by Meg Collett
She thought about Francesca’s thirty-day notice and the state taking the land. They’d clear her house for a golf course, and Teller Morgan Group would line their pockets with profit. In a few years, there would be nothing left of the old Relend estate.
At first, earlier today, standing on the other side of the door from Francesca Morgan, the thought had threatened to cripple her.
But looking down the lane at what a true home resembled, Violet found a sliver of peace in her heart. All she needed was a sliver to cling to. If she had that, she could deal with the rest.
* * *
That night after she’d left Annabelle’s cottage trudged by almost as slowly as the next day. In the morning, she called Arie and checked in. Annabelle was asleep, unconscious. They didn’t know if she would wake up again, but at the moment, no one needed anything.
Violet biked back into town, her legs stiff and sore from the frantic ride the previous night. Her first stop was at the mayor’s office. Mayor Crews wasn’t in, but an intern walked her through the finer points of eminent domain claims for public use. They reviewed the offer for her property; it was significantly less than what Teller Morgan Group had offered to pay privately before the assault charge. She and the intern discussed her options. There weren’t many. Only two, actually.
She could sign the papers and agree to the terms and the thirty-day eviction, or she could bring her case in front of a court judge for the state. It would cost her legal fees and copious amounts of time, and the intern stressed it would be a hassle for everyone involved, because in most instances, the judge sided with the local government.
Either way, Violet would lose. The intern offered her a pen to sign the documents. Instead, Violet asked for a copy and walked out. She went to the Canaan library—one of the oldest buildings on the island—and checked out some state regulation books.
Back home, she opened the doors to her parents’ balcony to let in the fresh autumn air and listen to the waves below the house. She spread the papers and books around in her in a semicircle and started reading.
Hours later, she gathered everything up in a neat pile. Her eyes ached and a dull headache pulsed over her left eye, but she was still holding on to that sliver of peace she’d found last night. It was the only reason she didn’t rise to her feet and stumble into her bed. She did rise, but instead of going to bed, she went into her parents’ closet.
The amount of clothes and shoes and jackets and scarves and bags and everything else that could be propped on a body was mind-boggling. Violet drifted toward the end of the closet and started pulling boxes from the cedar shelves lining the back wall. They contained mostly hats of every size and color, some she’d never seen.
The closet was a trove Violet couldn’t quite figure out how to breach. She put the hat boxes back exactly as she’d found them, lining their edges up to the lines in the dust where they’d sat for years since the accident. Violet backed out of the space and eased the door shut.
Leaning against the door, she heaved out a breath. She might have a sliver of peace, but she wasn’t ready for that.
After checking her phone for any calls or texts from Arie, she closed up the balcony doors and walked downstairs to prepare dinner. As a sweet potato and a tiny helping of casserole cooked, the oven heated the room enough that she pulled off her cardigan and tied up her hair. She wore the thick glasses she hated, because her eyes were too weak today. The spectacles felt round and cumbersome on her face, and she had to keep pushing them up while she sat at the table with a pen and notepad.
Her hand holding the old-fashioned ballpoint pen hovered above the paper. She chewed on her lip as she thought back to Arie’s list of tasks. She lowered the pen and made a large ink splotch on the page before writing out each of his tasks from memory. She skipped a line between each until she reached the last task, the twelfth one.
He’d already accomplished four, and she moved the pen back up the page and drew a steady, thick line through each one. The birdhouses. The whiskers. The flowers. And the gargoyles.
Eight more remained. Eight tasks she’d thought were clever but didn’t really improve her house. They wouldn’t fix the rotted beam in the cellar that allowed the house to tilt. The tasks wouldn’t repair the broken windows on the first floor or fix the water damage in the attic. None of them would make her house a home, and while Arie’s presence here each evening had breathed newness and purpose into the old place, he wasn’t the permanent solution.
She couldn’t depend on him and his tasks to fix her house.
Her pen hovered above the other eight tasks, and with careful precision, she crossed out each one. They didn’t matter anymore. They simply couldn’t.
If she wanted to turn her sliver of peace into something bigger, stronger, more tangible, she needed to carve out a space for living in her life. This house, or any house she lived in, would never brim with life if she didn’t first have a life of her own and if she didn’t stop hiding behind the tilting walls and sloping floors.
It was time for her own list of impossible tasks.
Beneath each one of Arie’s tasks she’d crossed out, she wrote her own. After a few, she got up and pulled her dinner from the oven. She kept working as she ate, and as the sun set, she had to get back up to turn on the kitchen light.
She could already cross out a few tasks. They were simple ones like attending a social gathering, flirting with a handsome man, throwing a party, having friends, kissing Arie.
She could cross out nearly half the list. The tasks were things that, a month ago, she would have thought impossible for her to accomplish. Now they were just words beneath a black line.
Her heart beat a little faster when she looked at the other half, the tougher ones. Ones like apologize to Gregory, sort through the house and donate her parents’ things, pack up only three boxes of her mother and father’s possessions that she wanted to keep, stop wearing her mother’s clothes and find her own style, figure out a healthy way to be alone, sign the contract.
