easier.
“Sera isn't here today,” I muttered. “You have to deal with me.”
“Will she be here tomorrow?”
“No.”
“When will she be back?”
Ava had tilted her head back, a nagging pitch in her tone that set my teeth on edge. It rang of her mother and ran along my nerves like a cheese grater. The truth wasn't any easier to set free.
“She may not come back. We're not sure.”
Ava gasped, eyes wide. If possible, those eyes filled with water in a flash. Her voice wobbled and I groaned. Not tears. Anything but tears.
“What?” she whispered.
“I don't know yet,” I said quickly. “I don't . . . we're not sure. We're working things out. But Sera has a life and she needs to get back to it.”
Ava stepped back.
“You did this!” she cried. “This is all your fault! Mommy said you didn't want me to be happy, and now I'm not. You're taking Sera away too! Mommy was right.”
Shock rendered me momentarily speechless. Taking her away? No, I desperately wanted her back.
“That's not true, Ava.”
Tears filled her eyes. “I want Sera back. Please, daddy. Don't take Sera away too, you can't take her away too!”
Her voice became hysterical. Her eyes widened in panic as she shook her head back and forth, tears jarred out of her eyes and spilled onto her cheeks. She'd just rotated through four emotions within four minutes, and even I felt the backlash. All my ire fled in a flash as I knelt on the floor next to her and grabbed her hands.
“Please,” she pleaded. “Please don't. Please!”
“Ava, what's wrong?”
To my shock, she collapsed in my arms. Deep sobs wracked her body as I folded my arms around her. For several moments she cried. In the brief respite, I tried to pull my thoughts back together, but all I could think about was Sadie. About Ava's words. The terror in her eyes yet again.
Mommy said you didn't want me to be happy.
When her cries slowed, I put my hands gently on her shoulders and leaned back. “Ava, can we talk about this?”
Red-eyed, she passed an arm under her nose and reluctantly nodded. Afraid I'd lose her if I even breathed too much, I gently asked, “What did Mommy say about me?”
Her bottom lip jutted out a little. She fidgeted with the bottom of her shirt and whispered, “That you didn't want me to be happy. That you didn't love me.”
My heart cracked a giant, ugly fissure down the middle of my chest that would have spilled the nastiest vitriol if I let it. Emotions like what swept through me then were too strong, too locked up, to be ignored. But I'd been trying, and now I was still lost in something that was powerful. Grief, probably. Terror. Despair.
Even though Serafina had warned me about what Ava told her, hearing it still shook me all the way to my core. The terror in Ava's eyes sealed the deal.
“Wow,” I said.
We were a bigger mess than I thought.
There was no hesitation anymore. Hearing those words from Ava's mouth made it all too clear: Serafina had been absolutely right.
Sadie still had too much power over me. There was too much here to deal with alone, both for me and Ava. Ava watched me carefully. When she wore a wary expression like that, she looked just like me. Nervous for her answer, but needing to know exactly where we stood, I swallowed and asked, “Do you think that's true?”
She held her breath, frowned, and after a pause that felt like several eternities strung together, she finally shook her head. Relief I'd never known in my life poured through me.
“Why don't you think that's true?”
“Because you came back for me.”
“To the hospital?”
She nodded.
The night I heard of Sadie's accident whipped through my mind. The moment Ava's nanny called me to tell me about Sadie's condition in the ICU, I'd asked Maverick to find me a flight while I packed my bags. Within eight hours, I held Ava in my arms at the hospital while she cried on me. Sadie passed an hour later. At the time, Avan and I didn't know each other well. Sadie had jealously guarded and kept Ava from me and from most of my attempts to be part of her life. But Ava knew me well enough that she came to me then. Clung to me. She seemed to understand that I was all she had left, for better or worse.
“Good,” I whispered, and gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “Because