January 22nd 2022
Chapter 22
Our Twists Around Reality
"Daddy, I found it! Look!" Marianne came running up, waving a battered-looking plastic skeleton which had been hanging above the porch steps up until last night, when a storm and some strong winds had set their hands to altering the Halloween decorations they had put up at the start of the month. This morning, Lucas had a band of four to assist him, in the form of two daughters and two sisters-in-law, as he went about assessing and fixing the damage as best as he could. They'd already seen to the pumpkin patch, which had thankfully been protected.
"Oh, well he seems alright," Lucas thanked her with a smile as she gave the thing a little shake to show that his limbs still did their thing… for the most part at least. One of the legs had suffered a bit of an amputation in its adventures, but it only added to the decoration's character. "Let's try and get him back up there, make sure he doesn't go again, yeah?"
"How do you do that?" Marianne wondered as she tipped her head, sending her pumpkins bouncing. Naturally, as they were not only in October but attending to Halloween matters, the headband had to come out. There was still enough wind that she never really had to do anything to get them going.
"Carefully," Lucas told her, with a grin that returned another.
Inside the house, while keeping an eye on the babies in their bassinet, Maya went about the task of cleaning up some of the decorations which had met a muddy refuge after their displacement. Some of them came on the other side as good as new, while others would just have to accept this bit of tempering. Only one so far had been sadly bound for the trash. Later, she would try and fabricate something to take its place… hopefully. By now, she and exhaustion had come to… an understanding, a balance. No matter all the help she and Lucas had, they still had three infants to care for, and a small child along with them, and they also had jobs, and a house… They would make time for sleep and resting whenever and wherever they could, but when they had things to do, they'd need to get them done, and so they did.
All the rest in the world would probably not have kept Maya's mind from wandering as it did while she cleaned the decorations. How would she ever be expected not to have the Ava situation constantly spinning through her mind? It had been a week since the night Stella had brought her over, and the developments just kept on coming.
By the time Owen Nash came and collected his niece, Maya and Ava were sitting on the porch. Stella had been convinced to go on home and she'd done so, after the trio left the Hex. She looked to Ava before she could go, showing how deeply she hoped not to have done anything to upset her. Ava responded with a small but no less genuine thank you, and a nod when she was asked to keep her French tutor posted. How much or how little she would keep to that request… it was too early to tell. After that, once she'd gone on her way, Maya and Ava sat on the porch for a quiet fifteen minutes as they waited for the girl's uncle. Maya might have tried to get her talking again, but she could see her there, just… looking up at the stars in the sky, and she looked like it was doing her some good, the quiet of night, the stars… So, she let her have it. She only interrupted when she spotted car lights coming up the lane. They stayed right where they were and waited as the car came up and turned at the mailbox, parking where Stella's car had been not too long ago. Out came Ava's uncle, with haste in his stride.
There was the man Maya had met at parent nights the previous year, and it was really no wonder he could have fooled her or the rest of his niece's teachers. He cared for the girl like she was his own. As little as Ava would ever freely share information about her life outside of school, to see the way she hugged him back when he pulled her into his arms… Here was the person she trusted the most in the world, enough to let down some of her barriers.
Maya had not told him too much when she'd called, hadn't told him about what had happened with Ava's father, but the way he looked at her bruised face, maybe he'd feared this for a long time, and now that it had happened, he felt guilty for not stepping in earlier.
They didn't get into any of it right there that night. Owen Nash thanked Maya deeply for what she'd done, and he and Ava took off, only after she'd taken the time to thank her teacher. Specifically, she thanked her for the cookies, but Maya saw through the double meaning just fine. She assured her that she was welcome… for the cookies.
That night, oh… Once Stella and Ava were gone, once she went back into the house and found Lucas waiting, Eliza and Emma gone upstairs, all her careful composure was unable to hold a second more. The pieces of it came out in tears, and hands shaking from overwhelming emotion pressed down, and Lucas embraced her, allowing her to ride it all out. She could always tell him anything, and she generally would, but this time, it felt as though she had to hold back some parts at least, for Ava's privacy. He understood. He'd been aware of enough, just being in the house, to get the gist of it, and he both respected and agreed with her choice. Still, he'd know as well as she did that this thing would not be over, not by a long shot. It would only be starting… in the morning, after plenty of sleep, if they were lucky.
