The afternoon Ava visited, I was more nervous than I wanted anyone to know.<\/p>\n
I had spent the morning working with tools.<\/p>\n
That usually helped.<\/p>\n
There was something comfortable about a job where a problem could be seen, tested, and eventually fixed.<\/p>\n
But every time I heard a vehicle outside, I looked toward the entrance.<\/p>\n
I knew Mrs. Hanley was bringing Ava.<\/p>\n
A caseworker would be there as well.<\/p>\n
Everything had been arranged properly.<\/p>\n
Still, I felt like a man waiting for a judgment he didn't know how to prepare for.<\/p>\n
When Ava arrived, she looked around with open curiosity.<\/p>\n
I had expected her to be uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
Maybe even frightened.<\/p>\n
The place was full of heavy equipment and motorcycles.<\/p>\n
To a child who didn't know it, I supposed it might seem intimidating.<\/p>\n
But she didn't shrink away.<\/p>\n
She wanted to see things.<\/p>\n
I greeted Mrs. Hanley and the caseworker first.<\/p>\n
Then I turned to Ava.<\/p>\n
"Would you like to look around?"<\/p>\n
She nodded.<\/p>\n
"Can you show me the motorcycles?"<\/p>\n
"Sure."<\/p>\n
That was how we started.<\/p>\n
No big speech.<\/p>\n
No awkward discussion about what we might be to each other.<\/p>\n
Just a walk through my workplace.<\/p>\n
I showed her the parts counter.<\/p>\n
She stopped to examine the little drawers behind it.<\/p>\n
Each one had a label.<\/p>\n
Small parts belonged in small places, and the labels kept us from wasting half a day looking for things.<\/p>\n
Ava traced the edge of one drawer with her finger.<\/p>\n
"Are all these full?"<\/p>\n
"Most of them."<\/p>\n
"How do you remember what's inside?"<\/p>\n
"I don't have to remember every part. That's why I put names on things."<\/p>\n
She gave me a look.<\/p>\n
I realized she had expected a more impressive answer.<\/p>\n
I almost laughed.<\/p>\n
Then we went over to the lift.<\/p>\n
I explained how it raised a motorcycle so we could work underneath without bending over all day.<\/p>\n
She studied it carefully.<\/p>\n
"Does it lift the whole thing?"<\/p>\n
"It does."<\/p>\n
"Even a really heavy one?"<\/p>\n
"That's what it's made for."<\/p>\n
She took another look.<\/p>\n
I could see the questions building in her head.<\/p>\n
It made me happy.<\/p>\n
That surprised me.<\/p>\n
I had never thought of my work as something a child might find interesting.<\/p>\n
To me, it was just what I did.<\/p>\n
Ava made it seem new again.<\/p>\n
When we reached the old training motorcycle, she stopped walking.<\/p>\n
The fuel tank was red.<\/p>\n
That was the first thing she noticed.<\/p>\n
"Is this one yours?"<\/p>\n
"It's one we use for learning and practice."<\/p>\n
"Did you make it?"<\/p>\n
"No. I work on motorcycles, but that doesn't mean I made them."<\/p>\n
She looked across the shop.<\/p>\n
"Did you make any of them?"<\/p>\n
"I mostly repair them."<\/p>\n
She thought that over.<\/p>\n
I could almost see her trying to decide whether repairing something was as impressive as building it.<\/p>\n
Then she asked a question I wasn't ready for.<\/p>\n
"If you can fix something, do you have to know how it got damaged?"<\/p>\n
I looked at her.<\/p>\n
She wasn't joking.<\/p>\n
She genuinely wanted to understand.<\/p>\n
"Not always," I said.<\/p>\n
She waited.<\/p>\n
I could have stopped there.<\/p>\n
But the question deserved more than that.<\/p>\n
"Sometimes I have to look for the problem before I know what happened. Other times, I can see exactly where things went wrong."<\/p>\n
She nodded slowly.<\/p>\n
I kept looking at the red tank.<\/p>\n
For a moment, we weren't talking about motorcycles anymore.<\/p>\n
At least, I wasn't.<\/p>\n
I thought about Mara.<\/p>\n
About years without answers.<\/p>\n
About a daughter I might have had and never known.<\/p>\n
There was damage I could see plainly now.<\/p>\n
But I still didn't know what had caused all of it.<\/p>\n
