Ava Comes Home

by Lesley Crewe

  “Fireworks?” Rose volunteered.

  “Yeah, fireworks.”

  Ava took a sip of her coffee so she wouldn’t tear the face off her sister. She counted to ten in her head before she opened her mouth. “How do you think I felt, Maryette? I was in hell if you must know, and he was too. Then a bunch of kids came up clamoring for my autograph and they chased him away. It was horrible.”

  Maryette looked away. “I’m sorry; I shouldn’t have asked you that.” Ava put down her mug because it was suddenly too heavy to hold. “Don’t be. Of course you’d want to know.” She sighed. “It was awful. He looked so good and he wanted to talk to me, I could tell, but his kids started to whine and then these stupid girls showed up. I wanted the earth to swallow me up.” She put her face in her hands.

  Rose reached over and patted her arm. “We’re sorry, pet. We had no idea.”

  “God. This is terrible,” Maryette said. “We’ll keep our mouths shut from now on.”

  Ava looked up and shook her head. “It’s okay. It actually helps to talk about him. I always feel as if I’m carrying him on my shoulders and everyone knows he’s there and I can never put him down. I need to put him down.”

  They nodded sympathetically. She regained her composure and took a big gulp of coffee before letting out another big sigh.

  “So where were you last night?” Rose ventured, but quickly added, “If you don’t want to say, that’s okay.”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore. I went to bed with someone.”

  Their mouths hung open. She went in for the kill. “Hayden Judd.” Rose and Maryette jumped up from their chairs and bounced around the kitchen, screaming. Ava started to laugh and couldn’t stop. She laughed and laughed at her sisters in their near-hysteria.

  This was the scene that greeted Lola as she walked through the door.

  Ava was happy to have Lola back. She had missed her cheery sidekick, with her down-to-earth manner and comforting presence. The unhappiness that threatened to overwhelm her eased when Lola was around.

  Lola assured her that things were fine at home, and for a moment Ava was confused—she never thought of the Malibu beach house as home. She lay awake that night thinking about it. What an eye-opener: living somewhere for eight years and never becoming attached to it. It was sad.

  Happily, two days later Aunt Vi and Uncle Angus were brought home. Ava and Lola ran out to greet them, carrying blankets to make sure they didn’t get cold on their way into the house.

  Aunt Vi was unloaded first. “Lordy, lordy. How in the heck are you going to get me up those stairs? You’ll need a forklift.”

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. MacIntosh,” one of the medics smiled. “We’ve never needed one yet.”

  As they wheeled her towards the back door, Ava covered her aunt with the blanket. “We’re so happy to have you back!” She kissed her even as they were moving.

  “I’m happy to be back,” Aunt Vi confided. “If I had to endure one more day of that hospital food, I’d have gone crazy. Good thing my stomach is made of cast iron.”

  There was no room for all of them on the back stairs, so Ava got out of the way, just in time to hear Uncle Angus moan about people driving over his tulip beds. Lola reassured him that the bulbs were perfectly safe underneath the frozen ground. Then Uncle Angus spied Ava. “I keep telling these people I’m perfectly capable of walking myself.”

  Ava had to smile. The cast on her uncle’s arm was at a ninety degree angle, jutting out and in the way of everyone and everything.

  “This is for your own protection, Uncle Angus. We can’t have you slipping on the ice.”

  “I don’t like being hauled around like an old bag of turnips,” he grumbled.

  Ava and Lola grinned.

  After much maneuvering and grunting, the gurneys were brought into the kitchen. Ava pointed towards the living room. “Aunt Vi, I’ve got two hospital beds set up in the living room, to save you and Uncle Angus from having to climb the stairs with casts and crutches and canes. It’s only for a little while.”

  “Goodness gracious! I’m going to be in my nightie in the parlor? My mother would roll over in her grave.”

  “I’m sure she’d understand.” Ava nodded at the paramedics. “If you could you help her in, please, that would be great.”

  They reached down to help Aunt Vi off the gurney and held on to her as she hobbled into the living room. All the furniture was pushed back to the walls except for a large end table, which was positioned between the beds.

