Chapter 4 - The Sentence Daniel Had Never Repeated
Rachel arrived the next morning at eight.
Ava had met her maternal aunt only six times.
Birthdays when she was little.
One Christmas.
A funeral for a distant relative.
Then nothing for almost four years.
Rachel looked enough like Julia to make Ava stare.
Not identical.
Same eyes.
Same habit of pressing her lips together before saying something difficult.
Rachel hugged Ava first.
Then Daniel.
She did not hug Vanessa.
The four of them sat around the dining table.
The letter rested in the center.
Ava's page remained sealed.
Rachel read Daniel's page.
Her face changed at one sentence.
She looked at him.
“She wrote it down.”
Daniel said nothing.
Ava asked:
“What did Dad say?”
Rachel didn't answer.
Daniel did.
“If you walk out that door, Ava stays with me.”
The room went quiet.
Ava stared at him.
Daniel didn't look away.
“You told Mom she couldn't take me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I was angry.”
“That isn't a reason.”
“No.”
He swallowed.
“She had said she needed time away.”
“With me?”
“I thought so.”
Rachel shook her head.
“She said one night.”
Daniel looked at her.
“She hadn't told me that.”
“You didn't let her finish.”
He flinched.
Ava said:
“What did you think she was doing?”
Daniel leaned back.
For once, nobody answered for him.
“My mother left when I was ten.”
Ava had heard pieces of that story.
Her grandmother disappeared from Daniel's life for almost two years after a divorce.
She eventually returned.
By then Daniel had moved in with his father and refused visits.
Daniel said:
“When Julia said she needed to leave the house, I heard something she wasn't saying.”
Ava folded her arms.
“So you threatened her.”
“Yes.”
“Did you mean it?”
Daniel looked toward the windows.
“In that moment?”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
Vanessa whispered his name.
Ava turned on her.
“Stop helping.”
Vanessa went silent.
Daniel continued.
“I told Julia if she tried to take you, my attorneys would make sure she couldn't.”
Ava stared.
“You said attorneys?”
“Yes.”
Rachel's face hardened.
“You said more than that.”
Daniel looked at her.
“You weren't there.”
“Julia told me.”
He waited.
Rachel said:
“You told her your family could keep the case going until she ran out of money.”
Ava looked at her father.
Daniel's face changed.
He remembered.
“Yes.”
Ava stood.
She walked away from the table.
Nobody followed.
She stopped near the living-room doorway.
“Mom didn't have money?”
Daniel answered from behind her.
“Not like my family did.”
“And you used that.”
“Yes.”
Ava turned.
The instinct to defend him fought with something colder.
He had always been the parent who told her nobody got to scare her into staying somewhere.
Now she knew he'd once done exactly that to her mother.
Daniel said:
“I apologized for it later.”
Rachel looked at him sharply.
“When?”
Daniel frowned.
“Before the accident.”
“No.”
He looked at her.
Rachel pointed to the letter.
“She was waiting for you to.”
Daniel's face emptied.
Ava felt the room change.
“You never apologized?”
Daniel looked toward Vanessa.
Vanessa didn't move.
“I thought I did.”
Rachel's voice hardened.
“You told her she was being dramatic. You told her you wouldn't actually do it.”
Daniel stared at the table.
He remembered that too.
Ava said:
“That isn't an apology.”
“No.”
Rachel folded the letter carefully.
“Julia called me at ten forty-seven.”
Daniel looked up.
“She said she had gone home because she'd forgotten Ava's picture.”
Ava's throat tightened.
“She said Vanessa was there. She said Daniel had left.”
Daniel looked at Vanessa.
“You saw her.”
Vanessa nodded.
Rachel continued.
“Julia told me she was still angry.”
Ava waited.
“She also said she planned to come back in the morning.”
Daniel shut his eyes.
Rachel looked at him.
“She wasn't ending the marriage that night.”
Vanessa spoke for the first time in several minutes.
“I knew.”
Daniel opened his eyes.
Ava turned toward her.
May you like
Vanessa's voice barely rose above the hum of the refrigerator.
“I knew she was coming back.”
