“Ava, Ava! Where are you?” Kade asked, sticking his head out the inched open door. His eyes rolled around frantically and his eyebrows were raised in quirky enthusiasm. His lips twitched and he slipped into the next room, in search of the strawberry blonde. “Ava, come on!” He jumped back out into the hallway and crept with his shoulders slouched forward, like a thief. “Ava!” he hissed once again, only this time he was standing right in the middle of the sitting room.

“I’ve got your favorite onesie!”

All of a sudden the shutters clattered and Kade heard her feet thumping across the hardwood floor. Those cute little feet scurrying all around the house, making their mark the way they should. “Ava!” The tiny creature charged towards him, her arms stretched out in front of her, as if grabbing at the air.

“Daddy!”

“Come to papa!” Kade said, now crouched down on the floor with his arms stretched out to his sides. Ava stumbled a bit, went floundering around in a circle and then regained her balance. She returned her focus back to her dad, flaunted her top row of baby teeth and started charging towards him again, eventually reaching the finish line and disappearing into his arms. “Gotcha!” he said, grabbing her shoulders and planting a kiss on her forehead.

“Where’s my one-zee?” Ava asked, wiggling her fingers around like brushes. “You didn’t, you didn’t bring my one-zee!”

“I did!” Kade said, shooting up and snatching it off the coat hanger behind the door. It was a unicorn onesie, made of fine fluff and perhaps just a little bit too big on the three-year-old. She clawed at the air as her dad lowered it into her hands and, when she finally got a hold of it, she ran away again.

“Come on, Ava! You’re just gonna hide again? You know I’m gonna find you!” he took off after her, chasing her around the whole house, bolting up the stairs and down the corridors, and then finally catching her before she hid behind the shutters. “That’s your favorite hiding place, huh?” he said, his pearly teeth flashing through his smile. “You have to come with me! Come on, time to brush your teeth before you go to bed.”

“But I don’t wanna brush my teeth!” Her voice faded into the background as Kade picked her up and headed for the bathroom. She wrapped her legs around his waist and mumbled in sheer toddler disapproval, but all he could think about was what he was going to do with her. She was the light of his life, that little seed of sunshine that was planted into his being three years and eighteen days ago, but he was alone in raising her and braiding her hair and packing her lunch and getting her into college. And he needed to know what he was going to do about that.

Kade never liked Livingston. It was a boring old town down South; it was where his mother lived and where she promised he would return one day. He never believed her when he was nineteen and packing up his bags to go “anywhere else but here”. He remembered the way his mother looked at him as he got ready to leave, nine years ago. They had always been close, perhaps a bit too close, because she couldn’t stand the idea of him leaving no matter what. She had raised him all by herself, but at one point she knew she needed to let him go. So he dragged his feet to Arizona, where he started a new life, one that ended with tragedy and bliss all at once.

“How do you feel about home, darlin’?” he asked, putting his daughter down by the sink. The top of her head barely reached the brim, and all she could do was look up at him in wonder.

“You’re so tall, Daddy!” she said, reaching her hands out to him. He squeezed some toothpaste onto her pink princess brush, wet the minty blob, turned the water back off and handed the brush back to her.

“Here you go,” he smiled. “Now, tell me. How do you feel about home?” Kade felt the frustration creeping in on him. His daughter didn’t have the answer to his nagging questions about home and she certainly didn’t understand them either.

“I like home!” she squealed, getting on her tiptoes and trying to grin at herself in the mirror. Kade bent down and picked her up again.

“Really? What do you like about it?” he asked her.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled, the toothpaste already frothing in her mouth. “The sky, it’s very blue. And the stars!”

“But there’s a sky everywhere in the world,” he told her.

“This sky is special, it’s an Arizonian sky!”

His heart broke a little because he knew that, soon enough, the two of them would be leaving on a one-way flight to Livingston. “Well, if we were to leave Arizona, how would you feel?”

“Sad.” She stopped brushing her teeth and looked at him, as if to ask if he was trying to tell her something

“Even if it’s just for a little while?” Kade felt terrible for lying but he promised himself that, if it came down to it, he had to do what he had to do. There was no way out of it, in fact the only way out was on a flight to the small southern town. Kade hadn’t seen his mom in almost a year, during which he was still trying to pull himself together, but when he realized that there was no escaping financial turmoil, he had no choice but to turn back to her. On a dry July night, he called her crying, telling her that he needed her, something he hadn’t done since he was a teenager.

“Come back home,” she told him. “Come back and bring Ava with you. Stay with me until you figure it out.”

