The Violets of March

by Sarah Jio

  March 30

  Since I’d returned to New York, I’d tried not to think about Jack, but everywhere I turned, there he was. It was his presence I couldn’t shake, and I wondered if this was what Elliot and my grandmother had meant when they talked about enduring love.

  And yet Esther’s story hadn’t ended the way she’d planned. Maybe that was my lesson: I could accept the failure of this love and move on from it, keeping it tucked away in my heart for a lifetime.

  I called Annabelle at noon to coax her away from her office for lunch. “We haven’t properly celebrated your engagement,” I said.

  We planned to meet at one, at a restaurant near my apartment. The hostess seated me, and I waited at the table until Annabelle arrived, ten minutes late. “Sorry,” she said. “Evan’s mom called. She’s chatty.”

  I grinned. “It’s so good to see you, Annie.”

  She smiled. “Was it a good visit? I mean, I know so much happened there, but are you glad you went?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  I grinned. “I know exactly what I need to do,” I said.

  “What?”

  “The book,” I answered. “I’m going to finish it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m going to finish Esther’s story for her. I’m going to write the final chapter.”

  Annabelle grinned.

  “This story has been bottled up so long,” I said. “I somehow feel responsible for giving it closure.”

  She reached across the table for my hand. “And with it, you’re finding your own closure.”

  I nodded. “I owe this to you.”

  “Nah,” she said. “I just got you on the plane. You did the rest.”

  “Annie, I was on the verge of becoming a cat lady. Can’t you just picture me there, in my apartment, surrounded by nineteen cats?”

  “I can,” she said, grinning. “Somebody had to save you from the felines.”

  We laughed, and then Annabelle looked down at her lap. “When are you leaving?”

  “Leaving?”

  “For Bainbridge Island.”

  I knew in my heart that I was going, and Annabelle did too. But when, and under what circumstances, was still to be worked out. “I don’t know,” I said.

  But the time and date had already been decided. I just didn’t know it yet.

  It was after three when I got home. The message light on my phone was blinking, so I pressed the Play button.

  “Emily, it’s Jack.”

  My hair stood on end.

  “It took me a while to track down this number, and to realize that you’d left the island. I was so confused about why you’d leave without saying good-bye, and then I spoke to my grandfather. He told me about your visit, and I realized what had happened. His memory has been fading recently, so if he said anything funny about me, don’t take it to the bank.”

  The message cut off, and another started. “Sorry. Me again. I also wanted to say, about the other night. It was you who called, right? I hope that didn’t give you the wrong impression. I was working on a painting for a client. I had yellow acrylic on my hands when she picked up. Please believe me. There is nothing romantic happening there. Emily, she’s in her sixties. Does this put your mind at ease? ” He paused for a moment. “But there is something I’ve been keeping from you. Something we need to talk about.” He paused again. “Emily, I miss you. I need you. I . . . love you. There, I said it. Please call me.”

  I looked up his number on the caller ID and dialed him back, as quickly as my fingers could punch in the numbers. He loves me. But the phone just rang and rang. So I hung up and did the next best thing: I called the airline and booked a flight to Seattle, departing the next day.

  “Will you be needing a return ticket?” the agent asked.

  “One way,” I said, without pausing to think.

  I packed quickly, but after I’d zipped up my suitcase, I was overcome with the feeling that I’d forgotten something. After a walk through the apartment, checking off items on my mental list, I realized what it was: Years of Grace. I’d been thinking about the book ever since returning to New York, and I was desperate to read it again in light of Esther’s own story.

  The book waited patiently on the shelf in the living room. I pulled it out, sank into the couch, and read a few pages. I studied the title page with fresh eyes, which is when I noticed something I hadn’t seen all the times I’d read the book: someone’s handwriting, in black ink, very light and worn, but still there. I held the page closer to my eyes, and there, plain as day, were the words “This book belongs to Esther Johnson.”

  Chapter 20

  March 31

  I remember hearing a story in high school about a girl who had gone to Seattle with her friends but missed the ferry that would get her to the island in time for her ten p.m. curfew. Knowing that the next ferry wouldn’t come for another hour, and that her father was strict and would ground her, or worse, she panicked, and when she saw the ferry pulling out of the Seattle terminal, she threw her bag down and leaped across the gangway. But instead of landing on the ferry’s balcony, she landed in the water. She’d been taken to the emergency room and sent home with a broken wrist and a bruised chin. Krystalina. That was her name—it came to me just then, just as the ferry’s horn sounded, just as I reached the terminal and saw the boat backing away from the dock, just as my heart sank.

  I had been either camped out in airports or flying for the better part of thirteen hours (the price you pay for last-minute travel), and when I reached the ferry terminal, I contemplated making a run for it and jumping à la Krystalina when I saw that I’d missed the seven p.m. boat by a mere hair. I looked down at the churning waters below, and I decided that the island could wait a little longer. Jack could wait. Or could he?

