Most Likely (Most Likely #1) - Sarah Watson Page 0,78
table under bright fluorescent lights. The room was packed with people, but everyone was in their own world and nobody looked twice at Ava and Isabel.
“I guess you have a lot of questions,” Isabel said after a little bit of silence. “Ask me anything you want.”
Ava knew exactly where she wanted to start. “How did you know what I look like?”
The cafeteria was loud enough that their conversation felt private. “Your mother sends me a letter and a picture every year. On your birthday.”
Ava felt her body go numb. She set her hands on the table because she was afraid she might collapse. “I didn’t know that.”
“I’m the one who asked for those terms. Lynn was just following my wishes.”
“Why?” Ava’s voice had an edge of anger.
Isabel sighed in this huge weighty way that was filled with so many complicated emotions that Ava couldn’t even begin to define them all. “A lot of shame. A lot of embarrassment. I thought it might be harder for you if you knew.” Isabel shook her head like she wanted to back up. “Not true. I convinced myself of that for a long time. But the truth is, I knew it would be harder for me. I didn’t want you to know my face. I could handle you hating me if I was just this abstract idea of a mother. But if you knew me…”
“I don’t hate you.”
Isabel grabbed the table in the same way Ava had just done.
“I don’t,” Ava repeated.
“Would you like to know why I made the decision I did?”
Ava nodded.
“I don’t know if this will be a good thing to hear or the opposite. But I came very close to keeping you. Very close. I’d already applied to medical school when I found out I was pregnant. But then the rejections started coming in and I thought it was a sign. Medical school had always been my dream, but maybe it wasn’t meant to be. It seemed like the universe had another plan for me. I thought maybe that plan was you.”
Ava looked down.
“Things with my boyfriend weren’t great, but they weren’t terrible. It was a life that I could see. I’d been wait-listed at Stanford and never in a million years thought I’d get in. But then the letter came. I was standing there seven months pregnant holding a letter telling me that I’d gotten my dream. My mom, your abuela, used to light a candle in her church in Mexico City and pray that she could give me a better life. She risked so much to come to the United States, and that acceptance letter felt like everything she’d fought to give me. I know that sounds like I’m using her sacrifice to justify what I did. But I’m not. In a lot of ways it made it harder. My mom would have been so disappointed with me if she knew what I did.”
Ava looked up only to find that Isabel was the one looking away now. It was too hard for her to make eye contact.
“She died a couple years before you were born. I knew she would have wanted me to keep you. But I would have been living my life for her. I had to live it for me.”
There was regret in her words, but also strength.
“The adoption agency sent me a lot of letters from different families. When I read Lynn’s…” Isabel coughed and Ava knew it was to cover the emotion. “She wanted you so badly. And I wanted you to have that kind of life. A life where you were…” Another cough. Isabel took a deep breath. In and out. “I wanted you in the arms of someone who was ready for you.”
“I understand,” Ava said. “At least I think I understand.”
“It’s okay if you don’t. I should have explained earlier. I should have agreed to meet you four years ago.”
Ava looked up. “What do you mean?”
“When Lynn contacted me.” Ava stared at the table. She didn’t want Isabel to know that she wasn’t aware of this part. “She said you were asking. I thought about it. I really did. I just couldn’t. I don’t have a better answer than that. I just couldn’t.”
Ava remembered back to the day when her mom told her that she’d decided Ava wasn’t ready to meet her biological mom. It was a lie. A beautiful one. One that protected her from feeling rejected at a time when she needed to feel loved.