Finn stared at her, and she saw something there. Hope? Despondence? She couldn’t tell.
“Was it?” she asked. “A big misunderstanding?”
“Not really,” he said. Then, seeing her face fall, he added, “The Bear part, maybe.”
Violet’s attempt at empathy faded—she was running out of time—and the fury she’d been suppressing bubbled over.
“The Bear part, maybe?” she repeated, incredulous. “Why don’t you start with the part where you got me comfortable in a beach chair, stuck a drink in my hand, made me think everything was great, and then just disappeared? Do you know what I’ve been through? Do you know that I’ve spent hours being questioned by the FBI? Do you have the slightest idea what it’s been like for me, missing Bear with every bone in my body, so bad I could hardly stand it?”
Her tears threatened to spill over, and she blinked them back. She wouldn’t cry. Not yet. “Forget about what happened with Maribel, or what you decided not to tell me, or why. Why would you do that to me? How could you?”
To her surprise, Finn’s eyes filled with tears too. “Oh God, Vi, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I thought you’d be better off.”
“Better off? How could anyone be better off after that?” Her voice was louder than she intended, and Bear stirred on the couch. She pressed her lips closed tight and leveled her gaze at Finn.
“That day of the accident, the day I fell asleep at the wheel and killed Maribel”—Finn’s voice was barely above a whisper—“I talked her into that drive to see the ocean. And part of the reason was that I couldn’t picture the beach without picturing you there. I was going there with her to erase the image of you and replace it with her. And instead I erased her, forever.”
Finn pulled the blanket tighter around him, and Violet could see that the pool of blood on the floor was still expanding. He needed help. Soon.
“We had absolutely no business being on the road that day. It was the morning after our engagement party. We’d been completely whacked the night before. We’d hardly slept.”
“Her mother said you were trying to be romantic.”
Finn blinked at the mention of Mrs. Branson but then shook his head. “That’s the outside story, smoothed over by my inner PR guy, and by people who want to think the best of me. It’s a nicer story for her that her daughter loved me and it was a whirlwind romantic trip gone wrong. The truth is that our heading to the beach that day was just me being stubborn, feeling disturbed that I’d been reminded of you on the night of our engagement party and wanting to make sure Maribel was the only woman I thought of from that moment on. It seemed so ridiculously urgent. But it wasn’t. We had our whole lives…”
His voice trailed off, and when he spoke again, it shook. “And no matter how hard I try, I can’t get it to go away. The guilt. The pain. The feeling that nothing ended up as it was supposed to. And then all these years later I found myself there at the ocean again, with you, trying to live my life, even though I don’t deserve it, trying to be happy, even though I don’t deserve it, and I realized I still wanted to erase the picture of you and replace it with her.” She winced, and he did too, aware of the pain he was causing. But there was no point in holding back now.
“I couldn’t force myself not to feel that urge to rewrite things. Not even while we were standing there on the beach together that first day of our vacation, watching Bear see the ocean for the first time. It should have been this moment of complete joy, and it wasn’t—only I was the only one who knew that it wasn’t. And I couldn’t stop thinking how unfair that was to you. And what a horrible person I was for thinking that way about my own wife. And all of a sudden I swear to God it honestly seemed like the kind thing to do, to leave you there without me.”
Violet reeled. Intuitively knowing some things were worlds away from hearing them spoken aloud. She clenched her jaw and swallowed hard. “And it seemed kind to take my son with you?”
“Of course not. Hardly. God, Vi, I didn’t plan on it, I swear. I thought I could walk away, but when the moment came—” Finn’s eyes were agonizing pleas. “Bear’s was the only love I could think of that I hadn’t royally screwed up. I think I felt like…”
His words trailed off, and he sighed. “It doesn’t matter. The thought of being so alone again—and of the added agony of missing him—something in me snapped. I just didn’t want to let go.” He shook his head. “Bear deserves to be with you. I know that. Everyone knows that. But you don’t deserve to be with me.”
It did matter. It mattered to Violet what he had felt, and it mattered to her that she hadn’t been allowed to have a say in who deserved what. But it wouldn’t change the outcome now.
“So maybe I’m not your soul mate after all,” she said finally. “Maybe our whole story—how we ended up together but almost didn’t—maybe all of it’s bullshit. Maybe everyone’s story is bullshit. That doesn’t mean we couldn’t have had some kind of love, an understanding. That doesn’t mean we couldn’t still have been parents together to Bear.” Even to her own ears, the words sounded pathetic. A futile, desperate attempt at catching a ship that had already sailed.
“Look,” he said gently, “I found Maribel when I was looking for you. But I’ve spent every day with you looking for her, and I can’t seem to stop. It’s my penance for what I’ve done, and it’s not fair to any of us. I think maybe a part of me thought if it was just me and Bear, I could love somebody the right way, without all this … history, fate, weight. But I know that’s not right. That’s only punishing you both for my own mistakes.”
“You would never have married me if I hadn’t gotten pregnant,” Violet said. It wasn’t a question.
“I tried to do the right thing. I thought I could handle it.”
“We wouldn’t have made it more than a few months otherwise, would we?” It probably should have been her clearest revelation when she first found out about Maribel, but for some reason, it was just hitting Violet now.
“I don’t regret Bear,” Finn said. “He’s the only good to come of any of this.” The pure pain on his face just then laid bare the heart of it all: This was why he’d failed to walk away from their son, even when he could no longer bring himself to stay, even when there was nowhere else to go.
