Ava and John
To Ava’s horror, the officious nurse had cited hospital policy and insisted on a wheelchair to transfer her into the garden while they waited for the discharge paperwork.
‘I told that woman what you told me at Ivy-May that first day. Something along the lines of you not being feeble in mind or body.’
‘You remember me saying that?’
‘My general recall isn’t too bad, Ava, and if you asked Katie she’d tell you any memory failure these days is selective.’ John stopped the wheelchair in the shade of a massive poinciana tree and brushed the dropped foliage from the wrought-iron seat before he sat down. ‘What I don’t understand is why you’d come all the way out to see me and not tell me who you were and the real reason for the visit.’
‘I didn’t know the real reason, John.’
‘It wasn’t for a portrait. I worked that out for myself. And just as well because that’s the worst bloody piece I’ve ever painted. Although I did warn you portraits aren’t my thing.’
‘Yes, you did, and you’re right, my visit wasn’t about the portrait. Being retired prematurely and having too much time on one’s hands does things to a person. Boredom was turning me old before my time. I still can’t tell you why I felt compelled to see you, or why I wasn’t upfront from day one about having worked at Ivy-May. I can only guess I was afraid.’
‘Ava Marchette afraid? That’s not how the couple of online articles I came across read. Yes, I checked you out, too. Unstoppable came up numerous times in one piece.’
‘Hmm, yes, I remember that particular interview and it was a very long time ago. I’m not the young romantic I used to be, my health is not the best, as you can tell from my surroundings, and I have to be honest, John…’
‘I want you to be, Ava. My ex-wife is not being so accommodating.’
‘You’ve talked to Katie?’
‘Talked?’ John’s eyebrows lifted. ‘I wouldn’t describe our last interaction as talking. She arrived as Nina was reading your son’s text message. After she left I gave Katie ample opportunity to discredit what Nina had told me. Her silence conveyed all I needed to know. Then she stormed home to be another man’s problem, which is fine by me because I’ve got Blair’s questions to answer. He’s my priority, always has been. But I would’ve liked you in my life, Ava, I know that much.’
‘You’ve been through more than most, John, and I so wish Fate had dealt us a different hand, but we weren’t meant to be. I knew that the minute I held my babies. I also knew when you opened the door to me last month. But the one thing that hadn’t changed was your expression. The lack of recognition was the same. The only difference is, we’re both older.’
‘Speak for yourself.’
John’s infectious grin had her smiling with him. ‘I’m glad you’re well, John.’
‘And I’m sad you’re not, Ava, but as Mum used to say, “You’re alive until you’re dead.”’
‘All of a sudden that age difference your mother was so worried about has new meaning now my heart is seven years older than yours, not to mention a little worse for wear.’
John scoffed. ‘The heart is nothing more than a circulatory muscle, which starts the day we’re born and keeps going non-stop until the day we die. Admittedly some are less reliable than others, but what matters more is the mind and the memories it holds. That’s the most treasured part of a person, not their heart. And you’re not the only victim of circumstance. My brain snapped one night in a hotel room, the details of which came from my mother and my wife. Your daughter told a very different story and last night Katie admitted to the lie.’
‘Nina was wrong to do that. It wasn’t her secret to tell.’
‘Until Nina, no one else was telling it, not even you, Ava, and more than anything I want to remember those details for myself. You can help, and before you reject me and use your condition as a reason, I know your heart’s going to kill you one day. For all I know another aneurysm might burst in my brain and maybe next time I won’t be so lucky. For now, though, let’s both live. Let your heart love for as long as you can, say what needs to be said, and help me recall those lost years so, at the very least, I can go on remembering you when you’re no longer here.’
‘Is there anything left to tell you that my daughter hasn’t?’
‘Don’t be mad. Nina’s done this out of love. What she’s told me is already making sense.’
‘She won’t have told you everything, John.’
‘I know, Ava, but you can.’
‘Telling a secret can be dangerous. You get the truth, but it’s often not what you really want.’ Ava looked down at her hands for a while, then stared hard at John’s face. ‘Katie, or your mother, should have told you everything years ago.’
‘And I’ll be asking my ex-wife more soon enough. First I need you to tell me the real truth. I can’t trust Katie to do that.’
‘What I said before about some secrets not being Nina’s to tell, they’re not mine to tell either, John. They’re Katie’s, and she’s worried about what my presence might mean.’
