The moment I walked into homeroom on Monday morning, everyone went silent. Even Mrs. Philips stared at me as I stood in the threshold, holding my backpack across my chest like it was an inflatable life vest. “Ava,” she finally said, “welcome back.”
I’d spent extra time getting ready that morning, carefully brushing and straightening my hair, applying and reapplying a little mascara and blush until I was happy with the result. I picked out my best pair of jeans and a red tank top to wear under Mama’s sweater, hoping that if I at least looked normal, everyone would assume that I was fine and leave me alone. The last thing I wanted to deal with was people telling me how sorry they were about Mama, how horrible it was that she had died. Like I needed reminding of that.
I gave Mrs. Philips a brief nod and kept my gaze glued to the wooden floor as I made my way to my desk by the window. It was too quiet. I wanted the chatter of the other kids to distract me from the thoughts that spun in my head. My dad had spent the weekend packing up Mama’s house and bringing Max and me the rest of our stuff. He even brought over a few boxes of Mama’s things—her clothes and books, mostly. He put a few boxes up in the attic, saying they were for Max and me to have later, when we grew up, then gave me a couple of boxes to go through. I let him put them in my room but shoved them into a corner after he left. I didn’t feel ready to see what was inside. My anger was barbed and bitter in my mouth. I still couldn’t believe he didn’t let me go with him. I also couldn’t believe he thought he could make me stay away.
Now, in class, I dropped my backpack to the floor, slid into my seat, and tried to focus on what Mrs. Philips was saying about next week’s quiz on balancing equations, wishing this wasn’t the one class Bree and I didn’t share. Whitney sat one row and one seat behind me; I could feel her blue eyes boring into the back of my head. I won’t look at you. I won’t.
“Psst,” Whitney whispered. “Ava.” I lifted my chin and squinted my eyes like I was trying to focus on the board. “Hey, Ava!” She said my name again. “What happened to your mom?”
My skin prickled and I tried to ignore her. Please, just leave me alone.
“Did she really have a heart attack?” she asked, and finally, Mrs. Philips noticed she was talking.
“Whitney, can you come up here and solve for x in this problem, please? And explain as you go, too, so the rest of the class can follow along.”
Whitney smiled sweetly at our teacher. “I would, Mrs. Philips, but I’m so upset about Ava’s mother, I don’t think I can. Isn’t it just a tragedy?”
I whipped around and glared at her. “Don’t. You. Talk about her.” I growled the words, a little surprised at the sharp spike of my pulse, the urge I felt to haul off and smack her. An image rose in my mind: the quick sting of my open palm against her cheek, the shock and tears in her eyes. The satisfaction of wiping that smug look right off her pretty face.
“Ava, turn around, please,” Mrs. Philips said. I complied, then she directed her attention back to Whitney. “Nice try, but no luck. Get on up here.”
Whitney sighed and did what she was asked. She got the problem wrong, and when she returned to her seat, she bared her teeth at me. “So happy you’re back,” she said, her tone laced with sarcasm.
“So happy you’re a bitch,” I murmured quietly, but still loud enough that Whitney would be sure to hear.
* * *
“Wow, you’re such a badass!” Bree exclaimed later when I told her what I’d said to Whitney. We were walking together toward her house, which was only a few blocks from school. Dad had been waiting for me and Max in the parking lot when school was over, but I told him I wanted to go over to Bree’s.
“I don’t know,” he said slowly as my brother scrambled into the back of the car.
“Dad!” Max said. “My friends made me a card and they all signed it.” He held up a huge piece of folded white card stock, covered in scribbled names and, inexplicably, a few odd drawings of robots. He’s so stupid. Does a crappy card really make up for the fact that Mama is dead?
Dad twisted his head toward the backseat. “That’s nice, buddy. Very thoughtful.”
I shot Max an evil glance and he stuck his tongue out at me. Ignoring him, I turned my attention back to what I was trying to accomplish. “Dad, please? I haven’t spent any time with her in over a week. I need my best friend.” I gave him my most convincing innocent smile, hoping he’d give in. I knew he felt bad about our fight. All weekend he’d tried to bribe me with offers of ice cream and to go through Mama’s boxes with me, but I didn’t give in. Now I figured if I asked something as small as going to Bree’s, he’d see it as me forgiving him, which was exactly what I wanted him to believe.
“Will her mom be there?” he asked. He’s faltering. He’s going to say yes.
“Of course,” I lied. My dad didn’t know that Mama always called Bree’s mom, Jackie, to make sure she was going to be there. He didn’t have us with him often enough to understand that’s what he should do. All I knew was I had to be back at her house by six thirty, when he’d come pick me up. That gave me three hours to get to Mama’s house and back. If I was outside Bree’s house waiting for him, he’d never know what I’d done.
