21. Ava’s Question
AVA’S QUESTION
RILEY
The red crayon snapped under Ava's fist.
She stared at the two broken pieces as if the morning had betrayed her. A red line slashed across the calendar page taped beside her breakfast chair. One half of the crayon rolled beneath the table. The other remained pinched between her fingers.
I stopped halfway through setting a bowl of strawberries beside her.
"That surprised you," I said softly.
Ava didn't answer. Her gaze stayed fixed on the square she had marked: the final day of camp.
Across the island, Luca lowered his coffee. He looked exhausted, though he had showered and dressed in one of his crisp black button-downs. The shadows beneath his eyes told the truth his clothes tried to hide.
Last night flashed through me in pieces: his hands, my anger, the look on his face when I gave him no room to hide from the truth.
Fix this or lose us.
This morning, we had limited ourselves to toast, traffic, and the critical question of whether shark headphones belonged inside Ava's backpack or around her neck.
I crouched to retrieve the crayon. "We can sharpen another one."
"No." Ava placed the broken half beside her spoon, aligning it carefully with the table's edge. "That X is finished."
Her voice was calm, but she rubbed her thumb against the side of her index finger. Once. Twice. Again.
I knew that motion now. She had something to ask and wasn't sure she wanted the answer. Luca knew it too. His shoulders tightened before Ava even turned toward him.
"Daddy?"
"Yes, piccola."
She tapped Friday's square. "Camp ends here."
"It does."
"And Riley's summer job ends when camp ends."
The refrigerator hummed into the silence.
My fingers closed around the crayon beneath the table. I should have stood. Said something reassuring. Distracted her with breakfast and pretended the question hadn't lodged beneath my ribs.
Instead, I stayed crouched, suddenly afraid of moving.
Ava looked from the calendar to Luca. "Does Riley leave after?"
Luca's breath caught so quietly I might have missed it if I hadn't spent weeks learning every version of his silence. His gaze lifted to mine. For one suspended second, none of us pretended this was only about a work contract.
Ava waited, her bare feet hooked around the chair rung, trusting us to give her an answer that wouldn't make her world less safe.
Luca set his mug down with deliberate care. "We'll talk about it."
"When?"
"Soon."
Ava studied him, deciding whether soon was a real answer.
Then she picked up her spoon and nudged every strawberry to one side of the bowl.
The calendar remained between us, the last day of camp crossed out in red.
Luca waited until Ava had carried her bowl to the sink before he moved. He crossed the kitchen, crouched beside her, and took the dish from her hands when she reached too high for the counter. "Go brush your teeth, piccola. I'll pack your water bottle."
Ava nodded, but her eyes flicked toward the calendar again before she disappeared down the hallway. The moment the bathroom door clicked shut, Luca braced both palms against the counter.
I stood on the other side of the island, still holding the broken red crayon.
"She deserved a better answer," he said.
The words were low, aimed more at himself than me.
"You were surprised."
"That doesn't make it better."
He stared at the sink as if the answer might be hiding beneath the running faucet. Then he shut off the water and turned to face me.
"I've spent years making sure she knew what came next." His jaw worked once. "School. Dinner. Bedtime. Who picks her up. Where I'll be."
"And now she doesn't know where I'll be."
His eyes found mine.
The truth sat between us, stripped of every excuse we had used to avoid it.
Luca dragged a hand over the back of his neck. "I asked you to stay through the summer. I let that become..." He stopped.
"More?"
"Everything."
The single word pressed hard against my ribs.
He glanced toward the hallway. "I taught her to count on you before I had the courage to ask what you wanted after the summer."
"You didn't do that alone."
"No." His voice softened, but the blame never left his face. "But I'm her father. Stability is my responsibility."
I set the crayon on the counter. "You can't protect her from every uncertain thing."
"I can protect her from uncertainty I create."
Luca looked down at his hands. "After Zoe died, people came to help. Family. Friends. The occasional nanny. Then their lives pulled them away again." He swallowed. "Ava stopped trusting that someone being there today meant they'd be there tomorrow."
My chest tightened.
"And now you think I might."
"I think I never gave you a reason not to."
The honesty hurt more than defensiveness would have.
Ava's footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Luca straightened, but his gaze stayed locked on mine. "We have to talk about this. Not around it. Today."
Before I could answer, Ava appeared with toothpaste at the corner of her mouth and her backpack dragging from one hand.
Luca smiled for her, but I saw the fear underneath it.
