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Righteous Woman AU
Ava Wilson was born six weeks premature, in a little hospital in Lawrence, Kansas. For a while, the doctors were convinced she wouldn’t make it, but she pulled through in the end. Once Mommy and Daddy carried her home, she thrived. Quick to roll over, quick to crawl, quick to speak. Mommy’s little genius. Daddy’s miracle baby.
Only children sometimes grow up spoiled, lavished with attention and toys and treats. For the first few years of her life, Ava was coddled and indulged. Sometimes her parents would get an odd look. Worry. Guilt. She never paid it any mind.
When she was four, everything changed. One minute she was stone cold asleep, and the next there was screaming and Mom was dragging her out of bed, crawling through a curtain of choking dark smoke and a smell like badly burned meat. It wasn’t until they got outside that Ava saw the blood on her pajamas. It wasn’t until the after the firemen came and went (gas leak, they said, very tragic) that Mom whispered tearfully that Daddy was gone, and Ava realized the blood was her father’s.
In the Red Cross overnight shelter, Mom held her and cried, and whispered, “Baby, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
Ava tried to tell her it would be okay, tried to be the strong one, but the words got stuck somewhere between her chest and her mouth.
She were wrong, anyway, about the okay part. Three days later, in the long stay hotel they were placed in, a social worker found Ava’s mother dead. A sudden stroke, they said. It could happen, even in young people, under the kind of stress she had just been through.
They put Ava in a group home, and kept sending her counselors. Counselors for grief, counselors for trauma, counselors to help her adjust. A steady stream of people telling her it would be okay, when she knew it wouldn’t, when what she really wanted was to be alone and feel and grieve. She stopped talking altogether for a few days. When she started up again, she switched erratically between stony silence and screaming fury, and the counselors began talking about her rather than to her.
It felt like forever, but it was less than two weeks before Ellen and Jo Harvelle came. She’d met them once before, a couple years ago, but she were so young she was never clear on whether they were relatives or just good friends. But she had let Jo play with her Breyer horses, and color with her crayons, and Jo didn’t even break them, or peel back the wrappers.
When they walked in Ellen didn’t say anything at all, just pulled her into a bear hug. The tears came out like a water balloon had popped inside Ava’s head, and she hugged back for a long time. Then, while Ellen was arguing with the social worker (“She’s a very difficult child. Are you sure…?” “I’m a difficult adult. I can handle her.”), Jo came over and sat on the bench next to her and swung her feet. Ava wasn’t sure what to say, because she’d just cried and only babies cry, and the sniffles hadn’t died away yet. She looked at Jo sideways, at her mussed blonde curls and hot pink headband.
“We got you,” she said. “It’s gonna be okay.”
And she put an arm around Ava’s shoulders and suddenly she believed her.
Life at the Roadhouse wasn’t exactly easy. It was different from the life Ava had had before. Things were louder, busier. There were lots of strangers around, always. But Ellen and Bill knew which ones she could talk to and which to avoid. She helped do dishes and keep inventory. Bill taught her how to play pool, and Ellen taught her how to field strip and clean a gun, and she and Jo made pillow forts in the basement.
It took a while before it all clicked into place, but once it did, God did it feel right.
Still, things always change. Bill died on a hunt when Ava and Jo were still in grade school. There was nothing to bury, but the girls sat together at the memorial service, hand in hand, holding onto each other like there was nothing else stable in the world. Ava didn’t tell Jo it would be okay. She wasn’t sure it would be. But she stayed close, and maybe it helped a little.
When Ava hit sixteen, she started having nightmares. First it was one every few months, vivid and gory. Then they came more frequently, and started featuring hunters that came by the roadhouse. At first she thought it was just lingering trauma fomenting in her brain. Memories of Mom and Dad. Memories of Bill. Then she heard one of the hunters in her dreams had actually died. Bloody.
She didn’t tell anyone. And the nightmares kept coming.
