The Second Life of Ava Rivers

by Faith Gardner

“Bummer,” I say flatly.

  “I read on the internet it could be a ruptured eardrum or blood flow problem. I have been feeling dizzy, now that you mention it.”

  “I didn’t mention anything.”

  “Acoustic neuroma.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It could also be an acoustic neuroma,” he says.

  He’s holding his fingers near his ears and wincing, as if he really needs to demonstrate.

  “Which I hope it’s not,” he goes on. “Because that’s a tumor.”

  “I don’t think you have a tumor,” I say. “I just think you really don’t want to go to dinner.”

  There she is again—Portland Vera, rearing her knife-sharp honesty. I get a nice shot of adrenaline as I watch my father’s mouth try to locate a proper response.

  “Vera” is all he manages.

  Mom comes into the house, dogs barking at her feet. She’s carrying a ridiculous amount of Pottery Barn bags that she puts on the floor.

  “Redecorating,” she says breathlessly.

  “Let me guess—for my room?” I get up and peek in the bags. The colors—coral and gold—literally remind me of barf. “Did you try to pick the grossest colors?”

  She leaves the room to go into the master bedroom, which is behind her through a short hall. She comes back out magically in a different scarf and rebrightened lipstick. “Okay,” she says with a clap. “I have to be at the child abuse ice cream social by nine, so let’s go.”

  “Number one, they should really rethink that name,” I tell her. “Child abuse ice cream social? That’s awful.”

  “It’s not the full name. That’s just what I’m calling it.”

  “Number two, Dad’s got a tumor and he’s not coming to dinner.”

  “A tumor?” she asks incredulously.

  “It’s not a tumor,” he says in an Arnold Schwarzenegger voice. Then he checks his humor, going grave again. “Um . . . tinnitus. My ears have been ringing all day.”

  “Probably all that loud pagan music you’ve been blasting at odd hours.”

  “It’s Celtic,” he says. Then he turns to me, almost pleading. “Vera, I really don’t feel well.”

  “I’m sure you don’t,” I reply.

  “Let’s get going,” Mom tells me.

  “Wait, you have to be at your . . . thing . . . at nine?” I look at my phone. “It’s eight fifteen right now, Mom. We don’t have time to sit at a restaurant.”

  “It’s fine, my speech isn’t until at least nine fifteen.”

  “You’re giving a speech?”

  “I’m accepting an award. As an advocate. It’s fine—let’s go.”

  “Mom.” I fake a laugh. “Just go accept your award.”

  “Vera,” she says. “I told you I would take you to dinner, so let’s go, I’m taking you to dinner.”

  VERA DINNER—penned in the narrow space between CLEARANCE SALE and CHILD ABUSE ICE CREAM SOCIAL.

  “I didn’t want it to be like this,” I say.

  “I am really sorry,” she says. “If we leave right now we can do it. Maybe you can call the order in ahead so it’s ready when we get there?”

  “Really.” I laugh. “Let’s just—we’ll do it some other time. Maybe next time Elliott can come.”

  “That would be so nice,” Mom says. “Have you been talking to him? Did he see me on the news?”

  “Yes, and no.”

  Mom comes over and rubs my arm. “Listen, I’m sorry it was like this.”

  “It’s fine,” I say.

  “My ears are just—rrrrrinnnggggg,” Dad says from the doorway to the basement. He’s taken one step down and looks like he’s shrunk.

  “We got it, Ben,” Mom says loudly.

  “I’m going to lie down,” he says.

  Mom feeds her dogs. “You look very nice,” she tells me.

  I bite my nail. Usually I wouldn’t say anything, but I’m warm with anger right now. And soon I’ll be gone. So for once, I speak my mind.

  “You know what?” I say. “You’re too busy, Mom. You’re too busy and you’re missing the things that really matter for a bunch of BS you’ll never remember.”

  She gasps and makes a small uh noise, as if I slugged her or something. Although her reaction makes me wince, I don’t blink or turn away. Behind my back, I clasp my hands so hard it hurts.

  “Oh, honey,” she says.

