Everything Leads to You

“Mom,” Ava says. “I never had sex with Malcolm. We weren’t even in the Sunday school room. We were outside. All we were doing was talking.”


Tracey won’t look at her, but Ava keeps talking anyway. And I remember what she told me when we were picking cherries, that she gave Tracey reasons to reject her.

“I never shoplifted from CVS. That makeup you found in my bathroom? Jessica gave it to me. And the night that you went looking for me in my room? I was just hanging out with friends at the movie theater. I wasn’t doing any of the things I told you I was doing.”

“Why did you torture me like that?” Tracey asks. “You were so cruel to me.”

“I was giving you reasons,” Ava says, “to not love me. I didn’t know it then but I understand now.”

I expect Tracey to give in at this, to assure Ava of her love, but she doesn’t say anything. She just watches Ava standing there, crying and trying to explain.

The door opens and a boy appears in the doorway.

“Jonah!” Ava says, and steps toward him but Tracey turns around and shrieks, “Get back inside!”

Jonah stands, paralyzed, looking from his mother to his sister, and for a moment I think he might defy her, go show Ava that he’s her family, but instead he retreats and the door closes slowly, but not all the way.

“I wasn’t coming on to Lisa,” Ava says. “What happened between us happened because of both of us.”

Tracey shakes her head.

“Like that’s going to make anything better,” she says.

Ava says, “You aren’t going to believe this but I found out that I had a grandfather, and he left me a lot of money. So I’m doing all right. You don’t have to worry about me.” She’s struggling not to cry and it’s so painful to watch her. “And I’m in this movie. I auditioned. A lot of other people wanted my part, but you know what? They wanted me.”

Tracey is shaking her head. Shaking, shaking.

“I think you’re afraid for me. Like, maybe you think I’m going to make the same mistakes you made. But I’m not. I’m doing really well. I just miss having a family.”

The door swings open again and Jonah walks out, tears streaking his face, and he walks over to Ava, close but not touching her. For a moment, he stands between Tracey and Ava as if he wants to be a bridge. Then he hugs Ava quickly but hard, and walks back into the house, shutting the door all the way this time.

“Mom,” Ava says when she can speak again, “you had a tough time when you were young. That’s okay. You did a lot of good, too. You took me in. You had Jonah. And look at us all. We’re fine. Things are fine.”

“You’re wrong,” Tracey tells her. “Things are not fine.” She lets out a sob and covers her face. “Maybe I’m being punished.”

“I try my best to be a good person,” Ava says. “I wish that could be enough for you.”

But Tracey turns and walks into her house, without even looking back, without saying good-bye.

Ava turns and steps numbly toward us. She walks past us all standing here and climbs into the front seat. When she starts the ignition, we get in, too. She drives down the block, turns the corner, and then Jamal breaks our silence.

“Look,” he says. “I don’t like talking shit about people’s families, but I have to get this off my chest. Your mom is seriously fucked up. You know that? So you don’t believe in God in the same way that she does. So what? So you’re into girls. So fucking what. She needs to wake up and figure out that she doesn’t get to decide every single thing about you. It’s her fucking loss, man,” he says. “I’m sorry but I just had to say that. It’s her fucking loss.”

Without warning, Ava pulls onto the side of the road. She pulls up the emergency brake and leans into Jamal, buries her face in his shoulder, her body quaking. She trembles and trembles and when she finally cries it doesn’t even sound like crying. Nothing like that night in our living room with Clyde Jones on the screen looking out at her. Not like a few minutes ago, on Tracey’s front lawn. Not even close to that. It’s this gasping that makes Charlotte and me lock hands, makes me have to struggle against crying myself. It isn’t my tragedy. It isn’t me who knows for certain in this moment that I’m alone in the world. She has us, I know, but for all people talk about friends as being the same as family, I know that, really, they aren’t. At least not when you’re eighteen. Not when sometimes you need your mother.

I don’t know what to do, but she brought us to be with her in this moment, so without overthinking the action, without wondering if it will be welcome, I reach through the seats and put my hand on her back as she cries. And then, right after me, Charlotte puts hers on her shoulder.

I know it’s only a gesture, but I hope that it’s something.

And after a little while, I say, “Let me drive us home. We can get delivery from Garlic Flower.”

Ava sniffles. “I don’t even have enough plates,” she says. “And your apartment is a film set.”