“But he has me side by side with Maribel now, and he’s choosing her.” Violet started to cry again. “She’s not even alive, and he’s choosing her!”
Gram shook her head. “I’m not sure that’s true. He’s choosing guilt. He’s choosing to punish himself. Maybe even to deny himself. Maybe his love for you has always been just as real as you thought, but he can’t give himself over to it because he feels like he doesn’t deserve it. When I said earlier that sometimes he seemed like he was going through the motions, I shouldn’t have ascribed my own reasons to that. If he did have a sense of detachment, there could have been other reasons. Better reasons. And temporary ones. Things he was trying to work through—maybe still is.”
“What difference does it even make at this point? It’s too late for us now. There’s no way we can come back from this.”
“Don’t be so sure, dear. You’re a good ship captain—the best. If there is a way back, you’ll find it.”
Violet shook her head sadly. “I’m not sure how I’ll ever find my way without Bear. I still don’t understand…” She swallowed hard, fighting emotion, trying to find the words for her confusion. “Even knowing what we know now, I still don’t understand why he took him. Why he left, maybe. But why take my son?”
The lone lightbulb above them flickered once, twice, three times with a static, electric sort of sound, and the women turned their eyes upward, holding their breaths, waiting to be plunged into darkness. But the noise quieted, the light steadied, and they found themselves staring again at each other.
“It would help if he had some discernible reason,” Gram said finally. “But maybe there isn’t one. Or maybe there isn’t just one. Ultimately, does it really matter?”
“Of course it matters!” Violet felt instant shame at the outburst. “It matters to me,” she said more softly.
“Fair enough. That’s your right,” Gram said, matching her tone. “But to me? It only matters that he brings Bear back.”
*
Once Gram had gone—reluctantly, and only after Violet’s repeated reassurances that she would be fine, that she was, above all, exhausted and in need of rest—Violet got the vodka and the cranberry back out and filled her glass at the table. As drained as she was, sleep wasn’t an option. And as much as she hated this kitchen, she couldn’t go back into the living room without hearing the echoes of Delilah Branson’s voice over the phone, couldn’t go into her bedroom without being surrounded by reminders of the stranger who was Finn, and couldn’t bring herself to stoop to the low of drinking in a child’s room, even if that was the only place in the house that felt like home. So she sat at the table alone and drained and refilled her glass. She did it again, and again, and she rethought everything she had ever believed to be true about her life with Finn.
“My name is Violet,” she had replied to Finn’s ad. “And I am free any night this week.”
It had taken him a full forty-eight hours to respond. She’d wondered if her message had been caught in his spam filter—there was no direct contact info listed in his ad, no way to reach him other than the automated Craigslist system, and she knew those return addresses were displayed as odd scrambles of letters and numbers. If she had posted an ad looking for someone, she would have been checking her in-box incessantly, at all hours of the day and night. But maybe Finn wasn’t like that. After all, he’d waited two years to post it in the first place.
But finally, there was his response, pinging into her smartphone and bolded at the top of her in-box. It was a short note inviting her to dinner and drinks after work the next day—that was all.
They met at Arthur’s, just off Hyde Park Square, where even the casual spots were overpriced but the location was too perfect to argue. Tuesday was “Burger Madness” at the little brick café—you could get as many gourmet toppings as you wanted for no extra fee. She found Finn waiting at a table in the walled courtyard out back. He was seated in a corner beneath the pergola, a ceiling fan whirling above his head, an almost-empty pint glass sweating on the table in front of him. Violet glanced at her watch. She was right on time. He must have arrived really early. A good sign.
He smiled when he saw her and stood for an awkward hug. As she settled into her seat across from him, her heart racing with anticipation, he leaned in as if to confide some great secret. “I almost didn’t recognize you—you’re not wearing your grandma’s clothes.”
Violet laughed, looking self-consciously down at her blousy sleeveless shirt and khaki pencil skirt. The truth was, the peep-toe heels she’d chosen were the only part of her outfit that Gram herself probably wouldn’t wear. She’d been going for one of those looks the magazines said could transition from office to evening, but she wasn’t sure she’d exactly hit the mark. Finn was far more casual, in jeans and a faded T-shirt.
They made small talk. He ordered another round of drinks—white wine for Violet—and they rattled off their choices of toppings, which, on a list half a menu page long, were the same: Boursin, red onion, lettuce, tomato, bacon. Another good sign. They smiled shyly at each other. Finn seemed nervous in an almost reluctant way. His demeanor reminded her of someone who’d been dragged along on a double blind date against his will, which made no sense, of course. She would have to learn to read him better.
When she told him where she worked, she waited for a flash of recognition on his face, an, “Oh, I almost interviewed there once! Funny story—at the time, I was…” But none came. He merely asked if she was a graphic designer there and she explained that she was not, but that she worked with a team of them in her role overseeing communications. He only nodded.
“That’s what I do for a living,” he explained flatly. “Well, sort of. My current job doesn’t involve a lot of graphics. Or a lot of design.” They laughed together then, as if this were some great coup he had pulled off.