39

A Mother

JUST WHEN JULIAN THOUGHT THINGS COULDN’T GET WORSE, one Saturday morning in July, when he and Ashton were still in their rooms, nursing substantial hangovers, their elderly neighbor banged on the door. “Someone’s downstairs ringing your broken bell and swearing,” she said. “I’m going to start swearing myself. Either fix your bloody bell or tell her to pipe down before I call the police.”

It was Ashton’s turn to traipse downstairs. He came back carrying a black suitcase. Behind him walked a huffing, stern, gray-haired Ava McKenzie. Julian used all his will to suppress a stunned groan.

“How long did you intend to leave me standing there?” Ava said to Julian by way of hello. “Is that any way to treat your almost mother-in-law?” She was dressed like a cross-country traveler, in khaki everything, including a khaki hat. Her hair had gone completely white. She had lost a tremendous amount of weight, was almost unrecognizable, but otherwise looked remarkably spry.

Her mouth was especially spry.

Both grown men, barely dressed and dumbfounded, stared at her. It was Ashton who spoke first. “Did she send you here?”

“I don’t know who you mean,” Ava said like she knew exactly.

“Tell her we don’t need anything. We’re fine.”

While Ashton was speaking, Julian ducked away and hid the rawhide necklace with the crystal deep in the bowels of his room. He was sure Ava had come to steal it. When he came back out, she was by the island and Ashton was handing her some water in a dusty glass. Appalled, she turned to the sink to scrub it. “First of all, you don’t look fine,” she said to them. “Both of you were out too late last night, drinking and carousing. You look like you need a scolding and a curfew. You have not been taking care of yourselves. Ashton, you especially. You are supposed to be watching over him, but clearly in your condition, that’s not possible—just look at him.”

“Um, what condition is that?” said Ashton.

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me,” Julian grumbled—to which Ashton and Ava both scoffed!

“Has he had a piece of fruit all year?” Ava said. “I don’t know how you two get up for work every morning. How you haven’t been fired is a miracle.”

“I can’t fire myself,” Ashton said. “Though sometimes I’d like to.”

“And we do get up for work every morning,” Julian said defensively.

“Except for the two months a year you take some me-time, right?” Ashton said.

Great, Julian thought. Now Ashton was on Ava’s side.

Ashton and Ava sat on the stools at the island. Julian remained standing. “Actually, I’m in the process of selling the business,” Ashton said. “I’m thinking of moving back to L.A.”

“You are?” That was Julian.

“Yes,” Ashton said. “Where have you been that you don’t know that? Wait—don’t tell me.”

“You definitely need to do something, young man,” Ava said to Ashton. “You’re a mess. All the more reason for me to be here. If you leave, who’s going to take care of him?” Ava was speaking as if Julian weren’t standing right there. He was afraid to sit down and accord the scene any normalcy. “I told you,” Ava continued, “I’m not here just for you, Ashton Bennett. I’m here for him. Not everything revolves around you.”

“There it is,” Ashton said. “And you say she didn’t send you.”

“You know who sent me? God. The way He sent Julian back in time to help my child.”

“Oh, no.” Ashton groaned. “Not you, too, Brutus. I can’t take it. God, you say?”

“As opposed to who?” said Ava.

Julian wanted to groan himself. Why did Ava look like she knew way more than he wanted her to?

“I know enough to be here,” Ava added, though no one was asking. “And you’ll fill me in on the rest. We have time before next March for you to tell me everything. Look, are we going to natter incessantly, or are you going to show me your famous Portobello Market?”

“You’ve been here all of five minutes,” Julian said. “Are you sure you don’t want to rest first, freshen up?” Beat. “Let us help you find a hotel room?”

“How can I rest? I bet there’s nothing in your fridge.” Unceremoniously she appraised the refrigerator’s contents—old butter and thirty bottles of beer—before clucking, nodding, and slamming the fridge door.

“Market’s closing in an hour,” Ashton said.

“Then it’s even more imperative we stop standing around like pods of salt. Let’s go get something for dinner.”

Julian exchanged a glance with Ashton. “Who’s been talking to you?” Julian asked.

Ava calmly adjusted the hat on her head and folded her hands. “I see. You need to know the chain of events that brought me here before you deign to take me to the market to buy food so I can make you something to eat,” she said. “Fine. Riley said the last time she was here, neither of you looked well. She was concerned. So she called Zakiyyah, who happened to be in Brooklyn visiting her mother, and Z came to see me. We had a long talk. So here I am.”

