No One Is Coming to Save Us by Stephanie Powell Watts

Author:Stephanie Powell Watts
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-02-15T16:00:00+00:00

18

Ava went home early the next morning from the motel. Lana asked her then told her that she was staying the night, and Ava did stay almost. She wanted nothing more than to sink down into Lana’s couch under a blanket and let Lana bring her popcorn as they watched episode after episode of trash television. But a heaviness was settling in her like sand swirling then settling in water that made her feel like moving, keep moving or she might plant to the spot and never move again. She went back to the motel but got up before the sun rose to get back to her own house. She hoped that Henry was home. She dreaded the idea that Henry was at home. She craved seeing Henry at home. Henry wasn’t there, which made Ava alternately sad and angry and relieved and sad again.

Once in her bedroom, her first act was to take a long, hot shower. Henry hadn’t been home. He probably hadn’t come home all night. After the twentieth time he’d called her, texted her, left messages, she’d finally had to turn the phone’s sound off. After the first call or two she silenced her phone, let it vibrate in her pocket. Let him think about her. Let him wonder. Let him ride around town trying to find her. The bed had not been made from the day before and Ava attempted to straighten the covers but it looked a baggy mess like an old man’s neck. She had not decided what she would do if Henry been there but she had worked out three or four scenarios in her head for confronting then hurting Henry: she would catch him in a lie; she would pretend to know nothing and see how he reacted to her seeing his son; she would beat the hell out of him the second she saw him. All of the options had their merits.

Ava had texted Sylvia early in the evening with a lie her mother would not believe, that she was out with friends until late, she might stay over with a friend, she’d said. Ava had plenty of acquaintances she’d go to lunch with from time to time, like Tommy the skinny white teller at the bank who told her that his other coworkers “oppressed his identity.” He really said that. Ava wasn’t sure how she managed to plump his identity back to normal, but whatever made him happy. Ava had a few more casual acquaintances and no friend she would trust with the dirty secrets of her marriage. The only friend Ava was likely to stay over with was her mother. Her mother knew that too.

Ava had called in to work but she had almost decided to get dressed and go in. The sheets felt good though. She folded her thin pillow into a sandwich and propped her head on the top of it. She had not been able to believe her luck when she found the four-poster bed at a yard sale.

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