The Violets of March (34 page)

March 17

“
I
’m coming home,” I said to Annabelle the next morning over the phone. My words sounded a little more defeated and deflated than I had hoped.

“Emily,” she said, “you promised yourself a month.”

“I know,” I said, “but things have gotten pretty intense here. Bee isn’t speaking to me now, and there’s nothing more to say to Jack.”

“What’s going on with Jack?”

I told her about my visit to see his grandfather and what he’d said about the other woman.

“Did it ever occur to you that you might let him do the explaining for himself?”

I shook my head. “No, not after what I’ve been through with Joel. My threshold is low. I can’t go there again, Annie.”

“I’m just saying,” she persisted, “maybe you’re overreacting. Maybe it’s nothing.”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call what Elliot said
nothing
.”

“You’re right,” she said. “It doesn’t sound good. But what about this whole thing with the story of your grandmother? You’re just going to give up?”

“No,” I said, even though I knew I was, in a way. “I can always work on it from New York.”

“I think you should stay,” Annabelle said. “You have more work to do.”

“Work?”

“Yes, work for her and work for you.” Then she paused. “I know you haven’t gotten closure yet. I know you haven’t cried.”

“I haven’t,” I said honestly. “But maybe I don’t have to.”

“You do,” she said.

“Annie, all I know now is that I came to this island seeking stories about my family, seeking truth. But all I have to show for it is heartbreak—for me, for everyone.”

She sighed. “I think you’re just running away from something that you need to face. Em, you’re quitting on the last mile of the marathon.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but I just can’t run anymore.”

When I ventured out of my bedroom, I looked down the hall and noticed that Bee’s door was still closed, so it surprised me to find her moments later sitting at the breakfast table, arranging a vase of flowers.

“Aren’t daffodils just glorious?” she said cheerfully, as if we both had a case of amnesia about yesterday.

I nodded and sat down at the table, afraid to say anything just yet.

“They were your grandmother’s favorite, you know, next to tulips,” she said. “She loved the spring, especially March.”

“Bee,” I said, my voice aching with sorrow and regret. I mourned the loss of my only connection to my grandmother and her writing. “Did you destroy it?”

She looked at me with a silent intensity. “Henry is right,” she said. “You look just like her, in almost every way, especially when you’re mad.”

She walked over to her chair in the living room and returned with the diary in her hands. “Here,” she said, handing it to me. “Of course I didn’t destroy it. I spent the night reading it—every word.”

“You did?” I was grinning so big that Bee couldn’t help but grin back.

“I did.”

“And what did you think?”

“It reminded me of what a wild and impulsive and wonderful woman your grandmother was, and how much I loved her and have missed her.”

I nodded, embracing the contentment I would continue to feel even if Bee never uttered another word about my grandmother.

“I wanted to tell you, dear,” she said. “I wanted to tell you everything, just like I tried to with your mother. But every time I thought about telling you the story, the pain stopped me in my tracks. All these years, I haven’t wanted to step back to 1943. I haven’t wanted to remember any of it.”

I nodded, recalling the violets at Henry’s house. “Those flowers in Henry’s garden,” I said, pausing for a moment to read the emotion on her face, “they reminded you of Esther, didn’t they?”

Bee nodded. “They did, dear. They reminded us both. It was as if”—she looked around the room and took a deep breath—“as if she was there with us, telling us she was OK.”

I reached my hand out for hers and stroked her arm gently. The floodgates had opened, and the memories were gushing out now. I felt I could ask her anything, so I did. “Bee, the painting you gave me, it’s of you and Elliot, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said simply. “It’s why I gave it to you. I couldn’t bear to see it. It was a window into a life I’d never have, and it came to represent all that went wrong so many years ago, with your grandmother.”

I sighed, feeling the weight of the sorrow in the room. “It’s the reason why you haven’t been comfortable with my relationship with Jack, isn’t it?”

She didn’t answer the question, but the look on her face told me yes.

“I understand, Bee, I do.”

She looked lost in thought again. “I bet you want me to explain myself—about that night.”

I nodded.

