Jason Mott - Ava's Gift

He placed the blanket over her. “I’m not sure what I can do about the rest,” Wash said, “but I can help with the cold.”

“You’re okay,” Ava replied, finally managing to sit up on her elbows. Wash’s smile faded and deep wrinkles formed on his brow. “Uh-oh,” Ava said slowly. “Your thought trenches are showing, which means you’re thinking. That’s not a good sign.”

“I’m fine,” he said, and he rubbed his forehead. He stood beside her bed. “Are you ready for all this?” he asked, and Ava could not quite make out the tone of his voice. There was excitement in it, but also uncertainty.

“Am I ready for what?” Ava asked.

Next to the bed, Wash fumbled with his shirt for a moment—untucking it from his jeans with clumsiness. He adjusted the upper waistband of his underwear so that they did not show, then lifted his shirt up and turned to the side.

“Can you believe it?” he asked, smiling awkwardly, awaiting judgment.

Ava looked at the long stretch of skin from his waist to his ribs. The boy was thin and gangly and pale. “Believe what?” Ava asked. “That you’re skinnier than a cereal box and pale enough to get sunburn from a book light? I’ve known that for a while now, Wash.” She laughed, but the laughter rolled into a cough that made her eyes water.

Wash let the joke pass. He turned back and forth slightly to be sure that Ava was able to see the full scope of how he was not injured. Not bruised. Not scarred. “You did this,” Wash said. He lowered his shirt and reached for the television remote, then pointed it at the screen that sat high up on the wall above the foot of Ava’s bed.

He flipped through the channels on the television, scanning each one only for a moment. He knew what he was looking for and grew more and more frustrated by the fact that he could not find it. “Just give me a second,” he said. “Don’t go remembering anything just yet. It’ll be so much better if I can just show you. You’re not going to believe it.”

“You’re freaking me out, Wash.”

“Shush!” he interrupted. Finally he stopped changing channels. On the television was a news program with a woman in a well-cut suit standing in front of a large screen with a picture of Ava on it. Across the bottom of the screen was the banner The Miracle Child. For the next few minutes Ava lay back in her hospital bed and watched as video from the Fall Festival filled the screen. She saw Matt Cooper’s airplane rising and falling through the sky. There were images of families and children and people enjoying the booths and rides and the food, and everything seemed perfect and everything was bathed in sunlight.

All of this, Ava could remember.

Then she watched as the airplane rose into the sky—she just could make out the low drone of the plane’s engine over the sound of the oohs and ahhs of the person shooting the video—and then the sound of the engine fell silent.

Then the video broke off and the news anchor returned. She looked into the camera and talked about the potential number of lives that could have been lost, the horror and tragedy that might have been. And then there was a photograph of Ava on the screen. It was taken from her yearbook. Her smile was wide and slightly awkward, like a person who doesn’t like the way their clothes are fitted.

“In a yet unexplained turn of events,” the news anchor continued after explaining how Wash and Ava were trapped beneath the rubble, “this young girl, Ava Campbell, somehow healed her friend of his injuries.” On-screen there was a photo of Wash being pulled from the debris. His clothes were torn and attention was given to the side of his stomach where, only a little while before, there had been a horrible injury. “The boy was utterly and completely healed,” the reporter said again, repeating her words slowly and with faultless elocution.

“Look!” Wash said excitedly, pointing at the television. He looked back at Ava and he lifted his shirt again, as if to verify that what she saw on television and what she saw now, in real life, were both equally true. “You really did that,” he said. “You really did this!” His smile was wide and bright again, filled with wonder and awe.

“It’s not true,” Ava said. She closed her eyes and shook her head. “It’s a joke, right?”

The excitement faded from his face. “Sit up,” he said softly. He lowered his shirt and reached over and put his arms beneath her back to help her sit up in the bed.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Just trust me,” he said. He helped her swing her feet over to the side of the bed. She inhaled sharply with each movement. Wash grimaced with her. “This will be quick,” he said. “I promise. You have to see this for yourself.”

The two of them made their way across the room with her arm draped across his shoulders and his arms around her waist. When they reached the window, he helped her sit upon the wide sill. “Where’s my dad?” she asked. “Why isn’t he here?”

“It’s okay,” Wash said. He looked into her eyes. “My guess is that he’s out taking care of what I’m trying to show you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look,” the boy said, nodding toward the window.

Finally she turned and gazed out the window, which overlooked a parking lot that was crowded with cars and vans and people and banners and cameras. There was cheering and shouting and people waving signs. Along the front of the hospital was a row of policemen, standing in uniform, keeping the crowd from coming inside.

“What’s happening?” Ava asked. “What do they want?”

“You,” the boy said softly. “They’re all here because of you. Can you believe that? You won’t believe how famous Stone Temple is right now—how famous you are right now. People are coming from all over to see you. Hundreds of them—thousands, maybe.”

The crowd below her was like an ocean. There were waves of movement, rivulets of cheering, of signs flagging back and forth.

“It’s just amazing,” Wash said.

“Help me back to bed, Wash,” Ava said. There was the lightning of pain inside her again suddenly, and an emptiness in the pit of her stomach that throbbed like a heartbeat. It made her feel as though the center of her did not exist, as though her body wasn’t completely formed. Then her stomach clenched and there was no more strength in her legs. Wash was not fast enough to catch her as she tumbled to her knees. Ava coughed. It was a hard, rattling cough, and there were flecks of blood on the floor beneath her mouth. More came with each cough.

“Nurse! Nurse!” Wash yelled. “Somebody help!” He struggled to lift Ava from the floor and put her back in the bed. Still he called for help.

“It’s okay,” Ava said as he maneuvered her awkwardly into the bed. She did not see the blood that was in the vomit she left behind on the floor. Only Wash saw that.

“It’s going to be okay,” Wash said softly. In the hallway there was the sound of footsteps approaching.

Ava closed her eyes.

“Before they get here,” Wash said, “I just want to say thank you. Thank you for...well...for whatever happened. For whatever you did.”

“I want to go home,” Ava said. Drowsiness and fatigue was a tide rising inside of her. “When I go home everything will be okay,” she said. In her mind there was the image of her father’s small gray house in Stone Temple. The paint was faded and the wood was worn and broken in places, but home is always a thing of beauty to a child. “I don’t want any of this,” Ava said softly. “I just want to go home.”

“Everything’s different now,” Wash said. “Home isn’t quite home anymore.”

Interlude I

By the time the girl is five years old her mother has found the rhythm of things. The two of them have established a pattern where Ava is never far from her mother’s heels and her mother is always smiling when her daughter comes to be with her. Oftentimes, in the warm hours of the afternoon, when the work is done for the day and her husband is still away at the station, it is possible for them both to believe that they are the only ones left in this world. At these times they will disappear into the mountains for the sake of disappearing.