by Judy Corry
"Well then, I may just need to invite myself over to dinner every night."
"I think I could get on board with that," I said.
And when our eyes met, I couldn't help the goofy smile that took over my face because I realized that I really did want something like that to happen. I wanted to spend as much time as I could with this vivacious girl who always had me on the edge of my seat.
Ava cut into her steak again. "So how do you feel about this surprise party of yours? Is a soirée the kind of party you had in mind for the big eighteen?"
"Honestly?" I asked.
"Of course."
"Well…" I skewered a potato with my fork. "If it was actually up to me, I wouldn’t have a party at all."
"What?" Ava pulled her head back, obviously caught off guard by my answer.
I looked at my plate and swallowed. "I'm just not a huge fan of my birthday."
"What?" she said again, clearly never having met someone who didn't like their birthday before. "Why don't you like your birthday?"
I pressed my lips together, wondering how to explain it. With a sigh, I said, "I guess it's just that the first birthday I remember having ended up being one of my worst memories."
Ava's expression immediately turned somber. "Did something bad happen on your birthday?"
"Well, it wasn't on my actual birthday." I rubbed the back of my neck, not sure if I really wanted to get into the story tonight. But I was starting to like this girl and knew that if I ever wanted anything to happen with her for real, then it meant I would need to open up to her and show her everything that made up Carter Dominic Hastings. I said, "The bad memories came from what happened the day after my fifth birthday."
25
Carter
"So, I guess I should probably tell you a little about what life was like for me in Guatemala." I set my fork and steak knife down on my plate and leaned back into the patio couch, trying to figure out where to start. I didn't talk about my life before Eden Falls very often. Only a few people knew my story—my family, Mack, Hunter, and then also Sofia after we'd been dating for a few months.
Talking about it made me emotional. And since I didn't like getting emotional in front of others, I just chose to not really talk about it.
Which meant, I also didn't tell people why I didn't like celebrating my birthday. I usually just said I was a private person and parties centered on me made me feel awkward—which was also true—but what I didn't tell them was that my last day with my mom had been the highlight of my childhood that turned into a nightmare.
But there was something about Ava that told me I could tell her about my past and let her see more of what made me into who I was today. In fact, I kind of wanted to tell her about this story.
So I cleared my throat, adjusted the knees of my jeans to get more comfortable, and said, "Growing up in Guatemala was a lot different than growing up in this mansion." I gestured at the house behind us and the grounds in front of us. "I guess after my dad’s fling with my mom, he gave her some money before he left. He’d gone there under a different name since he was volunteering at his own orphanage and didn't want the people to know who he was. He went by the name Carter Jones, and he just kind of spent his days painting the walls of the orphanage and getting it ready to open its doors."
"So your mom didn't know that she'd been dating a billionaire?" Ava asked.
I shook my head. "No. She thought he was just a regular Joe who'd come to do some missionary work during his vacation time."
"And she named you Carter because she thought she was naming you after him?"
"Yes." I sighed and continued. "She and my dad had their little thing going for those two weeks, and during that time, my mom became pregnant with me without either of them realizing it." I rubbed my arm, feeling awkward talking about this with the girl I was interested in. I cleared my throat again. "Anyway, when he left, he didn't think there was any possibility that he'd fathered any children while in Guatemala since he'd always used protection, and so he came back to Eden Falls without giving it a second thought. He and Dawn worked things out later on that year and before long, Nash was on his way."
"When was he born?" Ava asked.
"His birthday is May twentieth."
"So I'm older than him." Ava smiled.
"Yeah? When’s your birthday?" I asked, curious if I was much older than her.
"Elyse and I were born on April seventeenth."
"You were born on the seventeenth, too?" I asked, somewhat surprised by the number. "That's cool. That means we were born six months apart."
"That is cool." She smiled. Then seeming to remember that she'd interrupted my story, she asked, "So what happened to your mom? Did she find out she was pregnant with you right away?"
"I'm not sure," I said with a shrug. "When I was five, I wasn't exactly interested in asking her about that. And since my dad didn't know about me until I was eight, he didn't know either."
"And you probably didn't have any other relatives in Guatemala who would know about it," Ava assumed.
"Yeah, I ended up in the orphanage because there was no one else to take care of me."
"Of course," Ava said, looking down and acting sorry for bringing the subject up.
But since I didn't want her to feel awkward about asking any questions, I gave her a smile that hopefully told her she hadn't offended me. "It was just my mom and me during the first years. My dad said he gave her some money when he left, and either my mom spent it all quickly or lost it somehow, but I don't remember her having more than a few cents to rub together at a time.
"I vaguely remember how she took me with her to clean the homes of some wealthy people. I played with a little girl who lived there while my mom worked. But she lost that job somehow, and we really struggled after that."
"Did you have a home? Food?" Ava asked, her eyes looking worried over the wellbeing of my childhood self.
But I shook my head and said, "So, you know how Mack said his house looks like a shack compared to this one?"
"Which means it’s actually probably bigger than the house I grew up in," Ava guessed.
