Page 51 of Finding Love at the Magical Curiosity Shop
I can’t help giggling at the analogy. ‘It can take dads a while to get used to the idea of their little girls growing up, and for what it’s worth, he’s trying. It’s not easy to be a single parent, I know his job is stressful – for you both,’ I add before she can say it’s stressful to have a parent working at your school too. ‘Maybe he doesn’t always get things right, but he is trying his best.’
‘Did your dad get things wrong?’
‘All the time. But we only had each other so we got through it together. He apologised when he was wrong, and I apologised when I shouted at him and slammed doors, and things did get easier. Even when it doesn’t seem like they will, things will always get easier.’
Ava nods and we finish our ice creams in comfortable silence, and then she hands me her shoes to carry and starts collecting shells to take home.
‘I wish he’d stop treating me like a child and be honest with me about Mum,’ she blurts out. ‘He says he drove her away, but I know it was her. I know she never wanted to spend time with us. He’d make special dinners and she wouldn’t come home in time, and sometimes we planned special outings for the three of us and she never bothered to come. And then after the divorce, when I was supposed to see her, she never wanted to see me. I knew she wanted to be somewhere else when we were together, doing something else, with someone else, and I just want him to admit she was a selfish cow and we’re better off without her.’
I probably shouldn’t laugh, but I can’t hide the half-snort at her straight-talking wisdom.
‘He’s always trying not to take sides and he doesn’t want me to think badly of her, butshemade me think badly of her, and it should be okay for both of us to be angry and hurt and upset.’
‘I… cannot argue with that, and I actually think your dad could learn a lot from you. Maybe you could say all that to him sometime? Because from what I’ve gathered, he takes responsibility because he thinks everyone blames him, so maybe it would be good for him to know thatyouknow it was a problem with your mum and nothing that either of you did.’
‘Oh, I know that. Look at this.’ She shoves the handful of shells she’s collected into her pocket, and when they won’t all fit, hands them to me to juggle with the two pairs of shoes, and gets her phone out.
I bend down so I can see the screen she’s showing me as she cups her hand around it to block out sunlight. She’s opened her text messages and is showing me the conversation thread with ‘Mum’ at the top, except… every single message is from Ava.
She’s been texting her mother often. I catch a glimpse of a few dates as she scrolls up the endless message thread, one message a week, sometimes two or three, going back months. Some are chatty, telling her mum what she’s been doing at school, complaining about her maths homework, and some are raw and painful, begging her to come back, telling her she misses her, and not one of them has had a reply.
My heart feels like it’s being torn apart in my chest. This is the most heart-wrenching thing I’ve ever seen, and it does make you wonder about the heartlessness of a woman who could get so many texts from her young daughter, who clearly desperately needed her at the time some of these messages were written, and never once bothered checking up on her in any way.
She sighs and scrolls back to the bottom and my eyes focus on the most recent one that’s telling her mum they’re going to Wales with Dad’s new girlfriend.
‘Ava, me and your dad aren’t…’
‘Well, you should be! See?’ She changes message threads to the one with ‘Dad’ written at the top and shows me one of the most recent ones from Ren, telling her what a good time he’d had with me while she was at her grandparents’.
‘Scroll up a bit,’ I ask, and she does, and although I don’t want to read her private text messages, I want to prove a point. Even though they live together and probably don’t have much reason to text each other,everysingle message has a reply from Ren, because that’s what good parents do.
‘Do you want my advice?’ I ask as she puts her phone away and nods enthusiastically. ‘If it were me, I’d text your mum less often and text your dad more often. After all, the best people in your phone are the ones who always want to text you back. If someone doesn’t make room for you in their lives, sometimes it’s worth backing off and letting them see what they’re missing.’
‘Like you, you always text me back.’
‘Why wouldn’t I text you back? You’re a little ray of sunshine in my lonely life.’
‘Thanks, Mickey.’ She throws her arms around me with such force that we both overbalance and end up on our bums in the wet sand, both pairs of shoes splash into the sea, and her shell collection scatters everywhere.
We’re both giggling as I quickly rescue the shoes and Ava gathers up her shells.
‘And maybe give your dad a few extra hugs too? I think he needs that.’
‘Maybeyoushould hug him more often too.’ She stops shell collecting long enough to look up at me with waggling eyebrows.
‘Hah hah,’ I say out loud to cover the fact I’m blushingbrightred. ‘I think I’ve probably given him enough hugs lately. He’s bound to start complaining sooner or later.’
We’re still laughing about it when my phone rings and Ren’s name flashes on the screen. ‘See? He’s starting already.’ I hold it up to show her before answering.
‘You two need to come up to the archives,’ Ren says down the line. ‘I’ve found something.’
16
I’m still brushing sand off my trousers and my shoes are squelching when we go through the revolving door of the Arfordir-Môr-Forwyn council building and the receptionist directs us to the archive room, where Ren is sitting at a computer, waiting.
Ava goes straight over to give him a hug, and he pulls back to admire her new hair colour. ‘Very nice. Verybright.’ He glances at me, and when I frown at him, he backpedals. ‘Which is good, obviously. It looks like there should be a bar of chocolate inside.’
‘What have you found?’ I ask before he says anything worse.