  “Oh my,” Aunt Vi said. “You didn’t have to go to all this trouble.” They helped her into bed. “It was no trouble,” Ava said. Then it was Uncle Angus who was escorted in. Lola pointed. “Uncle Angus, this is your bed.”

  He sat on the end of it and looked around before picking up the television remote with his good hand and turning on the TV. “Now ain’t this something. We can watch our shows and lie in bed, Vi!”

  “Looks like that’s all we can do, seeing as how we can’t make whoopee. Geranium will be spying on us through the curtains.”

  The others tried to keep straight faces. The idea of the two of them in a clinch with their heavy, awkward casts was too funny.

  Once the gurneys were taken away, the downstairs didn’t look quite so claustrophobic. Luckily Uncle Angus converted an old closet off the main hall into a powder room a couple of years before. They’d have to endure a few weeks of sponge baths, but they’d manage the inconvenience.

  It turned out to be a lot of work having three patients in the house. Ava and Lola ran up and down stairs all day. If Ava thought she’d neglected her family all these years, she certainly made up for it in the weeks that followed. It was a wonderful opportunity to help these much-loved elders of the clan. But if she were honest, it wasn’t the only reason why she kept moving. Ava needed to stop thinking about Seamus, a man who with one look could blot out everything and everyone else in her world.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  For the next two weeks, Seamus did his best to put Libby right out of his mind. He had no intention of upsetting his kids, which is exactly what he did the day he bumped into her at the grocery store and the morning after. Both of them cried that night when he told them he wasn’t reading two more books. “Knock it off and go to bed!” he said in a tone angrier than usual. They cried when he left them at daycare the next day because he forgot to kiss them goodbye.

  When he picked them up that evening, they didn’t run out to meet him and that’s when he knew he had to get his act together and forget all about her. It wasn’t fair to them. They were innocent victims and their welfare came first, he reminded himself.

  He filled his days with all the fun things he could think of. He took them to the park after work. They went to the movies, even though Sarah was a little young to be in the theatre. But it turned out she really liked it. She sat quite content with a big bag of popcorn and yelled, “Yeah,” every time Shrek came on the screen.

  The trips to the movies stopped the day Libby suddenly filled the screen one afternoon during the previews. Jack grabbed his sleeve. “Daddy, isn’t that the lady from the store?”

  Seamus was hardly aware that Jack spoke, because his entire body was rigid with longing. The trailer showed her in period costume, a long dress with a bonnet tied under the chin. Flashes of her walking down a cobbled street being kissed by some Hollywood star was bad enough but worse was a shot of her running along a shoreline, laughing, her hair cascading down her back as a man galloped towards her with a horse. He scooped her up and they rode off together towards the horizon. The last shot was of her in a wedding dress, running down the steps of a church.

  Seamus continued to struggle with remaining focused on his kids when all he thought of was her. He needed to cut loose, so one Friday night when Roger suggested they go to the Steel City Tavern and have a few brews, he accepted. His sister offered to pick up the kids at daycare and have them spend the night with her. He knew the kids would welcome the chance to spe
nd some time with their older cousins.

  Seamus, Roger, and a couple of other cops gathered after work and had a steak along with their beer. They laughed and joked around, and before he knew it, Seamus was drunk. He didn’t care.

  Some women came into the bar and more drinks were ordered. One of the women took a liking to Seamus, practically throwing herself in his lap. He didn’t care about that either. After a while she asked him if he wanted to go home with her. He said he didn’t care.

  She pulled him outside, though Roger came after him and said he’d drive him home. Seamus smirked and told him to go babysit someone else and stop worrying. The woman told Roger to bugger off. In the end, he had no choice but to leave them alone.

  She drove him back to her place, a rundown apartment in Whitney Pier. “My roommate’s gone for the night. We have the place to ourselves.”

  “Ya gotta drink?” he slurred.

