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“Are you okay?” Anna whispered. They’d already received so much bad news. What was next?
“I just heard from Smith,” Julia said. “He pitched me a new novel. He says he’s already written more than half of it.”
Anna furrowed her brow. “A novel? Not a memoir this time?”
Julia shook her head as her eyes glinted. “But he said it takes place in a so-called Victorian castle on the beach of Nantucket. And he wants to finish it in time to publish it in late autumn.
A slow smile traced across Anna’s face. “Do you think he’ll make it?”
Julia’s face glowed. “I’ve always had a good feeling about him.”
“Me too.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The first thing Violet learned when she reached Dayton was that Larry and Hazel were headed to Florida—probably forever. It was time to leave Ohio behind. Violet’s best friend of ten years explained this tentatively over rosé that first evening, her fingertips pressed hard on the tabletop. “I think they want to start over,” she said. “And I guess I can’t blame them.”
Violet inhaled and exhaled through the pain of this news, watching it affect her heart and dissipate, much like a tide rising and falling. She reminded herself this was hardly new information. Larry had always idealized Florida, calling it “heaven on earth.” When Dean selected Seattle as his new home, Larry was mystified. “Of all the places in the world, why would you go somewhere cold and rainy?” Dean, who’d never taken anything badly, had laughed that off.
“I need to talk to him,” Violet said to her best friend, swirling her wine in her glass. “I packed up the night of the funeral and never looked back.”
After wine, Violet returned to her apartment near the mall, where she’d continued to pay rent since her abrupt departure in December. Despite three months of abandonment, the apartment was hardly dusty. The same sweater she’d worn the night before she’d left was slung over the kitchen chair, and a newspaper from December 24th was spread across the counter. It was like entering a time machine.
Violet had put three framed photographs on the mantel—one of Dean and Anna, another of Dean with their old family dog, and another of herself, Dean, and Larry. Her heart panged with sorrow. Slowly, she removed the family photograph and tried to remember the specifics of the day it had been taken. She was pretty sure she’d forced Larry to wear that button-down. She’d thought it went better with her dress.
It was bizarre, the things you remembered. She told herself not to take issue with the little things later on (and to let “future Larry” wear whatever he dang well pleased for the photographs). She promised herself to take pleasure in the mundane. You never knew how much time you had left.
After Violet settled in and drank a glass of water, she texted Anna that she’d made it. Anna responded seconds later with several photographs of Adam, which immediately warmed her heart. Although Adam hadn’t initially looked like Dean as a baby, he’d begun to show off Dean’s features here and there—in his dimples and wrinkling his nose. Seeing this was just as wonderful as it was heartbreaking.
When Violet got up the nerve, she texted Larry to say she was back. Could they talk?
LARRY: You’re back.
LARRY: I was worried, Violet. I know I don’t have a right to be. But I was, anyway.
LARRY: Do you want to come by the house tomorrow afternoon?
LARRY: Hazel won’t be here.
When Violet read that final text, “Hazel won’t be here,” a shiver ran up and down her spine. Had Larry texted something similar to Hazel back when they’d had their secret affair? “Violet won’t be here. Don’t worry. (Winky face emoji).”
But Violet had logistic questions regarding the house. And she wanted to look Larry in the eye and say something—something about Dean. About all the love she still had in her heart for their family. It seemed essential to her healing process. And when she explained this to her psychiatrist the following morning, he agreed wholeheartedly. “You have to listen to your instincts. More often than not, they’re right.”
Violet’s psychiatrist prescribed her medication that would calm her moods and keep her stable. But his biggest piece of advice was to “be around people who love and respect you.” Violet’s first thought was Anna—and Smith. Her throat swelled.
An hour before Violet planned to meet Larry at the house, Violet called Smith. They’d exchanged numbers on that last fateful night in The Copperfield House, promising to stay in touch as they fielded their separate problems. Smith answered on the third ring and listened intently as she described what she was about to do.
“That’s your house, too,” he reminded her. “Go in with your head held high.”
Violet asked Smith about his mother, about what it had been like to see her again. Smith said he’d tell her later. “Don’t worry about me,” he urged.
“I’m a mother,” Violet responded. “All I do is worry.”
As Violet mounted the front steps of the house, all she could think about was the day they’d bought it. She’d been twenty years old; it had been more than half her life ago. Bill Clinton had still been president. There hadn’t been a war.
And on that day, Larry had wrapped his arms around her, lifted her into the air, and said, “Baby, let’s make a family here.”
Violet rapped at the door, then rang the doorbell, realizing she’d never had to do that at her own house before. After a moment’s pause, she turned the knob and entered. After all, her early wedding planning and later accounting work had paid for much of the mortgage. This foyer tile was just as much her foyer tile as his.
