Everything Leads to You(92)

“Hi,” Ava says.

Tracey looks past her, at us.

“Who are these people?” she asks.

“My friends,” Ava says.

Tracey closes her eyes and shakes her head.

“What?” Ava says. I’m confused, too. We’re all wearing normal clothes. We all look perfectly fine to me.

Tracey’s head keeps shaking, shaking.

“Really, Mom?” Ava says. Tracey isn’t looking at her, so Ava steps to the right, placing herself in Tracey’s line of vision.

“You broke into the house,” Tracey says.

“I tried to use my key.”

“You went through my things. My personal things.”

“I needed something.”

“What?”

“My birth certificate.”

“But you took so much.”

“I wanted to know about Caroline.”

Tracey shakes her head again and I wish I could close my eyes so I didn’t have to see it. I thought that Tracey might feel some regret.

“I had so many questions,” Ava says, making her voice slow and even, trying to sound like someone people listen to. “You never answered them, so I tried to tell myself that they weren’t important. But, of course, it is important. Caroline loved me. You loved me. I read your journal. You said I was a gift.”

Even from a distance, I can see Tracey’s whole body tense.

“You had no right to go through my things.”

“You said I saved your life.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I found Lenny.”

Tracey’s hands fly to her face. When she drops them again, her eyes are wide and wild.

“You have no right,” she hisses. “You need to let the past stay in the past.”

“I do have a right. It’s my life,” Ava says. And I remember Frank’s tired, sad eyes and how he was the first person to tell her the truth about what happened.

“I need to let go of the past,” Tracey says softly.

“But I have a right to know where I come from,” Ava says. “I’ve been learning all of these things I never knew. One thing I wanted to do was to thank you for taking me in. I know some of what you were going through. I know it was a really big deal.”

“I don’t want to talk about this. That was my old life.”

“Mom,” Ava says. “Please. We only have one life. This life.”

Tracey turns away, like she’s going to walk inside.

“Mom,” Ava says. “I never had sex with Malcolm. We weren’t even in the Sunday school room. We were outside. All we were doing was talking.”

Tracey won’t look at her, but Ava keeps talking anyway. And I remember what she told me when we were picking cherries, that she gave Tracey reasons to reject her.

“I never shoplifted from CVS. That makeup you found in my bathroom? Jessica gave it to me. And the night that you went looking for me in my room? I was just hanging out with friends at the movie theater. I wasn’t doing any of the things I told you I was doing.”

“Why did you torture me like that?” Tracey asks. “You were so cruel to me.”

“I was giving you reasons,” Ava says, “to not love me. I didn’t know it then but I understand now.”

I expect Tracey to give in at this, to assure Ava of her love, but she doesn’t say anything. She just watches Ava standing there, crying and trying to explain.

The door opens and a boy appears in the doorway.

“Jonah!” Ava says, and steps toward him but Tracey turns around and shrieks, “Get back inside!”

Jonah stands, paralyzed, looking from his mother to his sister, and for a moment I think he might defy her, go show Ava that he’s her family, but instead he retreats and the door closes slowly, but not all the way.

“I wasn’t coming on to Lisa,” Ava says. “What happened between us happened because of both of us.”

Tracey shakes her head.

“Like that’s going to make anything better,” she says.

Ava says, “You aren’t going to believe this but I found out that I had a grandfather, and he left me a lot of money. So I’m doing all right. You don’t have to worry about me.” She’s struggling not to cry and it’s so painful to watch her. “And I’m in this movie. I auditioned. A lot of other people wanted my part, but you know what? They wanted me.”