Chapter 15 - Ava
Ava
Mother and I spent a couple of days in a cheap hotel. She called about rentals, carefully removing the phone at night and sleeping in front of the door with it tucked beneath her pillow. She knew I would call Tucker if given a chance, and that I would run away if at all possible.
Eventually, she found a house for rent. It sat well back from a highway outside of town. The nearest neighbor was at least a mile away.
The tumble-down two-bedroom had a sagging porch and a leaky roof. But whoever lived here last planted roses, so I spent the first days after our arrival trying to prune and water them back to health.
I didn’t bother to hang my paper flower wall. I wouldn’t be there long enough.
All I had to do was wait three weeks until I was legally eighteen. Then I’d walk out of this house, and she could not force me back.
I’d find Tucker. He’d be in high school only a couple more weeks.
I could go there and wait. He also had a job at a Shelfmart.
I wasn’t completely sure which one, as I’d never been to it, but I could call any of them and figure it out.
When I had the phone and it was so easy to get in touch with him, I hadn’t thought to get addresses or numbers to find him some other way. I didn’t even know Gram’s first name.
But I could do it. Maybe even go to the hospital and talk to that social worker. I wrote her number in lots of random places before Mother found the business card and took it.
And when I found a way back to Tucker, our lives together would begin.
Until then, the rosebushes kept me sane.
Mother stepped out onto the porch. “Don’t spend too much time out here. You’ll burn.”
“Don’t talk to me,” I said. “You’re only going to be my mother for three more weeks.” I’d been civil with her in the months since the hospital because I had a secret to hide. But now I no longer cared.
She crossed her arms over her chest in a faded orange dress, her hair swinging. She hadn’t gotten it cut since the hospital. Probably, she was too afraid to be stuck in a hairdresser’s chair when I might run away.
“Who is going to watch over you?” she asked, her voice shrill. “You don’t know anything about the world.”
“And whose fault is that?” I shot back. “You refuse to let me have a life!”
She sat down on the steps, gathering her skirt around her legs. The wind picked up, making her hair fly. I had mine sensibly tied back in a ponytail.
“Ava, I know you resent me. These years have been hard on both of us. But you have a very serious condition. It takes treatments that—” She cut off, and I glanced up, curious. Mother stared at the sky, her fingers trembling as they pressed against her mouth.
She seemed almost frightened. This was a big change from her usual stiff anger.
“Mom? What are you not telling me?”
I hadn’t called her Mother. I had no idea why. “Mom” just came out.
Her gaze slid to me as she drew in a jagged breath. Her eyes were softer. “You called me Mom in the hospital when you first awakened.”
Right. Before I figured out what she had done. Dumb mistake. I picked up the old scissors I was using to prune the rosebush and lopped off a dead, drooping bloom. It hit the earth with a thud and shattered into loose petals.
She was quiet a while, probably hoping we were about to have some big mother-daughter reconciliation. As if she hadn’t just had the love of my life arrested and moved me away.
When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet.
“If you have a seizure by yourself, no one will be there to reorient you to the world. That’s what I’ve been here for.
I try to keep you safe, try to keep your medical care continuous and thoughtful.
Some doctors would try any random thing, without concern for the effect on you. ”
“Like what?”
“Like drugs that made you sleep all day. Or ones that caused you to cry nonstop. I have careful notes. You are my daughter. The best thing in my life. Every decision I make is for you.”
“Sure, like having me declared medically incompetent.”
“I don’t think you’re ready to be alone in the world.”
Back to that. “Tucker will help me. And he won’t keep me from watching television. Or using the internet. Or having a phone.”
She pushed a loose piece of hair behind her ear. “I do all of that to protect you.”
I kept my eyes on the flowers. “I don’t even know my own father.”
“That was his choice,” she said. “And we don’t talk about him.”
“Maybe I’ll find him myself.” I stole a glance at her to gauge her reaction.
Her look wasn’t angry, though, just resigned. “You can certainly do that. But don’t get your hopes up.”
I stabbed my little shovel in the ground. “Are you going to tell me what I need to know when I go, or will I have to figure it out on my own?”
She flicked a beetle off the stair near her worn gray shoes. “I have a list of the meds we’ve tried. They all seem to fail eventually. You weren’t a candidate for brain surgery.”
“Do I have a regular doctor?”
“We go to the Austin Regional Clinic. Your records are there. And at the children’s hospital.”
I cut dead buds off the nearest bush, working to avoid getting stuck by thorns. “I never remember what causes them.”
“There’s no rhyme or reason. It’s not hunger or tiredness. We checked vitamins and all that.”
“Just random.”
“Puberty made it worse, but clearly you’re through that.”
My cheeks burned at the reference to my night with Tucker. “You put me on the shot.”
“Years ago. There is a school of thought that hormone changes with menstrual cycles can trigger seizures. We couldn’t afford to wait and see with your memory loss, so we went the preventative route.”
This was the longest conversation we’d had since my memory was wiped in the hospital. I had no notes that we’d ever talked this way before. Only that I shouldn’t trust her.
Should I trust what she was saying now?
Her face seemed relaxed, her fingers worrying a bit of string that had pulled loose on her skirt.
“So why no television? No friends? Why did you keep me away from Grandma Flowers?”
That made her tense right up. “You’re very vulnerable, Ava. When your memory starts over, I have to be careful about what influences your personality. I wouldn’t have allowed it in the hospital, but they were trying to take you from me after that stunt you pulled.”
I wished they had but didn’t say it aloud. “You were wrong about Grandma Flowers. She was nice to me. She showed me how to grow things.” I plucked more forcefully, and my hand brushed against a barren stem. Thorns stabbed my arm, drawing blood.
“I was the one who showed you how to tend flowers. You’ve loved them since you were small. That neighbor was a meddling woman who couldn’t mind her own business.”
“She cared about me.”
“I care about you!”
The line of blood welled up, but I ignored the sting. It was nothing compared to my huge, looming problems.
When I kept fiddling with the flowers, refusing to look at her, Mother stood. “When you’re done there, I could use you to help me prop up the back porch. It’s not safe to go down those stairs right now, and I’m tired of having to walk around.”
She disappeared inside the house, and I pressed my hand against the bleeding cut. I had no interest in helping her. I was perfectly happy to stay here with my roses and their thorns.