Jo could always tell when Ava was hiding something. She asked a lot of questions, and the more she asked, the more Ava withdrew and got prickly. Then Ellen picked up on the problem. Like the group home all over again, people were in her face, wanting to help. Wanting to fix. There were arguments, stonewalling, screaming matches. Ava ran away overnight twice, hiding in the backs of other hunters’ vehicles. They always brought her back when they found her. Her family was so disappointed.
Somehow she made it through high school, but her grades weren’t spectacular. Headaches. Nightmares. Stress and monsters. Ava was afraid. It might only be a matter of time before the dreams came again, this time featuring Ellen or Jo or both. And she loved the shit out of them both, even when (especially when) they were on her case.
No. Something had to give, and since it wasn’t going to be your family, it had to be Ava. The shout-off as she packed was so vicious it cleared the bar. “I don’t want this!” she said. “I don’t want this life! I just want to be normal!”
When that didn’t work, she went for the throat. “You’re not my real mother!”
She was told not to come back.
She said that suited her fine.
She bought bus passage and hitched rides until she was a few states over, stayed in the women’s shelter, took work at Goodwill, and finally scored a job that paid the bills. Secretary. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was a jump start. After a few months, she went to community college, working for a business degree. Maybe she’d get her MBA someday. Make some money. Live the American dream, right?
Ellen tracked her down before too long. “Family don’t end with blood,” she told Ava, and there was real hurt in her eyes.
The conversation was stilted and uncomfortable. Ava insisted she was fine, that she was where she wanted to be. But she also apologized, hugged Ellen, and told her she loved her. It was almost an adequate reconciliation. Almost.
They talked on the phone after that, every few weeks. Sometimes Jo called, too. Ava kept the conversations simple, brief. Kept her family at arm’s length and tried to build something new.
The nightmares didn’t stop, but they slowed down. Painkillers eased the headaches. She started dating a sweet guy from the college; he treated her like a princess. Everything was fine, except she missed Ellen, and she missed Jo, and she was sorry, and she was afraid.
Then, one day in late winter, Ava came home and found a very familiar blonde in her apartment, talking to her boyfriend.
“Jo?” She wanted to hug her and then punch her, and then hug her again.
Jo smiled, but there were shadows under her eyes. “Mom went on a trip,” she said. “She’s been missing for a few days.”
And it all began all over again.
Only children sometimes grow up spoiled, lavished with attention and toys and treats. For the first few years of her life, Ava was coddled and indulged. Sometimes her parents would get an odd look. Worry. Guilt. She never paid it any mind.
When she was four, everything changed. One minute she was stone cold asleep, and the next there was screaming and Mom was dragging her out of bed, crawling through a curtain of choking dark smoke and a smell like badly burned meat. It wasn’t until they got outside that Ava saw the blood on her pajamas. It wasn’t until the after the firemen came and went (gas leak, they said, very tragic) that Mom whispered tearfully that Daddy was gone, and Ava realized the blood was her father’s.
In the Red Cross overnight shelter, Mom held her and cried, and whispered, “Baby, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
Ava tried to tell her it would be okay, tried to be the strong one, but the words got stuck somewhere between her chest and her mouth.
She were wrong, anyway, about the okay part. Three days later, in the long stay hotel they were placed in, a social worker found Ava’s mother dead. A sudden stroke, they said. It could happen, even in young people, under the kind of stress she had just been through.
They put Ava in a group home, and kept sending her counselors. Counselors for grief, counselors for trauma, counselors to help her adjust. A steady stream of people telling her it would be okay, when she knew it wouldn’t, when what she really wanted was to be alone and feel and grieve. She stopped talking altogether for a few days. When she started up again, she switched erratically between stony silence and screaming fury, and the counselors began talking about her rather than to her.
It felt like forever, but it was less than two weeks before Ellen and Jo Harvelle came. She’d met them once before, a couple years ago, but she were so young she was never clear on whether they were relatives or just good friends. But she had let Jo play with her Breyer horses, and color with her crayons, and Jo didn’t even break them, or peel back the wrappers.
