It was bigger than that. It was the specific irreplaceable sight of his daughter being happy in a way that had nothing to do with him doing something right. Being happy because she had found on her own someone she wanted to include in her world. Kesha's mother materialized at Marcus' elbow. "Is that your neighbor? " she said in the tone of someone who has already formed an opinion and is simply seeking confirmation.
"She is," Marcus said. H Kesha's mother, her name was Diane. She had the energy of someone who ran the PTA and the Block Association simultaneously and probably enjoyed it. Looked from Olivia to Marcus and back with an expression that was not subtle. "She's lovely.
She's a friend," Marcus said. "Mhm." Diane nodded with the satisfied air of a woman who has said what she intended to say and is perfectly content to let the word friend do whatever work it needed to do. Ava's project won second place. She was distraught about second place for approximately four minutes. And then Olivia said something to her that Marcus couldn't hear from across the room.
And Ava looked at her with an expression of absolute focus and then nodded slowly and then stood up a little straighter and went back to explaining her project to a new group of kids who had wandered over. Marcus walked over to Olivia who was watching Ava with a small private smile. "What did you say to her? " he asked. I told her that the person who wins second place was good enough to be in the final two, which means they were better than everyone else in the room, and sometimes that has to be enough. She paused, and I told her that the judge was an accountant who didn't know the difference between a condensation and a precipitation cycle, which I made up completely, but which Ava found deeply satisfying.
Marcus stared at her. "What? " she said. "Nothing." He shook his head. Nothing. They walked home after the three of them in the particular warmth of an Atlanta October evening.
Ava between them still talking about her project, about Kesha's project on magnetism, about the judge who clearly didn't know the difference between condensation and precipitation, about how next year she was going to do something with robots. At some point, Ava reached up and took both their hands simultaneously, one in each of hers in the natural and unself-conscious way a child does when she has decided that something is simply how things are. Marcus felt Olivia's hand not quite move, not pulling away, just registering. He glanced at her. She was looking straight ahead.
But there was something in her expression that was soft and careful and almost undone. And he understood it because he felt it too. The weight of this small ordinary thing. The weight of Ava's hands holding both of them connecting them as simply and instinctively as breathing. When they reached the point where their two driveways diverged, Ava said good night to Olivia with the confident ease of a child who already considers someone part of her life and hasn't been told yet to think about it more carefully.
Olivia held herself together beautifully. Marcus walked her to her door, which he was now doing without discussion, without it having been decided, and they stood for a moment on her porch. "She's extraordinary," Olivia said. Her voice was steady, but her eyes were bright. "She really is.