“Maybe if that feeling is mutual. But Gram, you know that I’ve never felt that way, ever.”
“Haven’t you?” Gram leveled her gaze at Violet, and an uneasy silence hovered between them as Violet stared at her, incredulous.
Violet pushed her chair back from the table, and it made an ugly screeching sound on the worn tile. “And so you decided to say all of this aloud for the first time to the FBI?”
“Surely you wouldn’t have me lie to them.” Gram looked so troubled that Violet almost wanted to take the words back, to touch her arm, to reassure her. But no. She was too angry for that. It suddenly seemed as if she was forever reassuring other people. Hadn’t she reached a point where they should be reassuring her?
“But it’s okay to lie to me.”
“I never have, darling. You’ve never asked me any of the things they asked me.”
“I never thought I had a reason to.” Violet didn’t bother to stop the screen door from slamming behind her as she fled onto the back porch. Little did I know, she thought, tears blurring her vision. Little did I know.
To her surprise, Gram followed her. Usually she knew when to leave well enough alone. Violet turned on her heels. “How could you think that?” she cried. “How could you say that? I was happy, Gram. I thought Finn and I were both really happy.”
“But were you making each other happy, or was Bear making both of you happy?” Gram kept her voice gentle but firm. “Whether you want to think about it or not, dear, something did go wrong. The investigators certainly are not going to just let this drop with your explanation that everything was perfectly fine. And neither should you. There isn’t a whole lot you can do right now besides think on this, and so I think you should think on it hard. Let’s assume they are going to find Finn and Bear, okay? You’ll have Bear back, thank God. But what are you going to do then? You and Finn, I mean? I don’t want to see you blindsided again. You need to have played through some scenarios. You need to decide how you might feel about things.”
Violet squeezed her eyes shut tight.
“Come back inside,” Gram said. “Let me help you face this.”
She opened her eyes. “This is between me and Finn.”
“And Bear. And the FBI. And the people being questioned by the FBI. Which includes me. Come back inside, Violet.”
Gram nodded toward the alleyway that ran perpendicular to their back fence, and Violet craned her neck for a view of the side street. Parked there was a shiny dark car with tinted windows. She turned back to Gram with disbelief.
Gram opened the screen door wide, and after a moment, Violet walked through.
Feeling despondent, she took her seat at the table as Gram moved slowly, deliberately—closing the back door, flipping the dead bolt, turning back to face Violet.
“Maybe you’re right,” Gram said softly. “I shouldn’t venture to guess at anyone else’s happiness. Obviously we both missed something here. Something big. It’s certainly not like I saw this coming.”
Violet nodded, softening a little, and Gram seemed to take that as permission to reclaim her seat across the table. Gram leaned in, her eyes weary.
“But I’ll say just one more thing, because I think it’s something you need to remember. It’s important.”
Violet steeled herself with a reluctant nod.
“I might not know anything about the price of beans. But I do know you. And I know that you were happy before you and Finn got together. I mean, right before. I remember that day he materialized back into your life so clearly. A perfect morning. We’d bought out the whole damn farmers’ market. We had Patsy Cline in the air. Apple pie in the making. Wine on ice. No big plans. But you were happy.”
Violet spoke through clenched teeth. “What’s that have to do with anything?”
“I don’t know.” Gram’s eyes were tired. “But … Was he happy before he met you?”
Violet squinted, trying to make out Gram’s point. “I’m genuinely asking,” Gram said. “I genuinely do not know.”
“Well, I … I guess I don’t know either.”
“Maybe you should,” she said gently.
“Maybe.”
“But still, I think it’s important for you to know that you can be happy on your own.”
Violet bristled again—she couldn’t stop herself. “Are you seriously suggesting that I would be just as well off without my husband or my son? Without my son?” She was near tears again.
“Of course not,” Gram said quickly. “You and Bear belong together. But Finn isn’t necessarily a given in this situation, isn’t necessarily required for your happiness, is all I’m saying.”
“And that’s supposed to make me feel better somehow?”
Gram didn’t answer.
“That’s very women’s lib of you, Gram. I can see that the mountains have helped you get in touch with a lot of things. Maybe I don’t mean to you what I thought I did either. Maybe my whole life has been a lie. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
Gram looked horrified. “That is an alarmingly gross misrepresentation of what I was trying to say, Vi. You are not yourself right now, and that is understandable. I should have been more—” Her gaze drifted to the framed photo of Violet and her parents on the wall, and Violet’s eyes followed. For a moment, nobody spoke.
“Darling.” Gram sounded desperate, and Violet had to fight the urge to tell her to just forget this conversation had happened. Because even though she hated confrontation, even though she usually looked the other way at almost any cost, she knew she wouldn’t forget this. And if anyone was going to apologize, it wasn’t going to be her.
Gram sighed. “I know this isn’t something we talk much about, but I’ve spent no small amount of hours mulling the ways that losing one’s parents so young can affect a person. It’s like you’re … well, I used to think of you as a ship.”
“A ship?”
“You’d be sailing along, and really you’d be perfectly content. You might not have known where you were going, but you were okay with that. That much, I think you got from me. And I’m proud to have been able to have taught you that, that life isn’t all about making plans.”
Violet wasn’t about to be taken in by some life lesson metaphor. She shrugged. “So it’s good to be a ship.”
Gram nodded. “But then you’ll see something that looks like a safe port to you. Me. Katie. Finn. You’ll gravitate toward that port and tie yourself up there, even though you were making your way just fine on your own, even though the skies are sunny. It’s as if it suddenly seems like a good idea, in case a storm comes along. But maybe you didn’t need a port. Or maybe you didn’t need that particular port. Maybe if you’d kept sailing just around that bend, you would have found something even more wonderful.”
Violet sighed. “Don’t we all look for ports in a storm?”