Julian didn’t know where to look. “Riley called Zakiyyah?” he said quietly. Ashton said nothing at all.

Ava gave Ashton a condemning glance before she picked up her square purse. “Zakiyyah is a saint. So is Riley. How you’re still in one piece, I’ll never know. None of my business. I have a job to do. Let’s go.”

Julian stretched his mouth over his teeth. “How long do you think you can stay, Mrs. McKenzie?”

“Why so formal, Julian? I’m not your second-grade teacher. Ava will be fine. How long can I stay? Until you go back in March, that’s how long. Let’s see what we can do to make you stick the landing this time, eh?”

“I’m living in an insane asylum,” Ashton said. “I wonder if it’s contagious. Never mind. Look—it’s nice of you to drop in, Ava, but we don’t have a third bedroom.”

“I don’t need a bedroom,” Ava said. “The couch will do. Can we walk and talk? Oh, and where can I exchange my money? The rates at the airport were extortionate.”

On the way to Portobello Road, walking briskly between the two men, so briskly, in fact, that Julian was having trouble keeping up, Ava wondered if “the boys” could find her a small place near them, “just a studio, nothing fancy. I can rent month to month, and then we’ll see. Of course, I’ll need a spare key to your place. I can’t be standing on the street, banging the door like this morning.”

She didn’t ask “the boys” what they liked to eat or drink, nor did she ask them for money. She bought bread, vegetables, chicken, flour, butter, sugar. She bought tea and coffee and wine and club soda. She bought jam and pastries. They carried the bags for her, as she marched through the Portobello stalls, haggling for onions and lemons.

Back home, she washed her hands, sneered at their lack of a suitable apron, and spent the rest of the afternoon wiping down their kitchen, throwing away old bottles and junk mail, deboning and lemon-marinating a chicken and putting it on to bake over rice and grilled onions. She asked them to set the table and when she saw their hesitation said, “Please, please don’t tell me that you eat on the couch or stand over the island like zebras. For shame, both of you. Set the table immediately, please.” She asked them if they had candlesticks, any clean silverware or clean plates. She asked them if they had any spare sheets, because if not, she would have to go buy some. “Are stores open in London tomorrow? There used to be a time when nothing was open on Sunday, when the only thing you could do on Sunday was go to church.” She wondered if she should buy a small cot to put in the corner of their living room by the balcony window, and maybe a privacy partition, “with some birds painted on it.”

Over dinner, Ava kept the conversation going nearly single-handedly by asking Ashton a hundred questions about the news agency, and his former store in L.A., and whether he had a car, and whether he was planning on going out tonight, “since it was Saturday night and all,” barely waiting for his answers. She asked where the nearest Catholic church was so she could go to mass in the morning, and then finally addressed Julian. “So where is this Devi person? Why isn’t he having dinner with you boys?”

Was there anything Ava didn’t know? Julian wondered in disbelief. Who told her about Devi?

“Riley told me.” Ava answered his unvoiced question. “I decided to call her myself after Z and I spoke. I wanted to get her opinion on things. She’s a nice woman. She has good manners. But don’t change the subject, Julian, I know you’re a master of evading questions, just like my poor child was, God keep her. Answer me—why isn’t Devi here?” She looked accusingly at Ashton. “It’s your fault, isn’t it? Riley said you’re very hard on him. Why don’t you like him?”

“Why don’t I like him?” Ashton said. “Let’s see. Oh, yeah, I know—because he is the father of demons.”

She wagged her finger. “That’s not a nice way to talk about people who are helping your friend.”

“He’s not helping him,” Ashton said. “He is trying to kill him. A fine but important distinction.”

“Is he always this dramatic?” Ava asked Julian.

Ashton glared at Julian from across the table. “Good thing Ava wasn’t here three months ago, when half the bones in your body were broken and you had cholera.”

“Cholera is eminently treatable,” Ava said dismissively. “This isn’t 1850. And bones heal.”

“What about lungs swollen from smoke inhalation? Do they heal?”

“Is the man breathing, or is he not?” barked Ava. Both she and Ashton scowled at Julian, who didn’t know if he should prove Ava or Ashton right by breathing too much or too little. “I rest my case,” she said.

“People used to treat me with kid gloves,” Julian said. “Julian this and Julian that. What can I get you, what can I do. Now it’s almost the reverse. What happened to the pity?”