Now I shrugged as Bree congratulated me on putting Whitney in her place. “She deserved it. I’m tired of her always pushing me around.” I took a deep breath and released it, knowing what I was going to say next might upset my friend. “So, hey. I think I might try out for the dance team after all.” I looked at her, carefully watching for her reaction.
She stopped in her tracks and swung her head around to look at me. “What? Why?”
I stopped walking, too, and sighed. I figured she’d freak out on me. “I just do. I think it might be fun.”
“You just got done saying what a bitch Whitney is, and now you want to hang out with her and her minions?” Bree asked, shaking her head. “That’s crazy.”
“It is not,” I snapped. “I don’t care about Whitney. And I won’t be ‘hanging out’ with her.” I made invisible quotes with my fingers around the words, then dropped my arms to my sides. “My mom was a cheerleader, you know? She liked to dance. Maybe I’d be good at it.” I felt the sting of tears in the back of my throat, and I swallowed hard to repress them. I didn’t want to cry. It was only my first day back at school and I was already exhausted of everyone staring at me. It wasn’t just Whitney—I saw other people whispering as I walked by them in the hallway, trying not to make eye contact. I just wanted to find a way to be normal again.
Her expression softened after I said this. “Okay,” she said. “I get it.” I was grateful she didn’t push the subject. We started walking but didn’t talk until we got to her house.
“What time is the bus?” I asked as we entered. I couldn’t believe just she and her mom lived there in this huge house on the bluff overlooking downtown Seattle. Bree said her mom wouldn’t marry her boyfriend because that would mean her dad would be able to stop paying alimony to her and she’d have to get a job. I thought that was pretty awful of Jackie, but I didn’t say this to Bree, even though she probably already knew it was true. It was okay for me to say bad things about my parents or for her to say bad things about hers, but it wasn’t cool for either of us to say it about each other’s. Those were just the rules, and both Bree and I understood them.
“Four ten,” she said. “The number fifty-five goes right past your mom’s, right?”
I nodded. I’d taken that bus a few times on my own to come to Bree’s. She glanced at the clock. “Let me feed the cats and then we should get going.”
A few minutes later we headed out the door, Bree making sure to set the alarm. It was only a short bus ride through the West Seattle Junction to get to my mom’s tiny house at the top of Genesee Hill. It was a gray day; the clouds hung low in the sky, and it looked like it might rain. The edges of the leaves in our neighborhood had just started to turn red, like they had witnessed something they shouldn’t have and were blushing. My muscles began to jitter as we walked from the bus stop to the front door. I checked for Diane’s car, happy to see it wasn’t in her driveway, so she wouldn’t see us go inside. The last thing I needed was for her to call my dad and tell him I was here.
Taking a deep breath, I pulled my key out of my pocket and unlocked the front door. I looked at Bree. “Ready?”
She nodded and blew out a hot breath; her glasses a little steamed up from the moisture in the air. She wore one of her dad’s plaid flannel shirts and a pair of jeans with holes in the knees, and carried her dark green backpack, in case there was anything we’d need to take with us.
Inside, the air was the same temperature as it was outside and had a strange, stale smell, like it had been much longer than a week that we’d been gone. All the lights were off, but there was enough daylight coming in through the front window that we could see. Everything looked just like I remembered—I couldn’t even tell that Dad had been there to pack up some of our things. The brown leather couch in the living room was covered with Mama’s favorite pillows; the coffee table was strewn with an assortment of Max’s action figures and several of my books. Our school pictures were on the mantel, and a pile of unfolded laundry was in a basket on the floor. I could see the plate that Mama had put the toast she had made me on still resting on the kitchen counter, and it made me want to cry. Why hadn’t I eaten it?
Bree dropped her backpack to the floor. “What should we look for?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered, trying to control my breathing. “Let’s check out her room, I guess?” The idea of seeing her bed, where I knew her body had been when she died, made me feel sick. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. Maybe we should just go. Suddenly, a gripping sense of panic filled me. I couldn’t afford to make my father angry by being here when he’d forbidden me to come. I couldn’t afford to lose him, too.
But Bree was already walking down the hall, and before I knew it, I followed her. When I entered, I averted my gaze from the bed. Mama was everywhere in that room. After Daddy left us, she decorated it in blues, yellows, and lace—all of her favorite colors and fabrics. “We don’t need him, do we, love?” she asked as I watched her roll the fresh paint on the walls. “We’ll be just fine. We’re strong women, you and me.”