  The boat docked at 8:25 P.M. No one was waiting for me but one lonely taxi.

  “Can you take me to Hidden Cove Road?” I asked the driver.

  He nodded and reached for my bag. “You’re traveling light,” he said. “Just staying for a short visit?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” I said.

  He nodded again, as if he knew exactly what I meant.

  I directed him to Jack’s house, and when we arrived, it looked dark, too dark.

  “It doesn’t look like anyone’s home,” the driver said, stating the obvious. I was annoyed when he suggested that we leave.

  “Wait,” I said. “Give me a minute.”

  This was the point in movies when the woman and the man reunite—when they run into each other’s arms and lock lips.

  I knocked once, and waited a minute or so. Then I knocked again.

  “Anybody home?” the driver called out from the car.

  I ignored him and knocked yet again, listening to the sound of my heart beating in my chest. C’mon, Jack, answer.

  After a minute, I knew he wasn’t coming. Or he wasn’t home. But suddenly it was all too much for me. I sat down on the porch and buried my head in my knees.

  What am I doing here? How did I come to love this man? I pondered a passage from Years of Grace that I had always admired: “Love was not a hothouse flower, forced to reluctant bud. Love was a weed that flashed unexpectedly into bloom on the roadside.”

  Yes, this love, it was not of my doing. It was natural. It was unstoppable. The realization gave me great comfort on Jack’s cold and lonely doorstep.

  “Miss,” said the driver, “are you OK? If you need somewhere to go, I’ll call my wife. She can make a bed up for you. It’s not much, but you have somewhere to stay for the night.” It hit me then: Everyone on Bainbridge Island has a streak of goodness in them.

  I looked up and collected myself. “Thank you; that’s very kind. But my aunt lives just up the beach. I’ll go there tonight.”

  He dropped me off in front of Bee’s. After I paid the fare, I just stood there for a moment, staring up at the house with my bag in my hand, wondering
if I’d made the right decision to come back. I walked closer to the house, to the front door, and noticed that the lights were on. I let myself in.

  “Bee?” I could see her there, sitting in her chair, just like I’d never left. After all that had happened, it was a comforting sight.

  “Emily?” She got up to hug me. “What a surprise!”

  “I had to come back,” I said.

  “I knew you would,” she said. “And Jack, is he one of those reasons?”

  I nodded. “I just went to his house. But he’s not there.”

  Bee wore a solemn look on her face. “It’s Elliot,” she said. The way she said his name, it sent shivers down my arms. “He’s sick. Jack called earlier and told me. He wanted me to know that”—she paused as her voice cracked, revealing her pent-up emotions—“to know that Elliot is . . . well, he isn’t well, dear. He’s dying.”

  I gulped.

  “He’s on his way to the hospital now. He just left for the ferry, in fact. If you leave now, you might catch him.”

  I looked at my feet. “I don’t know,” I said. “Do you think he’ll want to see me?”

  Bee nodded. “I know he’ll want to see you,” she said. “Go to him. She’d want you to.”

  Of course, she was talking about Esther, and it was Bee’s words that got me to the ferry terminal that night. It was her words that changed my path forever. And with those words, I believe, she redeemed herself, for everything. She knew it. I knew it. And somehow I had a feeling that if Esther were here, she’d be nodding in approval.

  “Can I borrow your keys?” I said, grinning.

  She tossed them to me. “You better drive fast.”

  I felt my pulse race. “What about you?” I said, remembering her history with Elliot. “Don’t you want to see him?”

  She looked as though the answer might have been yes, but she shook her head. “It’s not my place,” she said.

  I could see tears welling in her eyes. “You still love him, Bee, don’t you?”

  “Nonsense,” she said, wiping away a tear.

  “That package,” I said, “the one Elliot gave you. What was it?”

  She smiled. “It was the photo album, the one he’d given me after he came home from the war. I sent it back to him after everything happened with your grandmother. But he saved it all these years.”

  I squeezed her hand and grabbed my bag.

  “Now, you go,” she said. “Go after your Jack.”

  I drove Bee’s Volkswagen so fast, so furiously, it was as if my life depended on it. I didn’t think about police officers or accidents or anything else—just Jack. Every minute, every second counted.

  I whipped the Volkswagen around the island until I made it to the ferry terminal, and as I pulled into the parking lot, my heart sank when I heard the ferry horn signaling its departure. I ran to the terminal and down the gangway, again considering taking that leap. But the ferry was too far now. I’d missed it. I’d missed Jack.

  I clutched the railing tightly, scolding myself for my timing. Of course this was how it would go. In recent years, my life had been one missed connection after another. I shuffled along until I made it to the ledge, where people usually wait for friends and relatives to arrive from Seattle. The ferry was in full view. I squinted in vain for the sight of Jack, but the boat was already too distant to make out faces.