“And where has pity gotten you?” Ava said. “Now we’re trying a different approach. Tough love is what you need, Julian. This Devi of yours, does he still go to church? Riley said he did.”

Julian and Ashton shook their incredulous heads.

“What? Riley told me a lot.” Critically she tutted in Ashton’s direction. “Too much, if you ask me. Frankly, both Z and Riley have told me more about you, young man, than I care to know.”

With that Ashton got up and said he had to be going. “Since it’s Saturday night and all. Have fun, you two, storming the castle.”

The next morning, Julian took Ava to St. Monica’s. Before they left, she knocked on Ashton’s half-open door. “Young man, are you coming to St. Monica’s with us? Both Z and Riley told me that you are a baptized Catholic.”

“Yes, and haven’t been to church since the baptism.” Ashton turned to the wall, throwing the blankets over his head.

Ava got dressed up. She put on a skirt and blouse, fussed up her hair, did her makeup, and even clipped on some earrings. “What?” she said when she noticed Julian surreptitiously eyeing her attire. “You’ve never heard of Sunday best?”

Julian and Ava sat in the back pew. She was quiet except for the part where every five seconds she kept whispering, “So where is this Devi of yours?”

“All in good time,” Julian said. “God first, then Devi.”

Ava rolled her eyes. “Don’t teach me how to live, young man,” she said.

After the service, they met up with Devi in the narthex. “Devi,” Julian said, “this is Ava. Ava, Devi. Ava is Mia’s mother,” he added, as if it was necessary. “She’s come for a visit.” A short visit, he hoped.

Devi shook the woman’s hand. Silently they appraised each other. “How long are you staying?” was Devi’s first question to her.

“As long as I need to,” Ava said. “Those two are a mess.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“So why aren’t you with them more? You need to keep an eye on them.”

“Julian and I have lunch every Wednesday. And we spend Sundays together.”

“Lunch once a week,” Ava said. “You call that looking after?”

“And Sunday. Also Ashton—”

“Ashton, Ashton.” Ava dismissed the name, the thought, the sentiment. “You’re an adult, Devi. You cannot let him decide what’s best. You’ve seen the fallout from some of his decisions, have you not?”

Devi stammered, and Julian nearly laughed out loud. But then Ava turned her schoolteacher gaze on him. “Julian, Devi needs more from you, too,” she said. “Devi, why don’t you join us for dinner tonight? I don’t care what Ashton wants. I don’t care what Ashton says. He will behave himself, I promise you. I’m making a roast. Do you eat meat? Is there anything open on Sunday where I can get a roast beef? A butcher, maybe, a Sunday market?”

“Yes, there are two wonderful markets,” Devi said, “one with mostly fruits and vegetables and one, a little farther away, that has everything.”

Ava smiled. “That’s not even a choice, is it? Let’s go.” She waved goodbye to Julian. “You might as well go back home. Ashton needs you. You two should go for a bike ride. It’s a beautiful summer day.”

“Who’s going to carry your bags?” Julian asked.

“Devi, you allow him to talk to you like that?” said Ava. “What are we, invalids? Devi and I will carry them. If we get tired, we’ll take a cab. Now which way? Tell me about yourself, Devi. Is it true what Riley told me, that you own a restaurant?”

“It’s true. More of a lunch place, really.”

“What kind of food do you make? If it’s something that Riley eats, I don’t know if I’d like it. That girl eats some strange things.”

“I can make anything you want.”

“Like lasagna?”

Devi turned back to glance at Julian standing motionless behind them. Both men smiled. “So Ava’s a comedian like you?”

“Oh, I’m much funnier,” Ava said. “Julian is earnest but unfortunately nearly completely humorless. I was going to be his mother-in-law. Did you know that?”

“Of course.”

“But then my daughter died. But of course you know that.”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any children, Devi?”

“I did, Ava. Like you, I once did.”

“A daughter?”

“A son.”

Julian stood and watched them walk through leafy Hoxton Square until they disappeared from view.

Julian told Ava she wouldn’t be able to afford Notting Hill.

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t afford,” Ava said. “Just point me in the right direction, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

“How long is your visa for?”

“You’re very interested in my comings and goings, I see. Why do I need a visa? I’m a dual citizen. But thank you for your admirable interest in British immigration law.”

A few days later when Julian and Ashton came home from work to a hot meal and a set table, Ava informed them that she found a place to stay. “Devi helped me. He is such a nice man. He went with me to look.”

Devi had gone with Julian too to help him find this apartment. “Where is the place?”

