Heart Like Mine A Novel - By Amy Hatvany Page 0,43
his neck.
“Oomph!” Victor said as she hugged him. “Where’s the fire, little girl?”
She pulled back and gave him a serious look. “There’s no fire,” she said. “But if there was, I call a fireman and then stop! drop! and roll! like my teacher taught me at school.”
Victor kissed Ava’s cheek. “Very good. How did you get to be such a smart girl?”
Ava shrugged. “I don’t know. I just am.”
Kelli smiled as she watched them together. She couldn’t remember her father ever holding her so long or with so much affection. She joined them and gave Ava a kiss. “Guess what, honey?” she said. “Mama might have a baby in her tummy. You could be a big sister.”
Ava was quiet a moment, then looked back and forth between her parents. “A girl baby?”
“Maybe,” Victor said. “But it could be a boy.”
“Yuck,” Ava said, screwing up her pretty face. “If it is, can we take it back wherever you got it?” Kelli and Victor both laughed and curled up with their daughter on the bed.
A test soon confirmed that yes, in fact, Kelli was pregnant again. After she began feeling better, she continued to help Victor prepare the restaurant to launch. They lured Victor’s best friend, Spencer, from the restaurant where they’d all worked, giving him a promotion from sous chef to executive chef, and together, the men designed the menu while Kelli worked on the décor. She was less panicky during this pregnancy. She knew what to expect. Max was born after another quick labor just a few days before the Loft was scheduled to open its doors. Money was getting tight, and Victor knew he’d have to spend more hours at the restaurant than he ever had at his previous job.
“I’ll be fine,” Kelli told him as he held their baby boy swaddled in a blue flannel blanket. “Diane can help out, and Ava’s almost seven now. She can help, too.” But then, inexplicably, right there in the hospital room, she began to cry, suddenly missing her mother more than she ever had before. She wanted a mother like Eileen—someone to nurture and help take care of her grandbabies. She wanted a mother who loved her deeply and uncontrollably, the way Kelli loved her own children. How could they not want to see her? Kelli wondered if they were simply relieved that she’d left so they wouldn’t be reminded of what she put them through. She wondered if there’d ever be a time that they might want her back.
Seeing her tears, Victor visibly tensed. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
A nurse entered just then, with Ava in tow. “It’s just a hormone crash,” she told Victor. “Totally normal.” Kelli felt like it was something deeper, something more insidious, but she hoped the nurse was right.
Ava rushed over to Kelli’s side, scrambling up onto the bed to cuddle her mother. “It’s a girl, right?” she asked excitedly. They’d told her as soon as they’d had the ultrasound that she was going to have a baby brother, but she remained convinced that if she just hoped hard enough, she’d get the sister she wanted. “Aw, rats!” Ava said when Victor told her again that Max was a boy. She looked up to her mother, worried. “But you still love me. I’m still your favorite daughter.”
“You sure are,” Kelli said with a smile. She wiped at her cheeks to erase any evidence of her grief. “And Max is my favorite son.”
“Huh.” Ava shrugged. “What about Daddy?”
Kelli looked at Victor, still smiling. “Daddy is my favorite man in the world.” Victor handed Max to her as though their son was a fragile piece of glass. The love she saw in his eyes would be enough, she decided, and at that moment, Kelli knew that after all she’d done wrong, this was as perfect a life as she would get.
Grace
After Victor went to comfort Ava and Max, I sat on the couch, staring at the wall above the fireplace, waiting. Waiting for what, I wasn’t sure. Maybe to see if he asked me for help, though I didn’t know what kind of help I might be. Clearly Ava wanted nothing to do with me, and on some level, I couldn’t blame her. She’d just suffered the biggest loss of her life; a woman she only saw a couple of times a month certainly wouldn’t be who she’d run to in search of emotional reassurance.
“Ava’s always been a little hard to reach,” Victor had told me