Chapter 36 - ava admitted she hated the baby for a familiar reason
Ava’s fear arrived two weeks before Mara was born.
She was fourteen by then.
Maisie found her sitting alone in Graham’s kitchen during a visit home.
Everyone else was outside.
Ava was peeling the label from a water bottle.
Bad sign.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“Lie.”
Ava looked irritated.
“Learned from Dad.”
“Unfortunately.”
Maisie sat.
Ava said nothing.
Then:
“You’ll stop coming.”
Maisie’s chest tightened.
“What?”
“When Mara comes.”
“No.”
“You already live in Chicago.”
“Yes.”
“You’re going to have a baby.”
“Yes.”
“Dad says babies are exhausting.”
“Dad has not had a baby in fourteen years.”
“He remembers.”
“Badly.”
Ava looked down.
“You won’t need me.”
The sentence hit harder than Maisie expected.
At sixteen, Maisie had feared Ava’s arrival because Ava would have Claire.
A living biological mother.
A complete childhood Maisie had lost.
Now Ava feared Mara because Maisie would finally have a daughter of her own.
Family roles shifting again.
“I don’t need you now.”
Ava looked wounded.
Maisie corrected quickly.
“That came out wrong.”
“Very.”
“I mean I don’t love you because you serve a function.”
“You’re my sister.”
“That doesn’t disappear because I become someone’s mother.”
Ava stared.
“What if you like her more?”
“Different relationship.”
“That’s adult avoidance.”
Maisie almost laughed.
Fair.
“I will probably feel things about Mara that I don’t feel about you.”
Ava’s face fell.
Maisie continued.
“And I feel things about you Mara will never have.”
“Like what?”
“You were there when I learned our family could grow without removing me.”
Ava looked up.
“You were the first person whose existence scared me before I knew you.”
“That sounds terrible.”
“It was.”
“And then?”
Maisie smiled.
“Then you sneezed.”
Ava frowned.
“What?”
“Never mind.”
Old memory.
Ava asked:
“Can I hate the baby?”
“For a while.”
“What if she’s annoying?”
“She will be.”
“What if I don’t babysit?”
“Then I survive.”
Ava looked surprised.
“Seriously?”
“You are not free labor because we share DNA.”
Claire would probably object to the wording.
But Maisie meant it.
Ava exhaled.
Then:
“Can I still hold her first?”
Maisie smiled.
“If you want.”
“Before Dad?”
“Absolutely.”
Graham would protest.
Excellent.
The pattern changed again.
A difficult feeling did not become a diagnosis.
Jealousy did not become disloyalty.
Ava could fear losing her sister—
May you like
and still become an aunt.
Both.
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