“Close.” Ava beamed. “Right downstairs.”

“Downstairs where?”

“Downstairs on the first floor. A small studio in the back became available. A writer had been renting it for many years, but she moved. It has wonderful spiritual energy. In some ways it’s even better than your place. It’s smaller, but it’s got a deck where I can sit and have my morning coffee, if it ever stops raining. I even have use of a garden. I can have a barbecue, and you can’t.” She smiled. “Maybe I’ll invite you over to my place.”

Julian couldn’t figure out how she could afford it. Wasn’t she retired?

“I have to say, you two are insatiably nosy. What do you care how I can afford it? I’m independently wealthy, does that satisfy you? All that money I saved when my poor daughter, may God have mercy on her soul, decided not to get an education is now burning a hole in my pocket. Help me get the cans of tomatoes from the top cupboard, will you? I’m prepping sauce for tomorrow. Whose idea was it to put the cans this high? What if they fall on your head; then where will you be?” She stared pointedly at Julian, who in turn stared pointedly at Ashton.

“So you spilled your guts to Zakiyyah,” Julian whispered, “and she bullhorned it to the world. Thanks a lot, man.”

“Not to worry,” Ashton said. “Now you can keep all your secrets.”

Ava moved in to the studio downstairs, bought some furniture, a coffee maker, a washing machine. She forced Julian and Ashton to buy a juice extractor and a blender. Every morning before they left for work she made them smoothies and a bag of trail mix. Every night when they returned home, she had dinner waiting for them. She bought blankets for their couch, which seemed like a nothing thing until they watched TV covered by a blanket. Ashton said he had never felt so comfortable. “Why didn’t we ever think of this, Julian? We’re idiots.”

“You never had one,” Ava said, “because a blanket is too cozy and too homey. It would’ve made it too nice for the girls. And you didn’t want to make it too nice for them. You were a wild thing. You didn’t want them to think you could be domesticated.”

“So you’re a psychologist now, too?” Ashton said.

“I’m many things, my boy. First of which is a mother. Take your feet off the coffee table. And use a coaster, for God’s sake.”

Ashton needn’t have worried about blankets and domestication. Because the girls were gone.

Zakiyyah was gone as if she had never existed.

And Riley had stopped visiting. She and Ashton still talked on the phone and emailed each other. But after months had passed, Julian realized she had never returned to London after that April fight. It took him a while to realize this. As always, he was too wrapped up in himself to notice other people, or how much time actually passed between events. He was boxing nonstop, training, running, and learning new combat skills. He left for two weeks for Berkshire, to train at an immersive Krav Maga camp and then continued the instruction at an elite academy in Kensington. Krav Maga was the lethal self-defense method practiced by Israeli forces. No Mervyn or Sly would ever ambush Julian again.

He was too busy to notice Riley hadn’t been around because he had Ava not just feeding him and nagging him but buying him history books and old National Geographics on every parcel of time in London between 1880 and 1980, and then grilling him like a Krav Maga instructor for the mind. Like a true former teacher, Ava taught a class in Notting Hill five nights a week on how to beat the impossible odds of traveling through time to save a doomed child by learning all you could about the Titanic and the Suez Canal crisis.

Julian sat with Ashton on the couch, not moving, staring at American football on low, as they listened to Devi and Ava in the kitchen bicker over whose steeping method made better tea, and how lamb was best prepared, and who, though neither the English nor the Vietnamese were known for their desserts, made tastier sweets. They squabbled like this every evening they were together.

Heatedly and repeatedly, Ava and Devi debated whether a positive outcome was possible for Julian and Mia. Ever the romantic, Ava believed it was. One Sunday evening, she got so upset with Devi’s realist stubbornness, she declared that she would go into the caves instead of Julian. “I’ll show you how it’s done,” Ava said. “You have to be firm. My girl has no sense. She doesn’t know the danger coming for her. But you do, Julian. Therefore, you can’t leave it to chance. You can’t leave it to her. You’ve left it to chance before, you’ve left it in her hands before, and where did that get you? No, it’s settled. This time, I’ll go.”

“What a good idea,” Ashton said. “Yes, Ava, you go.”

“Ashton is joking.”

“No, I’m not.”

“I’m not either,” said Ava.

It took time for Julian and Devi to talk her out of it, while Ashton tried to stay out of it.

“Fine, then,” Ava said. “Julian and I will go together.”

“Ava, you can’t go period, no matter what Ashton says,” Julian said. “On the other side, the girl already has a mother.”

