Chapter 7 - I’m Leaving Exactly Like This
Supervised visits with Natalie were complicated.
At first, Becca refused.
Avery went once.
Only once.
The room had a soft couch, a box of tissues, and a supervisor sitting in the corner with a clipboard.
Natalie wore a gray sweater and looked smaller without the green SUV, without the house, without the documents.
Avery sat across from her.
Natalie smiled faintly.
“You look tired.”
Avery said, “I am.”
“I miss you.”
Avery waited.
Natalie’s eyes filled, but the tears did not fall.
“I made mistakes.”
That word again.
Mistakes.
Avery looked at the supervisor.
Then back at her mother.
“You hired a man to take me.”
Natalie’s expression tightened.
“I hired support because you were spiraling.”
“You packed Becca’s backpack.”
“Your sister was being turned against me.”
“You lied to police.”
“I was scared.”
Avery stood.
The supervisor looked up.
Natalie said quickly, “Avery, don’t leave like this.”
Avery stopped at the door.
For one moment, she wanted a mother so badly that the wanting almost made her turn around.
Then she remembered Becca behind her on the sidewalk.
Stay behind me.
“No,” Avery said. “I’m leaving exactly like this.”
She did not visit again for a year.
Becca chose not to visit at all.
David did not force it.
That was another kind of rescue.
The right not to enter rooms just because adults wanted closure.
Avery turned eighteen the following spring.
Natalie sent a card through the visitation center.
On the front was a watercolor of wildflowers.
Inside, in neat handwriting:
I hope someday you understand that mothers sometimes make impossible choices.
Avery read it twice.
Then wrote beneath it:
Impossible choices do not require secret transport companies.
She did not send it back.
She kept it in a folder labeled THINGS I DON’T HAVE TO ANSWER.
Therapy helped her make that label.
It helped more than she expected.
Becca healed differently.
She became funny again before she became trusting.
She made jokes about everything.
The court.
The SUV.
The porch camera.
David’s pancakes.
Her own anxiety.
When a therapist asked what Becca did when she felt afraid, Becca said, “I locate exits and make sarcastic comments.”
The therapist said, “That’s a strategy.”
Becca said, “It’s a lifestyle.”
But at night, she still sometimes climbed into Avery’s bed.
Avery was eighteen then, technically an adult, but she never told Becca she was too old.
Some nights, Becca whispered, “Would you have gotten in if I wasn’t there?”
Avery always answered the truth.
“I don’t know.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Why?”
Avery stared at the ceiling.
“Because when Mom looks disappointed, part of me still wants to fix it.”
Becca was quiet.
Then she said, “I hate that.”
“Me too.”
“I’m glad I was there then.”
Avery turned toward her.
“Why?”
“Because you protected me. But I think I protected you too.”
Avery cried quietly in the dark.
May you like
Becca pretended not to notice.
That was love.