At first he thought it was absurd. Why would a twenty-eight year old man move back in with his mother? And what was he going to do, eat all the food out of her fridge and watch TV all day? “Mom, I’m not going to move back in with you, I’m not eighteen anymore,” he told her, sounding more like a teenager than ever before.

“See, now you’re just being immature, Kade,” she replied; he could only see her shaking her head from side to side. “I know Sheldon can help you look for a job, and a good one at that.” Sheldon was their next-door neighbor; he had been for the past thirty or so years.

“What, Sheldon’s still alive?” was the first thing he said.

“And kicking,” she replied. “He can get you a job, don’t worry. Just bring Ava with you, and we’ll figure it out from there. Life will unfold, son and you’ll travel along with it. Just don’t be afraid to take chances. Ride that tide high, before you drown under it.”

At that moment Kade felt like he had just stepped into quicksand and he needed to make it out alive. The best way to do that was to start all over, even if that meant sleeping in a room full of band posters. Boy, did he love Guns N’ Roses.

“Well, the two of us are going on a little vacation,” he said, handing Ava the floss. “We’re going to Grandma’s!”

Ava folded her arms across her chest and raised her eyes to Kade. He saw it first on her face, then the tension of her muscles; the silent treatment was soon to follow. “Are we ever coming back?” she mumbled, her little head bobbing around as she paced the bathroom.

“I don’t know, baby girl,” her father said, squatting down on the floor and looking at her. “But I can promise you this: There’s a blue sky everywhere, and it’ll follow you wherever you go. It doesn’t matter where you are, here or in Livingston, and whenever you feel sad, just look up. You’ll find a nice blue sky smiling over you.”

* * *

Kade’s mother was a pretty emotional woman. When the two of them first arrived, she greeted them with tears and tight, almost suffocating, hugs followed by a tray of warm cookies and frantic chatter. But despite her high-pitched voice and crazy bird-nest hair, Kade had missed her more than anything. He had always admired her for raising him all by herself. When he was younger she would always brag about that to her neighbors, something he never really understood until he grew older and realized how difficult of a kid he was.

It wasn’t long before Mrs. Carlson started rambling about work. “You should thank me, you know,” she said, nudging her son with two fingers. Her nails were abnormally long, like a witch’s, but if Mrs. Carlson was a witch, then she was probably the kindest one out there. She had landed her son a job as District Attorney, and the truth was that he couldn’t be happier.

“Thanks, Mom,” he said, rolling his eyes. “But seriously, though. I really appreciate you doing this.” He was hunched over now, like a miserable bird. “It’s been ... it’s been rough.”

“I know it has been, honey,” she said, rubbing his shoulders. Kade winced as he felt his mother’s nails dig slightly into his flesh. “But it’s all going to be okay now,” she said with a sigh. Ever since his fiancée passed away in a car accident, Kade had practically morphed into a different person. He was quieter now, a duller version of himself, a foreign soul. For a while, even his own mother couldn’t recognize him. He had spiraled down the wormhole of depression, but waiting on the other side was Ava, budding slowly but surely like a flower, and soon enough, he recognized her. She was only one when her mother died and even though Kade knew she was his biggest hope; he couldn’t help but shove her aside while he grieved. Little did he know that she was grieving right alongside him, that she was just as traumatized even though, at the time, she had little idea what was going on.

“Ava keeps getting these night terrors,” he said, breaking the silence. Meanwhile she had gone off running in the yard, spinning around with her arms stretched out to her sides and chasing Mrs. Carlson’s dog.

“Are they about Scarlett?” she asked him, with her head cocked to the side. Her eyes narrowed in sympathy, she reached her hand out to him. “It’s alright, it’s all going to be over soon. Maybe this move is good for her, maybe it’s good for the two of you.”

“I’m worried about her,” he said. “I’m worried she’s not gonna make any friends.”

“That’s impossible, you know why? Because she’s a Carlson, and Carlsons are fucking social butterflies!”

Kade chuckled and crossed one leg over the other. He turned his head towards the window, and for a while, all he did was observe Ava. He blinked at her like she was the love of his life; all that she did and all that she said reminded him of Scarlett. He’d always thought that Scarlett had curious eyes, and when Ava was born, he thought the same about her. As she grew older she began to resemble her mother even more but what baffled Kade most were her eyes, wide and fascinated by the world, round in wonder.

“She’s never changed schools before, I don’t know how well she’ll handle it,” he said, following her with his eyes still. She was chasing something around, probably a butterfly, and then suddenly she threw her head back and giggled at the air. Kade thought that she was the purest thing he’d ever seen.

“You need to trust her, you know that.” Mrs. Carlson said, raising a crooked eyebrow at him. “You need to let her figure things out herself.”

