“If there are, I will save you with my sword!”
Violet didn’t want to mourn this August, the anniversary of things gone so horribly wrong. She wanted to celebrate it—an August with Bear, on the heels of an August without. For years now, it had been a month of almosts, starting with that first meeting with Finn, and with him looking for her and finding a different love instead. The next August, he’d lost that love, and himself along with it. He’d reappeared a year later on Violet’s own August calendar, with the excitement brought by the ad she’d almost missed, the first date marked by the questions she’d almost asked. The following Augusts had been consumed by Bear—sharing those infant days with Caitlin, watching him become a toddler, vacationing together at the cabin before their move to Asheville, reveling in things briefly coming together before they fell apart again.
But there was nothing almost about this August. She had her Bear, and things set right with Gram, and a new start. She’d had to let go of so much that had happened, but more than that, she’d needed to forgive Finn, and Caitlin, and, most of all, herself. Finally emerging on the other side of all that felt good—like the delight of coming across something forgotten but treasured, something she’d misplaced long ago and eventually given up looking for.
And so she’d loaded Bear into the car and driven the three hours down here to the top of Florida, where she knew Bear—who’d gone a bit pirate crazy these days—would be amazed by St. Augustine’s Castillo. The first day, she bought him an old-fashioned wooden sword in the souvenir shop, and he’d been carrying it with him everywhere since.
She loved the old-world feel of the gated city’s pedestrian walkways, the way they transported anyone who walked there to another time. Bear hopped down the cobblestones with abandon, and she could let him without fear of traffic or losing him in a crowd. He was transfixed by the lighthouse, whooped every time they drove across the long bridge toward St. Augustine Beach, and astonished her daily with how much he had grown in only a year. He asked a never-ending string of questions, and she took her time to thoughtfully answer every one.
“Wait until you take that sword home,” she told him. “Your friends at preschool are going to think it’s so cool.”
He nodded, then turned serious. “Except Emma. Emma only wants to play Who Wants To Be My Puppy?”
In moments like these, when Violet had to stifle a laugh, she missed having another parent there to meet her eyes and share a look over Bear’s little head. But in general, she was happy with just the two of them. And though she knew he missed Finn, Bear seemed happy too.
For Bear, it sometimes seemed almost as if the incident last August had never happened. He’d been so young. It was a big change, of course, to live with Violet alone, and to see Finn only during supervised visits, which would have been few and far between even if Finn hadn’t been taken so far away, back to southern Florida, the scene of his only true crime. Violet tried not to think of what it was like for Finn at the treatment center, aside from being glad that her own wishes had been taken into consideration, and that he was receiving treatment rather than strictly punishment. It seemed to her that he’d been doling out punishment to himself for years, only making things worse. But just because she was glad he was getting help didn’t mean she had to be a part of it. Gram took Bear on his visits there—always efficient, flying down and back on the same day—and Violet didn’t ask many questions, trusting Gram and their case workers to tell her anything she needed to know.
She gathered that Finn was doing well—deeply repentant for what he’d done, learning ways to try to let go of his guilt, and wanting only good things for Violet. His year of mandated inpatient treatment had sped by, and though he still had years of therapy and probation ahead, she was glad that he’d have another chance at a way forward. Eventually, the restrictions on the visits with Bear would lessen, though Violet had no idea how that might work or what it might look like. She wasn’t quite ready for that yet—but it no longer seemed unfathomable that down the road she would be.
At home, on an everyday basis, Bear proved remarkably resilient. The child psychologist assigned to their case had assured Violet that it would be so, and to her surprise, it was. He rarely brought up the time they’d spent apart just the year before. He didn’t cling to Violet, nor did he seem shaken by his visits to his dad. He accepted the straightforward explanation that Finn was sick and doctors were making him better, and he answered the social worker’s questions as if they were doing a fun quiz.
For Violet, the incident still shaped her days more than she wanted to admit. She did cling to Bear—emotionally if not outwardly. Her eyes rarely left him, whether they were at home or out somewhere, and sometimes, she still slept in his bed. But she did it out of love, not fear.
She’d had to go back to work, of course. She now managed communications for a chain of day cares at their headquarters, which adjoined one of their own centers. Bear enrolled in preschool there for a fraction of the tuition, and Violet knew how lucky she was that her funds weren’t nearly as tight as other single moms’. She never could have forgotten that, anyway—that she was one of the lucky ones. She’d gotten her son back. And she liked the aspect of her job that involved telling parents not to worry, that their children would be in good hands there—because she could see for herself that it was true.