Heart Like Mine: A Novel

“Ava, where are you?” I said, leaving a message on her cell phone. At three thirty, I’d pulled into my usual parking spot by the flagpole, but after ten minutes of waiting to see her familiar dark head and purple-checkered backpack come out of the school, she was nowhere to be found. “Call me right back, okay?” I shot her a quick text, too, suspecting she was more likely to check that than her voice mail.

I strode into the front office. “Excuse me,” I said to the same gray-haired secretary whom I spoke with the day Kelli died. “Did you happen to see Ava pass by on her way out?”

She raised her thin, penciled-on eyebrows. “I was just about to leave a message for Mr. Hansen,” she said, looking down at me over the top of her red-framed glasses. “Neither Ava nor Bree were in their classes after lunch.” She paused. “Again.”

Part of me wanted to wipe that judgmental scowl right off of her face, but I was too irritated with Ava to bother. I knew she was nervous about talking to her dad, but it hadn’t crossed my mind that she’d actually run away from doing it. I tried to drill into all of my clients the knowledge that most of the things we worry about never happen, that the stories we tell ourselves about how awful a particular moment in time might be are often much worse than what actually ends up happening. I should have said as much to Ava.

I waved at the secretary, then called Victor as I hurried back out of the building to my car. “Have you heard from Ava?” I asked him.

“No,” he said over the loud clang of pots and pans in the background. “Should I have? I thought you were picking her up.”

I sighed. “I thought so, too, but she and Bree skipped their afternoon classes. She’s not here and she’s not answering her phone.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“I wish I were,” I said.

“What about Max?”

I reminded him about the playdate at Logan’s, then told him I’d meet him at the house. Maybe Ava had simply gone home early. But when I arrived and ran inside to check her bedroom, it was empty. Her closet was open, and her black suitcase—the one I’d filled with her things from her mother’s house—was missing. “Damn it, Ava,” I muttered, then turned around and headed back down the hall. I checked the bathroom, the den, the living room, the kitchen, the garage . . . she wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere. My heart began to pound.

Victor showed up just as I was in the middle of sending Ava another text message. “Is she here?” he asked. He was still wearing his black chef’s jacket and had a smudge of some kind of red sauce on his face.

I shook my head. “I checked the whole house. Her suitcase is gone, honey.”

He dropped his arms to his sides. “What? Where do you think she went? Bree’s?”

I nodded, quickly calling her friend’s number. No answer there, either. I left another message and then hung up, frustrated, but also starting to feel scared. A thought struck me. “Maybe she went to Kelli’s?”

Victor nodded, his lips pressed together. His gray eyes were frantic. “Good idea. Let’s go.” He scratched out a quick note and left it on the entryway table, telling her to stay put and call us immediately if she came home.

In the car, I sent Ava yet another text message: “Honey, we’re so worried about you. Please, tell us where you are.” I was a little surprised by the intensity of my own feelings in that moment—the sharp sense of icy dread thudding through my body not knowing where she was, wondering if she was in danger. Is this how it feels to be a mother? Every cell of my body overwhelmed with fear that something terrible might have happened to her? I was terrified she wasn’t answering not because she wouldn’t, but because she couldn’t. That someone had grabbed her and thrown away her phone. My mind spun with a thousand atrocities that could happen to a pretty runaway girl. To Ava. Ava, who was vulnerable and hurting, who might be feeling desperate enough to get into a car with a stranger. I flashed on ugly visions of her lying on the side of the road, her body broken and bruised. Raped. The thought made me feel like I might vomit.

“Why the hell would she do this?” Victor asked. “What is going on with her?”

“I’m sure she was nervous about talking with you tonight,” I said. I’d told Victor that after her apology to me, Ava and I needed to talk with him about a few things. “She probably just wanted to go somewhere to think.”

“Think about what?” he asked. Taking a deep breath, I explained how I had taken Ava over to Kelli’s house for the recipe before Thanksgiving, and how we’d found the letter from the doctor Kelli had contacted.

“ ‘That’s it?” he asked when I’d finished talking. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I should have. But then you came home and told me about Spencer breaking his arm, and things just got so busy and we were both distracted. There was never a right time.” I paused and looked over to him. “I’m sorry. I should have said something right away.”