Ava moved toward the drawers again.<\/p>\n
"Mom knows how to fix bicycle chains."<\/p>\n
I turned toward her.<\/p>\n
"She does?"<\/p>\n
"Yeah. She only needs a wrench."<\/p>\n
That made sense.<\/p>\n
It sounded exactly like Mara.<\/p>\n
Ava continued.<\/p>\n
"She says a lot of things when it doesn't work, though."<\/p>\n
Mrs. Hanley raised her eyebrows.<\/p>\n
Ava smiled a little.<\/p>\n
"Things I'm not supposed to repeat."<\/p>\n
I couldn't help it.<\/p>\n
I laughed.<\/p>\n
Not a polite laugh.<\/p>\n
Not the kind I used when somebody told a bad joke.<\/p>\n
I laughed because I could picture Mara doing exactly that.<\/p>\n
Standing beside a bicycle.<\/p>\n
Wrench in her hand.<\/p>\n
Refusing to let a stubborn chain win.<\/p>\n
For a few seconds, the fear around her disappearance loosened.<\/p>\n
It was the first time since the diner that laughing hadn't made me feel as though I was doing something wrong.<\/p>\n
Then I noticed Ava watching me.<\/p>\n
"She did that before?" she asked.<\/p>\n
"Your mom has always been good at fixing things."<\/p>\n
Ava seemed pleased.<\/p>\n
As if I had confirmed something important.<\/p>\n
Maybe I had.<\/p>\n
Children deserved to hear good things about their parents.<\/p>\n
Especially when one of those parents was missing.<\/p>\n
We stayed in the shop a little longer.<\/p>\n
Ava asked how long repairs usually took.<\/p>\n
I told her it depended on what was broken.<\/p>\n
She wanted to know whether people got angry when their motorcycles didn't work.<\/p>\n
"Sometimes."<\/p>\n
"Do they blame you?"<\/p>\n
"Sometimes they do that, too."<\/p>\n
"Even when you didn't break it?"<\/p>\n
"Especially then."<\/p>\n
She considered that answer.<\/p>\n
"That's not fair."<\/p>\n
"No, it isn't."<\/p>\n
I liked how certain she sounded.<\/p>\n
She hadn't learned to make excuses for every unfair thing yet.<\/p>\n
I hoped she never did.<\/p>\n
After we finished looking around, we found a quieter place to talk.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Hanley and the caseworker were still nearby.<\/p>\n
Nobody made the afternoon feel like a test, even though I knew they were paying attention.<\/p>\n
Ava told me a little about school.<\/p>\n
I asked what she liked reading.<\/p>\n
She had opinions.<\/p>\n
Strong ones.<\/p>\n
I listened and tried not to act surprised by how much she had to say.<\/p>\n
Eventually, she mentioned a telescope.<\/p>\n
It was a small one she had bought secondhand at a yard sale.<\/p>\n
She talked about it as if it were the finest piece of equipment in the world.<\/p>\n
"You can really see things with it?"<\/p>\n
"Some things."<\/p>\n
"What do you look for?"<\/p>\n
"Stars, mostly."<\/p>\n
"Do you want to learn more about them?"<\/p>\n
She nodded.<\/p>\n
"I want to study astronomy."<\/p>\n
I hadn't expected that.<\/p>\n
At eleven, I had been mostly interested in anything that had wheels.<\/p>\n
I couldn't remember spending much time looking at the sky.<\/p>\n
"Why astronomy?"<\/p>\n
She looked down for a moment.<\/p>\n
Then she said something that stayed with me.<\/p>\n
"Stars don't tell you stuff that turns out to be wrong."<\/p>\n
I didn't answer right away.<\/p>\n
I could hear what was underneath those words.<\/p>\n
Ava was a child who had discovered that adults didn't always tell her everything.<\/p>\n
Sometimes they couldn't.<\/p>\n
Sometimes they wouldn't.<\/p>\n
And sometimes they made promises without knowing whether they could keep them.<\/p>\n
I wondered how many disappointments had brought her to that conclusion.<\/p>\n
I didn't ask.<\/p>\n
Not then.<\/p>\n
I just said, "I guess the sky gives you something steady to study."<\/p>\n
She nodded.<\/p>\n
That seemed to satisfy her.<\/p>\n
A little later, I remembered a photograph I had kept.<\/p>\n
It showed Mara and me at a county fair.<\/p>\n
I hadn't looked at it much in recent years.<\/p>\n
Keeping it had been easier than deciding what to do with it.<\/p>\n