I’d nodded, a heavy, sinking feeling in my belly. I did need my daddy, and I wasn’t so sure that Mama was strong. Strong people didn’t cry over the littlest things, like when the microwave broke or when the bank closed before she got there to deposit her tips.
Now, standing in Mama’s bedroom with Bree, I realized a little of what I’d been feeling over the last week was relief that I didn’t have to take care of those tasks for Mama anymore. I wouldn’t have to help her pay bills or call the plumber for her when the toilet broke. A wave of guilt washed over me with this thought, as though I could somehow hurt Mama by thinking it.
“Ava?” Bree said, jarring me back to the present. “Can I turn on her computer?”
“It’s still here?” I said, surprised that my dad hadn’t packed it up, too. I could tell he’d been in her closet—the door was open and all her clothes were gone. Seeing this brought up a fresh round of tears pricking my eyes—memories of Mama letting me play dress-up in her clothes, trying on her high heels, pretending one of her pretty slips was a ball gown. Impromptu fashion shows in her bedroom, helping her decide which outfit she should wear. Empty hangers were all that remained—ghostly reminders that she was gone.
“Yep,” Bree said, motioning toward the desk by the window. “It’s right there.”
“Okay then,” I said, taking another deep breath to keep from crying. “But here . . . let me.” I took a couple of steps and sat down on the bench in front of Mama’s desk. Bree sat down next to me. We waited for the laptop to boot up, then I pushed the right buttons on it and clicked on the icon to bring up a history of the websites my mom had visited. There weren’t many—she didn’t have a Facebook or Twitter account and she didn’t like to shop online.
“Bank of America,” I read aloud as I skimmed my finger down the list. “Google; Greg Morton, PI; Tracy Lemmings, PI.” I paused, dropped my hand to the desk, and looked at her. “There are like ten PI websites.”
“PI?” she repeated. “What’s that?”
“Let’s find out,” I said, looking back to the screen and clicking on one of the links.
“ ‘Tracy Lemmings, Private Investigator,’ ” I read aloud. “ ‘We guarantee a discreet investigation to suit any of your personal or professional needs.’ ”
“Why would your mom need a private investigator?” Bree asked.
I blew a long breath out between my lips. “I have no idea.” She shot me a sidelong glance, her eyebrows slightly raised. “Really, Bree. I don’t know.”
She sighed. “Well, let’s look at all the sites and see if there’s a theme.”
“A theme?”
“Yeah. Like if they specialize in a certain area or something, you know?”
I nodded. “Good idea.” I clicked through all of the websites, but each of them offered a variety of services: surveillance on a cheating spouse, searching for runaway or missing children and long-lost relatives, suspicious insurance claims—the list went on and on. There was no way to know what she would have hired them to do for her.
“Let’s look at her e-mail,” Bree suggested. “Maybe she sent something to one of the investigators.”
I nodded again, then typed in the password to my mom’s e-mail account: a combination of my and Max’s birthdays. I’d helped her create it because she didn’t know how to do it on her own.
“All right, then,” I said. “Let’s see.” I typed a few keystrokes and then used the mouse to sort the e-mails by who they were from. “There’s a lot to Diane,” I said, peering at the screen. She read for a minute, and I did, too. Most of the e-mails were about meeting for coffee or about fights Diane was having with her husband.
“I don’t see anything to a private investigator,” Bree said. “Do you?”
I shook my head. “What about other people? Maybe there are some from my grandparents.”
I ran a search for the names “Thomas” and “Ruth” and nothing came up. I tried again with “Mother” and “Father,” “Dad” and “Mom.” Nothing came up. “Do you think they’d even have a computer?” Bree asked.
I considered this point. “Probably not,” I said with a sigh. Finding out what happened between Mama and her parents might turn out to be more difficult than I thought. I didn’t even know what I was looking for, really, since I couldn’t imagine parents who didn’t love their child like I knew mine loved me. Even with how mad I was at my dad right now, I knew he loved me. I scrolled further down the screen, past old e-mails between Mama and Dad. My belly did flip-flops thinking what it was I might discover, but something inside me pushed to keep going, so I ignored the gnawing sensation in my chest that told me I should shut the machine down and just leave. I opened one dated three years ago, right after my dad moved out, and Bree and I started reading:
Kelli,
You know I love our kids, and I wish that I could find a way to make it work, but I just don’t think it’s possible. I’ll file the paperwork this week. I’ve tried so hard to understand everything you’ve gone through, but I’m done trying to force you to deal with it. I’m done with it all.
You don’t have to worry about anything—I’ll take care of it. You can stay in the house with the kids; I’ll get another place nearby. I’ll want to see them as much as I can, of course, but I do think you’ll have to go back to work. I’ll talk with Steve and see if you can have your old job back waiting tables. The money’s good, and you’d have insurance.
