The Almost Truth (18 page)

I had to confront my parents.

M
y mom had the radio blasting classic rock when I got back to the trailer. She was dancing around with a dust rag, wiping things off and then giving a shimmy here or there. I stood in the doorway waiting for her to notice me. When she didn’t, I snapped off the radio and she looked over, surprised.

She gave an awkward laugh. “I guess getting caught dancing is what I get for having the music on too loud.”

“I need to talk to you,” I said. “It’s serious.”

Mom stopped fussing with the dust rag and stared at me. The air between us felt thick with tension. “Okay. You want something cold to drink?”

“No.”

“Well, I do.” She poured a glass of iced tea from the fridge and sat down at our small table, pushing aside the stacks of
catalogs that were always there. She would circle items she wanted, items she would never order. She took a sip of her tea and stared across the table at me.

Even though I’d been thinking about it for hours, I wasn’t sure how to begin. I felt like I might start crying.

Mom reached over and touched the back of my hand lightly. “Sweetie, what is it? Are you pregnant?”

My mouth fell open.

She sighed. “If you are, we can figure something out. Your dad and I will support whatever decision you want to make.”

“I’m not pregnant.” My voice came out as shocked as I felt.

She leaned back in the rickety kitchen chair. “Well, thank god for that. I saw your face and assumed the worst.”

“Look, I know everything,” I said quickly, before I lost my nerve. Her eyebrows crinkled up in confusion. “I know what happened when I was a kid,” I clarified.

Her breath hissed out like a balloon with a slow leak. “How did you find out?”

My stomach went into a free fall. I had been sure she would deny it. “Why does it matter how I found out? What matters is what happened.”

“I hoped you’d never have to know.” She reached for me, and I yanked my hands off the table. Her hands were shaking. “I knew there was a chance you would think less of us if it came out, that it would change our relationship.”

“A chance?” Her understatement made me want to pull my
own hair out and run screaming around the trailer. “I think it’s safe to say that this is pretty much guaranteed to change things.”

“I know it must seem easy to judge now, but things aren’t black and white. Hindsight is different. I know what I did was wrong, and I’d change it if I could, but I can’t. Try to understand, I did the best I could.”

I stared at my mom in shock. Did she actually expect what happened was somehow okay? “I can’t believe you. I think I’m being very fair given what happened. I wanted to give you a chance to explain before I talked to anyone else, give you and Dad a chance to see a lawyer, or make any other plans.” I didn’t say what I thought was most likely. If she and my dad wanted to make a run for it, I wouldn’t stop them. Maybe they could take new names and start over someplace else. My mom always loved to talk about going to Mexico.

Mom looked at me with disbelief. “A lawyer? Why in the world would we need a lawyer?”

I knew my mom could be a bit naive, but I would think having been around my dad practically her whole life, a few things about the law would have rubbed off. “Kidnapping is a felony.”

Mom laughed, nearly choking on her iced tea. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the fact that I’m Ava McKenna.” I wanted to hurl a catalog at her face. It made me so angry that she thought this was even remotely funny.

“Ava McKenna?” She looked around the room like she expected someone to pop up and explain the situation.

“Are you going to try to pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about? What about the fact that you just admitted it?”

“You aren’t Ava McKenna.” She rubbed her eyes as if she felt a headache coming on. “I think we’ve crossed signals somewhere. We’re talking about different things. Let me start over.” She took a deep breath. “Right after you were born, your dad went to jail. I was on my own, trying to figure out how to deal with a baby and keep up with the bills. I was nineteen.” She tapped the table with her glass. “Nineteen. I was so young I hardly knew how to take care of myself, let alone a tiny baby.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m not proud of any of this, you have to know that. I’m trying to help you understand. I wasn’t sleeping much. I was so tired all the time. There were piles of laundry everywhere, and people calling about payments that were late for this and that. You were a fussy baby. There were times when you wouldn’t stop crying until I felt like I was going to pull my hair out. Nowadays, they would probably figure out that you were lactose intolerant or had colic, but back then all you did was cry. You would lie there in your crib and scream.”

