AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And then she heard the distinct sound of a slap, and her sister cried out.
Violet ran to Casey’s door, planning on using the adjoining bathroom to get in, but it was locked, too.
Violet yelled at the top of her lungs, “If you hit my sister again, motherfucker, you’re dead.”
“I didn’t hit her, did I, baby? Why don’t you just mind your business?”
“I’m fine, Vi. He didn’t hit me.”
“One minute.” Violet took the stairs two at a time and ran to her parents’ old room, now hers. Punching in the combination to her safe, she pulled out the extra door key for the bedrooms and her gun. It wasn’t loaded, but it sure would make that little prick piss his pants.
When she reached the top of the stairs, she yelled, “I’m coming in, Dais.”
“Shit,” Quinton said.
Violet turned the key in the lock and threw the door open. Quinton was already halfway through the two-story window in a T-shirt and boxers, his pants in his hand.
Violet pulled out her cell phone and pretended to dial. As she held the phone up to her ear, she raised the gun. “Hello, some guy broke into my house and attacked my sister . . . ”
“Violet, no!” Daisy yelled as Quinton disappeared, probably to scale down the side of the house. Violet went to the window and watched him fall the last few feet to the ground and hollered, “Yeah, you better run, punk!”
Violet shut the window and slipped her phone into her pocket. Setting the gun down on the bench seat under Daisy’s window, she sat on her sister’s bed. Violet held a hand out and traced the obvious red imprint across her sister’s left cheek. Her sister wiped at her wet, green-gold eyes, wincing when Violet touched the slap mark.
“I should have loaded the gun and pulled the trigger.”
“Shut up,” Daisy whimpered. “It was an accident.”
Violet dropped her hand as it clenched in frustration. Daisy wasn’t stupid, so why was she saying something so ignorant?
Probably the same reason Mom always made excuses for Dad. Love.
Which only proved to Violet that she had been smart to keep men at a distance. If love made you blind and complacent, she would pass.
“Someone tripping over your big feet is an accident; someone hitting you because they don’t like what you said is assault.”
“Why can’t you just stay out of it, Vi? I’m almost eighteen and leaving for Oregon in a few weeks. How are you going to control who I see when I’m a state away?”
Violet rubbed her hands over her face and groaned. “If I wanted to control you, I would have locked you up in a convent the minute you brought that piece of garbage home. In fact, I think I’ve been pretty understanding about your feelings for Quinton, but no more.” Violet pulled out her phone and took a picture of her sister before she coul
d turn away. She held it up for her to see. “No one who loves you would do this to you. And if I catch him anywhere near this house again, I will call the cops.”
“Fuck you! You are not my mother!” Daisy cried.
Violet swallowed down the lump of pain in her throat and stood up. “I know I’m not Mom, but I love you, Daisy. Love is about making sacrifices and putting other people’s needs before your own. You aren’t thinking straight when it comes to that mother—”
“I didn’t ask you to give up your life for me!”
“You didn’t have to, that’s the point. No matter what you say or what you do, I’m always going to love you. Can you say the same about Quinton?”
Daisy lay down with a sob, and Violet sat once more, gathering her in her arms. Violet waited for her sister to push her away, but she didn’t. Daisy clung to her, shaking with the force of her tears as Violet stroked her chestnut hair and rocked her. Speaking from memory, she recited the words of her mother’s favorite book, Love You Forever by Robert Munsch.
“I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always . . . ” As her sister started to quiet, Violet closed her eyes.
As she spoke, she remembered the softness of her mother’s voice when she read the story, and her chest felt like someone was standing on it. She had loved and adored her mother, even when she’d have one of her dark days. When her mother would lock herself in her room, Violet would take care of Daisy and Casey. And after her suicide, Violet had continued to do that, but looking at where they were now, Violet knew she’d screwed up. Her brother was in constant trouble, and her sister was in love with a dirtbag.
After raising her brother and sister, it was hard for Violet to imagine having kids of her own. Not that she didn’t love kids and think about having them eventually, but what if she screwed them up, too? What if she chose a loser like her mother and sister had?
Or worse yet, what if as time went on, she turned out like her mother?
