Chapter 15
Victoria made her way up the stairs to the large front door. She’d given herself nearly twenty-four hours to forget what Shannon
had said about the memory box. Twenty-four hours to tell herself that the past didn’t matter and she was totally fine with
whatever Ava and Shannon had discussed. Only the brief passage of time had done little to smooth over the still-ragged hurt
that she couldn’t completely define. Her Morning Pages had been a rambling mess about bargain sweaters and plans for a trip
anywhere that wasn’t Los Angeles.
But she knew running away wouldn’t solve anything. Worse, with her cast, she couldn’t get very far. And even if she flew to
say, London, then what? She would be alone in a hotel room, and that was no one’s idea of fun. She’d tried pull-ups at the
bar in the doorway to her closet but had lost so much upper-body strength that she could only do eight, and that was hardly
enough to help her clear her mind. Going to the gym was still a hard no, and using an air gun for target practice on her Roomba
had resulted in a nonfunctioning vacuum and a broken lamp. Which left her standing in front of her parents’ home.
She rang the bell, then used her key to let herself into the house. “It’s me,” she called, making her way toward the kitchen,
where she knew her mother would be starting dinner.
Sure enough Ava stepped out into the hallway, her eyebrows raised.
“Victoria. Did I know you were stopping by? There’s plenty if you want to stay for dinner.” She paused, studying her. “You’re
looking so much better. When do you get your walking cast? It must be soon.”
Victoria stared at her mother, looking for some hint of guilt or regret. After all, she’d gone behind her back to have lunch
with Shannon. But there wasn’t even a flicker of emotion beyond the friendly smile and offer to stay and have dinner.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” she demanded. “Did you think we wouldn’t talk?”
Her mother sighed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You had lunch with Shannon.”
“I did. A couple of days ago.”
Victoria waited, but that seemed to be all there was. “You didn’t say anything. You didn’t tell me. You don’t think that meeting
was a little noteworthy?”
“I haven’t seen you or spoken to you since then. I don’t understand why you’re upset.”
“Because she’s the one you always wanted. After all these years, she’s finally in your life.”
She’d meant to speak defiantly, but somehow her voice was shaking a little. Unexpectedly the pain was suddenly bigger than
the anger.
“She’s the one you picked. She’s the one who matters.”
“Victoria, please. I don’t know why you’re upset. If you and I had spoken, I would have mentioned the lunch. Yes, it was very
nice getting to know Shannon. It has, as you pointed out, been a long time. But I’m not sure what that has to do with anything.”
“She looks like you,” Victoria accused, aware she wasn’t exactly making sense.
“When you’re with her, no one’s going to be confused.
No one’s going to ask about the connection, and you won’t always have to say that she’s adopted.
Because that was always a thing with us, Mom.
You explaining, as if you wanted to make it clear that I wasn’t a part of you. ”
Ava flinched. “Victoria, no. It wasn’t like that. Please. We’ve talked about this. Cindy and I connected back then. She’d
lost her mother not long before she got pregnant. She was scared and alone, and I could be there for her. We were close in
age, and it was easy for us to be friends. That’s what mattered to me. Not how she looked.”
“I want to see the memory box.”
Ava pressed a hand to her chest as she took a step back. “I don’t know what you’re—”
“Shannon already told me about it.” Her voice was flat. “There’s no point in denying it. I want to see the memory box.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. You’re upset, and what’s in the box has nothing to do with you.”
“I think it has everything to do with me.”
She started for the elevator. She half expected her mother to come with her, but of course Ava would take the stairs and beat
her there. Victoria breathed through the brief journey to the second floor. Sure enough when the doors opened, her mother
was waiting in the hallway. They stared at each other.
“Are you going to make me rip through every box in every closet in this house or are you going to be just a little bit human
and show me where it is?” Because she knew it wasn’t with the regular memory boxes. She’d been in that closet a thousand times
in her life. She’d helped organize and tidy the various boxes, and never once had she seen the one for the baby she hadn’t
known existed.
“It’s in my closet,” her mother said quietly and started down the hall.
Victoria followed her, telling herself she was determined and that the knot in her stomach wasn’t anything like dread.