I didn’t say anything. I was still stuck at trying to understand what she meant when she said I wasn’t Ava.

“I don’t mean to make it sound like it was your fault. Babies cry, that’s what they do. What happened was my fault.”

“What exactly did happen?” I asked.

Her eyes slid away from mine and looked out the kitchen window. “I shook you. I wanted you to stop crying. I was so tired and you wouldn’t stop. When I saw the bruises on your arms in the morning, it was the worst moment of my life.”

“Someone else saw the bruises,” I guessed.

“The doctor. He called Child Protective Services. They took you into foster care over on the mainland. I wasn’t in a place where I could be a good mom, and your dad was in jail. They took you away when you were just a few weeks old. I felt like my entire world was crashing in.”

“That’s why there aren’t any baby pictures of me.” My voice sounded flat.

“You have to understand, I wanted you back, but social services made me jump through all these hoops. I mean, they were right to do that, but don’t think for a minute I didn’t want you back here. But it took a long time.”

“I was three by the time you got me back, wasn’t I?”

“Your dad brought you home. He’d gotten out of jail just a few days before. It felt like we were getting a fresh start at being a family. Maybe I should have told you as you grew older, but I was ashamed. You were so young, I figured you wouldn’t remember any of it. Your dad brought you home the same day Ava McKenna went missing; that’s the only connection between you two. I’m afraid you were born into this family.”

My brain felt as if it had stalled. I wasn’t Ava McKenna. “What about the bunny?”

“Bunny?”

“The stuffed rabbit I had as a kid. It belonged to Ava McKenna.”

Mom pressed her lips together. “I was so excited you were finally coming home. I wanted everything to be perfect. I was working that morning. I was responsible for cleaning the McKennas’ room that week. I was up in their room those days more often than I was home. They were always calling, wanting more towels or fresh pillows, more bubble bath. I must have run up to their suite a thousand times a day. Their daughter, Ava, had so many toys. Piles of them. The morning she went missing, they called up wanting more bath towels they could take out sailing with them. I saw the stuffed rabbit sitting there, and it seemed like the perfect thing. You could tell it was quality, not some cheap thing. She had so many toys. I couldn’t see how it would matter. It seemed like you deserved something special.”

“You stole the bunny.” The last piece of the puzzle clicked into place. Brendan had been right: There was an explanation for everything.

“It sounds stupid now. It
was
stupid. If I’d been caught, I would have lost my job. Then when that girl went missing, the police were asking questions. They asked me about the stuffed bunny and I thought my heart would stop. I didn’t tell them the truth. I was afraid I’d get in trouble. I hadn’t even seen Ava that morning.
She was always off with her parents or that nanny. I didn’t want to lose my job over something so stupid. God help me if that small detail would have helped them with their search in any way.”

“But no one ever figured it out.”

She looked at me. “No, they never did.”

I felt hollowed out, as if my insides had been removed with an ice-cream scoop. I was an idiot. I had been distraught about having to send my parents off to prison. I’d prepared a speech for when I met the McKennas. It had been important for me to make a good first impression. I felt a hysterical laugh almost break free. What if I had gone to them first? Told them that they didn’t need to be sad any longer, that I, their long-lost daughter, had returned. That would have gone over
so
well.

“I’m sorry,” my mom said, breaking my train of thought. “I should have told you a long time ago about how you had been in foster care. I guess I didn’t want to give you another reason to think I’m a bad mother.”

“You’re not a bad mother,” I said, and I meant it. She’d only been nineteen, a year older than I was right now. I tried to imagine my life with a baby, bills, and no chance of escape. I wasn’t even sure I could take care of myself, let alone anyone else. But at least she’d tried. She’d done the best she could, and then when she screwed up, she did everything she could to get me back. She’d done better than I could.

Mom stood and poured herself another iced tea and then filled an extra glass. She slid it across the table to me. “I am a bad
mother, but not so bad that I don’t at least know it and at least wish I had done better.”

“It’s okay.”

“You know why I took your college money?”

“To pay for Dad’s lawyer.”

