Stop lurking in the driveway and come inside.
Victoria groaned, then shut off the engine and climbed out. She used her crutches to make her way to the front door, all thewhile thinking she really needed to call her orthopedist and tell him she would pay him double if he would just get in her in a walking cast. But that was for later.
Before she could knock, the door swung open and she was staring at her mother.
“Hello, Victoria.”
“Mom.”
She maneuvered herself inside. Ava motioned to the living room.
“I thought we could talk here. It’s less distance for you to traverse.”
It was also the room where all the scary conversations took place, including the time her mother had very calmly and clinically explained where babies came from and how Victoria’s first period would probably show up much later for her than her friends because of all her training with gymnastics and that she shouldn’t worry that she wasn’t normal. It was also the place where she’d listened to her father explain that he’d had an X-ray, and they’d found a spot on his lung, and while they didn’t know anything yet, there was a chance it was lung cancer. Fortunately that hadn’t happened. The spot had been some scarring from a bout of pneumonia when he was young and nothing more, but the telling of the spot had happened here, whereas the good news of no cancer had been delivered in the dining room.
While Victoria was fairly certain her mother wasn’t going to tell her she was sick or that she and her dad were getting a divorce, she didn’t like living room talks. But she wasn’t going to say that because the need to not be vulnerable was always there. Protecting herself was her number one priority—especially when it came to Ava.
She took a seat and told herself not to react to whatever was said. Once the talking was done, she would leave and pretend this had never happened.
Ava sat across from her. With her hands in her lap and her gaze uncomfortably direct, she opened her mouth and said exactly the last thing Victoria expected to hear.
“I’m so sorry about what happened with Shannon and the memory box. I was completely in the wrong.”
Victoria replayed the words, looking for a different meaning, but there didn’t seem to be one beyond the obvious.
“Okay,” she said slowly, still wary, but less concerned than she had been.
“I shouldn’t have kept the memory box. I never thought you’d know about it, which was ridiculous on my part. Then I showed it to Shannon, and I hurt you. I never wanted you to feel badly about any of this.”
“I’m fine,” she said automatically. “It’s nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing. It was hurtful and insensitive on my part. I never want you to feel that you don’t matter.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. “Like I said, it’s fine.”
Ava nodded. “I understand you won’t admit your feelings to me. While that makes me sad, I suppose I can understand your reluctance. We’ve never been especially close. I regret that as well. You’re my daughter, and I love you so much.”
The heartfelt words made her want to squirm. “I know you do,” she murmured, wishing they could change the subject.
Her mother drew in a breath. “It was never because Cindy looks like me,” she said. “I know you think that’s the reason we wanted her baby, but it’s not. We were actually considered by two other pregnant teenagers, but when we met, there was no connection. I’m sure they were very sweet girls and everything could have been fine, but I wanted more. Your father and I had always talked about an open adoption, if the birth mother wanted that. We wanted to be friends with her, to understand her life and to have her understand ours.” She offered a faint smile. “The second we met Cindy, we clicked. We became close very quickly. You know I’m an only child, and my mother diedwhen I was born.” She paused for a second, her expression tightening, as if she was remembering something difficult. She shook her head and continued. “So when Cindy and I got along so well, it was like I suddenly had a sister. I wanted to help her in any way I could. Everything seemed perfect.”
“But it wasn’t,” Victoria said quietly. “She was having doubts.”
Her mother nodded. “In hindsight, of course we should have known it was a possibility, but she never said anything. She always talked aboutwhen we took our child home, as if it was a foregone conclusion.” She pressed her lips together. “You know what happened next. Your father and I were away on vacation. When we got back home, Cindy’s lawyer called us and explained that she’d gone into labor early and that Shannon had already been born. I was in shock. How could we have missed the birth? Cindy had promised I could be in the room with her. She said she needed me there or she wouldn’t get through it on her own.”
Against her will, Victoria felt a twinge of compassion for what her mother had endured.
“He told you Cindy had changed her mind.”
“Yes. At first I didn’t understand what he was talking about. The words made no sense until they did and I realized there wasn’t going to be a baby—not for us. I begged to speak to her, but the lawyer said she didn’t want me to contact her, and was that going to be a problem?” Ava looked stricken. “I knew what he meant. He was warning me not to make trouble. But how could I? Legally it was her decision to make. She was the mother of the child—the decision had always been up to her.”
Victoria wondered how much her mother wasn’t telling her. About what she’d felt that day and the days that followed. The shock of it, the loss. Intellectually she could get that her mother had suffered, but emotionally she had no idea.
“A few days later, Cindy’s father returned all the gifts we’d given her,” Ava continued, her voice heavy. “There had been clothes and a television, a few other things.” She briefly closedher eyes. “We never wanted anything back, but of course he wouldn’t listen. I suppose she felt too guilty to keep those things, but they had never mattered.”
Ava looked at her. “It wasn’t just the loss of Shannon, it was that I had considered Cindy to be almost a sister to me. We’d done everything together, and then she was simply gone—as if she’d never been.”
Victoria had the thought that in all the telling, her mother hadn’t once slipped up on the name. She’d been sayingShannonall along, as if the baby had never been named anything else. She appreciated the care but wondered if her mother secretly still thought of the lost child asVictoriaor if time had eased that pain, as well.
