Chapter 6: The Conversation That Could Not Be Taken Back
Dad was in the garage when I found him, reorganizing a shelf of paint cans that didn't need reorganizing.
That was what he did when he was avoiding something.
He moved objects from one place to another until the feeling passed.
"Dad."
He turned.
Saw my face.
Set the can down.
"What's wrong?"
"I need to show you something."
I held out the email.
He took it.
Read it.
I watched his face while he did — the way his eyes moved across the lines, the small stillness that came over him when he reached the middle, the way his jaw tightened at *competing with a ghost.*
He read it twice.
Then he folded it and held it in his hand and looked at the garage wall.
"Where did you get this?" he asked.
"Caleb found it.
She left it in the recycling."
"Caleb has been going through—"
"He found it in the recycling bin, Dad.
It was sitting on top."
He was quiet.
"She told Ava I was planning to leave," I said.
"That it was my idea.
That I wanted a fresh start.
Ava cried for an hour thinking I was going without saying goodbye."
His hand tightened around the paper.
"Did you know?" I asked.
"That she's been trying to find a way to move me out since before last year?"
"Nia—"
"Did you know?"
"No." The word came out flat and certain.
"No.
I did not know that."
"But you knew something was wrong.
You said so yourself.
You said you'd been telling yourself it wasn't as bad as it looked."
"Yes."
"So you knew it was bad.
You just didn't want to know how bad."
He looked at me then.
Really looked at me.
And I saw something in his face that I hadn't seen before — not guilt exactly, but the specific expression of a person who has understood something too late and is still in the moment of understanding it.
"I'm not leaving," I said.
"I want to be clear about that.
This is my home.
My mother made you promise.
And I'm not going to Aunt Renee's or anywhere else because Vanessa has decided I'm inconvenient."
"I would never send you—"
"You almost did," I said.
"Not on purpose.
But she was getting there.
And if Caleb hadn't found that email, you might have woken up one day and thought it was everyone's idea."
The garage was very quiet.
He set the paper down on the shelf.
"I need to talk to her," he said.
"I know."
"Tonight."
"I know, Dad."
He looked at me for a long moment.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"I know that's not enough.
But I'm sorry."
I nodded.
I didn't tell him it was okay, because it wasn't, and he deserved to know that it wasn't.
"I'll be in my room," I said.
I went inside.
I sat at my desk.
I could hear, through the ceiling and the walls, the sound of Vanessa coming downstairs, the sound of the television in the living room, the ordinary sounds of an evening that was about to become something else entirely.
Forty minutes later, the voices started.
I didn't press my ear to the wall this time.
I didn't need to.
Some of it came through clearly anyway.
*I was venting to a friend—*
*—not the point—*
*—you're taking a teenager's word over mine—*
*—Ava, Vanessa.
You told Ava she was leaving—*
A long silence.
Then Vanessa's voice, lower, the pleasantness finally gone from it.
*Fine.
You want the truth?
She has never made this easy.
Not once.
I have tried—*
*—throwing her food away is not trying—*
*—you don't know what it's like—*
Then my father's voice, quieter than I'd ever heard it.
Quiet the way things get when they've made up their mind.
*I know exactly what it's like.
I lost her mother too.*
Silence.
Then a door.
May you like
Then nothing.
I sat at my desk with my hands flat on the surface and waited to find out what kind of night this was going to be.
