“. . . who died when I was a kid, but my parents wouldn’t even allow us to have, like, a dog or cat. Too much care. Too much emotion. Too much mess. But Grandpa was the first real person I’ve lost. I came home from school, and he was, like, just sitting in his chair watching ESPN like he always did. I thoughthe was taking a nap. I got a snack, texted Gabe and my friends, came back out, and it was then I realized his eyes were open. And I knew even though I didn’t know. I touched him...”
Ava stops.
“...and his head fell to the side.”
She looks toward the house. When she speaks again, her voice is a low hum.
“I feel like such a horrible person saying this, but he was so closed off that it was like he was already dead.”
She shakes her head, hard, as if she cannot believe she just uttered this aloud. Ava looks up, almost expecting a lightning bolt to appear on a perfect day in the desert.
“It’s okay,” I say.
“No, it’s not,” she says. “I feel awful.”
“Ava, it’s okay,” I repeat, this time with more force.
“I mean, I think Grandpa loved me, but I’m not sure he ever liked me,” Ava says. “He never told me he loved me. He never really said anything at all, just sat in that chair every single day and watched sports.” She clambers back onto the unicorn and lets her hair dangle into the water. It floats on the surface like an underwater beast stalking her, waiting to pounce and eat her whole. “I’m not sure he liked anything but the Cincinnati Reds. And even that was stretch.” She is silent for a moment. “He and Grandma fought all the time, abouteverything. And then they just stopped talking. For, like, years. He’d eat dinner in his chair. He stopped going to church with her. It was like they were strangers in their own home, and so Grandma focused all of her attention and anger on me. You know, they weren’t really planning to go see my parents in London. That’s all a lie. Grandma just says that to make people think everything was okay. He wouldn’t even get in the car to go to Meijer with her to grocery shop. I think he hated her guts.” She takes a deep breath. “And I think she hated him.”
“Areyouokay?”
Ava releases a sad, quick laugh.
“You’re the first person to ask me that, too.” She looks up at me. “I don’t know, to be honest.”
“And that’s okay, too, you know.”
My cell trills. I swim to the edge, grab it and tap a message.
“You’re on your phone way more than I am,” Ava says, raising a brow. “Boy trouble?”
“Are you psychic?”
“I know boys,” she says. “You’re acting pretty sus. I think you’re up to something, and you don’t want anyone to know.”
I cock my head and smile. “Bingo!” I say with a wink. “Street smart.”
“Spill it,” she says, pushing through the water to the other side of the pool with me.
“Can you keep a secret?”
Ava mimes locking her lips with a key. “Vault.”
I turn my screen towards her.
“This is Kyle. My boy trouble.”
“That’sBilly the Hillbilly!” she gasps.
“Vault! Remember?”
“Sorry, he may be old, but he’s hot.”
“Which is why I’m in trouble.”
For some reason—again, perhaps the two cocktails I’ve had coupled with the fact I will never see her again—I tell this stranger about breaking up with Kyle and seeing him again recently and his indecent proposal.
“This is like a spicy rom-com,” Ava says. “But, like, for old gay people.”