“I was wrong,” she said, “to believe that I could fill Esther’s place in Elliot’s heart. I was a fool. And I’ll never forgive myself for driving away without knowing if we could have helped her, if we could have saved her. I blame myself for her death every day.”

“No, no, Bee,” I said. “It happened so fast. You were trying to protect Elliot. I understand that.”

“But I was protecting Elliot for selfish reasons,” she said, unable to look me in the eye. “I was protecting my own interests. I was so frightened the police would charge him with murder and take him away from
me
. So I sped away, as fast as I could. If Esther chose to drive over that hillside, that was her decision, I reasoned. I was angry at her, angry that she’d do something of that magnitude to hurt him. Elliot was in shock, and I wanted to protect him. It isn’t an explanation worthy of forgiveness from Esther or from you. But I want you to know—if there is someone to blame for the aftermath that night, blame me.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes before I spoke again. “Don’t you think it’s strange that they didn’t find her body?”

“I used to think about that a lot,” she said. “But not anymore. Her body must have been washed out to sea after the crash. The sound was her final resting place; it had to be. Even now, late at night, when I hear the waves on the shore, I think of her out there. The lady of the sea. She’s where she wanted to be, Emily. She loved the sound and its delicate creatures. Her stories, her poems, they were almost always inspired by that shore.” She pointed out the window to the beach. “It’s the only way I’ve managed to find some peace after all these years.”

I nodded. “But there’s just one thing, Bee,” I said. “Elliot said something about seeing Henry’s car drive into the park that night.”

She looked up at me, confused. “What do you mean?”

“You didn’t see him there?”

“No,” she said a little defensively. “No, he couldn’t have been there.”

“But what if he
was
there, Bee?” I said, searching her face. “If that
were
the case, don’t you think he’d know something?”

“He doesn’t,” Bee said quickly. “I don’t know what Elliot told you about Henry. Sure, he may have been in love with your grandmother, but Henry was just as shocked as the rest of the island when word got out about her death.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, I’d like to talk to him about it myself. Maybe he knows something.”

Bee shook her head. “I wouldn’t intrude on his memories, dear.”

“Why?”

“It’s too painful for him,” she said. I wondered if she was protecting Henry, the way she’d thought to protect Elliot that dark night.

“Esther
affected
him, Emily,” she said. “It would be too hard on him to dredge back the past. If you haven’t noticed, every time you’re around him he acts like a spooked horse. You remind him of her.”

“I understand,” I said. “But—this will probably sound crazy—I somehow get the feeling that my grandmother would want me to. I think he knows more than he’s letting on.”

“No,” Bee said. “Let it rest.”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I have to.”

She shrugged. At the heart of it all, Bee was reasonable.

“Emily,” she said, “you must remember that what’s done is done. There’s no changing the past. In all of this, I’d hate to see you lose sight of your own story.” She paused for a moment. “Isn’t that why you came here?”

I acknowledged her concern with a nod.

We sat there together in silence, except for the seagulls outside, flapping around above the house almost frantically, until I found the courage to tell her I was leaving. “I’m going home to New York.”

Bee looked wounded. “Why? I thought you were staying until the end of the month.”

“I was,” I said, looking out at the sound and doubting my decision.
Have I given things enough time?
“But everything has gotten, well, so complicated.”

Bee nodded in agreement. “It hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing, has it?”

“It’s been a beautiful few weeks, Bee, a transforming time, and I owe it to your hospitality, and your love,” I said. “But I think it’s time for me to go now. I think I need time to process what I’ve experienced.”

She looked as if she felt betrayed. “And you can’t do that here?”

I shook my head, and my resolve strengthened even more when I thought of Jack. “I’m sorry, Bee.”

“OK,” she said. “But don’t forget, this is your home. Don’t forget what I told you. It’s yours now and will be yours officially whenever I go. . . .”

“Which will be never,” I said, forcing a laugh.

“But it will happen, sooner than both of us think,” she said matter-of-factly. The ache in my heart told me she spoke the truth.

March 19

A day passed in which I did nothing but think—about Esther and Elliot, Bee, and Jack. I thought of my mom, too, and the following day I curled on the sofa in the lanai and dialed her familiar number. “Mom?”