  Her eyes fill with tears. Ugh, I think. I made my mom cry. The last thing I want is to make her cry. But I bite my lip, don’t apologize, don’t take it back.

  “I’m so sorry,” she says, coming over to me and putting her hands on my face. “My sweet baby girl, I’m so sorry. You’re right. Why do I do this? I’ll do better, I promise. We’ll take a whole day before you go—a spa day, how about?”

  I don’t have the heart to tell her there’s no room for a spa day now, and I hate mani-pedis and touchy-feely strangers. I smile and nod.

  “I’ll get an app,” she says. “A time-management thing. I’ll do better, Vera, I will.”

  She means it, she truly does. But she won’t follow through. And even if she did, there’s not a lot of time with me left to manage. Her lips quiver, begging forgiveness.

  “It’s okay,” I tell her.

  “I love you so much.” She pulls back and waits for me to echo the same before she leaves the house again, slamming the door, sealing in the silence.

  The stack of weird computer-generated Avas is still there on the table. I pick one up. I don’t know what it is, but I get a feeling like the faintest fingers lifting my hair and I suck in air, tickled by something between spookiness and promise.

  Downstairs, Dad laughs, pauses, and then says, “Well, Judd, thinking about upgrading the dressing rooms but am wondering if the return will be worth the investment.”

  I hurt. I hurt in my eyeballs, I hurt deep in my throat. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. Because soon I will be gone.

  21

  MY LAST STINT as Snow White is on a muggy gray Saturday at a park near a reservoir in Lafayette. After princessing, I hit a drive-through immediately and wolf down two cheeseburgers that squirt ketchup on my lap. Usually I’d be pissed at myself because now my costume will require dry cleaning, but guess what? It doesn’t matter anymore because Portland! When I get home, I stub my toe on a stack of Mom’s Amazon Prime boxes. Normally I would grumble about it, but it doesn’t matter anymore because Portland! Inside, I almost step in Mexico’s or Canada’s vomit on the hardwood kitchen floors and I’m tempted to yell at them for being gross, but who cares because Portland! There’s nothing extraordinary about today except that soon I’ll be elsewhere. It’s blissfully normal. It’s not a square that you look at on your calendar and say, hey, everything’s going to go topsy-turvy today.

  Life’s a prankster.

  I check my phone and notice I have two missed calls from Mom. I yell, “Dad?” to the house, but hear nothing. Huh. That’s weird. Don’t panic. He’s probably napping. I go down to his basement just to check—but he’s not there.

  “Dad?”

  Sergio Ontario is paused on the screen. He’s in his underwear sitting on a bed, and I feel as if I’ve violated some code by seeing him that way and knowing that Sergio prefers purple leopard-print thongs. Dad’s cat sits on the windowsill glaring at me through slits for eyes.

  “Wow,” I say. “Stink eye central.”

  At this point, my heart has picked up a little speed.

  “Dad?” I yell throughout the house.

  I’m thinking something bad has happened. Some kind of accident. Heart attack. Dad never leaves. I sit back on the basement stairs with my phone and listen to my mom’s voicemail message.

  “The police think they found Ava!” she screams. “We’re on our way to Kaiser in Fremont right now to see her—com
e as soon as you get this.”

  What the what?

  No. No. She didn’t just . . . I have to listen to the message again. As soon as it’s done, I start uncontrollably shaking.

  “Oh my God!” I scream so loud the dogs go running.

  My fingers aren’t working. I try to call my mom, flustered, pressing the wrong buttons. Finally I get through.

  I yell, eyes spilling over. Suspicious brain, gullible heart. “Really? Really? How do you know?”

  “Vera, she looks just like the sketch. Several people recognized her from TV when she was brought in. And you won’t believe this—she was still wearing the mood ring.”

  The mood ring!

  The mood ring she wore when we were kids—with the silver band and the ever-changing dot of glass on top. The mood ring she was wearing when she got sucked up into the ether.

  “Jesus,” I say.

  See? my heart says to my brain. See?