“Why would your dad help her get a job when he was leaving her?” Bree asked, moving her gaze from the screen over to me. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“He took care of her,” I said, just above a whisper. “She always said he promised to take care of her and then he just went away.” I read the rest of the e-mail.
We made two beautiful children together, and whatever happened with us, I know that we were meant to be together, even if it wasn’t forever. I know we were together so they would be ours.
That was all it said. He didn’t even sign his name. Bree dropped back against her chair, then spoke quietly. “Do you want to keep looking?”
I shook my head. I felt deflated, suddenly not caring about anything else I might find. I didn’t know why I thought coming here would help me feel better. What I was looking for—what I really cared about—was gone. But I couldn’t tell Bree that. I couldn’t say that I’d held a tiny flicker of hope that I’d walk into this house and Mama would be here. “Baby,” she’d say, holding out her arms to me. “Everything’s okay. It was all just a bad dream. I was sick, and I couldn’t come home.” A coma, I imagined. Like on a soap opera. A coma so deep even the doctors wouldn’t know she was still alive.
“Are you sure?” Bree said, snapping me back to the moment. Back to where Daddy had left us and Mama was dead. “You don’t want to get anything else?”
I shook my head again. “Not now. I can’t.” My palms were sweaty and my heart threw itself over and over against the inside of my chest.
“Okay.” Bree sighed. “I’m sorry, Ava.”
“Whatever,” I said, shutting down the computer. “Let’s just go.” My voice trembled and the words didn’t come out hard and strong, the way I wanted them to. I stood up and turned around, this time forcing myself to look at the spot where Mama had died. Her blue comforter was crumpled the way I’d seen it a hundred times before, pulled back like she might come back and climb beneath it at any moment. I could smell her all around me—the faint scent of her sweet perfume. Above her bed, she’d framed a stick-figure drawing of our family I’d made for her in third grade: Daddy tall in the middle, his hair sticking out like porcupine quills; Mama standing in a pink dress next to him. Me holding Daddy’s hand, and Max holding Mama’s. It was a beautiful day in that picture, the sun a bright yellow ball in the impossibly blue sky. We all had smiles on our faces, not a care in the world. It was the way I saw us back then, when we were all still together. Back before the family I knew—the family I’d thought would always be mine—tore at its seams and finally fell apart.
* * *
They were fighting again. I shoved my head beneath my pillow and tried not to listen, but it was impossible. Their anger was so big, so powerful, it pushed through the walls of our house. I imagined it was black, thick, and heavy, like storm clouds brewing in the sky. My bedroom was right next to theirs; I couldn’t ignore it.
Dad had come home late, way after Max and I went to bed. I woke up once to the sound of Mama crying, then once more when I heard their bedroom door slam. “I can’t do this anymore!” my dad yelled. “If you can’t handle how much I have to work to take care of you, then there’s nothing I can do! You’re a grown woman, for Christ’s sake! You need to start acting like one.” His voice was twisted in a way I’d never heard before.
“I need to grow up?” Mama shrieked. “I do? Who’s the one who’s never with his children?” She paused for a minute, and I hoped it might all be over, but then she started again. “That’s you, Victor. You. Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on here. Don’t think I haven’t seen.”
Seen what? I wondered, sitting up in my bed, switching on the small lamp on the nightstand, then pulling my blankets up to my neck. Dad had been gone more and more. One night last week he hadn’t come home at all. He told Mama he had so much work to do, he slept over at the restaurant, but I knew Mama didn’t believe him. He had a couch in his office there, so I didn’t know why she thought he wasn’t telling the truth.
“You haven’t seen anything,” my dad said. It sounded like he was spitting the words. “You’re too busy feeling sorry for yourself. I’m sorry your parents disowned you. I’m sorry you can’t get over it! I’m done with it. No more, do you understand? I’m done.”
“Fine!” Mama screamed. “You have somewhere you’d rather be? Go! Get the hell out of my house!”
I cringed, my stomach starting to hurt worse than it ever had before. I didn’t understand what Mama was saying. Where else would Daddy want to be?
I heard drawers slamming shut, Mama still crying. The door of my room slowly opened and I held my breath, thinking it might be Daddy, but it was only Max. He had one hand on the doorknob and his worn yellow blanket in the other. His eyes were wide; his bottom lip trembled. He was only four. “Come here,” I whispered, lifting up my blanket and scooting closer to the wall. He tiptoed over to my bed and climbed in. His body was warm, but he was shaking.
After a moment, he put his head against my chest and started to cry. “Shh,” I said, slipping one arm around him, and together, we waited for morning to come.
