.
She knew her inability to commit to her own future came from a mixture of confusing messages and questions. Her mom had always been there for her, fixing the problem, and becauseof that, she didn’t know how to fix it herself. Worse, she was afraid to try on her own. The only time she’d tried to be independent had been at college, and she’d ended up flunking out. Deep down she was terrified she was incapable of standing on her own, and yet at the same time she longed to be her own person. Instead she was trapped in a half life with her mother in charge. Not exactly things she should be mulling while having lunch with Ava, she told herself.
Ava smiled at her. “Tell me about yourself, Shannon. You work for your mother at the real estate office. Is that by design, or are you still searching for your passion?”
“I’m still looking,” she answered, wondering why the conversation suddenly felt like a job interview. “I have a lot of areas of interest. I enjoy working with Aaron in his business.”
“Remind me what he does?”
“Lawn care and landscaping.”
Ava’s expression turned faintly disapproving. “In the office?”
“No, more outside doing the, um, actual gardening. Some design work as well.” She searched frantically for something that sounded more impressive. “I do all the photography for his business website and the social media accounts. The Before and After, that sort of thing. At the real estate office, I handle a lot of the graphic design for the houses we’re selling.”
Okay, so that made her sound more important than she was, but she was scrambling here.
Ava immediately relaxed. “You paint pictures with your photography,” she said, her voice pleased. “How wonderful. Artistic expression is such a gift. Not one I’ve ever had. I’d love to see your work sometime.”
“Sure,” she said brightly, thinking there was no “work” to see. Just pictures of plants and gardens. She glanced longingly toward the door. What had started out as an interesting chance to get to know the person who, under other circumstances,could have been her mother, had somehow morphed into a confusing, unsettling grilling, and until Ava said the meeting was over, she was simply stuck.
Forty-five minutes later Shannon escaped to her car. She drove out of the fancy neighborhood and headed back to the office, thinking she never wanted to be alone with Ava again. The woman had been... Had been...
She stopped at a red light and gripped her steering wheel tightly in both hands, wanting to give a little scream of frustration. Because the truth was Ava had been nothing but gracious and kind. Shannon was unsettled not because of the questions asked but because she couldn’t come up with a decent answer. The truth of her life—when told to a stranger—humiliated her. She was twenty-four years old, relatively smart and capable, and yet she had absolutely no idea what to do about her own future. She wanted to marry Aaron, but that wasn’t enough. What about her career? Didn’t she want to love her job? Working for her mom was okay, but it wasn’t anything she’d gone looking for. She’d fallen into the opportunity. As she’d realized at the lunch, the only thing she’d tried to do on her own she’d failed. And not even spectacularly. No, her failure had been quiet, and over time. Her grades had dropped over three quarters until she was on probation. At that point she’d packed up her things and had gone home to lick her wounds.
Which was all understandable, but it was now three years later.Three!For all of Ava’sYou paint pictures with your photography, she was instead her mother’s assistant, Aaron’s secret fiancée and absolutely nothing for herself. She had no self-definition.