  A dam. A dam unleashing in my chest. Holy shit. We’ve had leads before. We’ve had skeletons and remains and photos of found children sent to us online. We have never had a flesh-and-blood living girl multiple people recognized off the bat with the proof in a mood ring.

  In all the years she was gone, I never once let myself fully imagine what this would be like. I have to look in a mirror to be sure I’m not dreaming—but there I am, a shocked, flushed-faced Snow White with a purse trembling in my hands.

  “Are you with her?” I ask.

  “We’re on our way to the hospital!” Mom says. “The FBI are meeting us there, and then we get to see her!”

  She’s shrieking every word.

  “I can’t believe it!” Dad hollers in the background.

  “We’re supposed to meet the agent at the trauma ward!” Mom says. “Call Elliott right now, you have to get hold of him!”

  “Elliott! Yes!”

  I call Elliott, saying, “Elliott Elliott Elliott,” as the phone rings in my ear. Trying to use ESP to get him to pick up. But not only do I get voicemail, it’s a random woman saying, “Yo, it’s CC, leave a message, BEE-ATCH.”

  Beep.

  I hang up.

  I don’t even know if I close the front door behind me. I run to my car and start it up. I turn the music off, find the address in my phone, and drive. My heart chokes. Trauma ward, I keep thinking. Trauma ward, trauma ward, trauma ward. Could this be real life? Really?

  22

  I’M IN A daze of questions as I navigate traffic. Usually I’m an anxious driver and I avoid freeways whenever possible, but right now every road is just a tunnel I’m getting through; I don’t care about anything except getting to that hospital in record time. Hospital . . . Fremont . . . trauma ward . . . I should have asked more questions, like is she okay? Of course she’s okay, though. What does “okay” mean again exactly? She’s alive. I wipe away tears and just keep saying, “Oh my God,” to nobody.

  I’m ecstatic, I am, but it’s mixed with an odd panic. What if this is just another false lead? And if it’s not—which it really seems like it’s not because this feels so different from all the other times—who the hell is this person I’m about to go meet? She and I shared a womb, but we’re not really sisters anymore. And how broken of a person must she be? Where was she all these years—is it as ghastly as the stacks of books on Dad’s floor promise? I don’t know if I have the strength in me to confront that. I thought she was gone long ago. I never truly let myself believe she was alive until now, partly because the burden of such a horror—slavery, kidnapping, a life inhumane—is downright suffocating. Tears fall, and I have to will myself to breathe in, out, in, out, like I’ve forgotten how. I don’t know if I can do this. A part of me is afraid of her, and afraid of what this means. I’m a twin again. One of two. I might not have loved my life every moment, my family might need a lot of help, I might dream of escaping constantly—but it’s my life. And I’m used to it.

  And I am terrible for even allowing these thoughts to flow through my mind as I drive. But I can’t stop them. I’m a mess.

  I finally get to the Kaiser and park in some emergency space—because if this isn’t an emergency, show me what the hell is. I run inside the automatic glass doors, passing old people in wheelchairs and pregnant ladies and nurses, and make my way to the info booth, where a red-haired white woman watches me with curiosity.

  “I need the trauma ward,” I say.

  “You all right?” she asks, looking down at my Snow White dress and up at my face, her eyebrows raised.

  “It’s not for me—it’s my sister—”

  “You part of the family of the missing girl?” she asks excitedly.

  “Yes!”

  “Oh, I’ll walk you there myself,” the woman says.

  She leaves the station and takes my arm, walking me down long shining halls, past the pharmacy, into an elevator.

  “There was a news crew asking about it a few minutes ago,” the woman says.

  “Oh,” I say.

  “What a miracle,” the woman says. “I remember when Ava Rivers first went missing years ago—I had a five-year-old at the time.”

  I don’t know what to say. I’m wild with disbelief. This seems like it’s really happening. The woman is talking to me like Ava Rivers has returned. It’s so weird that everyone knows who my sister is and what we’ve been through. I’m so overwhelmed with emotion and nerves, my eyes are filled with tears as the elevator floor numbers blink-blink-blink and the door ding-ding-dings.

