Chapter 53 - The Recommendation
Ava asked Lena for a recommendation.
She asked Daniel too.
She did not ask me.
I discovered this while she was checking a form at our kitchen table.
“They need two people who’ve supervised me,” she explained.
“That makes sense.”
She glanced up.
“You’re making a face.”
“I’m not.”
Lena passed behind me carrying a basket.
“You are.”
I gave her a wounded look.
She continued into the hallway without sympathy.
Ava turned the form toward me.
“It isn’t because I’m embarrassed.”
“I didn’t think that.”
She raised an eyebrow.
I sat down.
“Perhaps I wondered whether you thought my name would complicate things.”
“It might.”
The answer was plain.
I appreciated it less immediately than I should have.
“But that isn’t why,” she continued. “Daniel’s seen me make mistakes with actual tools. Lena knows whether I turn up when I say I will.”
“And I mostly know whether you accept extra soup.”
“You have a very narrow supervisory role.”
I laughed.
The awkwardness eased.
Then she pushed another page toward me.
“You can help with this.”
A budget.
Housing.
Travel.
Food.
A small emergency reserve.
The figures were careful, but several spaces remained blank.
“I don’t want you to pay it.”
“I haven’t offered.”
“You were about to.”
I looked at the page.
“I was considering how.”
She leaned back.
“I need to learn what things cost before somebody makes them disappear.”
It was a sentence I wished I had understood at her age.
We worked through the numbers.
When I did not know a cost, we looked it up together later rather than inventing an answer.
When she became frustrated, I resisted the urge to round every problem down to zero.
At the center, Daniel wrote his recommendation during his lunch break.
He showed it to Ava before sending it.
No grand account of courage.
No reference to Jonah’s case.
He described her patience, her willingness to ask when uncertain, and the day she had noticed a damaged tool handle before anyone used it.
Lena’s letter was equally specific.
It described work Ava had done.
Promises she had kept.
Things she had learned.
That evening, Ava read both letters twice.
“Are they all right?” I asked.
She nodded.
“They sound like me.”
After she left, Lena found me looking at the abandoned budget draft.
“Still making a face?”
“A smaller one.”
She kissed my temple.
“What did she ask you to do?”
“Help her plan.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
Lena glanced at the figures.
“Then I think you were included.”
May you like
I folded the page carefully.
For once, I left the blank spaces for their owner to fill.
