Violet loved that her new workday included “Bear breaks” when she’d pop in to his class. Somehow she always ended up with a crowd of three-and four-year-olds gathered around her to play the high five game—“up high, down low, you’re too slow!” She loved how uncensored they all were, how they’d just yell out whatever was on their minds. After too many years of secrets, she found it refreshing that Bear had entered such an honest age.
Caitlin wrote to her, about once a month. Old-fashioned letters sent in monogrammed envelopes. Violet sometimes contemplated discarding them, unopened, but curiosity always got the best of her. And the truth was, she was happy to hear that Caitlin and George were working things out, that he was traveling less, that he was probably not going to run for office after all, though it still wasn’t out of the question. He’d come out of the situation at the cabin well—too well, for anyone who valued the truth over the trumped-up version of the story. The media had hailed him as a hero for wounding the fugitive to keep him from running—imagine the Bryce-Danielses’ shock to come upon a family friend who’d been trying to hide out at their vacation home!—and for reuniting a mother with her child in the process. That Caitlin had first driven to get Violet before calling the cops had been an error in judgment, certainly, but not a crime. And George had simply done what anyone would do when he caught Finn trying to make his escape. It was the story Finn had told, and Violet didn’t mind it. She’d gone along with so much, unsuspectingly—what was one more thing? But she had to keep it at a distance.
Agent Martin, she was pretty sure, hadn’t swallowed what they were feeding him as eagerly as the press had—but there wasn’t much motivation to dig deeper once Finn was in custody and Bear was home. Violet couldn’t help thinking that the universe seemed to be constructed so that things would work out for the Georges and Caitlins of the world. She didn’t begrudge them that. But she never wrote back.
“Can we take this sand home too, Mommy?” Violet laughed. The sand at St. Augustine Beach was fine and white, a closer cousin to fairy dust than to the brown, shelly mix that lined the barrier islands outside Beaufort. This was just the vacation they needed. She’d invited Gram, but Gram had declined, saying that Violet needed to do this on her own, to “get it under her belt,” as she put it, and erase the bad taste of the vacation that had come before.
“I have a feeling we’re going to whether we want to or not,” Violet said, turning the dump truck upside down and trying to shake it clean enough to go back in the beach bag.
“Daddy!” Bear was on his feet in an instant, running toward a figure walking in the wet sand. Violet squinted through the sun at the man and was amazed that Bear had recognized him. He was wearing a decidedly un-Finn shirt, a linen button-down instead of his usual graphic T. His mirrored sunglasses masked his expression, but not the eagerness with which he bent down to scoop Bear up into his arms. He looked tan. Well fed. Healthy.
She checked the surge of involuntary happiness that overtook her at seeing the two of them hug, offering a baffled half smile as he splayed his fingers apart in a wave and carried Bear toward her. She hadn’t seen Finn since that night in the cabin, not wanting to cause either of them, but especially him, any further unhappiness. The divorce papers were signed and delivered through couriers and lawyers.
Finn deposited their son in the shade of the pier, and Bear began to jump up and down wildly, kicking sand onto Violet’s feet. “Did you come to watch the ships with us?” he yelled, bubbling over with excitement. “Did you come to look for pirates?” At that Bear began an invisible sword fight, slashing his arms through the air, and Finn grinned at Violet, an apology forming in his smile.
“A free man,” she said, clapping her hands in silent applause.
“A probationary man,” he corrected her. “But a weekend away is allowed if you tell them where you’re going and stay in the state. It helps if your therapist thinks it’s a good idea. And if it’s free. A guy in my program has a condo here—he’s letting me use it.”
“How did you know we were here?” she asked.
“I didn’t.” He pushed the sunglasses onto the top of his head. “Honest.”
She watched him take her in—the long crepe sundress, draped with strands of freshwater pearls she’d picked up at a touristy boutique in the old town. Her hand went self-consciously to her windblown braid.
“I might have wished for it, though,” he said softly.
She waited for him to look meaningfully at Bear, but he didn’t. His eyes were on her.
“And you didn’t know I would be here?” he asked.
Violet raised her eyebrows. Of course there was no way she would have known.
“So we’re meeting again,” he said, “on a different beach, by accident.” He held her gaze. “Again,” he repeated.
Violet looked over at Bear, who was jumping in and out of the pier’s pillars now, hiding and chasing invisible pirates, showing off. “Yaaarrrrr!” he yelled. “Shiver me timbers!”
“Imagine if this were the first time,” Finn said.
She nodded. Things could have been different.
“I’m not wearing the right shirt,” she said finally. “You wouldn’t have stopped.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. You have Camp Pickiwicki written all over you.”
“Is that so?”
“It’s just that you look so wholesome—and yet, I can’t help but wonder if you might be the type who’d sneak out after dark and meet me by the docks.”
Finn smiled, and there it was—that effortless, kindred warmth that had drawn her in from the start. The one that she hadn’t seen again the second time around, but that somehow still felt familiar. It didn’t make any sense. Finn had been a stranger then, and in some ways he was even more unknown to her now. Violet wiped the perspiration from her forehead with the back of her hand.
“Imagine if,” she repeated. She’d liked the sound of the words when he said them. They sounded so much better than almost.
Discussion Questions
1. We seem to put a lot of emphasis on the stories of how couples meet—husbands and wives find themselves fielding this question even after they’ve been together for most of their lives. Why do you think that is?
2. At pivotal moments, Violet and Finn think similar thoughts, but in different contexts. In Chapters 1 and 13, they separately reflect on their odds of getting together, and express that they can’t believe their luck. In Chapters 17 and 18, both feel that they have “never been so sure”—and “never been so wrong.” How do these echoes serve to highlight how well matched and/or mismatched they are?
3. Caitlin and Finn have, by most accounts, a platonic friendship—something many people consider rare or even impossible. In what ways is their relationship meaningful? In what ways is it unhealthy? Do you think there may have been more to it than was ever revealed on the page?
4. Do you sympathize with Caitlin’s position, as the story unfolds, or do you find her behavior inexcusable under any circumstances?
5. In what ways is Violet complacent in the events leading up to Finn’s ultimate disappearance with Bear? Do you feel she isn’t complacent at all?