AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She let out a softharrumph. “I don’t think it’s quite the same, but it’s better than nothing. It’s good he knows what can happen. Just in case.”
Just in case the seizures came back, she meant.
“Are you sure, absolutely certain,” Mom said, “that you’re ready to take on such a challenging job? I know you’re lonely, sweetie, but is this position the best choice for you?”
I had been lonely, it was true. Alexander had really been my only adult friend. I was a loner by nurture, not nature, so the hole his absence had left in my life was as wide and deep as the middle of the ocean.
“It’s good for me to leave the house, Mom. To stretch my wings. I’ve been… too careful.”
“There’s no such thing as too careful, Ava. Not when your life is at stake.”
“There is when it doesn’t really feel like you’re living.”
It was the most I’d ever pushed back with her, and my heart was pounding as I waited for her to lovingly remind me that I was very much alivebecausewe’d been careful.
“Is that how you feel? That you haven’t been living?”
I wiggled in my seat. Across the street, a neighbor watered the flowers on her porch and waved to me. I waved back and said, “Yes.”
I didn’t addfor a long time now,though I wanted to.
“I hope you realize that you are living, Ava. It might look different, your way of life, but you are living.”
Shaking my head, I stood up and walked to one end of the porch. From this vantage point, I could see a narrow span of darkness in the distance that I knew to be the gulf. “Mm-hmm,” I said.
I’d pushed a boundary I’d never dared to before. Next time we talked, maybe I’d push a little harder. Perhaps I’d even come clean about where I actually was living these days.
“Did you talk to your landlord about terminating your lease early?” she asked, as if she somehow knew I’d been thinking about my location.
The lies popped into my head and out of my mouth before I could think to stop them. “I did. I’ll have to forfeit my last month’s rent and the security deposit, though.”
I had no idea if that was the case at all. In fact, I actually hadn’t made any plans for my Cincinnati apartment—I’d been waiting to see how things would pan out here in Alabama. I’d need to make some decisions soon. It was silly to pay rent there if I was living here. And I’d need to go back to collect the rest of my things at some point, too.
“How’syourwork going?” I asked, redirecting the conversation as the sun sank out of sight. It left behind a thin band of tangerine sky and a deep purple that bloomed like a night flower unfolding its petals.
“Great!” Her voice became light and floaty, her worries briefly forgotten. When she moved to Tampa with her new husband, she quit her job as a legal secretary. Now she worked for a florist and loved every minute of it. Her Instagram page was full of the colorful arrangements she created, and I saw the pride in each of the photos she posted. “We have a busy weekend coming up. Four events—three of them weddings.”
Gone was the stress in her tone, the anxiety, replaced with agiddiness that made her voice sparkle and shine. Her happiness brought a lump to my throat. She never would have dated Wilson, her husband, if I was still having seizures. She never would have married him. She never would’ve left a job she didn’t like but was one where she could work from home three days a week that had good insurance coverage. She never would’ve moved away from me. She wouldn’t be experiencing the joy she was now. She wouldn’t be living the life she had deserved all along.
A seagull squawked overhead, and she said, “Was that a seagull?”
I frowned up at the bird as it headed for the beach. Tattletale. “Blue jay, I think.”
She laughed. “When you live by the water, all the birds start sounding like seagulls.”
“I can imagine.” I laughed, too, so she wouldn’t get suspicious.
“You’re drinking plenty of water, taking your vitamins, and eating some vegetables, right?”
Instead of rolling my eyes like I normally would when she gave me these reminders, I was surprised to find my throat thick with emotion. Even though she could be suffocating, she’d given up a lot in her life to take care of me. Simply because she loved me.
My voice cracked slightly when I said, “You know how I feel about vegetables.”
The full truth of it was that I hadn’t been taking good care of myself since Alexander died, a sorrowful effect of grief and guilt. I needed to do better. For my mom. For myself.
“Ava Laine,” she said softly, her voice so full of compassion that it nearly broke me wide open, “if you can’t eat, at least take the vitamins and drink the water.”
“I will. I promise.”
