Almost Missed You

by Jessica Strawser

  He spread his hand over his heart. “I solemnly promise that for the rest of my life, every questionable decision I make while drunk on love and champagne will be for the sole purpose of making you happy.”

  “Well,” she said, and there was a hint of that slur in her voice again, “I guess we’d better start cleaning up, then!”

  * * *

  By the time Finn climbed into Maribel’s bed next to her, it was nearly three o’clock. They’d found a half-full bottle of champagne that someone had the presence of mind to stick inside the refrigerator door, and polished it off as they made quick work of sweeping the mess into trash bags, tossing them over the back fire escape into the Dumpster below, and making an assembly line at the kitchen sink. Then, buzzed anew, they’d run upstairs and started flinging things into a suitcase, giddy at their newfound sense of impromptu adventure. Finn had never technically moved in, but he had more than enough clothes and toiletries here to pack for a night or two away. Maribel made a game of tossing swimsuits and sundresses across the room to him—more than she could possibly need—as he volleyed them into the open suitcase. When they were done, he’d made love to her urgently, not bothering to turn down the covers or remove more clothes than absolutely necessary. She’d changed into his T-shirt and snuggled in happily while he brushed his teeth.

  Finn downed a couple of ibuprofen before sinking in next to her. He doubted it would do much to overcome the headache that promised to overtake him by morning, but he hardly cared. Maribel’s breathing was already slowing as he spooned himself around her and settled onto the edge of her pillow.

  “Babe,” she said sleepily.

  “Hmm?”

  “If we’re not really leaving in the morning, that’s okay. It was still fun, just the idea of it.”

  “It’ll be even more fun when we’re stuffed full of fresh crab cakes and piña coladas,” he said, smiling into the darkness.

  “Mmmm.”

  He would remember the way she said that mmmm for all of his life.

  12

  AUGUST 2016

  Violet sat obediently at the chintzy drop-leaf table that was awkwardly planted in the middle of her tiny kitchen. It was the only one she and Finn had been able to find that would fit the space here, and she hated it. She hated having to raise the semicircular leaf to make room for Bear’s booster seat at every meal, constantly hauling the extra chair and booster into the pantry to keep them out of the way, always worrying Bear was going to hang on the edge and snap it right off, tumbling to the tile.

  Of course, none of those steps were necessary at the moment. It was just Violet and Gram, who fit cozily across from each other at the little rectangle. Violet hated that too—the reminder that she did not need to make room for a third—or a fourth, for that matter. As she watched Gram brew a pot of coffee that the well-meaning woman insisted they share but that Violet did not especially want, she couldn’t conjure any comfort from this crowded little room. Especially not when she saw Gram open three different cabinets before managing to locate the mugs.

  Back home in Ohio, Gram had known Violet’s kitchen as well as her own. Violet closed her eyes and pictured her sunny kitchen there—not the one she and Finn and Bear had rented from Caitlin, which was worn but beautiful, large and airy and vintage and charming, but the one in the duplex she and Gram had shared. The one that still came to mind in her most anguished moments when she longed to be in the place that felt most like home. The cheery yellow walls that were the mirror image of the ones she’d spent her childhood in, and the comforting sounds of Gram tinkering on her side of the dividing walls. The life Gram had built for herself in Asheville included Violet, but it wasn’t adjacent to Violet’s, not the way it so literally used to be. The only thing that had ever made this new mountain address truly feel like a place where Violet belonged was Bear. When she’d found herself getting homesick this past year, wishing she could run him next door for an impromptu playdate with Caitlin and the twins, she’d remind herself that this was where he’d learned to pedal his tricycle around the driveway, where he’d transitioned to his big-boy bed, where he’d soon walk to his first day of preschool down the block—and where one day she’d look down at his lanky limbs and sideways smile with wonder and realize that her baby had somehow transformed into a full-fledged kid. But he wasn’t here now. And without him, it wasn’t home.

