Page 80 of Shelter
We’d reached the luggage carousel, and at once, I saw her red Mark Cross suitcase. I pulled it from the conveyor before meeting her gaze again.
“Okay. I get it. I’ll just drop you off.”
Ava’s eye roll was immediate. “Cole, do you really think that’s any better than you walking into the meeting with me?”
Better?Better wasn’t the word I’d use. It would be hard enough to drop her at the hospital entrance and hope like hell she didn’t ditch the meeting altogether. She’d lied to me so many times over the years, how was I suddenly supposed to feel okay letting her out of my sight?
Worrying about Ava and building my business had been my twin missions for eight years. Everything and everyone else had been shoved aside. It wasn’t like I could just turn off the worry now that she was out of rehab. I might never be able to turn it off.
And what would I do with myself if I could?
“Here,” she said, digging her phone out of her bag. She jabbed her thumbs against the screen for a few seconds. “There. I’ve shared my location with you. I’ll Uber to and from the meeting. You can track me the whole time if it makes you happy.”
I arched a brow at her. Ava had her own car — that I technically owned — but over the Family Visit weekend two weeks ago, I’d voiced my concerns about handing over her keys. “And you’re okay with that?” If so, it was a compromise I could live with. I’d stay at home and wait out her meeting, and afterward we could have dinner together at the house.
Ava hesitated, narrowing her eyes at me. “I am if you keep your plans with Ross.”
I was shaking my head before she even finished. “No. No. No.”
My sister huffed a breath in frustration. “Why not? You made plans. You obviously wanted to go out with him.”
“Yeah, but you’re here now. It’s your first night back. I should focus on that.”
Her shoulders drooped. “Cole, listen to me. I’m trying to do this right,” she said, her brow crimping in a grimace. “I’m only on Step 4, my moral inventory, and it’s enough to bring me to my knees. I know what my addiction has done to you. I tried to hide from it for a long time. Please don’t let me add one more ruined night to the list of wrongs I’ll have to atone for when I get to Step 8.”
I found myself blinking at her. This was Ava? Moral inventory? Atonement? The hope that had sparked in my chest burned a little brighter.
“Please.” Those were tears pooling now, turning her blue eyes liquid.
Ouch.
I’d always hated seeing her cry. Hated it.
Would it make any difference if I waited at home for her or went to the gallery and kept tabs on her by phone? I could come home right after she got back. There was no way I’d be going out with Ross and company as planned, but Ava was worth the gesture.
“Alright,” I said with a nod. “I’ll go.”
We made the short trip to the new house in near silence. But it wasn’t an awkward silence. My guess was Ava’s mind swam with thoughts just as mine did. Would she like the house? Would being back in Lafayette bring up too many awful memories? Should we have relocated somewhere else? Somewhere new?
I’d thought about other places. Places close enough for me to keep an eye on the New Orleans office. Baton Rouge. Houston. Even Austin where Louis now was. My hometown didn’t hold a host of warm memories for either of us. But when the time came to look for office space and a new house, I just couldn’t picture us anywhere else.
And the first night I’d spent in the new house — back in the 70506 zip code — I’d slept long and deep. And I’d dreamed the most potent, intoxicating dream. It was about the house Myrtle Place. Over the years, I’d dreamed of being there countless times. Nightmares. Always mounting the stairs in slow motion. Hearing my mother’s cries. Breaking the door down and finding horror behind it.
I’d always wake up sweating. Choking. Sick to my stomach.
But this was different. Instead of the dead of night, this dream opened at dawn. Not inside the house, but outside…
I walked all night through a forest. It was cool and green, and a blanket of fog swirled around my feet. The sun was just breaking through mist, and I made my way to a clearing to watch it. And the house, instead of being in the middle of town, sat there in a wide, open field.
There was no guesthouse. No pool. No patio. Just a stone path that led to the back porch. I saw it, and I knew there was nowhere else I wanted to be. I took off for it at a run.
And I’d awoken to my alarm with tears in my eyes.
When my head had cleared, I’d sensed there was more to the dream, but waking had snatched it away. Still, that whole day, I’d remember the feeling of walking into that clearing with a bittersweet ache in my chest. And I couldn’t shake the feeling that the dream was one I would never have had in New Orleans. It was only something sleeping in Lafayette could give me.
“I love it,” Ava said as we pulled into the driveway. Her words shook me from the spell of the dream’s memory, and I turned to find her wearing a soft smile. “It’s so homey.”
Compared to the three other places we’d lived in our lives, it was more than modest. At 2100 square feet, it was about the same size as the French Quarter apartment, but that was where the comparison stopped.
