Chapter Thirty-One
Ava hesitated for a moment before stepping inside her father’s house, the key in the lock, her hand shaking the metal. The pulling sensation in her chest had eased through rehearsal, each breath coming easier than the last, but that wasn’t what made her tremble now.
For as she’d sat there, in the auditorium, and watched Miss Fairchild upon that stage, she’d remembered how it’d felt.
Not the fear. Not the panic.
The rush of it. The thrill of stepping onto the stage, her arms spread as wide as wings, her violet dress shimmering in the flickering candlelight as the audience before her hushed.
Lillian had told her once that performing was just like dancing – putting one foot in front of the other, trying not to miss a step, trying not to fall. And sometimes it had felt like dancing.
But it had also felt like … love.
For love, too, was a flame that could flicker and grow hot just as easily as it could blow out entirely, and leave nothing but smoke. And when it burned bright she bathed in it. And when it stuttered, she stuttered, too.
And when it was extinguished entirely?
She heard a thunderous clatter inside then and she finally twisted her key in the lock.
‘Oliver?’
The sound of crashing was getting louder, and now it was coupled with curses shunted through gritted teeth. When she stepped into the kitchen she saw why – for her mother’s casserole dish lay in shattered shards across the floor, brown liquid pooling into the cracks between the tiles.
‘Useless,’ Oliver growled, slamming his good hand upon the kitchen table, making the plates chatter. ‘I’m so damned useless.’
Ava looked from the mess, to her brother’s red face, and back again. ‘It’s salvageable,’ she said, bending to pull her skirts from the gravy slowly seeping towards her feet. ‘You can make a soup, or—’
‘It’s not salvageable, Ava. It’s all over the bloody floor!’
Oliver was breathing quickly, now – chest heaving – and he ran his good hand through his hair, pulling it back with such force it looked as though he wanted to rip it clean off his head.
‘Oliver,’ she said, stepping past the mess, resting a hand upon his forearm. ‘It’s just stew.’
‘It’s not the dinner,’ Oliver said, his blue eyes watery, his voice hitched. ‘It’s … it’s me. What’s wrong with me?’
Ava looked at her brother, a frown creasing her forehead, and she pulled him into a tight hug, holding him in place. ‘It was an accident.’ she said, softly. ‘A mistake. That’s all.’
‘God, don’t.’ His voice was muffled against her shoulder. ‘Don’t pity me, Ava. I don’t need the guilt of that on top of everything else.’
She frowned, pulling back slightly. ‘I don’t pity you,’ she said.
‘Really? I’m jobless. Worthless. Useless.’ He shook his head, staring down at the shattered mess upon the floor.
Ava rolled her eyes, reaching to pluck up some of the largest shards of ceramic – though they were still hot from the oven.
‘You’ve had a setback,’ she said. ‘That’s all.’
‘That’s a lie, Ava. I’ve had nothing but setbacks. Nothing but failed ventures – and a list of jobs I’ve either quit, or been fired from. And what does that make me?’
She paused, the ceramic warm in her palm. For if she’d asked herself that question – the answer would be simple. A failure. Not good enough. And yet now, when she looked at her brother – those weren’t the words that came to mind.
‘You’re trying, Oliver. And you haven’t stopped trying, and I think that makes you courageous. Brave.’
Oliver huffed a sour laugh through his teeth.
‘I am the very opposite of brave,’ he said.
‘If anyone in this family deserved to be called such a thing, Ava, it’s you.
I could never go on stage as you did. Put myself up there for all the world to see.
Keep Ma’s act alive.’ He shuddered, crouching beside her to help collect the last, white fragments from the mess on the floor.
‘Oh, yes – I was very brave,’ she said softly.
‘I put on a costume, I spun grandiose stories about widows and long-lost loves … but towards the end, that’s all they were.
They were stories – told so that when the audience looked at that stage, they didn’t see me, but her.
’ She felt the words catch in her throat – felt them bunch there.
‘I was hiding, Oliver. The world knocked me down, and I hid behind scripts, and then when that didn’t work anymore – I left. ’
Oliver’s lips pressed into a thin line. ‘I wasn’t wrong in what I said before, but I wasn’t wholly right, either. Hiding isn’t always cowardice, Ava,’ he said quietly. ‘Sometimes, it’s survival. You can’t always be what people wish you to be.’
She watched her brother’s expression flicker, watched him turn his gaze to the floor.
The kitchen door swung open then, and her father stepped through, his greying eyebrows lifting slightly.
‘What’s for dinner?’ he asked mildly – as though the entire floor was not already covered in it.
‘Sad sandwiches,’ said Oliver – and Ava smiled, for ‘sad sandwiches’ were what her mother would make when they came home from school, with slices of cheese, red onion, and thick white bread, and half an apple on the side.
‘And if you want to make yourself useful, you can get the cheese out and start slicing it.’
Her father looked as though Oliver had asked him to parade naked down the street. ‘Can’t you just bring them up to me?’
‘No,’ said Ava – and it came out more forcefully than she’d intended. ‘I think we’re done with that, Oliver – aren’t we? From now on you can eat your meals here. With us. As a family – because in case you haven’t noticed, Pa, you still have one.’
Her father’s gaze slid from her, to Oliver, and back again – and then he let out a deep sigh.
‘You’re as bad as Mrs Moss,’ he said quietly.
‘Worse,’ said Ava. ‘For not only will you be attending that tea with the Widows’ and Widowers’ Club, I’ll be taking down the cardboard from the windows tomorrow, too.
We’re not living in a crypt any longer. And you—’ She turned to her brother.
‘You’ll make things right with Jem. He was your friend before he was mine, and he doesn’t deserve to be treated like this.
In fact, I’m going to invite him to the tombola. ’
Oliver looked as though he would argue, but Ava fixed him with a firm look.
‘He’s your friend, too,’ she said. ‘And he misses you.’
Oliver’s mouth pressed into a line, and then he sighed. ‘Very well,’ he said quietly. ‘Invite him. I doubt very much that he’ll come.’
‘Good,’ said Ava, straightening, and placing the shattered shards of ceramic in a heap next to the sink.
For it was a start.