Don’t worry. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. It is so not that easy to just not worry. And my dad knows that, he has been trying to get me to relax about everything for years and years but as I got older and as Mom and Dad let us help more in the shelter and learn more about what was happening it was impossible not to become more and more worried. Don’t worry. Don’t worry. I have Ava and Nua and I have my parents back and my dad will talk to Bayan and Penny and we are going to figure out what to do about Abigala. Don’t worry. It will all work out.

I spend some time with Ava and my mother, now, in her office. Abigala is still keeping herself locked in her room, Ava tells me that Bayan tells her that Taymer has been bringing her breakfasts and dinner but I don’t know what she’s doing, locked in there every day. Probably just what I was doing, back when it was just me and Nua in the house and we thought Ava was dead and we just sat around and thought about it all day. I wonder what Abigala thinks about. I wonder about it while I’m sitting in Ava’s office with her and my mom and they are talking about Abigala and about me and about what to do what to do what to do.

Dad has finally got Abigala out of her room today, miraculously, for the first time in a while. She has let him in to talk to her once or twice but this is the first time he has convinced her to leave, he takes her down to the beach to walk and talk too and I wonder if that is allowed with house arrest. But Ava doesn’t seem to mind when I tell her where my dad and sister are, and my mom doesn’t say anything about it. She just tells me to sit down, and gives me a stack of papers to hold, like when I was little and wanted to be helpful. I look listlessly down at the top one; it’s a chart of money, money, it’s all about the money, outlining how much the audit that Ava wants to do on the agencies would cost. It’s a lot of money, and this is only the agencies in the city, much less across the country, I wonder how much money the agencies department has. I only tune into the conversation when I hear my name, my mom says my name. “Do you think Aber’ll get it?”

“Huh?” I say, looking up, and Ava smiles slightly. “Welcome back.”

“What about me?” I say, looking at Mom, and she smiles a little too, rubbing her eyes. “I don’t know, I just. I know you talked to your dad and now Abigala is talking to your dad but it’s a lot, isn’t it, it’s all just a lot, you’re only nineteen years old.”

“I was seventeen when I married,” says Ava. “Knew it was wrong.”

“Were you brainwashed?”

“Kinda, yeah,” says Ava, and my mom laughs, and then she sighs. “I, okay. Listen, this is a horrible thing to suggest about your own daughter, but I’m not speaking as her mother right now.”

“Mom,” I say slowly, sitting up in my chair.

“I think we need to arrest her.”

“Mom.”

“Like, for real.”

“Ane,” says Ava softly, and then she falls into her seat and buries her face in her hands. “God, I mean, I thought about it too, but I didn’t want…I didn’t know if I was going too far with it.”

“No,” says Mom, shaking her head. “I mean, we have to set an example, right? We won’t tolerate these abuses anymore.”

“Mom,” I say again.

“She’s my sister-in-law,” says Ava, and Mom shrugs. “Even more of a reason. You can’t make excuses, even for family.”

“Mom,” I say. “You can’t.”

And Ava and my mother look at me, finally, and my mom’s face goes soft and she sits down next to me in the other chair. “Aber.”

“You spent a year away from us, I spent a year looking for her, for you, and you’re just going to send her away?”

“This isn’t about your sister, Aber,” says Mom gently, reaching out and putting a hand on mine. “This is about a rapist.”

My eyes fill with tears. I pull my hand away and I stand and leave the room.

I find myself in my old bedroom. Abigala’s bedroom, now, she hasn’t left here for days, she’s been avoiding us, she doesn’t want to see us because, because why, because we are mad at her for doing bad things and she is mad at us for being mad at her. Nua’s bed is messy and unmade, sheets rumpled, and I look at my own bed. I slept here for months, thinking about Abigala, trying to get back to Abigala, hoping that she was okay, and the entire time she was working with my mother-in-law. She was getting married, too. She was conceiving children. Everything I hated Ava for, before I knew her well enough. Everything I have always been afraid of. That’s what Abigala did, while I lay worrying for her every night.

I go into Keol’s room and shut the door behind me. I sit on the bed, looking out the window at the sea. It is a cloudy day and the water is choppy. I remember lying here when I thought Ava was dead, with the cat. Now the cat is not with me but Ava is alive again and my parents are safe, at home with me. But my mother, our mother, wants to send my sister, her daughter, away.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I lie down slowly, feeling tears burning in my eyes, I don’t know what to do. I know that it is complicated and I know that Ava and Mom are trying to do something here but it is Abigala, I have worked so hard to get back to Abigala and Ava got me back to Abigala and now Ava is sending her away.

