Chapter 17
Tucker
I had to choose carefully. Ava had burned out on watching the videos during our hour visits, often slamming the laptop shut when she couldn’t keep up.
As I returned to the living room with the laptop, I tried to remember the sequence we’d used in the previous resets. The first part would go a lot like it did with the video she gave Vinnie. Not that it had worked very well.
But Ava always started by establishing that she could read and understand using the tattoo. She’d explain who she was—a photographer. Where she lived—in Austin. And who the important people in her life were —me, her father, Big Harry, Maya.
In the last iteration of the sequence, we hadn’t emphasized her mother, although we always mention Geneva due to the tattoo.
Then we included video clips showing where she lived, the people she’d talked about. We told stories together on camera. Laughed a lot, touched each other, to establish who she and I were. Kissed.
It was all there. It just took time and attention to get through it. Ava was always impatient with it.
When I sat down on the sofa, Ava was reading the messages she’d transcribed into the book.
“Learning anything good?” I asked her.
“I really didn’t like my mother when I wrote these,” she said. “Are there any videos with her in them? Or photos? I should know what she looks like if she tries to approach. It sounds like she came to Big Harry’s once?”
I set the laptop on the table. “Yes. When you were looking for a job, she found where you’d posted in response to the diner’s ad. We used Craig’s List back then. She also showed up at your college when a fellow photography student posted an image with your real name.”
“Real name? Do I have one that isn’t real?”
“Yes, you go by Ava Flowers for your business and on your photo credits.”
“Oh, that’s interesting.”
I opened the laptop. “You like to photograph flowers, plus you used to call Maya by Grandma Flowers when she lived next door to you and your mom. The name was an homage to her.”
“Homage?”
“To honor her.”
“I haven’t met her yet.”
“She’s ready when you are. She knows you like to take it slow.”
Ava peered at the laptop screen. “Do you have a video of my mother?”
I did. It’s not what I would have preferred to show at this moment, but I clicked onto the folder for the sequence. “How much do you know about her so far?”
She flipped to the opening of her book. “I know I felt it was important to put her on the first page.”
“It used to be more important than it is now. Your dad wasn’t in the picture back then. You were on your own after you ran away.”
“Give me a rundown of the worst of what she did.”
I sat back against the cushions. “When we first met, you told me she would remove pages from your journals so you couldn’t relearn anything she didn’t want you to know. And sometimes she would substitute pages with her own words and pretend they were yours.”
Ava pressed her hand to the tattoo. “Which is why I told myself to only trust this handwriting.”
“Right. When you lose your memory, it is like a fresh start for everyone around you. They can decide what you should know about them.”
“So, I started documenting everything I could so I would have a more complete picture.”
“Exactly.”
“What else did she do? You said she pretended I was fifteen when I was eighteen so I wouldn’t leave home.”
“There was that, for sure. But she also tried to get you declared medically incompetent in the children’s hospital so you couldn’t leave even at eighteen. That way, the police would bring you back if you ran away.”
“Wow. I guess that failed.”
“Yes. You were really smart in the hospital, and the social worker wouldn’t sign off on it.”
“When we met?”
“Yes, when we met.”
“And you helped me.”
I didn’t want to overstate my role. “I tried.”
She nodded. “Okay, is that it?”
“She got me arrested. She didn’t want us to see each other. I taught you about the world, and she didn’t want you to know anything, so you would have to rely on her. And she would move you whenever you made friends, hoping your memory would reset, and you would forget them.”
“That’s awful.” Ava clasped her hands tightly together in her lap. “No wonder I got the tattoo.”
“You tried to work with her after a reset when you were nineteen. Harry drove you out to her house because you wanted to move in with her. He didn’t know not to.”
She sits up tall. “Harry drove me there?”
“He didn’t know. He does now. He would never do it again.”
Ava stood up, pacing back and forth in front of the television. “Will she try to come for me? Was she invited to the wedding?”
I needed to bring her down. I could see her agitation rising. “She was not invited to the wedding. She got…pushy when you were twenty. She would show up at your apartment. She worries about you, maybe a little excessively.”
“I see.” Ava stopped walking. “But she’s not a danger? Not a threat?”
“I don’t think so. You might be vulnerable for a day or two after a memory reset, but once you have oriented yourself again, you know not to go anywhere with her.”
“Would she kidnap me?”
I hesitated. Geneva had tried to take off with Ava the time Harry drove her home. “I don’t think she’d push you into a white van and make off with you.”
“But you don’t know.” Ava’s hands tightened into fists as she walked back and forth. “I need that self-defense class!”
“We’ll get it done as soon as we can.” I wanted to stand up, hold her close, comfort her, but I knew better than to try.