“So? On the other side, the girl frequently has a lover, too.” Ava crossed her arms. “Even on this side.”

“Yes,” Julian said slowly. “A girl can have more than one lover. But she can only have one mother.”

“Fine, I’ll pretend to be someone else. Why not? You pretend to be someone else. Though why you picked Wales as your background, I have no idea. Why didn’t you say Scotland instead? Scotland is such a nice place. Or northwest England. That’s where my family’s from. The coast is so beautiful there.”

With difficulty Julian and Devi finally dissuaded Ava from interdimensional travel by reminding her that she was nearly 75, and that the conditions in the cave were harsh and often involved Herculean-level trials and superhuman stamina.

“How hard could it be?” Ava said, pointing at Julian. “You made it.”

All the while a mute Ashton sat on the couch, watching them argue. The expression on his face could best be described as weary disgust, like he was watching seemingly normal human beings noisily drink camel urine—and not for the first time.

In October, with his father’s approval, Ashton finalized the sale of 51% control of Nextel to Reuters. He got paid off and his role at the company became largely ceremonial, “like the French president,” he said. Ironically, Reuters turned around and sold 100% of the business to their French affiliate AFX. A Frenchman named Pierre Dugard came to oversee Nextel’s day-to-day operations. The place changed name, got more corporate, less loose, less fun. In December, Ashton took what he called a leave of absence, though Julian suspected it was a permanent leave. Ashton said he was flying to L.A. for Christmas, “to take care of some things.” That’s when Julian realized he hadn’t seen Riley since April, since the argument Julian wished he had imagined. He and Ashton had never discussed that fight, as if either of them could.

“I’m glad he is reconciling with Riley,” Ava said after Ashton left. “That poor boy. I thought he’d never get over Zakiyyah. He took that hard. Julian, did you know that when he was twelve, he came home from school and found his mother dead from a heroin overdose?”

“Yes, Ava.”

“Well, that’s just terrible. Terrible! How come you never told me?”

“Why would I?”

“Devi, did you know that?”

“I do now.”

“That poor beautiful boy. Is he close to his dad at least?”

“Not very,” said Julian.

“Yes, he is,” said Devi. “He is now. They have dinner often.”

“Practically never.”

“Once a week,” said Devi.

“Like I said,” said Julian.

“I hope this thing with Riley works out,” Ava said. “I love Z, of course, but Riley’s a nice girl. Devi and I didn’t know how to help Ashton, did we, Devi. He’s been so depressed.”

“I hope he doesn’t come back,” Devi said.

“That’s not very nice, Devi!”

“I mean that kindly.”

“Ashton’s been depressed?” said Julian.

Oh, Julian, said Ava.

Oh, Julian, said Devi.

He thought back to the last eight months. All Julian could scrape up in his memory was Ashton’s cough and cries. A drunk Ashton sometimes disgraced himself with hollow musings. Bottles of Belvedere clinking together, lined up on their kitchen window, the widow from Brooklyn pleading, don’t do that, love, don’t fall asleep in your empty bottles as she covered him on the couch late at night and he mumbled thank you, patting the hand that patted him.

Feeling guilty for his lack of awareness, Julian kept calling Ashton, texting him. Ashton texted back as if nothing was wrong.

His texts became sporadic. Then they stopped.

Julian spent Christmas with Devi and Ava, who had trimmed a tree, and strung up lights and fought over the menu, finally deciding to cook both a ham and sizzling pork with chili soy sauce. Julian didn’t speak to Ashton on Christmas. That must have been a first.

When they finally connected a few days before New Year’s, Ashton apologized, said he was out of signal, was doing some stuff, everything was all right, he’d tell Julian all about it when he saw him again.

“When’s that going to be?”

“I don’t know. Couple of weeks. Why, you miss me?”

Julian didn’t want to admit it. But yeah.

Ashton didn’t return to London until early February, just in time for the Super Bowl. He seemed in good spirits as always, but even Julian had to admit his friend had lost some of his former shine. Ashton looked malnourished. Ava clucked over him, fed him, made him cookies, brought him tea, and even put marshmallows in his hot chocolate, though Ashton hated marshmallows. “What kind of a man doesn’t like marshmallows?” Ava said. “You will eat them, young man. You will eat them, and you will like them.”

Ashton ate them and liked them. And when he fell asleep on the couch, Ava covered him with a blanket and he mumbled thank you and patted her hand and she leaned down and kissed his head before she went downstairs.