“No, that’s the lie I told myself, and then you. Even as I did it, I knew that wasn’t the real reason. I used the money for his lawyer, but that’s not why I took it to start with. I said that because it felt better than the truth. I took it because I knew if you went away to college, I’d never see you again.” She swallowed and her eyes filled with tears. “Moms are supposed to want what’s best for their kids, but I didn’t do that. I wanted you to be here. I took your money so you couldn’t leave me.” She looked around the trailer. “I wasn’t going to keep you here by relying on the charm of this place.”

“I would have come back to visit,” I said. My throat felt tight, because I suspected she was right. I wouldn’t have returned. My real life didn’t go with the new life I’d been planning. I would have felt ashamed to invite any of my college friends here to meet my parents. I’d have been angling to get invitations from them for the holidays. Anything but home. She wasn’t a bad mom. I was a bad daughter. Ungrateful. Ready to forget her and everything she’d ever done for me.

Mom patted my hand. “Nah. You would have kept running, and who would have blamed you? I didn’t plan to get pregnant when I did. I guess that’s no surprise; who feels ready at nineteen to be a mom?” She reached across the table and turned my head,
holding my chin so I couldn’t look away. “Even though I didn’t plan it, I didn’t regret it. I wanted to be the kind of mom you deserved, but I wasn’t up to the task. It was so much harder than I imagined. I am sorry. I’m even more sorry that I stopped trying somewhere along the way. If I could tell you that you were Ava, and that you could have that kind of perfect life, I would, but I can’t.”

Tears started to roll down my face. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

My mom stood up. I flung myself into her arms and she squeezed me tight. “Look at us, a bunch of sad sacks.”

I sobbed as I held on to her. It felt like a tight band that had been wrapped around me for years was suddenly gone. She rubbed my back and let me cry. She pulled away slightly so she could look at my face.

“I’ve screwed up a lot of things, but you know the best thing about messing up all the time?”

I sniffed. “No.”

“If you’re at rock bottom, the only way is up.” She smiled. “You know what they say. Messing up just gives you a chance to learn something. Who wants to be a know-it-all? Much better to keep learning.”

I rubbed my eyes. “I seem to be pretty good at giving myself lots of learning opportunities.”

“That’s how you know you must be my kid. We come from a long line of people who seem to need to learn the hard way.” She rubbed a smear of mascara off my cheek.

I
parked my scooter outside of Brendan’s house. He was out front mowing his parents’ yard. His shirt was off, and he was sweating in the heat. As he rounded the corner, he saw me and turned off the mower. He grabbed his T-shirt and wiped off his face. There was an awful moment when I thought he might turn the mower back on and ignore me, but instead he walked over.

“You know if you just mow over the dandelions, more will grow back,” I said. “I’m sort of an expert in bad lawn care.”

“Maybe I like dandelions. I think they give our lawn a bit of character. You came over to give me landscaping advice?”

“You told me when I figured out what I wanted I should come talk to you.”

Brendan scratched his nose and avoided my gaze. “I was out of line. You should do whatever you need to do. It’s your life.”

“I just accused my mom of kidnapping me from the McKennas.”

Brendan’s mouth tightened. I could tell he was dying to hear how it went but was doing his best not to ask.

“Turns out, I didn’t know nearly as much as I thought. I was wrong.” I squeezed out a fake laugh. “Guess you saw
that
coming.”

“Huh.” Brendan’s face was impassive.

“You’ll never guess. I was in foster care as a kid.” I didn’t wait for him to react. “My mom lost it when I was a baby and they took me away. That’s why there aren’t any baby pictures. Far less glamorous than being a missing heiress.”

Brendan didn’t say anything but led me over to the corner of his yard. There were two old plastic deck chairs under a huge pine tree. He brushed the pine needles off the seat. I plopped down. It was cooler in the shade. Brendan sat next to me. He smelled like fresh-cut grass.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking down at his hands. His thumb rubbed a smear of dirt off his palm.

I sat up, surprised. “Why are you apologizing? I was a jerk. I’m the one who’s been running around chasing after some kind of delusion. Look at me! I’m a princess!” I waved my hands above my head, making Brendan smile.