3
It had been two days since Ava had picked her little sister up at school. Ruby was finally feeling better, so Ava was driving her back to her parents’ house. Her mom had called that morning asking if Ruby had been with Ava and demanded she be brought home. Ava rolled her eyes at the fact that she had just noticed Ruby was missing. It was irritating, to say the least.
“Call me if you need me to come get you, okay?” Ava asked, looking at her little sister in the back seat.
Ruby sighed heavily. “The phone doesn’t work anymore.”
Ava cursed under her breath. They must not have paid the phone bill. She drove past her parents’ place and down the street to the store. After parking, she got out with Ruby and took her hand, walking inside and to the small electronics section. She knew it was a long shot to find what she needed, but she wanted to check anyway.
Just as she suspected, they didn’t have pay-by-the-minute phones. She sighed and pulled open a shopping app on her phone to order one online. After she found one, she placed an order. It wouldn’t be in for a few days.
“I just ordered a phone for you to keep in your room for emergencies. But for now, I’ll call the telephone company and get the phone back up in case you need to call. Okay?”
Ruby nodded and gripped Ava’s hand tighter as they left the store and got back into her car. “Do I have to go back?”
Ava’s heart clenched. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“I want to stay with you,” she whispered.
“I know. I want you to stay with me too.”
They drove the short distance back to her mom and stepdad’s place. The house was unkempt compared to all the other houses on the block. They didn’t care and never would. Weeds had taken the grass over, and it looked dead in the summer since they didn’t water it. Right now, snow covered the ground, so it didn’t look nearly as bad as it did when it was warm.
The paint peeled, and the shingles on the roof were falling off. Dropping Ruby off killed her each time she did it. But without them relinquishing their rights or without Ava calling child protective services on them, there wasn’t much she could do. She legally couldn’t keep Ruby.
Ava walked Ruby up to the front door and opened it. Her mom and stepdad were seated in the living room, each with a bottle of beer in hand. They both were functional alcoholics. Somehow they held down jobs enough to where they could pay for their mortgage and their alcohol, but not much else. Or at least Ava assumed they were paying the mortgage since they still had a house.
“Ruby, how are you feeling?” her mom, Tonya, asked. “We heard you were throwing up at school?”
Ruby smiled shyly and inched closer to Ava. “I’m good.”
Ava ran her hand through Ruby’s hair. “I can keep Ruby with me for another few nights if you want.”
“No, I’m her mom. I can take care of her.”
Ruby deflated right beside Ava, which nearly crushed her. Ava hugged Ruby to her side. “Okay. Well, call me if you need me to come pick her up.”
“You don’t always need to try to be her mom, Ava. It’s not your job. We’re her parents,” her stepdad, Frank, said.
Ava wanted to talk back. She wanted to tell him she basically was Ruby’s mom since she was the one who always took care of Ruby when they were drunk. But no good ever came from that conversation. It would only make them angry, and she didn’t want to make Ruby’s life harder.
Ava hugged Ruby one last time before stepping out of the house. She pushed back the tears that threatened to fall as she left her little sister behind. When she got back into her car, she called the telephone company and paid the bill to get the phone back on the line. Then she drove back to her house. Her shoulders felt heavy as she contemplated what to do. She knew she should call child protective services, but at the same time, she didn’t want to create a hostile situation that could prevent her from taking Ruby home at all. She felt trapped. Like there was no way out of this situation.
Ava parked her car and walked up to the house. Cole’s car sat out front, so she took a deep breath and tried to clear all emotion from her face before going inside. The stupid thing was that he could read her like a book. It was hard to get anything by him, especially when it came to Ruby. He had a sixth sense about that kind of thing. Or he always knew to expect it, so he made himself readily available whenever she had to bring Ruby home.
As she had worried, Cole sat on the living room couch. When she walked through the door, he turned to face her. “How’d it go?”
She sighed. She didn’t want to make small talk. Especially not right then. “Good.”
“Now tell me the truth this time.”
Ava rolled her eyes and walked toward her room. “I’ll get my photography receipts together for you.”
The footsteps behind her told her she wouldn’t be able to escape that easily. His hand settled on her shoulder, and she shrugged him off.
“Don’t,” she said.
“Ava.”
