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She said nothing, and neither did I. In that moment, we seemed to truly understand each other, but I wasn’t sure of the extent as to why. The thing was…I knew I was talking about Ava.
After our mom, Janis, left, she clung to me, like I was her replacement. Up until that point, we had a mother who cooked and cleaned and drove us back and forth to school. I remembered her being preoccupied, but nothing more than that—nothing that would have ever made me believe she would have ditched us like she did. Without hesitation.
Ava didn’t remember, but I did. I remembered the day she left. I’d been sick. Ava had gone to school.
Janis told me she was going to the grocery to get stuff for soup. She’d pick up Ava on the way back since it was getting close to that time. She was going to have Molly check on me. For whatever reason, maybe because I was being clingy, since my stomach hurt and I felt anxious, I ran behind her in my long pajama dress, watching as she grabbed her purse and keys.
She didn’t even look back at me. She just grabbed her things and left.
As the door opened, a little light had slipped in, making me squint, before she slammed it shut, leaving me in complete darkness.
Ava didn’t get home from school until much later. Maybe Sonny had forgotten to pick her up or had no idea our mom had left for good. Back then, he worked steadily. He got up before any of us and got home around dinner. After he took a shower and ate, he went to bed.
Molly had hung around for a while after Janis left. Looking back, I thought maybe she’d told Michele of the situation and he’d given her some time off. Because she was always around after Janis left. She took care of me and tried to keep Ava as settled as she could.
Before Ava went to school and after she’d get home, all she’d say was, “Where’s Mom? I want my mom! Where is she?” She even made up a song and started to sing it constantly. “I want my mom! I want my mom! I. Want. My. Mommmm!”
After Janis left, Ava had perked up. It was like she was a totally different child. For that matter, I had too. I had more energy. But I didn’t know what to do with it. It seemed like Ava didn’t, either. But where I figured out where to put it—in her, in Sonny, in taking care of things—Ava went wild, except for the nights she’d climb into bed with me and cry.
It was hard to remember how long it was after Janis left, but I remember the day the truth came out. Ava wouldn’t stop singing (she’d even made a stomp dance to go with the beat), I wouldn’t stop cleaning, and Molly kept glancing at Sonny. He sat at the table, eating whatever she’d cooked, staring into the distance. But I felt it before it happened.
He cracked.
“SHE’S NOT COMING BACK!” he roared at Ava. “SHE LEFT YOU. SHE LEFT HER.” Meaning me, but he refused to look at me. “SHE LEFT US. SHE. IS. NOT. COMING. BACK.”
Ava stopped her dance. Stopped her singing. The crack that tore through him seemed to cause hundreds of fractures throughout our entire house. I felt it split my heart in two.
She wasn’t coming back. Sonny had always been a man of few words, and I knew he meant it. I should have gone to Ava then, taken her into my arms and protected her from the truth, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I was frozen with the broom in my hands.
Ava stood frozen, too, in shock. But after Sonny flung his cheap paper napkin to his full plate, grabbed a beer from the fridge, and hauled ass toward his room, something snapped in Ava.
She started screaming at him, “IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT! YOU MADE HER LEAVE!” She started crying and stomping her feet as he took a seat in front of the already ancient TV in his room, his back toward her. This went on for hours, it seemed, until Molly picked her up off the floor and carried her to our room. She’d screamed at him for so long, stomped for so many hours, that she’d worn herself out.
It was the first time she’d slept an entire night, but she kept convulsing in her sleep.
That was when she hardened. Pretended like her life hadn’t been shaken up, that the violent twist of it hadn’t caused her any scars. As she got older, she turned to drinking, maybe even to drugs, to men who lived life a certain way, and to the one thing that connected them all—the danger that goes along with a fast-lane lifestyle.
Which was why her obsession with the Fausti family came as no surprise to me. Some of the most dangerous men existed in that family, which was why she’d become addicted. Not many women would have posters hanging on their walls of men who stole other men’s beating hearts.
My sister thought it was romantic, like a teenage dream.
Maybe because she didn’t want a heart. It hurt too much. They were a family in the business of stealing them, and she desperately wanted to give the one she had. There was no way they would just take, though, and that was what worried me. I knew her end game: to get close to that family.
I shook my head, refusing to go down that road. I’d been on it since the day our world was turned upside down and a crack in the glass of our lives had formed.
We still had no clue where Janis had gone, or why she left. We drew our own conclusions, and the blame fell on Sonny’s shoulders. He must’ve been abusive. He must’ve been drinking and gambling. He must’ve been an awful husband.
Minnie was the only one who acted like he’d done nothing wrong and everything was okay. Because she had no clue the truths that waited for her. I’d do everything in my power to shield her from it, for as long as I could.
Sometimes I tried to see Sonny as Minnie did. Just as her dad. A human man who struggled with whatever burdens he carried. Burdens that he shouldered alone. I wasn’t even sure if Molly knew why Janis had left, or what had truly happened. She never said anything to me if she did. I never asked. Molly could be tightlipped on certain topics. I knew that was one of them.
Out of respect for Sonny? Because I’d seen it there before. Respect for him.
Why? Why would a woman like Molly respect a man like him? She was a tough old broad who took no shit from anyone, especially men she found lacking when it came to family obligations.
I tried to think back, to remember who Sonny was before Janis left. But all I could remember was the same quiet man, but one who worked a lot and took care of his responsibilities.
Maybe that was why I didn’t hate him, or resent him, as much as Ava did. I’d made sense out of the situation, and to do that, I had to put myself in Janis’s position.