“Why did you even look for me at all?” Violet had to know. “The second time, I mean. After she died.” When he didn’t answer, her anger flashed again. “Why couldn’t you just let me be?”
She could see that the words stung him, and that he was surprised that they did. She didn’t wish them back, but she didn’t take any satisfaction in them either. She was just so tired.
She looked past Finn and could see the faintest hint of a glow on the horizon where the sun would soon appear. “It wasn’t meant to be,” she said, more to herself than to him. “How funny that everybody believed so strongly that it was. I mean, people used to beg me to tell the story to the point where I got sick of telling it. I guess I should have enjoyed it while it lasted.”
“I’m sorry,” Finn said again.
Violet steadied herself with a deep breath. “We’re going to have to call now,” she said. “The ambulance, the feds. No way around it.”
As if on cue, the faint song of a siren sounded in the distance, just as it had on the day she’d met Finn and lost him. She was about to lose him again. Caitlin must have already called. Violet’s eyes met Finn’s. Some connections couldn’t be undone just because someone said so.
“Don’t tell them to go easy on me,” Finn said.
“I’ll tell them the truth,” she said. “That you need help. You should have talked to someone about all this a long time ago—and I don’t mean me. I mean someone who knows what they’re talking about, someone who can help you.”
“Ah. The insanity defense. Why didn’t I think of that?” He looked so pale, so clammy, and in spite of everything, Violet was afraid for him.
“What happened with Maribel was an accident, Finn. It’s like Gram used to tell me,
when I spilled something or broke something—they’re called accidents for a reason. You don’t have to live your life as if you’re a murderer.”
He nodded, though whether or not her words had had any effect, she couldn’t tell.
“Of course, there is the small detail that now you’re a kidnapper.”
Finn forced a laugh. Violet hugged her knees to her chest. Together, they watched Bear sleep until the ambulance arrived.
38
AUGUST 2017
Bear pushed the bright orange Tonka bulldozer in figure eights around the thick pillars of the pier. Violet had been assigned backhoe duty. Her job was to fill the dump truck with sand, at which point Bear would stop what he was doing, gleefully dump the truck’s load onto the sizable pile they’d accumulated, and instruct her to do it again. The brittle plastic of the backhoe’s scoop was not exactly smooth in its response to the toy’s levers and gears, and so now and then sand would fling into the air and rain down on Violet’s warm skin, already sticky from sunscreen and bug spray. But she didn’t care. It felt so good to be away from things, just her and Bear, hours and hours from home. The tide was going out, and the foam rolling gently beneath the tunnel of the pier was a hypnotic piece of vanishing-point-perspective art.
After Finn had been taken into custody, Gram had announced almost immediately that she didn’t know what she’d been thinking, retiring in the altitude, and would prefer a warmer climate. Violet knew Gram was putting the rest of the family’s needs above what she really wanted, and yet she didn’t argue. Finn would always be a part of Bear’s life, though in what capacity they didn’t yet know, and Asheville was too connected to his most painful memories. Violet wasn’t exactly feeling nostalgic about her time there either. And so she helped to find another independent-living facility, one farther south but surrounded by eclectic artists and historic homes not unlike those Gram had so loved in the mountains.
They settled in Beaufort, South Carolina, right on the coast, where Gram’s new seniors’ community was steeped in Low Country charm and afforded breathtaking views of the sunset over the marsh. Violet found a rental nearby, a two-bedroom in a newer complex where the living room and kitchen were adjoined, and Bear’s tiny room shared both a wall and a bathroom with her own. The close quarters suited her just fine, and the sleek, freshly tiled kitchen with its built-in breakfast bar was a welcome change from the old awkward space she’d so loathed in the Asheville rental. Although Violet knew Gram’s heart hadn’t been in coming, she seemed to genuinely like her new home too, making fast friends with the exceedingly polite Southern belle retirees and flirting shamelessly with the men—she couldn’t resist their thick Carolina accents. Not to mention the cobblers, the pies, the fresh crops of peaches and pecans—Gram’s culinary skills fit right in here, and any lingering guilt Violet felt quickly eased.
“This is what’s best for the whole family,” Gram said firmly the one time Violet dared to ask if she was really okay with the move. “And that means it’s best for me.”
Finn wasn’t the only one who’d pictured Violet every time he thought of the beach. She’d always seen herself there too. Looking out at the ocean made her feel connected to something bigger, in rhythm with something constant. She needed that in her life right now. And she liked the idea of raising Bear with that kind of perspective.
“A few more minutes, Cub, and then I thought we could drive into the old town and watch the boats come in. Maybe this time we could have a picnic by the Castillo.”
St. Augustine’s massive open harbor was nothing like the glassy waterways of Beaufort, and it mesmerized Violet just as much as it did Bear. They’d ended every day of their vacation there so far this week. Gram had called Violet a ship, and maybe she’d been right. Violet couldn’t help but feel a kinship with them as they glided in from the uncertain open sea.
Bear’s eyes lit up. “Will there be fishing boats again?”
Violet nodded. “But I like watching the sailboats best.”
“I like watching the cargo ships!”
“I like watching the pirates come in!”
Bear giggled. “There are no pirates, Mommy!”
“Well, there might be today. You never know.”
“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.
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.
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