Destiny by Helen Hardt

Author:Helen Hardt [HARDT, HELEN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781642633740
Publisher: Waterhouse Press

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ava

“Do you think I could be right?” I ask Dad. “Why would she make up a half brother?”

“I wish I could tell you why my mother does what she does,” Dad says. “But I can’t, and I’m damned glad of that. If my mind worked the way hers did, I’d be pretty worried.”

“And that’s why you’re worried about me.”

Dad nods. “Ava, she’s not a good person. If there is such a thing as pure evil in the world, my mother personifies it. I understand that you want to know why she reached out to you. But I’m concerned. You tend to see the good in everything, Ava. That’s something wonderful about you. But don’t try to find the good in your grandmother. It doesn’t exist.”

I swallow. “I’m hearing you. I know you think that I’m not, but I am hearing you, Dad.”

He pulls me into a hug. “I’m glad. Because Ava, you and your sister mean everything to your mother and me. Don’t let her into your head. I get it. It’s difficult. She can be very…persuasive. Very charismatic.”

“Until she admits some of the horrific acts she’s done.”

“Exactly.” Dad kisses the top of my head and then lets me go. “I don’t know about you, but I need a break from Wendy.”

“Sure. You want me to make you some lunch?”

“Michaela can make our lunch. It will just be you and me today.”

“Where’s Mom?”

“She said she had some errands to run.”

I nod. “Where’s her head in all of this?”

“The same as mine. It brings back a lot of sour history for us, but she’s okay. Your mother is the strongest woman I know.”

“Yeah, she is strong.” I cross my arms. “She’s so different from me.”

Dad cups my cheek. “Never doubt your strength, Ava. You are as strong as your mother, just in a different way. No one expected you and your sister to be carbon copies of your mother or of me.”

“I know that.” I regard my father’s handsome face, his dark hair, his milk-chocolate brown eyes. “But Gina looks exactly like you. And I always thought I had Mom’s eyes, until…”

“They are a lot like Wendy’s,” he says. “That doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“Was she beautiful?”

“She was. In a totally different way from Daphne. But from the photos I’ve seen, yes, Wendy was very beautiful. She would have to have been to catch my father’s eye.”

We head to the kitchen, where Michaela is already working on lunch.

“Hey,” Michaela says. “I figured you two would be out for lunch pretty soon. How do Cuban sandwiches sound?”

“Sounds great to me,” Dad says. “Ava?”

I nod. “Anything you make will be perfection, Michaela.”

“Thank you, Miss Ava.”

I’ve told Michaela time and again to simply call me Ava, but all the household help in my family uses the formal honorifics. Dad says it’s the way it was when he was a kid, and it just sounds right to him. Apparently his brothers and sister feel the same way.

If I ever have a house and family of my own, and enough money to afford household help, they will simply call me Ava.

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