Mama made a choked sound.
“Whoa,” said Ava. “Go back. How could you and Emily have made your wishes together?”
“Emily and your mom had the same birthday,” Aunt Elena explained. “That meant they had the same Wishing Day.”
“Wait. What?!” Ava grabbed her hair by its roots. “What do you mean they had the same birthday? Why am I only hearing about this now?”
“Oh, Ava, millions of people share the same birthday,” said Aunt Elena. “If you’d been born two days earlier, you’d have had the same birthday as your mother, too.”
True, Ava acknowledged. Mama’s birthday was March thirteenth. Ava’s was March fifteenth, referred to by people of her parents’ generation as the ides of March. It was a Shakespeare thing.
Beware the ides of March! countless people had warned her gleefully.
You betcha! Ava was tempted to respond. I mean, I’d have to know what the ides of March are in order to beware of them, but sure!
“All right, fine,” said Ava, bringing herself back on topic. Like a prosecutor grilling a witness on TV, she turned to Aunt Elena. She steepled her fingers. “Aunt Elena. Mama told you she’d promised to make her wishes with Emily, but she didn’t.”
“She and Emily were going to make them at sunrise on their Wishing Day, at the top of Willow Hill,” Aunt Elena replied. “Instead, your mom made her wishes just past midnight, as soon as the fourteenth became the fifteenth.”
“You came out of your bedroom just after I’d made them,” Mama told Elena in a near whisper.
“I wanted a sip of water.”
“I heard you in the hall. I opened my bedroom door and beckoned you into my room. We . . . talked.”
“You told me you’d messed up by making your wishes by yourself,” Aunt Elena said. “You also told me . . . you know. About wishing you’d won that contest instead of Emily.”
“That stupid, stupid contest.” Mama stared at her lap. “And then, the next morning, it was just like I said, as if Emily had never existed. No one remembered her. No one except Elena—and even Elena didn’t remember for long.”
Aunt Elena’s lips parted. She made as if to speak.
“What?” asked Ava.
Aunt Elena closed her mouth and shook her head.
Mama squeezed her hands between her thighs. “Everything was so awful. Everyone thought I was making stuff up! So I told Elena to forget everything I’d said. I had to.” She met Aunt Elena’s gaze, ashamed. “Over time, I convinced you that you’d made it all up—going to the bathroom, coming into my room, everything. You were young. You were easy to persuade.”
“Slow down,” Ava said. “Mama, you waited until just after midnight to make your wishes, right? Then you heard Aunt Elena in the hall, and the two of you talked, and you told her you regretted what you’d done.”
Mama nodded miserably.
“But you were supposed to meet Emily at sunrise, at the top of Willow Hill. What happened with that?”
Mama’s chin wobbled. “Elena went back to bed. I stayed awake. I waited until sunrise, and . . . I climbed to the top of Willow Hill.”
“And?”
Tears welled in Mama’s eyes. They spilled over and ran in rivulets down her cheeks. “I never set out to betray her!” She turned to Aunt Elena. “And unlike you, I could never forget Emily. I never will forget Emily!”
“Mama!” Ava said, her heart juddering.
“Klara?” said Aunt Elena. “I’m not the villain here. Neither are you.”
“But I am!” Mama cried. “Of course I am!” She banged the coffee table with her fist, making the cups and plates jump.
Someone’s cool fingers found Ava’s. Gently, Aunt Elena squeezed Ava’s hand.
“Everything changed,” Mama said savagely. “Every day, all day long . . . my thoughts circled and lunged and bit. That’s why I left Willow Hill, because I couldn’t escape myself. Can you understand that, Ava?”
Ava nodded uncertainly. Before Mama left, she’d written a letter to each of her daughters, instructing Papa to distribute them when each girl turned thirteen. Mama’s letter to Natasha was richly detailed and apologetic. Her letter to Darya was pleading and melancholic. Ava had read them both, with her sisters’ permission.
The letter Mama left for Ava, penned when Ava was only four, was . . . a dud. Ava felt bad for thinking that, but it was. Ava’s letter was a weary farewell written to a four-year-old out of an exhausted sense of duty.
She can ask her sisters, Ava imagined Mama thinking as she completed the task of writing, folding, stuffing, envelope-licking. Why repeat every painful detail?
In all three of the letters to her daughters, Mama claimed that she didn’t want to leave, but that she had no choice.
Except she did have a choice. Choices were everywhere. People made them every day.
When Mama left, she left us, Ava thought now. Mama. Chose. That.
On Aunt Elena’s sofa, Mama fidgeted and drummed her fingers. “I promised myself I wouldn’t return to Willow Hill until I was better,” she said. “Completely better.”
“Are you?” Ava asked.
Aunt Elena scolded her with a look.
Ava plunged on, even though it hurt. It all hurt so much. “When you left, were you trying to punish yourself?”
“I was. Yes.”
“Were you trying to punish us?”
“No! Ava, never!”
Ava didn’t respond. Mama could color it however she wanted, but Mama had disappeared, just like Emily. Only, Mama had disappeared on purpose.
“I can see how you would think that,” Mama said. Her fingers curled on the tabletop, frail snails retreating into their shells. “But I wasn’t in my right mind. I’m not sure I have a right mind anymore.”
“Self-pity won’t buy you a get-out-of-jail card,” Aunt Elena said. “We’ve talked about this, Klara.”
“But just as I couldn’t let go of Emily, I couldn’t even begin to let go of you, Ava,” Mama continued. “You and your sisters. I missed you so much.”
“And Papa?” Ava asked.
“And Papa,” Mama said. She gestured at Aunt Elena, and then swept her hand in a broader arc. “And Elena and Vera. I missed you all. But I
