“OH MY GIRL, ”AVA SAID, PULLING HER DAUGHTER INTO A TIGHT hug as she came through the doors into baggage claim. Sienna had lost weight, but Ava didn’t want to comment on it—at least not yet. Her makeup was hiding dark circles, a surefire sign of stress and exhaustion.
“Hi, Mom.” Sienna hugged her, squeezing tighter than she had in a long while. This wasn’t her independent, confident daughter. Now that Ava could see for herself, her heart raced with concern.
“Let’s get you home,” she said, weaving her arm around Sienna’s waist. Her daughter slumped into silence as they waited for her luggage.
“Did your flight go all right?”
“Yep.”
“Are you feeling okay?”
“A little tired. But I’m excited to be here.”
Ava didn’t see any excitement in her daughter.
“Maybe you can take a nap before the game.”
“In my old room.” She smiled then. “That sounds really good about now.”
“It seems like I haven’t seen you in forever.” It had been since their wedding shopping weekend in New York in August. Sienna couldn’t find a dress. Every store they visited looked at them hungrily at first—they could spot people with expensive taste the second they walked in the door. But within fifteen minutes, the salespeople also identified a difficult client. Sienna had no vision for what her dress should look like. She offered no direction whatsoever.
“I’ll know it when I see it,” she’d stated much to everyone’s chagrin. That shopping trip, as well as the one in Dallas, all the online research, and way too many hours watching wedding shows on TLC had yet to provide Sienna with any sense of “knowing it.” They were planning another trip to LA after the holidays, though Ava was toying with a surprise trip to London and Paris as a Christmas gift to her daughter. Dane had loved the idea, though Ava wondered if it crossed the line of extravagance and indulgence and other such “ance” words that she herself had never known as a child.
Sienna had been a little girl with big wedding dreams. She’d created an elaborate wedding plan when she was thirteen and going to marry Orlando Bloom in a castle in Scotland.
The wedding was eight months away, and the wedding planner kept reminding them that they were now a month behind the schedule she’d given them. Sienna hadn’t tackled the list of questions Ava e-mailed her, but Ava knew her daughter was busy with her classes.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Ava asked as they reached the car. The interior was hot with Indian summer popping them back into eighty-degree temperatures. Ava opened the trunk and helped Sienna slide her lone overnight bag inside. When had her daughter gone anywhere without a suitcase and carry bag?
“What do you mean?” She sat in the passenger seat and bit on the edge of her nails as Ava hopped behind the wheel and turned the key.
“Do you”—she turned to Sienna—“want to talk?”
“Talk about what?” Sienna stared out the front window as if enthralled by the parking garage. She turned to look at Ava with an innocent expression, then bit again at her nails.
“What is this surprise visit really about?”
“I miss my family.” Sienna shrugged.
“It took you three years of college to finally miss us, huh?”
Sienna laughed. “I’ve missed you before now. But it just seems like more lately. I even miss Texas.”
Ava’s mouth dropped in exaggerated surprise. “This from the girl who couldn’t wait to get out of her hick state?”
“I’m getting nostalgic in my old age.”
“Don’t get too old, that means I’m much older.”
“Where’s Daddy?” Sienna said, in a voice that conveyed a trace of disappointment.
“He said he sent you a text.”
“He did, but I hoped he’d still surprise me.”
Ava rubbed her daughter’s arm. “I’m sorry, sweetie. He’s at work. Emergency board meeting or something. That’s all he does lately.”
“He’s pretty worried about the company.”
Ava glanced at her daughter as she drove. “I know, but he makes it sound like everything is all right.”
Sienna looked at her. “He doesn’t want to worry you.”
They all said that. Ava didn’t think she was an especially worrisome person. She prayed instead of worrying. Well, mostly.
Ava paid for their parking, thanking the attendant before driving away.
“What’s for dinner?” Sienna said, settling into her seat and looking more relaxed.
“You’ll like it, but from the looks of you, I need to make a few more courses.”
Sienna groaned. “I was waiting for that one.”
“Just wait until you’re a mother.” Ava wondered if that came a little too close to the feared subject—marriage, future babies, Preston.
“I’ve lost some weight, it’s true.”
“Why?”
“I don’t have my mother’s cooking in California.”
“Why else?”
Sienna was texting now, further distracted as she frowned at the phone.
“What about you, Mom? What are you going to do with all your freedom in another few years?”
“That’s a change of subject.”
“A good one,” Sienna said with a sly grin. “But seriously, you’re not far from an empty nest.”
Ava had already planned her five- and ten-year goals at the beginning of the year. She could nearly recite them from memory.
“As a matter of fact, once Jason is in college, I’m going to devote more time to the ministry I’ve been doing since you left. I’d like to learn how to garden a little more. I want to go on a short-term mission trip, as long as it has water and showers. And eventually I look forward to being a grandmother.”
“Sounds pretty neat and tidy.” Ava frowned as Sienna continued. “You’ve told me my entire life that whenever something is too neat and tidy that . . .”
“God has a way of shaking it up,” they said in unison.
Sienna laughed, but Ava felt a flash of nausea sweep through her stomach. She believed this truth, had seen it again and again. But she’d worked hard to reach this place in life and having it shaken up did not appeal to her.
“I’ve been known to be wrong,” Ava said with a shrug.
Jason raced down the stairs when they arrived.
“It’s about time!” he said, sweeping his sister into a bear hug that lifted her off the ground. “Did you lose weight or am I growing?”