When they walked in Ellen didn’t say anything at all, just pulled her into a bear hug. The tears came out like a water balloon had popped inside Ava’s head, and she hugged back for a long time. Then, while Ellen was arguing with the social worker (“She’s a very difficult child. Are you sure…?” “I’m a difficult adult. I can handle her.”), Jo came over and sat on the bench next to her and swung her feet. Ava wasn’t sure what to say, because she’d just cried and only babies cry, and the sniffles hadn’t died away yet. She looked at Jo sideways, at her mussed blonde curls and hot pink headband.
“We got you,” she said. “It’s gonna be okay.”
And she put an arm around Ava’s shoulders and suddenly she believed her.
Life at the Roadhouse wasn’t exactly easy. It was different from the life Ava had had before. Things were louder, busier. There were lots of strangers around, always. But Ellen and Bill knew which ones she could talk to and which to avoid. She helped do dishes and keep inventory. Bill taught her how to play pool, and Ellen taught her how to field strip and clean a gun, and she and Jo made pillow forts in the basement.
It took a while before it all clicked into place, but once it did, God did it feel right.
Still, things always change. Bill died on a hunt when Ava and Jo were still in grade school. There was nothing to bury, but the girls sat together at the memorial service, hand in hand, holding onto each other like there was nothing else stable in the world. Ava didn’t tell Jo it would be okay. She wasn’t sure it would be. But she stayed close, and maybe it helped a little.
When Ava hit sixteen, she started having nightmares. First it was one every few months, vivid and gory. Then they came more frequently, and started featuring hunters that came by the roadhouse. At first she thought it was just lingering trauma fomenting in her brain. Memories of Mom and Dad. Memories of Bill. Then she heard one of the hunters in her dreams had actually died. Bloody.
She didn’t tell anyone. And the nightmares kept coming.
Jo could always tell when Ava was hiding something. She asked a lot of questions, and the more she asked, the more Ava withdrew and got prickly. Then Ellen picked up on the problem. Like the group home all over again, people were in her face, wanting to help. Wanting to fix. There were arguments, stonewalling, screaming matches. Ava ran away overnight twice, hiding in the backs of other hunters’ vehicles. They always brought her back when they found her. Her family was so disappointed.
Somehow she made it through high school, but her grades weren’t spectacular. Headaches. Nightmares. Stress and monsters. Ava was afraid. It might only be a matter of time before the dreams came again, this time featuring Ellen or Jo or both. And she loved the shit out of them both, even when (especially when) they were on her case.
No. Something had to give, and since it wasn’t going to be your family, it had to be Ava. The shout-off as she packed was so vicious it cleared the bar. “I don’t want this!” she said. “I don’t want this life! I just want to be normal!”
When that didn’t work, she went for the throat. “You’re not my real mother!”
She was told not to come back.
She said that suited her fine.
She bought bus passage and hitched rides until she was a few states over, stayed in the women’s shelter, took work at Goodwill, and finally scored a job that paid the bills. Secretary. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was a jump start. After a few months, she went to community college, working for a business degree. Maybe she’d get her MBA someday. Make some money. Live the American dream, right?
Ellen tracked her down before too long. “Family don’t end with blood,” she told Ava, and there was real hurt in her eyes.
The conversation was stilted and uncomfortable. Ava insisted she was fine, that she was where she wanted to be. But she also apologized, hugged Ellen, and told her she loved her. It was almost an adequate reconciliation. Almost.
They talked on the phone after that, every few weeks. Sometimes Jo called, too. Ava kept the conversations simple, brief. Kept her family at arm’s length and tried to build something new.
The nightmares didn’t stop, but they slowed down. Painkillers eased the headaches. She started dating a sweet guy from the college; he treated her like a princess. Everything was fine, except she missed Ellen, and she missed Jo, and she was sorry, and she was afraid.
Then, one day in late winter, Ava came home and found a very familiar blonde in her apartment, talking to her boyfriend.
“Jo?” She wanted to hug her and then punch her, and then hug her again.
Jo smiled, but there were shadows under her eyes. “Mom went on a trip,” she said. “She’s been missing for a few days.”
And it all began all over again.