I nodded. "I haven't seen your house, but since the Aarden's house is bigger than most of the houses in Eden Falls, I'd guess that it was bigger." I cleared my throat. "Anyway, I brought up the whole shack thing because I actually did live in a shack for a little while, and so I can legitimately roll my eyes every time Mack talks about his shack."
"Did you go hungry, too?"
I nodded, remembering even all these years later how my stomach had always felt hungry. How while we managed to get a small amount of food most days, I didn't know what it felt like to truly satisfy my hunger until I was in my dad's orphanage and they fed me three meals a day.
"We didn't have much," I said, not wanting to go into all the details. "After my mom stopped cleaning houses, she started scavenging the dump for things that she could sell or trade for a little food or money. I went with her a few times when the childcare was full, but on the days they had room, I was able to go there during the day. Those were my favorite days because I actually got rice and beans to eat."
I peeked at Ava to see her reaction, and she had the saddest look in her eyes. She said, "I can't imagine living like that. I'm sorry."
"I didn't really know any different at the time." I shrugged, trying to put off just how hard it had been for my mom and me. "And I was actually luckier than a lot of kids."
Ava shook her head. "But still. It's sad to know that happened and still happens to millions of people all the time."
I sighed and gave her knee a gentle squeeze. "I know what you mean. I always feel a little guilty that I have so much when there are so many people out there with nothing."
"Does your dad still have the orphanage?" Ava asked.
"Yes. He has a few down there now actually, and we're planning to go there over spring break to help build another."
"Really?" Ava's eyes lit up. "That’s so cool! I've always
thought it would be nice to do something like that."
I nodded. "I'm looking forward to it. I'll probably try to see if the lady who took care of me at the orphanage is still around, so I can catch up and thank her for taking care of me."
"That's so sweet," Ava said, her eyes moist. Seeing her get emotional about this made tears prick at my own eyes because it was something that was so near and dear to me.
I wanted to say that she should join us on the trip, since it would be cool to experience that with her. But we weren't exactly at that level quite yet, so I stopped the words before they could make it out of my mouth.
I wiped at the corners of my eyes, trying to push away the emotions because I knew I'd need to keep them at bay if I was going to make it through the rest of my story.
"I don't remember a ton from back then because I was so little, but I do remember my fifth birthday." It was impossible to forget since it was both my best and worst memory. "Things hadn't been great for us, and even though my mom always tried to be strong, I could tell she wasn't doing well. She was probably only a few years older than we are now, but she seemed so old to me at the time—like her body had aged several years between my fourth and fifth birthdays."
The long days had been hard on her body, and without the proper nutrition, I now understood that her organs had probably been slowly dying. "Anyway, my birthday came, and my mom surprised me by taking me out for a fun day together instead of taking me to the childcare so she could work at the dump."
I swallowed as I remembered how excited I'd been to have the whole day with my mom since that hadn't been happening very much in the days and weeks before.
"We went to this waterfall at the edge of the city, and I had the best time just playing in the water. I remember my mom letting me eat most of the lunch that she'd brought with her since I was the birthday boy." Which meant that she probably didn't eat anything that day—something my egocentric, five-year-old self hadn't even noticed. "She even had a chocolate cupcake for me to eat, which was something I'd begged and begged her for every time we walked past the bakery window to get to the childcare."
She'd probably saved for a long time to buy the special cupcake for me and gone without. And I knew I'd just been an innocent kid and hadn't wanted to make my mom feel bad about not being able to give me all the things I wanted, but still to this day, I couldn’t eat chocolate cupcakes. They reminded me of how much my desire for them had probably become a burden placed on my mom's shoulders.
"Anyway, we had a really great day together, just my mom and me. We laughed and played and had cake. And that night when my mom sang me to sleep, I remembered going to bed with a smile on my face and just wishing that every day could be like that perfect day."
"But since you don't like celebrating your birthday, I'm guessing something went wrong," Ava asked in a quiet voice, as if she wasn't sure she really wanted to know what happened next. She knew I'd been in an orphanage for three years, so she probably had a good idea of what came the next day.
My mind went back to that time, to that day when my world dropped out from under me and things never went back to being the same no matter how many times I'd prayed that they would.
"I woke up the next morning—and it was just like most mornings in our little makeshift home. My mom always liked to leave first thing so we could get to the childcare early, so as soon as the sun was up, we packed our few belongings into our tattered bags. I held my mom's hand as she guided me through the streets. My mom seemed more on edge than usual, but I just thought it was because she was in a hurry to get to the dump before it got too crowded. She took me to the front door like she always did and gave me a long hug." My voice wobbled a little as I remembered that last hug from my mamá. "Her hug seemed a little different that day, too. I'd been ready to go and play with my friends, not wanting to stand around and hug my mom all day, but she just held onto me a little longer. I thought maybe she just wanted the extra-long hug because we'd had such a good day together the day before and she was going to miss not being with me all day.
