“I’m going to see Grandma Flowers. Maybe Ava will find her way back to the duplex.”
“Okay, baby. When should I run you over there?”
I hadn’t been able to drive since things went downhill after graduation. “I’ll take the bus.”
“You have your emblem on?”
I pulled the engraved medical alert medallion out from under my shirt.
“You sure you don’t want me to drive?” Gram’s mouth drooped with worry.
I hugged her. “Everything is about to turn around. I know it.” When I pulled away, I could see she was not convinced. But as always, she let me go. There would be no stopping me.
When I got to the old duplex, the porch was still covered with pots. A family with little kids lived in Ava’s old side, their toys strewn all over their half of the front lawn.
I knocked on Grandma Flowers’s door.
When she saw me, her face lit up with a smile. “Oh gracious, boy, I didn’t expect to see you again.” She touched her hair, covered in a tight pink cap. “I wasn’t planning on visitors.” She fussed with her floral house coat.
“You look great. I wanted you to know that Ava ran away. Her mom has the police looking for her. I thoughtshe might come back here. She leaves notes for herself. She might have written this address somewhere.”
Grandma Flowers nodded. “That’s good. I hope she returns to me. Come and sit a spell. Do you think she might come today?”
“It just happened. I don’t know what notes she’s found, if any.”
“I’m glad you’re here.” We sat on her front porch, and she poured me a glass of orange juice. “Can I fix you some toast?”
“No, thank you. Can you tell me anything else about Ava?” I asked. “Or about her mother? I want to know everything, so I can guess where she might go.”
She patted my hand. “I should have made you stay that morning they left, even though you were in distress. There were things I should have said. Let me go get something.”
I sipped the juice while she disappeared through the squeaky screen door. It was early in the morning, and the dew clung to the sparse grass beyond the balcony. I remembered the yellow daffodils I’d brought Ava and glanced around the collection of pots. I hadn’t been able to collect them on prom night like I thought I would. They might be in the back.
But no, they had been moved to the front, now only a bit of leaf, since the plant would shrink down to a bulb in its off season. I liked that something of ours was still here. It was proof that we’d existed, that Ava wasn’t some long-ago dream.
Grandma Flowers returned with a stack of paperback books, worn and yellowed from age.
“What are these?” I asked. The top book wasThe Color Purpleby Alice Walker. The next was Ralph Ellison’sInvisibleMan. I’d read that in a literature class. I spotted a Toni Morrison, then a mystery with a woman running on the cover.
Grandma Flowers picked that one up. “She liked all kinds.”
“Were these Ava’s?”
“No, but she read them. Before her mother decided I was a bad influence.”
I heldThe Invisible Man. I liked that she and I had this in common, even though she might not remember any of it.
“I’m not just showing off my collection,” Grandma Flowers said. “Open one up and pay attention to the highlighted words.”
I flipped to the first page and kept turning until I saw the first streak of yellow. It was the wordavailable,but only the first three letters were highlighted.
Ava.
“Mmm hmm,” Grandma Flowers said. “She always started by finding her name in the text, so she would know the message was for her.”
My heart pounded. I didn’t have to go very far before I found more highlighted words, single random selections.
Your