“But I don’t know what she looks like!” She gestured to the window. “I might have just talked to her on the street!”
I reached over to wake up the laptop again. “Let’s show you right now.” I quickly scanned the files in the sequence folder and double-clicked one titled “Pruning roses with Ava’s mom.”
She sat next to me, closer this time.
The video started. I had filmed this one on my phone, sideways, before vertical videos became popular with TikTok and Reels.
Ava and Geneva kneeled in the dirt in front of the Wimberley house. Ava wore shorts and a T-shirt. Geneva had on one of her loose dresses. Their hair matched, long and brown and straight.
The front porch sagged beside them, and the paint on the exterior was peeling. But the rose bushes were vibrant in pink, white, and red.
“You have to deadhead them,” Geneva said, popping a bloom off a branch. “That signals the plant to create a new bud.”
Ava reached for a white one and tugged. White petals scattered on the ground. “Ouch!”
“Oh!” Geneva scooted closer and took Ava’s hand. “Watch out for the thorns!”
Ava in the video looked at the camera, at me, in concern.
“It’s not bleeding,” Geneva said. “You’ll be all right.”
“You’re okay,” my voice said.
They returned to the plants.
Ava peered closely at the screen. “She looks like me.”
“You always favored each other.”
Ava pointed at Geneva’s frown. “She doesn’t seem very happy.”
“I don’t know everything about her life, but it seems she had a hard time growing up.”
The video ended. “And then she made mine hard for me.”
“It can be that way.”
Ava closed the laptop. “That’s enough.”
I agreed. This had not set the stage for our first outing like I wanted. “I have some ideas for our date.”
“Oh, right. That.”
For a moment, I thought she’d try to get out of it, but she added, “You’re dressed up. I should probably change.” She gestured to her shorts and a T-shirt that read, “I shoot first and print the images later.”
“Not necessarily. I wanted to cover my bases. Do you want to hear the list?”
“Sure.” She kicked off her tennis shoes and sat cross-legged on the cushion.
“First, there are two traditional options. A movie or dinner. Or both. There is a new Superman film everyone says is good. Or since you like Schitt’s Creek, you might like the Naked Gun remake.”
“I haven’t been to a movie theater yet. Joseph said Superman was good.”
“For a movie, you can be dressed as you are. I wore this in case we went to a fancy restaurant.”
“Did we used to do that? Eat fancy meals?”
I shook my head. “Only with your father. We have to budget for that sort of thing. Bills always came first.”
“Oh, right.” She jumped up. “There were some envelopes with your name on them.”
I followed her to the kitchen. She had prepared a stack. “I know we have to pay all these things. I’m not sure how. I’ve been putting my money in here.” She opened the junk drawer. It was stuffed with cash, probably from her tips.
“We pay for most things online, using a computer. We send a check in for a few of them, like rent.”
“I assume we split these bills before? It doesn’t seem fair if you aren’t living here.”
I don’t want to tell her that there’s no way she can afford this place on her own, just working at Harry’s. It took both of us, and some good photography gigs for her, to get by.
“We’ll figure it out.” I can ask Marcus for help if I have to, not that I want to. Not at all. We’d be okay for a while.
She studied my face. “You look worried about this. So, maybe no fancy restaurant.” She twisted her hair in her fingers, and for a moment, everything seemed normal.
She and I were standing in our kitchen, trying to figure out how to pay a bill, and nothing else was the least bit hard.
I held on to the moment for as long as possible, an oasis in the desert of the distance between us.
“Let’s do the movie,” she said. “But let me put on a different shirt or something. We look like Eve and Jared.”
“Eve and Jared?”
“Oh, this couple who comes into the diner every day for lunch. Eve always wears these old jeans and a faded shirt. And Jared wears a suit.”
The image made me smile. “That’s fun. I’m guessing they are older?”
“I can’t tell people’s ages easily yet. But they aren’t gray or anything. They do seem older than me, though. Maybe like Harry?”
I got her meaning. “Okay, so choose something else to wear so we aren’t Eve and Jared.”
She took off to the bedroom.
I sorted through the envelopes, making a stack to take with me. We were stretched a little more than usual because of the wedding. Marcus had paid for the bulk of it, but we still had our own expenses. Her gifts to her sisters. Our rings. New suitcases for the trip.
I’d taken a week off from work. And Ava wasn’t doing the job that had enabled us to move into a house.
It would be all right. I had to have faith.
When Ava came out in a yellow sundress, her brown hair brushing against her shoulders, my breath caught.
I did have faith. It was my job.
I would do anything for her. Literally anything.
Hopefully, this would be the first really good day since our failed wedding.