  “Down the hall,” the woman says, pointing, as we step off the elevator.

  Like she really needs to point. There are—not exaggerating—two dozen reporter-looking people, and the halls are packed with law-enforcement types. This must be real. It’s never been like this before. The red-haired woman stands back by the elevators and watches as I hurry forward. I look back and see her eyes, hungry, a woman watching a soap opera. I keep going, into the thickness of blue uniforms.

  “I’m Vera Rivers!” I say to one of the first cops who notices me, who opens his mouth and looks at me as if he is about to say something. “I’m—my sister—where’s my sister?”

  A couple reporters on the sidelines snap photos of me. A woman with a microphone says, “Are you with the family?” I ignore them. It’s so overwhelming and bright and loud and crowded. “Surreal” doesn’t even begin to cover it. I’m stunned, I’m curious, I’m weighted with dread, I’m a braid of contradictions. A few cops turn around and the first one I spoke to takes me by the arm and leads me past a barricade and past some locked hospital doors that a doctor has to beep open for us. We turn a corner and the cop leads me through a hall.

  Farther from the swarm of press and cops in the lobby, it’s quieter in here; the beeping of machines in the rooms we pass is calming. He leads me to a closed office door and knocks once.

  “More family,” he says.

  A shaved-bald guy opens the door. He has an FBI badge hanging around his neck. Ozzie’s there, too, in a button-up shirt, his hair gelled back. He comes and squeezes my hand and then pats my shoulder—somewhere halfway between a handshake and a hug, which about sums up our relationship. He introduces me to the shaved-bald FBI guy, who seriously looks like he could be younger than me. Ozzie is positively abuzz. It’s not in his expression, which is impenetrable, like most law enforcement. His eyes just sparkle, his face radiates.

  My parents, sitting at a table with Coca-Colas—which I have never seen them drink before in my life—both stand up. I run to them and give them a simultaneous hug. The three of us shudder with joy.

  “So crazy out there,” I say.

  “Someone leaked it to the press,” Mom says. “Never mind them.”

  “This is really happening?” I ask.

  “This looks like the real thing,” Dad says.

  “Oh my God, have you seen her?” I cry.

/>   “Pictures—and through the door,” Mom says, her voice shaking. “She’s all grown up.”

  “Is she okay?” I ask.

  “We’re getting briefed right now,” Dad tells me as we pull apart.

  I sit down with them, wiping my eyes. Ozzie offers to get me a Coke and leaves, and the FBI dude shuts the door. He introduces himself and I immediately forget his name because honestly I don’t even really care, I just want to see my sister and know what’s happened and what’s happening next so badly I could vomit.

  “So . . . when can we see her?” I ask.

  “In a little bit,” FBI dude says. He sits up straight and politely folds his hands on the table. He’s nervous. Possibly more so than we are. “I was catching your parents up.”

  “She was hit by a car,” Mom blurts.

  “But she’s okay,” Dad adds.

  “Just a concussion and some scrapes and bruises,” FBI dude says.

  “Okay . . .” I say.

  “She’s . . . kind of out of it—we’re waiting for the results to come back from the blood test,” Mom says.

  “It’s possible she was on something when she was hit by the car,” FBI dude says. “The woman driving said Ava was in a stupor. The woman turned a corner in a parking lot and ran into Ava.”

  “Where’s the woman?” I ask.

  “At the station giving a deposition. She feels terrible—she drove her to the hospital this morning.”

  “She hit her outside a Starbucks,” Dad says excitedly, like this information matters.

  “So . . . the woman had her?” I ask, confused.

  “No. We haven’t been able to iron out the details yet, but the girl we think is Ava says she was ‘dumped,’” FBI dude says. “We can’t get details, but she’s said, ‘He dumped me,’ multiple times. She had a backpack with her with some snacks, some clothes.”

  “He ‘dumped’ her?” I ask. “After all these years?”

  “That’s how it appears,” FBI dude answers.

  “Who is ‘he’?” I ask.

  “We haven’t been able to establish that yet.”

  “And how did you find her?” I ask.