Everything Leads to You

“Is Charlotte with you?”


“No, we both slept at our houses last night. The apartment is off limits until we’re done filming.”

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll call her next.”

I spend some time at the apartment in the middle of the day, watering the plants, rearranging some stacks of books, writing a grocery list for the refrigerator, some botany notes in notebooks that I scatter across the room. The best production designers are the ones who make the sets feel so real that if you didn’t know better, you’d think the characters lived their lives there even after the filming stopped.

Then, at four o’clock, Ava and Jamal pull up to my house and I climb into the backseat. I direct her to Charlotte’s house, and then it’s the four of us, getting onto the freeway, and I recognize the direction in which we’re heading.

“One request,” I say. “No breaking the law on the day before filming starts.”

“Granted,” Ava says. “Speaking of filming, I saw some photos of the apartment. It looks beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

“If there’s time before we start shooting, will you take me through it and explain everything? I want to know what I’m looking at. Like those photographs pinned on the corkboard by the hanging plants? Who are those people meant to be? Things like that.”

“Sure,” I say. “That would be great. I’ll explain everything to you.”

When we exit the 405 and pull onto the narrow highway that leads into the desert, Ava says, “This probably won’t be very fun. But you don’t need to do anything. Just be with me.”

We all say okay, and my heart pounds so hard because I’m so worried for her.

Moments later we’re parked in front of Tracey’s house, and we get out of the car, four doors slamming shut. We don’t get very far because Tracey is outside, watering the lawn.

She sees us all and her face goes serious. She looks younger than I expected, wearing jeans and a pink sleeveless shirt with a high collar, her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and a gardening glove on one hand. Water sputters out of the hose onto the grass beside her. She crosses the lawn without saying anything and shuts off the water.

Jamal and Charlotte and I stay on the sidewalk next to the car while Ava rounds to the trunk of the car and takes out two boxes. I recognize them as Tracey’s. They are sealed up, tied with strings of paper flowers.

She sets them on the grass and then takes a few steps toward Tracey, frozen on the path next to the little pink potted flowers. They’ve been spread out evenly now, a little farther apart than before to compensate for the one Ava smashed.

“Hi,” Ava says.

Tracey looks past her, at us.

“Who are these people?” she asks.

“My friends,” Ava says.

Tracey closes her eyes and shakes her head.

“What?” Ava says. I’m confused, too. We’re all wearing normal clothes. We all look perfectly fine to me.

Tracey’s head keeps shaking, shaking.

“Really, Mom?” Ava says. Tracey isn’t looking at her, so Ava steps to the right, placing herself in Tracey’s line of vision.

“You broke into the house,” Tracey says.

“I tried to use my key.”

“You went through my things. My personal things.”

“I needed something.”

“What?”

“My birth certificate.”

“But you took so much.”

“I wanted to know about Caroline.”

Tracey shakes her head again and I wish I could close my eyes so I didn’t have to see it. I thought that Tracey might feel some regret.

“I had so many questions,” Ava says, making her voice slow and even, trying to sound like someone people listen to. “You never answered them, so I tried to tell myself that they weren’t important. But, of course, it is important. Caroline loved me. You loved me. I read your journal. You said I was a gift.”

Even from a distance, I can see Tracey’s whole body tense.

“You had no right to go through my things.”

“You said I saved your life.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I found Lenny.”

Tracey’s hands fly to her face. When she drops them again, her eyes are wide and wild.

“You have no right,” she hisses. “You need to let the past stay in the past.”

“I do have a right. It’s my life,” Ava says. And I remember Frank’s tired, sad eyes and how he was the first person to tell her the truth about what happened.

“I need to let go of the past,” Tracey says softly.

“But I have a right to know where I come from,” Ava says. “I’ve been learning all of these things I never knew. One thing I wanted to do was to thank you for taking me in. I know some of what you were going through. I know it was a really big deal.”

“I don’t want to talk about this. That was my old life.”

“Mom,” Ava says. “Please. We only have one life. This life.”

Tracey turns away, like she’s going to walk inside.