The Violets of March (27 page)

“I guess that leaves me,” I said, turning to the woman.

Before she even offered me a card, she looked into my eyes and then frowned.

“I’ll pick that one,” I said, pointing to the pink card with the dragon on the front.

The woman looked worried, as though I’d just committed a cardinal sin of fortune-telling, but she reached for my hand anyway.

My examination took the longest of all. I waited patiently as she ran over the lines of my hand again and again, as if trying to piece something together. After several minutes, she let go of my hand suddenly, as if something had startled her. Then she consulted the cards, laying three out before us.

She stared at them for a long time, and then she finally opened her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I will give you a refund.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t understand. Why can’t you tell me what you see?”

She hesitated and then said, “I can’t.”

I leaned in and grabbed her hand. “I need to know,” I said with such intensity that I think it startled Rose and Frances. “I have to know.”

“All right,” she said, “but maybe you will not like what I say.”

I said nothing and just waited, waited for her to tell me this thing, this terrible thing that was my fortune.

“There is little time,” she said. “You must follow your heart.” She paused to think of the right word. “Before it is too late.”

“What do you mean, before it’s too late?”

“There is trouble here for you. Trouble for your life line.”

We all knew exactly what she meant. But Frances was the only one to react.

“Enough,” she said. “We’re getting out of here.”

“Wait,” I said. “I want to hear the rest.”

The woman looked at Frances, and then back at me. “You must write.”

“Write what?”

“Your story.”

Frances threw up her hands and walked out of the booth, leaving Rose and me there to make sense of this woman’s cryptic message.

“What story?”

“The story of your life,” she said.

I shook my head. “Why?”

She nodded. “It must be done. You must write it. Your words, dear, will have great importance for . . . the future.”

I sat up in bed and read that last line over again.

Could this be the sort of eerie hint that Evelyn gave me—that these pages are meant to be in my hands? But how could any of this have anything to do with reality, with here and now? Why would a story from the 1940s, from someone I know nothing about, have any relevance to my life? How could it?
None of it made sense, yet somewhere in my heart, I was beginning to feel that maybe it did.

Chapter 14

March 13

B
y the following day, Bee was doing better. She was sleeping less, eating more, and laughing a little. And when I suggested that we play a game of Scrabble, she didn’t just say yes; she said, “And you think you can beat
me
?”

I was glad to see the spark in her eyes again, even if she did beat me with the word
tinware
. I said it was a made-up word, and she swore it wasn’t.

I countered. “Cookware, glassware, silverware—real words. But tinware?”

She pulled out a dictionary, and sure enough, she expanded my vocabulary.

“Want to play another round?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “I’d just beat you again.”

“I’m glad to see you smiling.”

She nodded. “Evelyn wouldn’t have wanted me to carry on like I was. I can hear her now: ‘For the love of God, get yourself out of bed, get yourself dressed, and stop feeling sorry for yourself.’ ”

“Yep,” I said. “That sounds like her.”

She slipped off her reading glasses and reached into the drawer of the coffee table. “Before I forget,” she said, “I have something for you—from Evelyn.”

“What do you mean?” I said. “She gave you something to give to me?”

Bee shook her head. “I was over at her house this morning,” she said. “Her family is cleaning out her belongings. They found this.”

She handed me a 5 x 7 manila envelope with my name on it. It was sealed with a piece of masking tape.

I looked at Bee, puzzled. “What is it?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, dear. Why don’t you open it?” Then she started walking down the hallway to her bedroom and closed the door.

Inside was a familiar photo. The black-and-white scene was almost identical to the one that hung in the hallway of my childhood home—Bee on a beach blanket, surrounded by friends. Yet the photo had clearly been snapped after the one I’d come to know so well. This image had been captured seconds later, because the woman next to Bee, the one who had been whispering in her ear moments before, faced the camera now. You could see her face, her smile, those beautiful, piercing eyes. I knew in an instant that she was the same woman in the portraits at Henry’s and Evelyn’s. Attached by paper clip was a note, which I carefully unfolded:

Dear Emily, I thought you’d like to have a photo of Esther. Lots of love, Evelyn.

I took a deep breath and blinked hard, walking back to my bedroom.
I knew it was her.
I set the envelope down, but realized there was something else inside. I reached my hand in and pulled out a delicate gold chain punctuated by a simple gold starfish.
Esther’s necklace.
My heart ached as I held it in my hands.

We didn’t talk about the fortune-teller visit after that day—not I, not Rose, and certainly not Frances. But I took her advice to heart and wrote my story, every word of it.

For a while, things started to feel normal again. Bobby’s health improved, my guilt subsided, and if I couldn’t force myself to stop loving Elliot, I could force myself to stop thinking about him, and that’s what I did. And maybe Frances did too. She offered me a room in her house, if I wanted to leave Bobby and start over. But I said I’d manage. I thought I had it figured out—that is, until the night that everything changed.

Bobby hadn’t told me that Father O’Reilly was coming. And when I answered the door, I felt my palms moisten. The last time we’d talked, I’d told him about my infidelity, and he’d told me to tell Bobby, which I hadn’t done.

“Hello, Mrs. Littleton,” he said in a clipped tone. “I’m here to see your husband.”

I wanted to tell him to go home, back to the parish, but I let him in instead, fearful of what he might say once he was inside.

“Father O’Reilly,” Bobby said from the sofa. “I’m so glad you could come.” Bobby explained to me that the priest had promised to pray for him, offering a blessing upon him in his recovery.

“Yes, it’s so good of you to come,” I said, forcing a smile.

“Esther,” said the priest, “if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like some private time with Bobby.”

I nodded and walked reluctantly down the hall to the bedroom.

After a few minutes, I heard the front door close and the engine of a car. I took a deep breath and ventured back out into the living room, ready to face my husband, my infidelity. “Bobby?”

He looked up from the couch and smiled at me. “Hello, love,” he said, motioning me to come sit by him. “Father O’Reilly just left. What a kind man to come over and pray with me.”

“Yes,” I said, relieved.

Then there was a knock at the door.

“I’ll get that,” I said.

I looked at the clock. “Who would be calling after eight?” I said to Bobby as I unlatched the door and opened it slowly to find Janice, our neighbor, standing on the porch. Her eyes were red. She’d been crying.

She shook her head. “He didn’t tell him, did he?” Her voice sounded desperate, unpredictable.