Chapter 6: The Thing Lauren Came to Ask
Lauren opened the door in yesterday's clothes, hair pulled back, Ava still asleep on the bed behind her.
She looked at my face and knew immediately that Dave had told me.
"I wasn't going to say anything," she said quietly.
"Not today."
"Come into the kitchen," I said.
"Let Ava sleep."
We sat across from each other at the same table where I'd sat with Cynthia an hour before.
I poured her coffee without asking.
She wrapped her hands around the mug.
"What kind?" I asked.
"They found something in my lymph nodes.
I have an oncology appointment next Thursday." She said it plainly, the way people do when they've had to say it enough times that the words have worn smooth.
"It might be nothing serious.
It might not be nothing."
"Do you have people?
Family, friends?"
"My sister.
She's the one who was supposed to bring Ava yesterday." Lauren looked down at the mug.
"She had a car accident.
Nothing serious, but she couldn't make it.
I was already at my appointment and I — I panicked.
I sent Ava to the church because Dave had told her that's where his family went for Easter.
I thought someone would find her quickly.
I didn't think—" She stopped.
"I should have handled it differently."
"She was safe," I said.
"She is safe."
Lauren nodded.
"What were you hoping for?" I asked.
"When you came here.
What did you actually need?"
She looked up.
"I needed Dave to look at her," she said.
"Really look at her.
Not through a photograph or a monthly deposit.
I needed him to see her as a person." Her voice didn't waver.
"And I needed to know that if something happens to me, she won't just disappear into a system somewhere.
That someone will know her name."
The words landed quietly and stayed.
"She won't," I said.
Lauren studied me.
"You don't have to promise me that.
You didn't ask for any of this."
"No," I said.
"I didn't." I looked toward the hallway, where I could hear Dave moving around, the sound of him on the phone — already, good.
"But Ava didn't ask for any of it either."
Lauren was quiet for a moment.
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"You and Dave."
"I don't know yet." That was the honest answer.
"But whatever happens between us, it doesn't change what Ava needs."
Lauren set down her mug.
Her eyes were wet, but she didn't let it go further than that.
She had the look of someone who had been holding things together by force of will for a long time and was very nearly at the limit of it.
"She talks about her daddy," Lauren said.
"She's made up a whole version of him in her head.
Kind.
Funny.
Someone who would come if she needed him." Her voice was careful.
"I didn't want to take that away from her.
But I also didn't want her to find out later that the real version was someone who just — sent money and looked away."
"He's going to have to decide who he actually is," I said.
"Yes."
"And so am I."
We sat with that for a moment.
Then Ava appeared in the doorway, hair wild from sleep, clutching the Easter basket she'd carried from the church steps.
"Is there eggs?" she asked.
"The scrambled kind?"
I stood up.
"With cheese mixed in," I said.
"Not on top."
Ava's face broke into a grin.
Lauren watched me move to the refrigerator.
I could feel her watching.
I didn't look back.
I cracked four eggs into a bowl and started to whisk.
Dave appeared in the kitchen doorway.
He looked at Ava.
She looked at him with the frank, uncomplicated gaze of a child who has not yet learned to be careful about who she looks at.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi," Dave said.
"Are you my daddy?"
The kitchen went very still.
Dave crouched down to her level.
His voice, when it came, was rough at the edges.
"Yeah," he said.
"I am."
Ava considered this for a moment with the seriousness of someone evaluating important information.
"Okay," she said.
Then she held out the Easter basket.
"Do you want a chocolate egg?
I saved the purple ones."
Dave took a purple egg.
May you like
His hand was shaking slightly.
I turned back to the stove.