He bobbed his head and changed lanes, trying to edge his way around a blue Honda. While the distance between our house and Kelli’s wasn’t far, with all the traffic on California Avenue, it could take up to twenty minutes to get there. “Okay,” he said as he slowed to a stop at an intersection, “but there’s no way she took off because she was afraid of telling me that.” He honked at the cars in front of us, who were taking their time going through the light after it changed. “C’mon!” he yelled. “It’s not gonna get any greener!”

“There’s more,” I said, and then quickly detailed everything else Ava was going to tell him about lying to him, skipping class, and sneaking over to her mother’s house, trying to find out more about Kelli’s past. Considering the circumstances, I figured he needed to know and it didn’t matter that it was me who told him and not Ava. He shook his head as he listened, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles went white. I reached over and put my hand on top of his leg; the muscles were rigid under my touch. He didn’t say a word, but I could see the tendons working along his jawline as he clenched his teeth.

My stomach flipped over, at this point a little fearful of how he’d react to the rest of what I had done but knowing I needed to tell him everything. “So, after Ava and I found that letter from the doctor Kelli contacted, I did a little digging on my own. When I realized he was an OB, I suspected the reason the photo album went blank when she was fourteen was because she might have gotten pregnant. But I also suspected that maybe she’d given up the baby for adoption.”

“She didn’t,” Victor said slowly. “It died.”

What? I blinked a few times, the gears inside my head grinding to a stop as I processed the impact of his words. “Hold on. You knew she got pregnant?” I swung my gaze to meet his. “I specifically asked you what drove Kelli and her parents apart and you lied to me?”

He shot me a dubious look as he finally entered Kelli’s neighborhood. “And how is that different from you taking my daughter to her mother’s house and then keeping it from me?”

“It’s totally different,” I said. “You knew exactly what might have led Kelli to kill herself. I was terrified that she might have done it because of our engagement . . . that it was possible I’d somehow contributed to her death by simply being with you, and you deliberately lied to me. You never asked me outright if I’d taken Ava to her mom’s house.”

“Because I didn’t have a reason to!” He slammed on the brakes so he wouldn’t miss the turn onto the right street.

I jumped at the anger in his tone, still unaccustomed to Victor’s losing his temper with me. Seeing my reaction, he continued in a slightly calmer voice. “By your logic, lying by omission is not as bad as lying outright? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes!” I sighed then, realizing I was being a little ridiculous, considering he was right. I hadn’t been totally honest with him, either. “Look. We’re stressed out right now and I really don’t want to fight. I understand why you didn’t tell Ava, but me? That I don’t get.”

“I was just trying to honor Kelli’s wishes. I felt like it was the least I could do for her after she died. She was intensely private about the whole thing and I knew she wouldn’t want the death of her baby to be a subject of discussion.” He paused and threw me a sideways look as he pulled up in front of Kelli’s house. “And I didn’t know you thought our engagement might have had something to do with how she died. You never said anything.”

I took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. Again, he was right. And what mattered now was finding Ava, not what was happening between us. “I’m sorry,” I said as we got out of the car. He nodded and reached for my hand, and we raced up the steps.

Victor unlocked the front door. “Ava?” we both called out, walking through every room but coming up empty. The air was stagnant and cold and I shivered. She wasn’t there. Victor tried calling her again, but she didn’t pick up. I called Bree and sent Ava another text, but again got no reply from either of them. We locked the door and headed back to the car.

“It’s starting to rain,” Victor said once we were in our seats and he’d restarted the engine. “Damn it.” He pounded the dash with his fist. I reached over and laced my fingers through his. He squeezed my hand and the long look we gave each other said more than anything either of us could have articulated. He held my gaze for another moment before speaking again. “Where else could she be?”

“This might sound a little nuts, but do you think she’d try to get to California?” I asked. “To see her grandparents? She called them on Thanksgiving.” I paused, realizing I’d forgotten to tell him this.

“Jesus,” Victor said, pulling away from the curb. “Is there anything else I should know?”

I cleared my throat. “Well . . . possibly. I know you said Kelli’s baby died, but I checked the census database in Sonoma county, and it listed a Baby Reed born to Kelli Reed in 1994. The father was unknown.”