They walked into the large main bathroom with the miles of marble and the big mirrors.
Ava retreated to the oversize closet, then returned with a box that, on the outside, looked exactly like every other one Victoria had seen over the years.
She set it on the counter, between the double sinks, then stepped back.
Victoria found herself wanting to turn away. The need to see what was inside quickly blended with the need to protect herself.
Because whatever was in there had the power to rip out her heart and leave her for dead. She sensed it with every fiber of
her being. Yet she still wanted to know.
She slipped off the lid and looked inside. Stacked on top were pictures. So many pictures. There were a couple of ultrasounds,
but most of the photos were of her mother and Cindy. They were young, and Cindy was hugely pregnant. There were shots of them
laughing or mugging for the camera. They walked together along the beach, arms linked, heads bent together in quiet communication.
There were shots of them dressed up or sprawled on the sofa.
Picture after picture showed two young women becoming friends. Maybe becoming family. They were happy and beautiful and looked
so much like sisters.
Victoria had known that Ava had been devastated by the loss of the baby, and in her head, she’d understood that her mom had
felt betrayed by Cindy, but until that moment, she’d never understood that there had been a second, almost bigger loss. The
death of the friendship the two had shared. Knowing her mother as she did, she could understand that it wasn’t even so much
that Cindy had changed her mind, it was that she’d cut herself off so completely. Stealing both Ava’s dreams of motherhood
and the relationship she’d come to rely on.
Ava was careful about who she let into her heart. She didn’t trust easily, and when she loved, she gave fully. Victoria saw
it in how her mother was devoted to her husband. It was what she hadn’t sensed those first years of her childhood.
Under the photos was a folded piece of paper. Victoria opened it and saw an artist’s rendering of her baby room. The mural was there, with a portion blown up, as if to show all the places her name would be hidden in the design.
She rubbed her finger along the page, not sure of the significance of the inclusion in the precious box. Why would her mother
have put a picture of the mural in . . .
She stared more closely at the design and easily found her name over and over. Her name.
She looked at her mother who was watching her cautiously but didn’t speak. Victoria tried to understand, but her mind refused
to accept the obvious. She returned her attention to the box and pulled out a slim journal, then flipped to a page at random.
Victoria was so active today, kicking and moving. She’s strong and healthy, and every time I think about holding her in my
arms, my heart grows just a little bigger to make space for all the love.
She upended the box, sending the remaining contents sprawling across the counter. There were frilly dresses and an impossibly
small white onesie with Victoria embroidered along the front.
“It’s a family name,” her mother whispered, her voice thick with emotion. “It’s not what you think.”
“Really, Mom? So I shouldn’t be standing here, telling myself you couldn’t even be bothered to come up with a different fucking
name?”
The volume increased until she was screaming—more at herself than her mother because she was the fool who’d allowed herself
to think she’d been wanted. But she hadn’t been. Not even a little. There’d been no artist repainting the mural. No do-over.
“How fortunate that my birth mother was able to hand you some kid who could slip into the world you’d already created. It
saved you so much time and trouble about having to give a shit about me at all.”
She pushed the box and everything else onto the floor, turned and left.
As she stood in the elevator waiting for it to deliver her to the main floor and her only means of escape, she told herself she couldn’t cry.
She wouldn’t think about any of this. She had her answers, and that was all she wanted.
The fact that they cut through her like glass didn’t matter at all. Truth was power and now she had hers.
“What is it?” Javiar asked, sounding doubtful.
Shannon stared at the smallish almost-watermelon on the kitchen counter. The shape was right, if she ignored the irregular
bumps on the rind. And the strange yellow cast to the normal green color.
“A watermelon squash,” she told him. “At least that’s what we’re calling it.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Sure, it is. Someone planted watermelon and squash next to each other, and this is what happened.”
“But they’re separate plants. They don’t grow together. People who have a dog and a cat don’t suddenly wake up to a strange-looking
hybrid one morning.”
“Plants are mysterious.” She took a large knife and cut open the flesh. As the two halves separated and rolled back onto the
counter, she could see the reddish flesh of a watermelon giving way to the more dense orange of squash.