Ava's gaze lingered on his face a second too long.
The drive to camp should have felt ordinary.
Ava sat in the back seat with her shark headphones resting around her neck, tapping one sneaker against the door in a steady rhythm. I kept both hands on the wheel and tried not to replay every word from the kitchen.
We have to talk about this.
Today.
Luca had stayed behind to handle a resort call, leaving me alone with the one question neither of us could solve with a spreadsheet, a contract, or aggressive amounts of coffee.
At a red light, I glanced at Ava in the mirror. She was watching the palm trees pass, her fingers tracing the edge of one headphone cushion.
"Are you thinking about camp?" I asked.
"No."
The light turned green.
I waited.
Ava usually filled silence only when she was ready. Pushing made words retreat deeper.
Three blocks later, she said, "Daddy said we'll talk."
"He did."
"He says that when he doesn't know yet."
My grip tightened slightly on the wheel.
"Sometimes adults need time to figure out the right answer."
"Is there a right answer?"
The question hurt more than it had any right to.
I turned into the camp lot and parked beneath a row of sea grapes. Other children hurried toward the gate with towels and bright bags, their voices carrying through the open windows.
Ava stayed buckled.
I twisted in my seat to face her. "What are you worried will happen?"
She looked down at her backpack. "Camp ends."
"I know."
"And then your job ends."
Her voice stayed even, but her thumb rubbed over the zipper pull again and again.
"That was the original plan," I said carefully.
Ava's eyes lifted to mine. "Do plans have to happen?"
"No. Plans can change."
"Are you changing it?"
My chest tightened.
I wanted to give her something certain. Something soft enough to hold until Luca and I figured out the rest.
But I had promised myself I wouldn't make her feel safe with words I couldn't support.
"I'm thinking very hard about it," I said.
Ava studied my face, searching for whatever adults usually hid from children.
"Do you want to leave?"
"No."
The answer came before fear could edit it.
Her fingers stopped moving.
"I don't want to leave you," I added. "But staying has to work for everyone. You, me, and your dad."
Ava considered that, then unbuckled.
At the gate, she slipped her hand into mine. "You'll pick me up?"
"I will."
"Even if the plan changes?"
I squeezed her fingers. "Today's plan won't."
That seemed to be enough.
She walked inside without looking back, but I stayed near the gate after she disappeared.
Ava already believed I belonged in her life. And for the first time, I admitted that I wanted to.
Maddie answered on the third ring with wet hair twisted into a towel and one eye half covered by a cooling mask.
"You look haunted," she said.
"Good morning to you too."
"That was good morning. The sisterly interrogation starts after caffeine."
I carried my coffee onto the back patio and sank into the chair beneath the umbrella. The air was already thick, the pool throwing bright ripples against the stone.
Maddie peeled off the mask. "What happened?"
I told her about the calendar. Ava's question. Luca's answer. The conversation in the kitchen and the one we were supposed to have tonight.
By the time I finished, she had stopped teasing.
"Okay," she said. "That's big."
"It feels bigger than it should."
"No, it feels exactly as big as it is." She leaned closer to the screen. "A little girl you love wants to know whether you're staying. The man you're sleeping with apparently wants to know too."
"Subtle."
"I'm your sister. Subtle is not in the job description."
I took a sip of coffee, though it had gone lukewarm. "I don't want Ava to think I'm choosing work over her."
Maddie's expression sharpened. "You wanted event work before Luca Santoro started wandering around half-dressed and complicating your judgment."
"He wears shirts."
"Not reliably." Her voice softened. "You wanted something that was yours before him. Don't turn staying into a sacrifice nobody asked you to make."
"I'm not."
She gave me the look that had survived every lie I had told since high school.
I stared at the condensation sliding down my glass. "Maybe I've been thinking about it."
"Then stop."
"That simple?"
"No. But the first part is." She tucked one leg beneath her. "You don't have to choose between loving them and having a career. You do have to tell Luca what you want instead of quietly giving it up and resenting him later."
The possibility made my stomach twist.
"He has enough pressure already."
"That doesn't make your dreams less inconveniently real."
I looked through the open doors toward the kitchen, where the red X still waited on the calendar.
"What if the conversation changes everything?"
Maddie smiled, sad and knowing. "Riley, everything already changed. The conversation just decides whether you both admit it."
My phone chimed with an incoming message.
Bianca.
Can you meet me at the venue in an hour? I have a proposal for you.