Chapter Sixteen
Later, Ava had waited until Oliver had trudged up the creaking stairs to bed. Until the fire had cooled into glowing embers, and she could pad, barefoot, into the pantry and do the same thing she’d done as a little girl.
Grab a spoon, and a pot of something sweet, and sit until either the jar was finished, or her thoughts had quietened. Whichever came first.
She dipped the spoon into the jar of lemon curd – so sour it made her lips curl – and swallowed. Oliver was right – running from her problems hadn’t fixed them. In fact, it’d only sewn new threads into an already tangled web – and now she would have to unwind them all.
She set the pot down, drawing her notebook onto her lap instead. At the very top of a new page she wrote in squished, black letters: Things I had a hand in breaking, and must now repair.
And then she began.
1. Oliver
Above all, she would keep him safe. It wouldn’t make up for all that she’d left him to cope with, but it was a start – wasn’t it? He’d been tied to this house ever since she left – chained to their father – and perhaps now she was back he could claw a little time for himself. For his dreams.
2. Everything with Jem
She had spent many nights in Edinburgh trying to picture what seeing him again would be like, and not one of her imaginings had placed them at St John’s Market, a muddy potato in her hand, her brother’s scalding glare burning into the side of her face.
In her mind, Jem had never worn the oddly pitying expression he’d worn then, and he certainly hadn’t said anything quite so cutting as: It wasn’t anything you did. You do know that, don’t you?
When he’d said that it had felt like … like a door that she had kept open – a crack, a sliver, just wide enough to allow a single thread of light, a golden streak of hope – as if that door had finally creaked shut.
For that wasn’t the sort of thing a man who regretted his actions said, was it?
Those were the words of a man who didn’t love her. Not in the way she’d wanted him to.
But he did still want her friendship, hers and her brother’s, and she wanted that, too – for they were tied together by more than just a shared childhood.
When Jem’s father had passed away, they’d huddled in the now-quiet apothecary, curled beneath Mr Foster’s old desk like a litter of kittens, telling stories and talking nonsense until the sun had streaked the sky, and Jem’s expression had unfurled.
Much later, when her own mother had died, they’d sat in the cold church hall, all of them dressed in black, and done it all over again.
It had felt like the three of them against the world, against the odds, but always, always together.
And then Jem had proposed, and her happiness had been overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the relief – for it wasn’t just a wedding. Wasn’t just a marriage.
It was a way to keep them all together.
Now that had all broken apart, and she would have to see what she could do to fix it. Perhaps it would never be like it had been before, but … anything would be better than what had happened at the market.
She took another spoonful of lemon curd before continuing.
3. Miss Fairchild, Mr and though she couldn’t silence that familiar worry – that she would falter – at least now she could quieten it.
The charcoal smudged a little as she moved her hand back and forth, the words spreading across the page. She hadn’t written ‘Pa’ yet. Or ‘what happened in Edinburgh’ but there would be time for that.
At least now, she had a path before her. Some way of piecing back together everything she’d shattered when she’d fled Liverpool three months ago.
‘Ava?’
Her father’s voice appeared behind her right shoulder and Ava yelped, almost dropping the full pot of lemon curd upon her notebook.
‘I didn’t mean to startle you,’ he said, perching on the other end of the settee, the springs groaning loudly despite her father’s slim frame. ‘I thought you’d heard the door open.’
‘I didn’t,’ said Ava, snapping the notebook shut, ignoring the warm flush upon her cheeks.
‘This came for you today,’ said her father grumpily, reaching into the towelling of his robe and pulling a crumpled paper from it. ‘Some wretch stood outside the door and knocked incessantly until I was forced up and out of bed to answer.’
Ava took the small square of paper hurriedly – for she wondered if it might be Mr Carter writing to her.
And then she read: ‘You are cordially invited to the Mersey Widows’ and Widowers’ annual tombola,’ and the excitement drained from her.
‘Riveting prizes will be coupled with afternoon tea, and a chance to find comfort and company.’ She raised her eyebrows at her father.
‘Surely I would have had to have been married, and then bereaved, to join such a club?’
He snatched the paper back, a flush rising upon his cheeks. ‘Not that one,’ he said hurriedly, crumpling it into a ball. ‘It’s blackmail, I tell you. Mrs Moss is posting a new note through the door each day I do not reply.’
‘It’s a fundraiser.’
‘It’s a nuisance,’ he huffed, drawing another page from his pocket, this one neatly folded into a tight square. ‘Here. This is yours.’
Ava held the small square of paper in her hands. For she knew who it was from. And now she knew why Bertie had hammered upon the door to deliver it.
Inside there was only one sentence, scrawled in Lillian’s large, looping handwriting.
Be at the theatre this coming Thursday.
L.
Ava dipped the spoon hurriedly back into the pot of lemon curd.
‘Who’s it from?’ her father asked. ‘Jem?’
‘Lillian,’ she said, crumpling it into a ball.
‘Oh.’
For the first time since he’d stepped into the room, her father met her eyes.
His were closer to Oliver’s, a true blue, rather than the grey she’d got.
She watched the corner of his lips twitch downwards, and readied herself for the onslaught that would surely come next: about how her mother was but twenty-two when they’d met, and twenty-three by the time Oliver was in the crib.
Instead he said: ‘You know, I never thought the two of you were quite right together.’
Her expression froze. ‘What?’
‘You and Jem,’ he said, shrugging. ‘I know what love looks like. And I don’t believe you loved him.’
‘I did love him,’ said Ava, the words coming out with a little more heat than she’d intended. For she had loved him. Part of her still loved him. But …
But perhaps her father was right. Perhaps it wasn’t the kind of love that consumes you. That burns within you. It was the kind of love that felt precarious – as though it were never quite yours to begin with.
‘Your mother would’ve been disappointed though,’ he said, his voice low. ‘She always liked him.’
Ava looked up at him. ‘And what do you think she’d say to this, hmm?’ She gestured towards the cardboard still on the windows. ‘I think she’d have a few choice words, there.’
He looked away, down at the settee, picking at one of the loose threads upon the arm.
‘No doubt she’d tell me it was senseless.
But nothing makes sense in a world without her, does it?
’ He stopped, his eyebrows furrowing, his voice catching in his throat.
‘That’s why I don’t need Mrs Moss’ damned club.
That’s why I don’t need to be reminded of all the …
all the things outside the window. All the life happening out there. ’
‘I know, Pa …’ She reached to place her hand atop his. She thought he would flinch away – but he didn’t.
‘You don’t, Ava,’ he said softly, squeezing her hand. ‘And I hope to God you never do.’
He eased himself up then, turning and trudging back up the stairs – though now she saw he’d taken the pot of lemon curd with him.
Ava watched him go, and she couldn’t help but wonder if that was something else for her list. She couldn’t fix the gap her mother’s death had left within him, but maybe she could help him see that life was still worth being a part of again.
That the ‘life’ happening outside the window still held something for him, too.
She sighed.
Or perhaps she’d just settle for getting him out of the house.