There is a knock on the door, and I do not move or answer it. The door opens anyway, and someone sits down at the foot of the bed. It’s Ava, I can tell, because she leans over and lies down next to me and wraps her arms around me from behind. I move away from her a little. “You wanted to do this the whole time.”

She sighs. “Aber.”

“You wanted to send her away.”

“Kinda, yeah,” says Ava after a moment. I scoff, and I can hear her sigh. “I mean, yes, Aber, but I didn’t know if I was being dramatic about it, until your mom agreed with me.”

“I can’t believe she could even say that.”

“Look, Aber,” she says softly, she reaches out for me again and puts her hand on my arm. “It’s not about you. It’s about her husbands.”

I don’t answer.

“You know there’s a reason she’s keeping them hidden.”

“Your mother told her to.”

“Yes,” says Ava with another sigh. “I think she did. Because she wanted Abigala to keep going, even if she wasn’t there anymore. She thought Abigala would take her place, sometime in the future, not right now, but she thought eventually she would have trained Abigala to take her place instead of me and then she would wander around the city with her husbands and her children and be the model that I was supposed to be. And Abigala wants to do that.”

I shake my head, even though my stomach is sinking, because I think, I know, she is right. “No.”

“And she knows,” Ava continues gently, moving closer to me again, “that I want to set a different model. She’s just still holding onto hope that one day she’ll get to finish what Lilly got her to start.”

“That’s not fair,” I whisper. “You don’t know that. You don’t get to say that, you don’t get to arrest my sister.”

“Aber,” she whispers. “I’m sorry. I really wish I didn’t have to. But the only way this wouldn’t have had to happen is if Abigala just told us. Even your mother agrees.”

“I’m mad at my mother, too.”

“I know,” Ava whispers, leaning her forehead against the back of mine. “I’m sorry. But we’ve tried. You’ve tried. I know you’ve tried your best. She won’t cooperate. And her non-cooperation means that those boys are in danger.”

I exhale, closing my eyes. Ava presses a kiss to the back of my neck, and it makes me shiver, and I know she smiles. “I’m sorry, Aber.”

“Don’t be,” I whisper after a moment. “You’re right.”

She does not say anything.

“I’m just mad, at her. She didn’t have to do this. I don’t know why she fell for it.”

“She wanted something different,” murmurs Ava. “My mother is good at that. She manipulates.”

“Did she ever manipulate you?” I ask, and Ava laughs a little. The bed is small but I manage to turn myself around in it so I’m facing her, and I look in her eyes, light brown eyes framed by those long eyelashes that blink slowly at me. “I mean, like I said, she tried to brainwash me, right?”

“How did you get out of it?”

“I saw what she did to Bayan,” she answers after a moment. “And Penny. I had to see it hurt people I love before I figured it out.”

“But you figured it out,” I say softly. “Eventually.”

She smiles a little, and now her brown eyes are filled with tears. “I had to see her hurt Owen.”

“So why can’t Abi see it?” I say softly. “If she hurt those boys.”

“I don’t know,” says Ava gently. “But I do know my mom was good at making people think she cared about them. She moved us out here, she got us Bayan when our dad died, she told us she was doing it because she loved us, and then she sent Penny away, and she said it would be better for him, and that she didn’t want him getting sick. I almost believed her on that one, too. And then she wanted me to get married, and she said she would pick him out for me, and that’s when I knew, I guess, that nothing was ever for our best interest, it was for hers. Abigala didn’t have enough time to see that.”

“Do you blame her?” I ask softly, and Ava sighs. “Partly. I don’t know. But I do know that even if she thought what she was doing was right, you…you can tell when you hurt someone like that. If she made a mistake and then realized, fine. But Aber, she has six kids.”

“What are we gonna do with them?” I ask. “If you…if you send her away.”

Ava smiles slightly, tilting her head down so her forehead is against mine. “Well. We can see if we can work out a way for her to visit them. And we can take care of them, when they’re old enough. If we need to. Your parents can help. Until…everything is ready, and Abigala can come home.”

“I want this to be home,” I whisper, closing my eyes, I feel a tear running down my cheek, I don’t know why, but Ava just smiles, I can tell with my eyes closed, because I can hear it in her voice when she says softly, “Okay.”

She lifts her hand and puts it on my face, and everything seems a little bit clearer now. I do not know what it is about Ava, but she makes things simple. Her fingers trail over my cheek, and then go under my chin, and then she moves closer to me, she nudges me so I roll, and she puts her head on my shoulder. She’s facing the window, the sun is coming in beams through the white curtain but it’s not too bright and she takes a deep breath, closing her eyes. I put my hand on her head, her hair is soft and everything about her is soft, and she smiles. It is soft too. She just makes sense.