  “Sure baby. I’ve got just the thing.” She took out a bottle of rum and mixed it with diet Coke. It was flat and warm. Seamus took a gulp, spilling most of it on the floor.

  “Hey, sorry.”

  She pushed him onto the living room couch. “Never mind. I know how you can make it up to me.” She straddled him and started to unbutton his shirt. “I need some lovin’.”

  “Don’t we all,” he grinned.

  “I bet you’re great in the sack, aren’t you?” She kissed him before he could answer. Her breath smelled like garlic. He turned his head. She kissed his ear instead. “Come on, baby. Let’s play.” She reached down and grabbed his crotch.

  He pushed her hand away. “Hey, take it easy.”

  “I don’t wanna take it easy. I like it rough.” She pulled off her sweater. “Take off my bra with your teeth.”

  At this, he burst out laughing. He suddenly sobered up a bit.

  She looked put out. “What’s the matter? Don’t you like to talk dirty?”

  “I don’t know what I like lady, but I have a sneaking suspicion it’s not you. Where’s your phone?”

  She jumped off his lap and held her sweater in front of her. “You’re an asshole, did you know that?”

  “Yep. Where’s your phone?”

  “It’s in the kitchen, you jerk. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.” She stormed off to the bathroom. He stumbled out to the kitchen and sat on a chair, trying to stop his dizzy head. What the hell was he doing here? He must be losing his mind. All he thought of was Libby. All he wanted was Libby. Why wasn’t she here? He pressed his fingers against his temple trying to get the pounding to stop.

  “I know. I’ll ask her,” he said to no one. “No harm in asking.” He got up, went over to the phone and dialed the number he knew by heart. It began to ring once, twice… “Hello?”

  “Libby? Is that you? Please say that’s you.”

  “Seamus?”

  “Yep.”

  “What are you doing? Where are you? Are you all right?”

  “No, I’m not all right. I haven’t been all right in a long, long time.” “Oh god, Seamus. Stop.”

  “Stop what?”

  “You sound drunk.”

  “I am drunk. Care to join me?” She didn’t respond. He thought maybe she hung up. He whispered, “Libby, are you there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Don’t cry.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “Ah shit. I’m always fucking up.”

  “No, no. It’s not your fault. Don’t ever think that.”

  “I don’t know what to do. I saw you the other day.”

  “Yes, in the store.”

  “No, not in the store. You were on the screen and someone was kissing you.”

  “It’s only make-believe.”

  “It wasn’t me kissing you. How come I can’t kiss you anymore? I’m sorry for whatever I did to make you go away.”

  “I have to hang up, Seamus. Go to sleep and I’ll talk to you again, okay?”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “Can I kiss you?”

  There was a long pause. “Good night, Seamus.”

  Seamus heard her hang up the phone. He replaced the receiver as his mind reeled. Needing desperately to escape the dingy apartment, he reached for the phone again and called Roger, telling him only that he was “somewhere in the Pier.” Then he let the phone drop and fumbled around until he found the apartment door. Staggering down a narrow flight of stairs, he tripped over the threshold and out into the street.

  He walked, and kept walking until Roger drove up beside him, reaching over to open the side door and let Seamus in.

  The next morning found him on the living room couch at home with a colossal headache. Panic set in because he couldn’t remember how he got back. He prayed to God he didn’t drive himself, but the memory of rolling out the passenger side door of Roger’s car came back to him. Good old Roger picked him up off the ground and dragged him into the house.

  Seamus managed to get up and make his way to the bathroom, where he stood under a cold shower for quite a while, to punish himself for being so stupid. While he shaved he found it difficult to look at himself in the mirror. In this state, he looked like his father and that made him sick. Seamus hated drunks.

  He took a couple of Tylenol and opened the fridge in search of a Coke. He reached for the phone and suddenly stopped. Did he talk to Libby last night? Oh shit.

  He looked at the cat, who sat by the garbage can. “Dexter, please tell me I didn’t.” Dexter was no help. He looked up accusingly, not because of anything Seamus did but because it was past breakfast and nearly lunch. Seamus got up in search of a can of cat food. When he couldn’t find any, he opened a can of tuna and placed it on the floor.