  Gram plunked two steaming mugs onto the table, along with a bottle of agave nectar and a small carton of organic milk. Violet made a face, stood, and retrieved the hazelnut-flavored creamer from the fridge.

  “That is loaded with artificial ingredients,” Gram said disapprovingly.

  “I know,” Violet said, pouring herself twice as much as she usually did. “They’re delicious.” She stopped short of pointing out that there’d been a day when Gram had consumed more of this stuff than she did. She was happy her grandmother felt so at ease here in the culture of Asheville, and at the Evergreen community where she had her own apartment with a patio overlooking the beautiful landscaped grounds of the senior center, the hazy rounded mounds of the Blue Ridge serving as a picture postcard backdrop to her days. She knew it wasn’t fair to Gram that her numbness was giving way to an anger that seemed to extend to everything within reach—mild irritants suddenly becoming insufferable ills. It wasn’t Gram’s fault Finn had disappeared with Bear.

  It was just that Violet wasn’t sure whose fault it was, exactly. Finn was the obvious answer. But why?

  “Katie called,” Gram said, letting it drop.

  “Oh?”

  “She wanted to see about driving down here.”

  Violet had seen Katie only once since she’d moved to Asheville, a quick lunch date on a visit to Cincinnati. It wasn’t so long ago they’d spent five days a week in neighboring offices, lunching and breaking together and sharing even their most mundane moments. How odd that that kind of closeness could dissolve as easily as you could quit a job or move away. Although if Violet was being honest, they’d probably begun to grow apart before that—when Violet had started dating Finn and so soon after gotten pregnant with Bear, and Katie had remained single, and unhappily so. Still, it was always reassuring to know that old friends were willing to be there when you needed them. Caitlin wouldn’t be able to get away to come back anytime soon. A visit from Katie might be nice. Violet felt herself warming to the idea.

  “I told her it was a lovely thought, but not a good time,” Gram continued.

  Violet blinked at her. “Why would you do that?” The words sounded harsher than she intended, and she checked herself. “I mean, I can understand why you might think that, but why not let me decide?”

  Gram sighed, as if she’d known the question was coming but still hoped it wouldn’t. “Katie has always taken a lot of credit for getting you and Finn together,” she said carefully.

  “Well, yeah. If it hadn’t been for Katie—”

  “But I’m not sure it’s best to be harping on how things began, dear. You don’t want that to influence the decisions you make now.”

  Violet’s forehead knitted itself together. “And what decisions would those be? I’m kind of at the mercy of … you know—” Violet gestured halfheartedly into the air and let her hands drop to the table.

  Gram let the silence fill the room, then cleared her throat. “Agent Martin was here again earlier.”

  Violet stiffened. That the FBI was a part of her life now was surreal. That they had yet to make any progress in actively helping her was unsettling. That Agent Martin made Violet anxious even though Violet had done nothing wrong was nerve-racking. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “It was me he wanted to talk to. He went to the office at the Evergreen, and they told him I was here.”

  Violet waited for Gram to continue on her own, but she did not.

  “Well, what did he want?”

  Gram took a long sip of her coffee, set the mug gently on the table, and began turning it slowly counterclockwise in this absentminde
d way she had. Violet could see it now: She’d been summoned from beneath Bear’s Thomas the Train comforter for the purposes of this talk, and not just for Gram’s newly imposed face-the-day routine.

  “He had more questions. About you and Finn. How things have been between you.”

  Violet thumped her palms on the table in frustration, and caramel-colored coffee sloshed over the rim of her mug and puddled on the wood. “All they’ve done is ask the same questions over and over!” she exploded. “They’re supposed to be finding Bear and bringing him home. Instead, they’re investigating my marriage!”

  Gram calmly removed a stack of napkins from the ceramic holder she’d bought for Violet at the big spring craft show and began sopping up the spill. “Well,” she said gently, “to be fair, I’d say the two are intrinsically linked at this point, dear, like it or not.”

