That message led him to discover that he had a teenage daughter and that she had passed away due to an extended illness.
“She sent me a box of things that belonged to my daughter,” Ryan said softly, “including photographs, birthday cards, drawings, and a scarf she created. Ava must have come across the box in my car because she thought I was hiding a different family from you.”
I closed my eyes for a moment because it all made sense now.
Ava thought that of course.
“That night in the garage when Ava came to me while you were asleep; I tried to explain everything to her, but as soon as she saw the photographs …” He shook his head. “She thought I was trying to replace her with my daughter.”
The pain shot through my heart like a knife.My boyfriend said “Ava begged me to not live with you.” She thought I was dangerous, she wasn’t scared because I was dangerous but she was scared.
At that moment, the truth struck home. Ava has the same lack of trust from her father as I have suffered from.
“Why would you delete that video?” I asked cautiously.
He looked ashamed when he responded, “Because it looked bad. I was in a garage with your angry 15 year old, at 12am, with nobody else there to help me.” He sighed deeply. “I lost my head.”
Then he changed his face.
“Ava also said she was thinking about going to stay with her dad.”
Wow, that caught my attention.
Ava’s dad lives three states away from here.
In all my panic, I never thought Ava would actually go to her father’s house.
“Let’s go. Now.” I grabbed my keys.
We drove through the night mostly in silence, until about 4am.
That’s when Ryan said, “You still don’t completely trust me.”
He didn’t really ask me.
“I’m trying to.” I told him.
He nodded his head silently.
When Donald opened the door and saw me, I could see all the air go out of him.
It looked just the same as I remembered it.
Clutter everywhere, a huge tv blaring, beer bottles piled high next to the sink.
Then I saw Ava sitting on the couch behind Donald.
The moment she saw me, she started sobbing uncontrollably.I crossed the room and held her as tight as I could while she was shaking and gasping for breath.
“Oh my God,” I said in a whisper. “Ava…”
“I’m so sorry!” she said while continuing to cry. “I am so sorry!”
For a few moments, all that mattered was that she was alive.
After a little while, I pulled back enough to look into her eyes.
“You scared me!”
Donald had walked into the kitchen and just shrugged his shoulders in a weird manner.
“She told me not to tell you.”
I couldn’t believe what he had just said.
“You let me suffer for a week?”
“She said you liked this new guy,” he mumbled.
That sounded just like Donald.
He always took the easy route.
Ava had dried her tears and then told me everything.
A couple of days before she vanished, she overheard Ryan on the phone saying he wanted a family again. Between that and the box with the missing footage, Ava totally convinced herself that Ryan was replacing her.
That broke my heart.
Ryan stepped forward and walked slowly into Ava’s sight.
“You didn’t let me tell you my side.”
After an extended moment of silence, Ava finally nodded.
That night, after returning home, Ryan laid everything from the box out on the table in the living room. While he did this, Ava silently looked at each of the items while Ryan told her who his daughter was.
At the end of all that, my daughter was crying without a sound.
Then she picked up one drawing, studied Ryan’s face very intently, and said,
“May I keep this one?”
“Yes, I think she would like that,” Ryan said, and then smiled softly.
At that moment, things started to shift for me.
Not because Ryan was “perfect”.
But because Ryan showed patience through every reason I gave him to do otherwise.
Yet months later after our “meet-up”, Ryan still hasn’t moved in.
It wasn’t because I didn’t want him to.
It was because Ryan thinks that trust in a family can’t be rushed.
And that means more to me than any promise could ever mean to me.
A little at a time, Ava stopped pushing away from Ryan.
