Page 61 of Finding Love at the Magical Curiosity Shop
‘Ava…’ I start.
‘No! It’s not fair! This diary is the best thing that’s ever happened to us, and it’s not for sale! Go away!’
‘I’m happy to buy it back if need be.’ Pamela goes to get out a purse, but I hold up a hand to stop her as Ren puts a hand on Ava’s shoulder and turns her away. ‘We don’t want anything else back from the house clearance. Everything else was supposed to go, except the diary.’
‘Ifound it! Finders keepers!’ she sobs. ‘Mickey gave it to me!’
‘It wasn’t mine to give.’ I realise now that this was a monumental mistake on my part. The very essence of my dad’s business was to reunite owners with things they’d lost. I should have been more aware of the fact that this book was sentimental to someone and, sooner or later, they’d come looking for it. ‘I’m so sorry, Ave. I should have made it clear from the start that it wasn’t the sort of thing someone would have thrown out. I thought someone would be looking for it one day, I just didn’t know it would be so soon or that it would become so important to us.’
Ava’s crying so hard that she can barely catch her breath, and Ren has taken her to the side, crouched in front of her with both hands on her upper arms, and is trying to persuade her to take deep, calming breaths.
He looks over his shoulder and catches my eyes, his flicking between the diary and Pamela.
He’s telling me to give it to hernow, while Ava’s not watching. Maybe he thinks it will be easier that way?
Lissa’s looking like she desperately wants to do something to help, and when I risk a glance down at the shoppers in the grounds, Ava’s howling sobs have attracted far too much attention.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ Pamela asks awkwardly.
I shake my head as I turn the key and extract it from the display box. ‘She’s had a tough time lately and finding this diary helped a lot. I’m sorry. It wasn’t meant to end like this.’
I cling onto it for a moment too long as I hand it over. It feels like the end ofGremlinswhen Billy has to give Gizmo back to the old Chinese man. He doesn’t want to, even though he knows it’s the right thing to do.
Pamela clearly wasn’t expecting the scene this has caused as she takes it from me and settles it into her wooden crate with the other things and murmurs a quiet thank you, but she hesitates, looking like she’s having second thoughts about taking it. ‘Maybe I should come back another day instead?’
I look over my shoulder to where Ren has still got Ava turned around so her back is to us. On the one hand, leaving the diary here now would make things better today, but then what? Get Pamela to return when Ava’s in school and take it then instead? That would feel even more underhanded and like I was stabbing her in the back. She’d still be just as upset when she found out. Surely it’s better to rip the plaster off in one go than keep picking at it all week?
‘Thank you for looking after it so well.’ She reaches out to shake my hand when I tell her to take it now, and I shake hers too.
‘Thankyoufor inadvertently sharing a piece of your family history with us. It really has made it a very special summer.’ I glance at Ava and Ren as I say it, filled with a sense of trepidation that our special summer is well and trulyover.
Pamela lifts her wooden crate and hurries away, and as she disappears into the crowd, Ava finally escapes the hug Ren has been trying to give her, and realises the diary and Pamela are nowhere to be found.
She lets out an eardrum-piercing scream. ‘It’sgone? It’sgone? You distracted me soshecould take it?’ She slaps Ren’s hand away when he tries to comfort her and then turns on me. ‘You haven’t got Fairy Godmother magic powers, you’ve got Wicked Stepmother evil powers!’
‘Ava!’ Ren has got that helpless look on his face again, the one I haven’t seen for a few weeks now. ‘Don’t talk to Mickey like that. Apologise now, please.’
‘She should apologise to me! She’s ruined everything!’
‘I’m so sorry, Ava,’ I say again. ‘It wasn’t ours. It was never ours.’
‘Yes, it was! All you had to do was tell that stupid cow to do one!’
‘Ava!’ Ren admonishes again, but she’s so upset that it doesn’t make any difference.
‘It wasn’t ours to keep. No object is ever ours. Old things came into the world before we did, they’re ours for a while, but ultimately, they live on after we’re gone, and someone else will take care of them for a while too. That’s what my entire shop is about – taking things that were once loved and looking after them until they can be loved again. The diary stayed with us this summer, it brought us into each other’s lives, and now it has to go back, like a really good library book that you wish you could keep, but you know you can’t, because other people deserve the joy of reading it too.’
‘You can buy a really good library book on Amazon!’ she mutters, swiping tears away.
‘I know it’s not the same, but just because we no longer have the book, it doesn’t mean we don’t still love it and have it in here…’ I put my hand on my heart because I know where she’s coming from. I feel the gut-wrenching pang of not being able to keep it too, but it’s warring with happiness at being able to reunite someone with something they must have been devastated to lose. ‘We still get to keep the experiences it gave us, but it has sentimental value to someone else and her family deserve that back. Sometimes we have to let things go for the sake of someone else, right?’
The more I talk, the more she cries, and her howling sobs are attracting even more attention. All I want to do is pull her into my arms and hug her until she feels better, but I’m definitely the last person she wants a hug from right now.
‘I thought we were in this together, Mickey, but you let me down. Everyone always lets me down and what I want is never important. I thought you were different, but you’re just like everyone else. You don’t fight for the things that matter. You don’t care about the things that are important to me. You give up when things get tough. Just likeeveryoneelse.’
She means her mum, obviously, and the comparison makes me wince, but I have no idea what to say in response. Everything I say is only serving to make Ava more turbulent.
I canseehow she feels, like she desperately wanted me to stand up for what she wanted, to be on her side for once, because I don’t think she feels like many people are. I didn’t when I was thirteen either. But this was a situation with only one possible conclusion, and when Ava calms down and thinks it through, she’ll see that. I’m sure she will. Shehasto.