  “I’ve already told them,” Violet said, and she felt that she sounded like a child, but she didn’t know how to sound any other way. “We don’t fight. We haven’t been at odds over anything—at least, not anything bigger than whose turn it is to unload the dishwasher. We moved here to be close to you and haven’t met too many other people yet. So we spend even more time together than most couples, probably—and also with Bear. We both of us love our son. What else is there to tell?”

  Gram looked so sad just then that Violet couldn’t help but think of how Gram herself was no stranger to being blindsided. She hardly ever spoke of Violet’s grandfather, or of Violet’s parents, and she carried herself with such contented self-assurance that it was easy to forget she had lost her husband and then her only child in close succession, and one day had found herself faced with the unrequested task of raising her granddaughter. Alone.

  “Look, darling.” Gram’s voice was kind but matter-of-fact. “I spent many, many years married to a man who I loved but was not in love with—and who was not in love with me. It was the same way with most of my friends. Things were different in our day. People got married for different reasons. Our expectations weren’t the same. It had a lot more to do with stability than with romance.”

  Violet stared. “Where are you going with this?”

  “What I mean is that I can recognize someone who is going through the motions.”

  “And you’re saying that’s what you think Finn was doing?”

  Gram didn’t answer.

  “Since we got to Asheville, you mean? Out of his element?”

  Still, Gram said nothing.

  “All the time he’s been with me? You think he’s been just … phoning it in?”

  The old woman shifted in her chair. How long had she been looking so frail? “I don’t know about all the time. But sometimes, maybe so.”

  “And it never occurred to you to say something to me about it?”

  “Darling. What would you have me say, exactly?”

  Violet opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Gram reached across the table and placed her weathered hand gently on top of Violet’s. “I never saw it as a red flag, dear. As I said, I recognize that look. I’ve seen it on your grandpa’s face, and I admit I’ve even seen it in the mirror sometimes. It comes and goes, you know. And it doesn’t mean a marriage cannot still be successful.”

  “Maybe if that feeling is mutual. But Gram, you know that I’ve never felt that way, ever.”

  “Haven’t you?” Gram leveled her gaze at Violet, and an uneasy silence hovered between them as Violet stared at her, incredulous.

  Violet pushed her chair back from the table, and it made an ugly screeching sound on the worn tile. “And so you decided to say all of this aloud for the first time to the FBI?”

  “Surely you wouldn’t have me lie to them.” Gram looked so troubled that Violet almost wanted to take the words back, to touch her arm, to reassure her. But no. She was too angry for that. It suddenly seemed as if she was forever reassuring other people. Hadn’t she reached a point where they should be reassuring her?

  “But it’s okay to lie to me.”

  “I never have, darling. You’ve never asked me any of the things they asked me.”

  “I never thought I had a reason to.” Violet didn’t bother to stop the screen door from slamming behind her as she fled onto the back porch. Little did I know, she thought, tears blurring her vision. Little did I know.

  To her surprise, Gram followed her. Usually she knew when to leave well enough alone. Violet turned on her heels. “How could you think that?” she cried. “How could you say that? I was happy, Gram. I thought Finn and I were both really happy.”

  “But were you making each other happy, or was Bear making both of you happy?” Gram kept her voice gentle but firm. “Whether you want to think about it or not, dear, something did go wrong. The investigators certainly are not going to just let this drop with your explanation that everything was perfectly fine. And neither should you. There isn’t a whole lot you can do right now besides think on this, and so I think you should think on it hard. Let’s assume they are going to find Finn and Bear, okay? You’ll have Bear back, thank God. But what are you going to do then? You and Finn, I mean? I don’t want to see you blindsided again. You need to have played through some scenarios. You need to decide how you might feel about things.”

  Violet squeezed her eyes shut tight.

  “Come back inside,” Gram said. “Let me help you face this.”

  She opened her eyes. “This is between me and Finn.”