“She’s only three, mom. She has no idea what the world is like.”

“I could say the same about you,” she told him.

Kade snickered and looked away. He could feel his mother’s eyes on him but it didn’t bother him this time. If anything he felt safe, shielded from the city and the rest of the world, tucked away in his own universe surrounded by green grass. Livingston was a tiny town, cut across by a long river that passed right in front of Mrs. Carlson’s house. Ava was lying in the grass now, her tiny body barely visible amongst the blades.

“Come on,” Mrs. Carlson said, rising to her feet. “Come with me, I want to show you something.”

He got up and followed his mother up the stairs. They creaked beneath him and then suddenly he was catapulted back to a different time, suddenly everything had a new meaning. The stench of the musky wood travelled up his nostrils; sparks flew all across his mind because he remembered everything all at once. Mrs. Carlson led the way down the corridor, and then stopped at the door of his old room.

“It’s a little pinker than it used to be, I hope you don’t mind,” she said, pushing the door open. Kade stood in the doorway with his eyes wide open. His room had fully transformed into a little princess fairytale.

“What, you did all of this?” he asked her, looking around.

“I sure did,” she replied, a glimmer in her eyes. “I thought you were too old for that boy band shit, anyway.”

Kade chuckled. “You’re making it sound like you did all of this for me.”

“I guess you can say that,” she smiled. “Ava’s a part of you, and the love I have for you always pours into her, so I’d do anything, for either one of you guys.”

Kade felt his heart melt. It was true that he hadn’t seen his mother in quite some time but that didn’t change anything. When he was seven his parents divorced and she was left alone to raise him. He didn’t remember much of his dad, just faint little glimpses of him standing by the stove making omelettes, but despite the insufficient information that he had, he couldn’t help but hate him. One day he just disappeared, and it had only been Kade and his mother ever since. “I appreciate you, Mom,” he said after a long pause, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her close. Then he walked to the window to watch his girl, who was playing in the yard, still. “Think she’s gonna make new friends?”

“Kade, you need to stop worrying about her. She’s gonna get along just fine.”

* * *

“Daddy, daddy!”

Kade’s eyes flew open.

“Ava?” He threw his legs off the side of the bed and stumbled out into the hallway, looking left and right, disoriented by interrupted slumber, and then made his way to Ava’s room. A little blue light seeped in through the window; he recognized it as the light of dawn. He pushed Ava’s door open and stepped inside, only to find her crouched at the foot of her bed, hugging her knees to her chest. “Hey, darlin’,” he said, walking slowly to her. The room was swimming in and out of focus, like a lucid dream. The sound of Ava’s sobbing rang in his ears, so he brought her head to his chest and rocked her gently. “Was it a bad dream?”

“Mmhm,” she mumbled quietly, her little nose poking into his forearm. He brushed his fingers into her hair and stroked it gently, listening to the sound of her breathing.

“What was it about?”

“I don’t know,” she said, her body shivering a little, as if struck by a memory. Kade held her a bit tighter, continuing to stroke her hair with the back of his hand until she sunk back into sleep. Ava was far too young when her mother died, and even though her dad did his best to shield her from tragedy, it still manifested itself into her dreams, reaching out to her like wicked brushes sprouting from within. She had been getting those night terrors for two years now, but she never really talked about them, never told Kade what they were about. One day he asked her to draw them and left the room and when he came back, all he saw were drawings of cars and what appeared to be a hospital, that was when he knew.

“Is everything alright?” Mrs. Carlson whispered, appearing in the doorway.

Kade looked up at her through heavy-lidded eyes. Ava had fallen asleep on his lap, her chest slowly rising and falling in rhythm with her breath. “She had another nightmare.”

“Oh, poor baby,” the old woman said, shuffling her feet across the room and sitting down next to her son. “It’s all gonna be alright.” The three of them sat on the bed, immersed in the silence of dawn. Little by little, the sun came up but Kade didn’t move. He just sat there like a statue, constantly stroking his daughter’s hair and letting out intermittent sighs. Nothing made sense, or perhaps it made perfect sense, he just didn’t want to see it.

Mrs. Carlson retreated to her room while Kade collapsed on his daughter’s bed, like a balloon slowly deflating and falling to its side. He was inconsolable, but he hoped that this change of scenery would fix things. Ava was the love of his life and he knew he would do anything to make her at ease.

It wasn’t long before the birds started chirping and Kade got up again to check out the view. The lake basked in the morning sun, shining like impeccable silver, and the sky was a gorgeous blue. At that point he just wanted Ava to wake up so she could see it, so she could revel in her new life with him.