“Okay. And?” Victor glanced over at me, eyebrows raised, as he drove us out of Kelli’s neighborhood.

“So, if the baby had died, it would have been listed right next to the birth information. Like on a tombstone. But it wasn’t.”

Understanding blossomed across his face. “Are you saying . . . ?” He trailed off and blinked a couple of times. “That Kelli lied? That her baby is alive?”

I shook my head. “We don’t know that she lied. Maybe the baby was given up for adoption, and her parents didn’t want anyone to know so they made her say it didn’t survive? It’s clear they hid the pregnancy by sending her away.” I shrugged. “Talking with them is probably the only way to know for sure. If they’ll tell you.”

He looked over his left shoulder and pushed hard on the brakes before yanking the car back to the curb. “You drive. I’ll call them.”

We switched places, leaving the car running. “Where do you think we should go?” I asked. “The bus station? That’d be the cheapest way to travel, right? She could have asked Bree for money, which is probably why neither of them are answering their phones. They’re probably together.” I hoped this was right. I hoped she wasn’t stupid enough to try to hitchhike. Again, horrible images flashed through my mind and I blinked to try to erase them. Please, let her be okay.

I pulled back into traffic as he dialed Kelli’s parents. The rain was coming down fairly hard now, the drops pelting the car like a thousand tiny hammers. Thunder rumbled, and a moment later, a blaze of lightning followed. It was only a little past four thirty, but the charcoal clouds darkened the air around us.

“Ruth?” Victor said after he’d dialed Kelli’s parents. “It’s Victor.” He paused. “That’s right, Kelli’s husband.” He gave me an apologetic look, but I waved it away, knowing what he meant. “My daughter, Ava, the one who called you a few weeks ago? She’s missing.” He paused again and grabbed the door handle as I took an especially sharp corner. “Well, it does concern you, actually, because we think she’s on her way down there.”

He went on to explain that he knew about Kelli’s first daughter and that we suspected she hadn’t died. He listened for a moment or two as we crested the West Seattle Bridge and I made my way over to the First Avenue exit toward downtown. “No, Ruth. The baby didn’t die. I don’t know whether you told Kelli she had to lie or just made her believe that her daughter had died, but either way, that child is eighteen years old now, and we are going to find her, with or without your help.” He took a heaving breath, trying to keep his composure. “Now, here’s the deal. My daughter disappeared and I’m not one goddamned thing like you and your husband . . . I’m not happy she’s gone. She is only thirteen years old and she needs us. She’s confused and worried and scared and probably feels like her whole world has fallen in on her.” His tone escalated, louder with every word. “Her mother—your daughter—just died. Do you understand that? Do you have any feelings about that at all? When you didn’t come to the funeral, I figured it was for the best, so Max and Ava wouldn’t be exposed to the people who’d made their mother’s life so miserable. I gave you a pass, but now I realize that I shouldn’t have. I need you to tell me the truth, please. Tell me what happened to Kelli’s baby. You owe Ava that much. You owe it to your daughter!” He practically shouted this last sentence.

Victor listened a little longer, still breathing hard, and I reached over and rubbed the top of his thigh. He put his hand over mine just as we arrived at the bus station. I scanned the crowd on the sidewalk for Ava and Bree, but the sea of umbrellas and dark raincoats made it impossible to discern any faces.

A moment later, Victor hung up the phone. “What did she say?” I asked, turning off the engine.

“You were right,” Victor said. “Kelli’s daughter didn’t die, but her parents told her she did. They arranged a closed adoption through a private lawyer.”

“What?” I said with a small gasp. “How did they manage that without Kelli knowing?”

“She said something about Kelli signing papers and not realizing what they were. Everyone at the hospital just assumed she knew she was giving the baby up.”

“Oh my god, that’s awful. Poor Kelli. I wonder if she knew the truth.”

“I have no idea,” he said. He froze for a moment and looked at me with cavernous fear in his eyes. “What if Ava’s not here? What if we don’t find her?” His voice was stretched thin.

I reached out again and linked my fingers through his. “Then we’ll call the police. We’ll call the National Guard. We will find her, Victor.” He nodded again, desperate to believe me, and together, we made our way out into the cold, dark rain.