  He called Roger.

  “Ah, he’s in the land of the living,” Roger laughed when he picked up the phone.

  “I’m in rough shape. What the hell happened?”

  “You had a lucky escape, my friend.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you were dragged off by the bride of Frankenstein. I hope all your parts are in good working order.”

  “Oh Christ, why didn’t you stop me?”

  “I tried, but she almost broke a beer bottle and went at me. I like ya and everything, but not that much.”

  “How did you find me, then?”

  “You eventually called me and I drove around until I spied you wandering up Victoria Road.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “What?”

  “Did I mention talking to Libby last night?”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. His heart sank.

  “Look man, I feel badly for you, but yeah, you called her.”

  Seamus rubbed his eyes to lessen the pain of this throbbing head. “I’m such a loser.”

  “You were drunk. We all do stupid things when we drink.”

  “Have you ever called up a famous actress and begged her to come back to you, because I have a feeling that’s what I did.”

  “Maybe she will.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure she’d swap her digs in Hollywood and come live in Catalone with me. I mean, wouldn’t you?”

  “Don’t know what to tell ya, buddy.”

  “Well, thanks for last night. I owe ya one.”

  “No prob. See ya Monday.”

  “Yeah. See ya.”

  Next, he phoned Colleen and told her he’d be over in a couple of hours to pick up the kids. She invited him for supper. Hoping he’d be able to stomach food by suppertime, he accepted. The rest of the morning was occupied with cleaning up, which was a lot easier to do when Jack wasn’t riding the vacuum cleaner and Sarah wasn’t on a chair in front of the sink helping him do the dishes. When he was finished, the place wasn’t Martha Stewart clean, but the crushed potato chips were sucked up and even the bag in the garbage can was changed.

  Stepping outside, the sunshine made him wince, so he went back in the house for his sunglasses and
more Tylenol. “This is stupid. I’m never drinking again.” Blasé, Dexter blinked at him and looked out the window.

  Colleen lived in Louisbourg, a ten-minute drive away. Naturally, the temperature when he got there was a lot cooler than at his house, because the fog lay heavy on the coast. The foghorn worked overtime.

  “Ah, shit.” His father’s car was in Colleen’s driveway. He wished she’d knock off the Florence Nightingale routine. Some people couldn’t be saved.

  He got out of the car and walked into the house. Colleen was on her way downstairs with a load of laundry. “Hi.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me he’d be here?”

  “Because you wouldn’t have come and that’s ridiculous. Act your age.” She continued down the stairs.

  He took off his sunglasses and put them on the kitchen counter. “Hi, kids.”

  Jack and Sarah shrieked from somewhere and then ran into the kitchen and hopped into his arms.

  “Guess what?” Jack said.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t go to bed until eleven.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  He nodded proudly. “We watched Finding Nemo. It was good.”

  Sarah grinned. “Yeah.”

  He kissed them both and put them down. Their cousins Liam and Courtney came into the kitchen. “Hi, Uncle Seamus.”

  He reached out and ruffled Liam’s hair. “Hey, squirt.”

  Liam reached up and pushed his hand away. “Stop it.”

  Courtney hugged him. He cupped her face in his big hand. “Hiya, sweetheart. Thanks for looking after the kids for me.”

  “That’s okay.”

  Jack was offended. “She didn’t look after me. I’m big.”

  Sarah nodded. “Yeah. Big.”

  “You’re right. Sorry.”

  Jack ran out of the kitchen. “Come on, Liam. Let’s play pirates.”

  The four cousins zoomed out together. Seamus sat at the kitchen table and waited for Colleen to come upstairs. No truck in the driveway meant Dave wasn’t home. His father cleared his throat in the living room. Damn Colleen. She was staying downstairs on purpose.

  Seamus reluctantly walked into the living room. “Hi Dad.” He took in his father’s ruddy cheeks and puffy face. He’d put on weight and it didn’t suit him. In fact, it made him look about fifteen years older than he was.