I got it and brought it over.<\/p>\n
"There's something I'd like to show you."<\/p>\n
Ava leaned closer.<\/p>\n
I placed the photograph where she could see it.<\/p>\n
For a moment, she didn't speak.<\/p>\n
She studied Mara's face.<\/p>\n
Then mine.<\/p>\n
Then Mara's again.<\/p>\n
I didn't tell her what to think.<\/p>\n
I didn't explain what our relationship had been.<\/p>\n
I just waited.<\/p>\n
"Mom looks really happy here," she said.<\/p>\n
"She was."<\/p>\n
The answer came out before I thought about it.<\/p>\n
Then I heard myself.<\/p>\n
Was.<\/p>\n
Past tense.<\/p>\n
As if her happiness belonged to a life that had already ended.<\/p>\n
I felt ashamed of that.<\/p>\n
Mara was missing.<\/p>\n
She had not been declared dead.<\/p>\n
We were still looking for her.<\/p>\n
I had no right to speak as if I knew the ending.<\/p>\n
Ava kept looking at the photograph.<\/p>\n
"Did you have fun?"<\/p>\n
"Yeah. We did."<\/p>\n
"What was the fair like?"<\/p>\n
I told her a little about it.<\/p>\n
Nothing dramatic.<\/p>\n
Just the sort of ordinary afternoon people rarely understand will become important to them later.<\/p>\n
A photograph.<\/p>\n
A day together.<\/p>\n
Two people smiling because there hadn't been a reason not to.<\/p>\n
Ava listened.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether she was trying to understand what Mara and I had meant to each other.<\/p>\n
Maybe she was.<\/p>\n
Maybe she only wanted to hear about her mother having a good day.<\/p>\n
Either way, I was glad I had shown it to her.<\/p>\n
When she finally handed the photograph back, she was careful with it.<\/p>\n
I put it away.<\/p>\n
I didn't want her to think the past mattered more to me than the person sitting in front of me.<\/p>\n
But I was grateful she'd seen it.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Hanley spoke with the caseworker as the visit went on.<\/p>\n
I tried not to watch them too closely.<\/p>\n
It was their responsibility to make sure Ava was safe and comfortable.<\/p>\n
I respected that.<\/p>\n
I also knew they were learning something about me.<\/p>\n
Whether I listened.<\/p>\n
Whether I got impatient.<\/p>\n
Whether I treated Ava like a person or like an answer to my own questions.<\/p>\n
That was fair.<\/p>\n
If I was going to be part of her life, there were things I needed to prove.<\/p>\n
Not with speeches.<\/p>\n
With time.<\/p>\n
At the end of the afternoon, Ava looked around the shop once more.<\/p>\n
Her eyes returned to the red motorcycle.<\/p>\n
"Could you teach me how that works someday?"<\/p>\n
I felt my throat tighten.<\/p>\n
It was such a simple question.<\/p>\n
Someday.<\/p>\n
A word that assumed we might have more afternoons together.<\/p>\n
"I'd like that," I told her.<\/p>\n
She smiled.<\/p>\n
And I realized I had spent most of the visit forgetting to be nervous.<\/p>\n
After they left, the shop seemed unusually quiet.<\/p>\n
I went back to the training bike and looked at the red tank.<\/p>\n
I had shown Ava tools, parts, and machines.<\/p>\n
She had shown me something harder.<\/p>\n
There was still room in my life for someone new.<\/p>\n
Someone I had not expected.<\/p>\n
And the next step wasn't mine to decide alone.<\/p>\n
There would be a formal test to determine whether Ava was my biological daughter.<\/p>\n
No guesses.<\/p>\n
No conclusions drawn from memories or familiar expressions.<\/p>\n
A proper answer.<\/p>\n
For the first time, I was ready to hear it.<\/p>\n
The afternoon Ava visited, I was more nervous than I wanted anyone to know. I had spent the morning working with tools. That usually helped. There was something comfortable about … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feel-every-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18404,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18392\/revisions\/18404"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/feeleverystory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}