‘It means stripping back the portrait of my life that until now has been a very convincing forgery. On the surface the colours and shapes might be the same, but I need to see the original. I need to know what’s underneath. The other is just a lie.’
‘I’ll help you, John, but there are some details that only Katie can tell. And don’t be too hard on her when she does. Your father and your mother manipulated a confused young woman when she was at her most vulnerable. Although I see she’s changed.’
‘You’ve seen Katie?’
‘She came to my house in Noosa.’
‘Oh, yes, the conference. She dropped by Ivy-May on her way to the airport. Nina was there at the time and I’ll admit what I witnessed confused me. The always-in-control Katie seemed unusually flustered. Even more so when she returned from the conference. Now I know why.’
‘It’s Katie you need to be talking to about this.’
‘I’m not sure my ex-wife and I ever truly talked the truth throughout twenty years of marriage, most of them challenging. Mum didn’t help.’ His head shook. ‘Poor old Marjorie… By the end, she and Katie weren’t talking either.’
‘Decades of deception can do that, John. But if it helps, I believe Katie wanted to tell you and Marjorie stopped her.’
‘Mum’s been dead a long time. Katie’s had ample opportunity.’
‘Yes, but a lie has a point of no return, which means what follows every untruth is a small window of opportunity to come clean and beg for forgiveness. If a person chooses to not tell, or can’t, that window closes and they have to deal with a lifetime of lies to make sure that secret stays a secret. Katie was young. She missed her opportunity. If she chooses to tell you after all this time she’ll need to know you’ll forgive her, no matter what. Maybe you’ll even need to forgive me.’
‘Why you?’
‘John, I’m a long way from the twenty-seven-year-old girl you fell in love with. She isn’t who I am now. I’m different.’
‘Ava, even when Mum and Katie had Ivy-May operating at one hundred per cent occupancy, and we had wall-to-wall people, many of them regulars who came back year after year, they were all still strangers to me. When you arrived on my doorstep, I felt I knew you.’ John took Ava’s hands in his. ‘I’m not falling in love with a memory, Ava, I’m falling in love with you, with the woman who refused to take no for an answer, who reignited my love of something other than myself and my art, and whose commitment to her family has made me see missed opportunities with my own son.’
‘Your son, yes, we have to consider all the children in all this.’
‘They’re hardly children, Ava, and I’ve never needed my son’s permission to hook up with a lady.’ John grinned.
‘Is it not obvious that your son and my daughter are rather keen on each other?’
‘And you see a problem with that?’
‘What happens if Blair and Nina don’t work?’ she asked.
‘Do you want them to?’ John sat back, crossed his arms and his ankles. ‘Look, Ava, if you’re thinking this you-and-me-and-your-daughter-and-my-son thing is all a bit weird, would it help to know Blair’s not my biological son.’
His smile surprised Ava. ‘You knew?’
‘The poor bloke’s adopted some of my quirks and certain characteristics. That can happen when a child spends their formative years with the same person. We were inseparable. Still are. But I’ve always known, although not who his father is. And I used to worry about that. I had my suspicions and the idea drove me a little crazy for a while. Then I decided I didn’t want to know, so I chose to forget. Blair is my son in every way that’s important. And, yes, he’s clearly falling for your daughter, which only reinforces the fact that he also inherited my discerning taste in women. Like Nina inherited her fear of commitment from you, perhaps.’
Ava balked. ‘I do not have a fear of commitment! That’s an assumption people seem to make. Yes, even my daughter.’
‘Then why did you never marry?’
‘I told you at dinner, John. I never loved a man the way I love you.’
‘Love?’ He sat straight up, eyed her. ‘Did you just say you love me, Ava Marchette?’ He took her hands again. ‘Let’s quit with all the obstacles. Nothing mattered before – not our ages, not me being content in the country and you a city girl with dreams of travelling the world. Why should anything else matter? Surely at our age we’ve earned the right to be selfish. I can remember you and even love you, because it’s all in here somewhere.’ He put one hand over his heart. ‘I feel like a boy asking his girl to marry him, Ava. I’ve never known that feeling before now. You have to come back to Ivy-May. Stay with me and let’s see what happens. Maybe you’ll try this on for size.’ John pulled the pearl ring from his pocket. ‘It was always meant for you, I’m told. Of course, which hand you want it on is up to you.’
‘My daughter would have a field day with that!’