“It’s so good to hear your voice, honey,” she said.

I realized I may never completely understand my mother’s ways, but excavating Esther’s story had come with an unexpected benefit: I could now see her in a new light. After all, she was just a child who had lost her mother.

“Mom, we need to talk about something,” I said.

“Is it Joel?”

“No,” I said, pausing to consider how I would proceed. “About . . . your mother.”

She was silent.

“I know about Esther, Mom.”

“Emily, where is this coming from? Did your aunt tell you something? Because—”

“No. I found something, something that belonged to your mother—a diary that she wrote about her life. I read it, and I know what happened to her, at least up until the end.”

“Then you know that she left us, that she left me,” she said, her voice suddenly tinged with anger.

“No, Mom, she didn’t leave you—at least, I don’t think she intended to. Grandpa threw her out.”

“What?”

“Yes, he made her leave, to pay for what she did. And, Mom, there was a tragedy that night, the night she disappeared. I’m trying to unearth the answers for you, for me, for Elliot, and for—”

“Emily, why? Why are you doing this? Why can’t you just let it be?” Her sentiments mirrored Bee’s, for the same reasons, perhaps. They were both scared.

“I can’t,” I said. “I have this sense that I’m supposed to find the answers for her.”

There was more silence on the other end of the line.

“Mom?”

“Emily,” she finally said. “A very long time ago, I tried to find those answers too. I wanted more than anything to locate my mother, to meet her, but mostly to ask her why she left—why she left
me
. I tried, believe me, I tried. But my search turned up nothing but emptiness and heartache. I had to make a decision to stop looking. I had to let her go. And when I did, I knew, deep down, that I had to let the island go too.”

I wished I could look into her eyes then, because I knew I’d be able to see the part of her that had been missing for so long. “Mom, that’s just it,” I said. “You may have given up the search, but I can pick up where you left off.”

She exhaled deeply. “I never wanted you to know about any of this, Emily,” she said. “I wanted to protect you from it. And it worried me to see that you were taking after her—your creative gifts, your spirit, even your appearance. I knew Grandma Jane could see it, just as I did, that you’re the spitting image of Esther. ”

My mother’s words were like a needle and thread, sewing disparate fabrics of my life together into a perfect seam. I remembered that ill-fated afternoon when Grandma Jane colored my hair years ago, and realized for the first time that it wasn’t
me
she had despised; it was my resemblance to Esther. It frightened her and unsettled her so much that she wanted to change the way I looked.
What power Esther had over all of them.

“The veil,” I said, remembering the hurt I’d felt when Mom had been dismissive about my wearing the family heirloom on my wedding day. “Why didn’t you want me to wear it?”

“Because it was wrong,” she said. “On Danielle, it was different. But I just couldn’t send you down that aisle in that veil, in Grandma Jane’s veil, not when you embody so much of Esther’s spirit. I’m so sorry, honey.”

“It’s OK,” I said.

“I just wanted, so much, for you to be happy.”

I paused for a moment, considering my words carefully. “Mom, there’s something else.”

“What?”

I blinked hard, feeling the weight of what I was about to say. “Esther was pregnant the night she left, the night of the accident.”

I could hear her breathing through tears. “I don’t believe this,” she said.

“She was expecting a baby—Elliot’s baby, the man she loved—on the night she disappeared. It’s all in the diary. I know this has to be hard to hear, Mom. I’m sorry.”

She blew her nose. “All these years I’ve been so angry at my mother, this woman who supposedly left me as a baby—who leaves their
baby
?—but now, somehow the only thing I want to know is: Did she love me? Did my mother love me?”

“She loved you,” I said without hesitation. It was what Esther would have wanted me to say, I told myself, and it was what my mother needed to hear.

“Do you really think so, honey?”

The tone of her voice—raw, honest, devoid of any pretense—forever changed the way I thought of my mother. At her core, she was just a little girl longing for a maternal bond. How she hid a lifetime of heartache and issues of abandonment, I’ll never know, but she was wearing it all on her sleeve now, and it made me admire her in a way I didn’t know I could.