“Both, but really, who are you and what happened to my scrawny kid brother?” Sienna stepped back and looked Jason up and down. He towered over her by a foot now.
“You can marvel at my awesomeness later. I can’t stick around, but I thought you were going to miss my entire season. Crazy Californian, you’ve forgotten what it means to be a football fan.”
“Oh hush,” Sienna said, socking him in the arm. “I gotta make a call—be right back.”
“Mom, I can’t find my socks.” A look of panic spread over Jason’s face.
“On the dryer,” Ava said, setting her bag and keys in the cubby above her desk.
“My game socks.”
“On the dryer.”
He started to rush down the hall, but came to a sudden stop. “Did you wash them?”
“They need washing,” Ava said nonchalantly.
He stared at her as if she’d committed an unpardonable sin.
“Mom, please. Do not tell me that you washed my lucky game socks.”
“Is it a new tactic to defeat the opposing team by the stench of your feet? Because that seems unsportsmanlike to me.”
“Some guys don’t change their underwear. Be grateful. But you didn’t wash them. Right? Come on, Mom.”
Ava smiled. “Of course I didn’t wash them.”
“Whew. That really freaked me out.”
“It’s killing me not to, and be careful. You might knock off a few of your teammates with that smell.”
“Maybe I should lose a shoe on the field and blow away the entire defensive line?”
“Those socks could do it.”
Jason raced down the hall and returned a moment later sliding across the floor in his socks. “What movie has Tom Cruise doing this in his underwear?”
“Easy one,” Sienna said with a mock yawn, returning from the backyard with the phone in her hand. “Risky Business.”
Ava frowned at his dingy, stained socks. “Get your shoes on or take those off, you’re rubbing toe jam all over my clean floors.”
Jason made a long skid right up toward her, grabbing her arms as Ava let out a scream. He laughed and kissed her cheek.
“Bratty kid,” she said, tossing a dishtowel at him and missing by a mile.
“See you at the game!” he yelled as he grabbed up his large sports bag in the hall shelf and slung it over his shoulder. “Glad my sis finally made it!”
“Did you get something to eat?” Ava said, then saw the plate in the sink.
“Four eggs and a bagel. I’m ready for the game. See you guys there!” he yelled as the front door closed.
“How did you know Daddy was the right one for you?”
Sienna sat cross-legged in a living room chair. With her daughter home, Ava felt a sense of rightness where she hadn’t realized anything was wrong. She wished she could turn time back to nights of story reading, footed pajamas, and the excitement of Christmas morning. In the passing of years, there was no holding on to such moments, and the fact that they were forever gone had not found peace within her.
Ava picked up a folded blanket from the large basket between the couches and draped it across Sienna’s lap despite the warmth of the afternoon.
“You used to ask about your dad and me all the time when you were little. Don’t you remember the story of how we met?”
Sienna nodded, but the usual sparkle in her eyes seemed dulled with more weariness and a lack of wonder.
“You were at a beach bonfire when you heard a guy talking with a Texas accent. He was visiting California for the first time, but after you met, he dumped his friends to hang out with you.
You avoided him as much as you could. Daddy says when he saw you across the fire, he just knew. It was love at first sight for him.”
“He was from a wealthy family, and I wasn’t. I wasn’t planning to ever return to Texas.”
“Because of your bad childhood.”
Ava nodded. It sounded strange hearing her daughter say that. Her children didn’t fully know what bad childhood meant.
“But there was something special there, like he was my home—my real home.” Ava smiled and sighed deeply.
“Is that how you knew?”
Ava could see that her daughter needed the truth, not the rosy, fairy-tale version.
“I had doubts all along the way. I don’t know if that’s normal though.”
“What were the doubts about?”
“I guess with my . . . background, I had a lot of distrust from when I was young. I sometimes revert back to looking for the bad in people instead of the good.”
“Really? Why?”
“Maybe to protect myself, until I find out what I’m dealing with.”
Sienna nodded in thought. “You’re always so nice to people.
I didn’t know that about you.”
Ava kicked off her slippers and sat on the opposite chair.
“What are your doubts?”
“Just normal stuff, usual pre-wedding jitters. Pledging myself to someone for life is a big deal.” Sienna chuckled, but there was fear in her eyes.
Ava bit the edge of her lip. “Is he treating you well?”
“Preston? Of course. He treats me too good, I think,” Sienna said with a small laugh. “It’s nothing like that.”
“Then what it is?” Ava’s heart started beating faster, but she tried to remain calm in her daughter’s presence. Her mind was already running a track of worrisome thoughts: was she pregnant, had she met someone else, were they having second thoughts?
“I just need to pray more,” Sienna said and sighed deeply, the usual sign that she was about to open up. Then her pink phone buzzed on the arm of the chair.
“It’s Preston, finally,” Sienna said as if apologizing.
“It’s all right. Talk to him.”
“I sort of need to. But thanks, Mom. By the way, I was out back, and the weeping willow doesn’t look too good.”
Ava felt her heart shudder as if she’d forgotten something essential. The tree’s demise felt oddly important. Was it just her old superstitions trying to flare their ugly heads, or was God trying to get her attention?
When Sienna returned there were no signs that anything was different. Her daughter had never been an open book, unlike Jason, who still told her everything, even when it got him into trouble.
Ava hoped there would be a way to talk about her concerns. Time before the wedding was quickly running out.