  “And Bear. And the FBI. And the people being questioned by the FBI. Which includes me. Come back inside, Violet.”

  Gram nodded toward the alleyway that ran perpendicular to their back fence, and Violet craned her neck for a view of the side street. Parked there was a shiny dark car with tinted windows. She turned back to Gram with disbelief.

  Gram opened the screen door wide, and after a moment, Violet walked through.

  Feeling despondent, she took her seat at the table as Gram moved slowly, deliberately—closing the back door, flipping the dead bolt, turning back to face Violet.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Gram said softly. “I shouldn’t venture to guess at anyone else’s happiness. Obviously we both missed something here. Something big. It’s certainly not like I saw this coming.”

  Violet nodded, softening a little, and Gram seemed to take that as permission to reclaim her seat across the table. Gram leaned in, her eyes weary.

  “But I’ll say just one more thing, because I think it’s something you need to remember. It’s important.”

  Violet steeled herself with a reluctant nod.

  “I might not know anything about the price of beans. But I do know you. And I know that you were happy before you and Finn got together. I mean, right before. I remember that day he materialized back into your life so clearly. A perfect morning. We’d bought out the whole damn farmers’ market. We had Patsy Cline in the air. Apple pie in the making. Wine on ice. No big plans. But you were happy.”

  Violet spoke through clenched teeth. “What’s that have to do with anything?”

  “I don’t know.” Gram’s eyes were tired. “But … Was he happy before he met you?”

  Violet squinted, trying to make out Gram’s point. “I’m genuinely asking,” Gram said. “I genuinely do not know.”

  “Well, I … I guess I don’t know either.”

  “Maybe you should,” she said gently.

  “Maybe.”

  “But still, I think it’s important for you to know that you can be happy on your own.”

  Violet bristled again—she couldn’t stop herself. “Are you seriously suggesting that I would be just as well off without my husband or my son? Without my son?” She was near tears again.

  “Of course not,” Gram said quickly. “You and Bear belong together. But Finn isn’t necessarily a given in this situation, isn’t necessarily required for your happiness, is all I’m saying.”

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel better somehow?”

  Gram didn’t answer.

&n
bsp; “That’s very women’s lib of you, Gram. I can see that the mountains have helped you get in touch with a lot of things. Maybe I don’t mean to you what I thought I did either. Maybe my whole life has been a lie. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  Gram looked horrified. “That is an alarmingly gross misrepresentation of what I was trying to say, Vi. You are not yourself right now, and that is understandable. I should have been more—” Her gaze drifted to the framed photo of Violet and her parents on the wall, and Violet’s eyes followed. For a moment, nobody spoke.

  “Darling.” Gram sounded desperate, and Violet had to fight the urge to tell her to just forget this conversation had happened. Because even though she hated confrontation, even though she usually looked the other way at almost any cost, she knew she wouldn’t forget this. And if anyone was going to apologize, it wasn’t going to be her.

  Gram sighed. “I know this isn’t something we talk much about, but I’ve spent no small amount of hours mulling the ways that losing one’s parents so young can affect a person. It’s like you’re … well, I used to think of you as a ship.”

  “A ship?”

  “You’d be sailing along, and really you’d be perfectly content. You might not have known where you were going, but you were okay with that. That much, I think you got from me. And I’m proud to have been able to have taught you that, that life isn’t all about making plans.”

  Violet wasn’t about to be taken in by some life lesson metaphor. She shrugged. “So it’s good to be a ship.”

  Gram nodded. “But then you’ll see something that looks like a safe port to you. Me. Katie. Finn. You’ll gravitate toward that port and tie yourself up there, even though you were making your way just fine on your own, even though the skies are sunny. It’s as if it suddenly seems like a good idea, in case a storm comes along. But maybe you didn’t need a port. Or maybe you didn’t need that particular port. Maybe if you’d kept sailing just around that bend, you would have found something even more wonderful.”