And the last task, the hardest one to write out and look down at and see the letters without a line through them, knowing at one point, she would have to cross it off.
Her twelfth task: Leave this house.
She eased the notepad away and crossed to the sink to rinse out her dishes. It was completely dark out. She still hadn’t heard anything from Arie, but she told herself that was fine. His presence here in the evenings couldn’t be what she lived for. He couldn’t be what she lived for.
She had to figure that out for herself.
She was starting up the stairs when a knock came from the front door.
“Violet,” Arie called through the door. “It’s me.”
Back down the hall, she opened the door. Arie was over the threshold almost instantly and pulling her into a hug. He enveloped her, melding his rougher edges to all her curves, his nose buried deep in her hair. She wrapped her arms around his neck and let him hold on.
She knew it well—holding on. She knew the single-minded determination it took to just keep breathing some days. It was one of those days for Arie. She could tell by the dark circles beneath his eyes, the strain around his mouth, and the way he kept his weight off his prosthetic.
When Arie straightened away from her, she asked, “How’s Annabelle?”
Arie smiled softly. “She was awake when I stopped by. She had everyone laughing, and she was eating another piece of Maggie’s cake you brought. She told me to tell you how much she appreciated it.” He squeezed her hand. “She said she wished you would have come in to say hello. I sat with her for a bit while the hospice nurse pulled Hale and Cade aside to talk to them.”
Violet’s heart tugged, but she knew what the nurse had probably said.
“People get a surge of strength right before,” Arie said, the lines around his mouth deepening. “I saw it in Iraq.” A muscle twitched along his jaw. “Anyway, the nurse said it would probably be tonight.”
“I’m sorry, Arie.
”
He raked a hand through his hair, smoothing it back into place. “I’m sorrier for Hale and Cade.”
“Do you want some dinner? I have a casserole I can heat up for you,” Violet said.
“That sounds great.” He followed her into the kitchen and sat down while she got things ready. “I visited Hale and Cade’s job sites today. While they’re with Annabelle, I’ll be handling operations for a week or longer. I probably won’t be around much in the evenings to work, and it’ll be a while until Hale and Cade catch up enough to come out here and fix that beam in the cellar.”
Violet kept her back to him as she slid the dish into the oven and adjusted the dial. “That’s okay,” she lied. “There’s no rush. Do what you can for Hale and Cade.”
With the lie finished, she turned around. Arie had his head in his hands, and he was massaging his temples. He hadn’t noticed the tightness in her voice.
“I just wish I could do more,” he said, the words muffled against his hands.
She understood the feeling. She’d lived with it her entire life.
“I called my mom today,” he said when she didn’t say anything.
She sat down in the chair across from him. “How did that go?”
He met her eyes then. “I told her I’m going to apply for a vet scholarship to go back to school.”
Violet’s stomach flipped. It wasn’t happiness for him, though she should have been happy and she berated herself that she wasn’t. She was the one who’d encouraged him to do this, she reminded herself. But her heart squeezed painfully enough that she couldn’t help but acknowledge the fact that he’d be leaving Canaan.
Leaving her.
She clutched her sliver of peace and held on. “That’s great, Arie. What did she say?”
“She just cried. Before we said goodbye, she told me she was proud of me.”
Not trusting her voice, Violet smiled at him, and through his exhaustion, she spotted the sliver he was holding on to. It looked a lot like purpose and hope. Like just enough strength to make it through one day in this new endeavor. He looked proud of himself too.
“Come here,” he said, reaching for her.
He settled her onto his lap and buried his face in her hair. His lips found her neck and the soft skin beneath her ear. She leaned into him, her arms around his neck, as his mouth moved lower, his hands squeezing her against his chest. She rested her lips on his forehead and told herself she was grateful for the time she had with him.
She told herself he needed this for himself, and she did too.
On her list of impossible tasks, she’d included figuring out a healthier way to be alone. For her to cross off that task, she would actually have to be alone.
17
Annabelle Cooper died in her sleep on the fourth day of November, with each son holding a hand.
It rained that day for just a few minutes in the late morning. The sky turned a little hazy, and the raindrops were barely enough to wet the earth. The rain clouds parted as quickly as they’d come, but the sky was bluer for them.
Her funeral was held that week at the local Canaan Cemetery. She was buried next to her husband of fifty-six years. The entire town came out to remember her. People had to park on the outskirts of town and walk back in, and all the local police officers had been assigned to traffic control. The few tourists hanging around town for the day were baffled by the closed signs on stores and the droves of people flocking by in solid black.
Expecting a crowd, the funeral director had arranged for one hundred and fifty chairs to be put out, but it wasn’t enough. Over half the people attending had to stand.
