But considering this event was being hosted by Linda Williams, there was more than enough food to go around. She was well-known for her proclivity toward feeding people. It was her love language, as Ava once told me.
I went to the food table and glanced over the options. Since everybody else already had the jump on me, I grabbed a second plate. I was going to have to take my second helpings along with my first. I mounded up the various meats and sides along with cornbread and rolls and gingerly balanced both plates and my drink as I made my way over to the picnic table where Stephanie, Tyler, and Matt sat.
“Does no one feed you?” Stephanie asked a few minutes later after I’d taken down much of my plates.
“Not like this,” I said. “Everything’s delicious. This macaroni and cheese is amazing.”
“Ava made that,” Stephanie said.
“She did?” I looked around to find her so I could compliment her directly, but Ava seemed to be missing. “Do you know where she went?”
Stephanie looked around and shrugged. I finished a bit more of my food, then washed it down with doctored-up lemonade before getting up. I wandered around for a few minutes before finding Ava sitting on the front porch, her elbows rested on her thighs and her chin in her hands as she stared out over the neighborhood glowing in the setting sun.
“Nice day, isn’t it?” I asked.
She looked up at me, evidently not at all startled by my showing up, then resumed her staring. “Yes. There’s something about Sundays. Somehow they seem prettier.”
“More peaceful,” I agreed as I sat down beside her. “I think it’s because most people are taking it a little easier.” Ava nodded but didn’t say anything. The conversation was square on my shoulders. “Look, I’m sorry for kissing you the other day. I shouldn’t have done that. I can understand if you’re mad at me.”
Ava glanced over at me. “I’m not mad about you kissing me. I was just shocked by it is all.”
We sat in silence for a few seconds, but I felt years of questions and wondering bubbling up inside me. There was so much that hadn’t been said between us that needed to be said. I had been waiting a long time, and I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Can we talk about what happened?” I asked. “Not the kiss, but what happened between us?”
Ava nodded and took a sip from a cup beside her that smelled a lot like vodka. “Sure.”
“Why did you leave the way you did? I know you wanted to go to school and have a career and all that, but why did it have to be that way?” I asked.
Ava’s sigh sounded like the world was deflating her. “Losing the baby about destroyed me. I wasn’t sure what else to do. Getting pregnant obviously wasn’t in my plans, and I was completely terrified about it. Then it was gone, and I felt like I did something wrong. Like that the miscarriage was my fault.”
“You can’t think that way,” I said. “Miscarriages are very common. Far more common than most people think. I’ve heard one in every four women experience at least one miscarriage during their reproductive years. Most of them occur very early in the pregnancy because there’s something wrong with the baby. You didn’t do anything that would have caused it.”
Ava looked shocked by my spiel as she turned to look at me. “You know all that?”
I nodded and shrugged modestly. “Yeah. Well, I looked into it a lot after it happened.”
“You did?” She sounded surprised, but there was a soft, almost nostalgic note in her voice.
“After you left, I read up on it, trying to find out as much as I could. I wanted to know about it for myself, but I also wanted to be able to help you if…”
“If…?” she asked, leading me.
“If you ever came back to me,” I said.
The conversation broke the ice, but maybe a bit too far. All my efforts to keep my distance from Ava and not let on that I was still attracted to her, or still hanging on to any of my feelings toward her, went all to hell as the Crown Royal and vodka bottles emptied out. Both of us ended up very drunk and very flirty, drawing looks from our parents, my brothers, and Stephanie.
By the end of the night, my brothers tugged me away. They asked Linda and Wayne if my car could stay at their house for the night, and when the Williamses agreed, they poured me into one of their cars and drove me home. Finally, everything felt like Ava and I were at peace with each other.15AvaI woke up disoriented and groggy again. But this time it wasn’t because my phone was ringing. Instead, it was sharp little slices of sunlight sneaking through the cracks of my curtains and searing my eyes. Where was my sleep mask? I had gotten into so much of a habit of wearing it, I couldn’t believe I didn’t have it on.