Ava had known, before she'd ever said anything, that she'd have to talk to the school about what she'd learned. Her position forced her to be honest, but then it was like she'd said to her student. Now that she had a better picture, she would do everything in her power to make sure that things came out as close to where Ava would want them to go. She couldn't make any promises, and she hadn't, but she would rally the troops and do her best. This started in the morning, with a more in depth conversation with Owen Nash, very early, even as she saw to the triplets.
He was not looking to send his niece back to her father's house, as much as she wanted to go, and for all the good faith they'd built up together, he wasn't sure that she wouldn't find a way to go anyway. She'd been devoted to her father all along, but especially once her mother had bailed out on them, saying that she'd gotten this great job and Ava would be better staying in her hometown, as though they couldn't see through her words. She'd had enough, so much so that she apparently saw no need to take her daughter with her. While it might be said that it was no big loss, it had left Ava in the position to be as much the child as the caregiver in her home. According to Owen, she'd worked hard to try and get her father to quit drinking. He'd had the occasional week or two of sobriety, but he'd never made it up to a month. And Ava still tried… and failed… and tried… and failed… And because she loved him, couldn't abandon him, she kept trying, and it was costing so much more than what her sixteen years could cope with.
On Maya's recommendation, Owen had called in to the school and told them that she would be out for the day. In the meantime, the 'troops' were rallied, in the form of several Matthews. Maya called Riley, spoke to her and gym teacher Dylan. Then she called her parents' house, speaking to both Cory and Topanga. From all of them she got advice and information as required before she could finally call Vice-Principal Ríos. It had been a complicated call, but they'd gotten through it. Actually, it was one of several calls they had throughout the day, as the situation progressed.
It wouldn't be sorted out in that one day, and though Ava would be back in class by Tuesday morning – with makeup and hair to keep prying eyes from turning on her – it would take most of the week that followed for things to stop moving around and land in some form of a new picture. She hadn't heard from Ava herself since that Sunday night. When she did hear from her, it was in her diary, as it came delivered along with the others on Friday afternoon. Her hand had gone right into the sophomore box and pulled out her sketchbook. Unlike last year's, where the cover felt as far from personalized as if it had been left blank, this one showed a little more. On the front, it was presented like a station at a hair salon, with the mirror, pictures hanging here and there, and various tools and instruments around it. The back looked like the inside of a makeup box, with various items overlayed. She may not have been as detailed a worker as the likes of Nika Petrelis, but she'd put in the work, and it showed.
As well intentioned as the deception over 'Bill Nash' had been, it could not be fixed with little more than words and an apology. But thanks to Maya and her troops, they were at least able to get everyone on the same page, to look at the situation the right way. The next steps shaped up as such: Owen Nash was installed as Ava's guardian, and she would continue to stay with him for the time being. If or when she saw her father, she would do so with supervision. They could not force him to do anything and expect it to help, not if he didn't want it, but it was everyone's hope that, faced with the potential loss of his daughter, Bill Nash would show what he was made of. That remained to be seen, and in the meantime…
What she found in Ava's diary that week caught her by surprise. It wasn't the drawing itself, no. She'd done it, following the assignment as inscribed at the top of the page, but it only occupied about a quarter of the space. The rest of it was occupied with words, and looking at those lines, the small paragraphs, Maya heard music in her head… This wasn't a poem, they were lyrics, Ava's own composition. Maya knew that, through interacting with Rosemary in the quiz team, Ava had been showing a sort of curiosity toward poetry, and maybe this was because she'd been trying to write something like this, or it was simply what had come from the stimulation. Either way, she'd put these words down, and they were the most personal thing she had ever put before her teacher. They'd made her cry for a completely different reason than she'd done on Sunday night.
Now, here she stood, in her kitchen, cleaning Halloween decorations, and all the while she heard that melody in her head. It was enough that, by that evening, she made her way into the Hex. The next morning, Barton Day would come and collect the boxes of diaries. When he'd give them out again, Ava would find a thumb drive tucked against the side of the pages and held there with an elastic around the book. When she'd connect it to her computer, she'd find just one file, one instrumental track. Meanwhile, Olivia Zhu would look inside her diary and find… an idea. I may have found you a songwriter.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