Violet watched it all from her parents’ mausoleum at the back of the cemetery. She sat on the roof to see through the trees and paid her respects from afar. She wore a simple black dress that swept out over her hips and swirled around her legs with numerous petticoats beneath the folds. She’d pulled out her father’s leather jacket for the occasion and one of her mother’s black hats with netting falling over one eye.
Cade and Hale each spoke during the service, and when Cade bowed his head, his words beginning to stutter, Stevie went up to stand beside him. She wrapped her arm around his waist, her head on his shoulder. Hale and Kyra rose from their seats to stand on his other side, and together they all took turns reading the rest of Cade’s speech while he cried for his mother. Canaan’s long-time priest said a final prayer and the service ended.
Violet was grateful for the heavy jacket, because she had to wait with her parents for hours while the crowd dispersed. Many people lingered at the gravesite, each and every person saying goodbye to one of Canaan’s most beloved.
Everyone knew there would never be another soul quite like Mrs. Annabelle Cooper.
Violet hugged her knees to her chest, her dress draped around her. If anyone were to look toward the back of the cemetery, they might see a dark shadow. Some, with very good eyes, might think an angel was resting atop the stone building, but they would probably think themselves crazy for entertaining such a thought.
When the cemetery was empty and she was alone, Violet eased down from the roof, careful not to snag the dress. She laid a hand on the door to the mausoleum, though she didn’t bother saying goodbye. Her parents weren’t truly in there, and she didn’t need to be in the cemetery for them to hear her. As she started walking away, skirts swishing around her, she realized something else. Something important.
If her parents weren’t truly sealed in that dark mausoleum, then they weren’t sealed in the house either. If she didn’t need to be in the cemetery for them to hear her, then she didn’t need to be in the house.
They were with her. Always.
* * *
November petered by like a kid’s rusty red wagon. The few straggling tourists looking for cheap rates on beachfront rentals were finally gone, and the island belonged to the locals again. The trees were bare of leaves, the ocean looked gray and cold, and the beaches were just solitary stretches of sand. The sea oats grew tall without bare feet constantly tromping on them, and the seagulls had migrated down to Mexico for warmer breeding grounds.
Almost two weeks had passed since Annabelle’s death, and Violet had only seen Arie a handful of times, mostly when he stopped by late at night, his body aching and tired from the load he was carrying at Cooper Bros. Contracting, but his eyes were bright from the challenge. He’d kiss her and hold her close, and the holding got easier for him each time. He found himself when he touched her, and bit by bit, he uncovered how he could be with her when his body covered hers and he moved inside her. He came alive, and Violet had a front row seat to his discovery. Each morning after, he’d wave goodbye and promise to be back soon.
He’d gotten his veteran scholarship at the University of Georgia. He was leaving in December to get settled before classes started in January.
The sliver of strength he’d been holding on to had grown into something more than he could wrap his arms around. He talked less about regrets and more about the future, and he always included Violet. He spoke often about how she could come to Athens and stay in his apartment.
He never asked if she wanted to leave Canaan.
She thought maybe it was because neither of them were strong enough yet to admit it would never happen. Canaan was her home, and while it may make her life small, it was enough for her. Her heart beat a little easier out by the bluffs of her house, beneath the lighthouse’s shadow.
She found peace there. Her sliver of peace she’d been clinging to had also grown. In those couple of weeks, as she packed up heaps of boxes to donate to local charities, she’d found solace. She’d only kept the most important possessions for herself. They weren’t the most expensive or valuable—most of those she was giving to a museum in Atlanta—but the possessions tucked away in her three boxes were the ones with the most valuable memories tied to them. The ones she wanted to carry forever, into her next house.
Her next home.
Which would be a s
mall house out on the road Annabelle had lived on. It was still on the northern part of the island, and Violet could see the lighthouse from it. She could walk there if she wanted to, and she could also stand on the bluffs and talk to her parents. She still sensed them out there, in the wind and ocean. She’d put down the rent deposit and started planning what furniture she would take, what she would leave behind, what deserved to stay with the house, and what she could bear to donate.
At some point, she would have to tell Arie she’d lost the house since he hadn’t noticed the building accumulation of boxes.
At some point, she would have to cross the last few tasks off her list. They stared at her every evening, waiting for her to gather her strength.
Apologize to Gregory.
Sort through the house and donate my parents’ things.
Pack up only three boxes of Mother and Father’s possessions that I want to keep.
Stop wearing Mother’s clothes and find my own style.
Figure out a way to be alone.
Sign the contract.
Leave this house.
* * *
A week from her eviction date, Arie came by again. He’d spent enough time with her that he texted when he was on his way and she left the front door unlocked for him. He came in on his own, locking the door behind him.
“I’m in my room,” she called down that evening.
She heard his boots on the stairs, his steps a little lighter than normal. Hale and Cade had returned to work and taken back the main responsibilities, but Arie had done such an amazing job in their stead that they’d left a few jobs for him to manage on his own while they sorted out their mother’s estate. He’d taken the responsibility seriously, and she’d seen him even less than when he’d been running the entire business.