“I could still remember how she'd felt. She wasn't quite twice my height—even then I was tall for my age, especially in Guatemala. But as I'd hugged her tiny waist, I noticed just how bone-thin she was. And for the briefest moment I'd thought about how I probably should have given her more of my cupcake."
"Oh Carter…" Ava said, scooting closer and looking like she wanted to hug the five-year-old version of me.
I gave her a faint smile and my eyes pricked with tears again. I drew in a deep breath. After casting Ava a sideways glance, I said, "Anyway, she finally let me go and told me she loved me and that I needed to be a good boy for Señorita Celeste who ran the childcare. I told her I would be a buen niño and that I'd see her later. Then just before she left, she pulled me off to the side and told me that she'd forgotten to give me my birthday present. I told her I thought the cupcake was my birthday present, but she said she had a special one. And then she took off the gold chain bracelet that I'd never seen her take off and looped it around my wrist."
Ava gasped, her eyes lighting up as she reached for my right arm where my gold bracelet rested. "Is that why you wear this bracelet all the time?" she asked, running her index finger along the thin metal. "I’ve always wondered why you wore a woman's bracelet."
"Yes," I said. "This was hers."
"Was her name Astrid?" Ava asked, pointing to the name inscribed on it.
I nodded. "It was. Astrid Garcia Díaz."
"That's such a pretty name."
"I think so, too."
As Ava continued to trace her fingers along my bracelet and the surrounding skin of my wrist, I continued my story. "Like I said, she gave me this bracelet as a birthday present and told me that she loved me so much and that she wanted me to always remember that. And then after another hug and a kiss on the top of my head, she took me back inside the childcare and then went off to work.
"I remember playing with a dinosaur puzzle during quiet time, and how Señorita Celeste read us a story about a boy who helped his abuela sell the wall hangings that she weaved at the market. I remember more details about that day than most days I've had since then. But what I remember most was waiting by the window at the front of the childcare after the other parents had picked up their kids and wondering when my mom was going to come.
"Señorita Celeste took my hand and pulled me back to the small kitchen where she had some rice and beans cooked up for dinner. She told me to eat with her and the two other kids who’d been left at the childcare the month before—their mom never came back for them, either.
"I remember going to sleep on the small mattress that night and hugging the thin blanket to myself as I wondered what might have happened to my mom at work that day. Had she gotten hurt? Was she still working? Had she somehow forgotten which childcare she'd left me at?"
I shook my head at the memory of how scared I'd been that night. It was the first time I hadn't slept next to my mamá.
"Did you ever find out what happened to her?" Ava asked, her finger stopping its stroke along my arm.
"We're not exactly sure," I said, releasing a shaky breath. "My dad hired a private investigator after finding me to see if they could dig up some kind of explanation for what happened to my mom that day. But we think she probably died shortly after that. We think she probably knew she couldn't take care of my basic needs any longer, and so she left me where she knew I'd be safe."
"And she did that after giving you one last good memory, one magical day to remember her by."
I nodded and stifled a wave of emotion that threatened to overcome me, knowing that if I spoke, I'd probably just end up crying. "It was her last goodbye to me."
I leaned back against the cushion, feeling spent after telling my story. Ava studied me for a moment before curling up against me and resting her head on my shoulder. "I bet that was really hard for her to do," she said. "Your mom probably put it off for as long as she could."
&nbs
p; I draped my arm around Ava's shoulders, needing her beside me more than I'd known. "I guess that could be right. Maybe she'd tried to leave me dozens of times before she finally got up the nerve to do it."
"Are you mad at her?" Ava angled her head up so she could read my expression.
I let out a long breath as I tried to figure out the answer to that question.
"I was really sad and worried for the first month," I said. "I kept waiting for her to show up. And when she never did, I was mad that she could just leave me like that. I was mad for a really long time." I sighed. "But now that I'm older and have a better understanding of how hard it probably was for her, I just feel sad she was even in that situation in the first place."
"Were you ever mad at your dad?" Ava guessed.
"Yeah," I said. "I was pretty mad at him when I came to his house and saw just how much money he had. I was mad that he got to live in a huge house, with people he paid to do everything he wanted done for him and our family. I was mad that while he got to go to Guatemala for two weeks at a time, help a little here and there, write another check to solve a problem, my mom had literally starved to death. I was so mad at him. I hated that he'd had his little two-week fling, gotten her pregnant, and then left without even making sure she was provided for."
"Do you think he would have taken care of her if he'd known about you?"
"He would," I said, not even having to think about it. "He probably would have moved her in to live with him and Dawn in a heartbeat, if he'd known about me."
"Because deep down, he's a good dad," Ava said. "A good person?"
"He is."
We were quiet for a minute, each lost in our thoughts.
After a long moment, Ava said, "I can understand why you would have been mad at him."
"You can?" I looked at her.
She nodded. "You know what kind of resources he has at his fingertips, and so you know that if things had been different and he'd given your mom his real name—if he hadn't been down there all incognito-style—then she could have contacted him and she might still be here today."
