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I wait until Lucy leaves, and the way Ava peeks through the half-open door, fearful and suspicious, before slamming it on Lucy’s back tells me I’m doing the right thing in giving her the option to meet elsewhere.
When Lucy is out of sight, I sprint across the road and shove my note under the door, give a quick knock, before running back to my hiding place on the off-chance Ava opens the door to see who left it.
She doesn’t, and I glance at my watch. I’ve given her forty-five minutes to shower and dress if she needs to and meet me at a hotdog stand near Central Park.
I wonder if she gets the significance. We’d been watching a movie once—I can’t remember the name—when she was about ten, and she’d never had a hot dog, what with Harlan’s obsession with organic produce, so when she’d seen the stand outside Central Park she’d announced when she was older she’d spend all day at the stand and consume as many hotdogs as humanly possible. I’d laughed and cuddled her, saying we’d make it a contest.
It never happened. Neither of us left Arcania under Harlan’s watchful eye and I wonder how many other dreams my daughter harbored and never shared because she knew they wouldn’t come true.
Regret churns my gut as I stroll to our meeting place. I wonder if others rehash the past in their head as often as I do, envisaging different outcomes. If I hadn’t accepted Harlan’s offer to work at Arcania when I first ran away, would I still be rich now? Would I have clawed my way to the top some other way or would I be destitute, getting by on odd jobs, scrimping and saving, never having enough?
Would Ava still be with me if I’d accepted Spencer’s initial offer to leave Arcania with him? Would we be a happy family, content with little financially but close? Would I have had more children?
I’d made sure that didn’t happen with Harlan, my meticulous birth control methods bordering on an obsession. Thankfully, he’d lost interest in me as his passion for making Arcania great grew, but I never trusted him not to impregnate me for another heir. Lucky for me, he was satisfied having a girl inherit Arcania in the future.
I hate mulling over a bunch of ‘what ifs’, but I can’t help it. My life could’ve been so different if I hadn’t chosen security for Ava and, in doing so, marrying a monster.
And how had my daughter repaid me? By abandoning me. By deceiving me. By robbing me of the only family I have.
I’m so deep in my musings I almost miss Ava as she passes me. She’s dressed in all black, from her lace-up ankle boots to the beanie pulled low over her ears, but I’d recognize her anywhere. My daughter has a distinctive walk, longer strides than others, just like her father. I always thought Spencer would go places with those strides. Instead, he’s curtailed them to stay with me. Yet another thing to feel guilty about.
Not that I asked him to. I made it more than clear, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that a small part of me likes his loyalty, that he makes me feel safe, like I always have someone watching over me.
It’s Ava’s walk that does it. The familiarity of it; of her. I can’t follow her all the way to the hot dog stand. I need to confront her now.
“Ava,” I call out, and she stops, her fingers curling into fists, instantly defensive.
She must recognize my voice because when she turns, her expression is part joy, part fear.
I scan her face, taking in the new lines around her eyes, the grooves alongside her mouth. But her skin is clear and at forty-three, she looks a decade younger.
I want to run to her, to sweep her into my arms, to hug her close and never let go, but my feet won’t move. I’m trembling, the shock of seeing my beloved daughter again after all this time, the reality that she’s alive, is overwhelming.
“Ava…” It’s a whisper this time and I clear my throat, wanting to say so much to my daughter but unsure where to start.
“How did you find me, Mom?”
Not exactly what I imagined her first words to me in decades would be and my elation at finding her alive fades, replaced by the anger I subdued last night.
“Does it matter how I found you, considering I’ve been under the misapprehension you’ve been dead for twenty-six years?”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugs, like what she’s put me through means nothing, and I lose it.
“Is that all you’ve got to say? I’ve been to hell and back, Ava, and for what? What did I ever do to you?”
I’m yelling and early morning commuters hurry past us, heads down, not wanting to engage with the crazy woman.
“It’s what you didn’t do that was the problem, Mom.” Tears fill her eyes, but she lifts her chin, defiant. “You didn’t stand up for me against Dad. When I wanted to go to school like normal kids, when I wanted to go to college, you just stood there and said nothing. When I wanted to go on vacation and he refused, you stood by him.” She snorts. “And I get it. You were afraid of him, too. But we could’ve escaped, you and me, together. Instead, you watched him force me to get that stupid tattoo on my eighteenth birthday, and I knew then I could never rely on you. It was the final straw for me.”
Her upper lip curls in a sneer as her truths stab at me deeper than knives. “I knew when I got pregnant that if he found out he’d make me abort and you’d do nothing to support me, so I left before you let me down yet again. Because there’s no way in hell I would’ve given up on my baby like you gave up on me.”
Guilt that every word she’s uttered is correct chokes me, but I manage to say, “How did you escape?”
She waves away my question. “Irrelevant now. You need to leave, Mom, and never come back.” She gnaws on her bottom lip in a gesture so familiar I start to cry. “You’ve been dead to me a long time. Let’s keep it that way.”
My heart is splintering into a million pieces as she walks away but I can’t let it end like this. If she hears my side, she’ll forgive me. She has to.