  Then I heard footsteps behind me. Someone was running toward the terminal. I turned around, and there he was, sprinting toward the gangway with suitcase in hand, looking worried—that is, until he saw me.

  “Emily?”

  “Jack,” I said, loving the sound of his name on my lips.

  He dropped his bag and ran to me. “I had no idea you were going to be here,” he said, pushing the hair out of his eyes, then running his hand along my face.

  I let my heart do the talking. “I got your message,” I said, “and I wanted to surprise you.”

  He grinned. “Well, you succeeded at that.” He looked as if he was about to say something, but he got derailed by the sound of a ferry horn in the distance. Another ferry was coming into the harbor ahead of schedule.

  “I went to your house,” I said, searching his eyes for something, anything.

  He reached for my hand, and his touch rushed warmth to every inch of my body.

  “Bee said your grandfather is ill,” I said. “I’m so sorry to hear that. You were going to see him, weren’t you?”

  He nodded. “I thought I’d go over tonight and stay with him so he isn’t alone. He’s having surgery in the morning.”

  “Is he going to be OK?”

  “We’re not sure,” he said. “He’s had two bypass surgeries in the last five years, and the doctors say that if this one doesn’t do the trick, it might be their last attempt.”

  I wondered if Esther knew that the love of her life’s heart was breaking, quite literally.

  “You should go to him,” I said. “We can see each other tomorrow, after he comes through surgery.” I motioned to the ferry, now offloading passengers and nearly ready to board. “You go, catch that ferry. I’ll be here waiting for you.”

  He shook his head. “And leave you here all beautiful and lovely? No, my grandfather would never approve. Why don’t you come with me?”

  I rested my head on his chest, the way I had done at Bee’s house that afternoon in the lanai. “OK.”

  “I just keep thinking of that morning,” he said, turning to face me again, “when I saw you at Henry’s house.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, looking up at him, hoping he was going to say what I thought he was going to say.

  “I hoped we’d end up like this.”

  I was overcome with a feeling I’d never had before. I felt loved, but there was more. I felt adored.

  Jack reached into his pocket, then for my hand.

  “Emily,” he said, clearing his throat. “I want you to have something. He held a small black box in his hand, and I couldn’t help but remember the box Elliot had given him at Evelyn’s funeral. What’s inside? I lifted the lid with trembling fingers and could see something sparkle under the streetlights.

  Jack cleared his throat. “My grandfather gave me a ring he gave to a woman he loved many years ago. I’d like you to have it.”

  I gasped. There was an enormous pear-shaped diamond set between two rubies, and I knew it in an instant. It was Esther’s engagement ring. It had to be. Instinctively, I slipped it on my finger.

  Jack saw the recognition in my eyes. “You know the story, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “I’ve been doing some research this month,” I said cryptically.

  “So have I,” he said. “I wanted to see if I could locate Esther, for my grandfather’s sake. I wanted them to see each other again.” He kicked a pebble on the walkway. “But it’s too late now.”

  “What makes you think it’s too late?”

  Jack looked worried. “I’m afraid she passed away.”

  My heart sank. “How do you know?”

  He rubbed his eyes, either because of exhaustion or because of sadness. “Her nurse told me. She was the woman who took care of her these past fifteen years while her health declined—she was also the one you saw me with that night in town, and the woman who answered the phone that night at my house.”

  “I’m confused,” I said. “How did you find her?”

  “She contacted me,” he said. “She told me she was fulfilling Esther’s dying wish to learn my grandfather’s whereabouts.”

  I sighed. “So she died.”

  Jack nodded. “Yes.”

  I shook my head. “No,” I said. “That can’t be true.” My heart refused to believe that the story ended this way.

  “What did you say her name was?”

  “Lana,” he said.

  I smiled knowingly. “That explains everything.”

  Jack looked confused. “What?”

  “Jack, Lan
a is not her nurse. Lana is her daughter. Elliot’s daughter.”

  Jack rubbed his forehead. “This makes no sense,” he said.

  “I know it doesn’t. But it’s true. And if Lana reached out to you and didn’t tell you the true story of her relation to Esther, maybe she’s not telling the full truth about her whereabouts, or the fact that she may be still living. I think she’s trying to protect her mother.

  “Wait,” I continued, before Jack could respond. “You mentioned that this woman, Lana, had commissioned a painting. Was it the portrait in your studio, the one of the woman on the beach?”

  “Yes,” he said. “She said it was for her mother. I painted it from an old photograph.”

  “Jack,” I said, “did it ever occur to you that the woman in the photo could have been Esther, that she wanted to give her mom a painting by Elliot’s flesh and blood?”

  Jack considered the idea for a moment and then shook his head. “It’s just that she said her mother and her father were in a retirement home in Arizona. If what you’re saying is true, why would she tell such an elaborate story to hide the truth?”

  “It has to be because she doesn’t want her mother to get hurt again,” I said.

  Jack shrugged. “I wish it were the case, Emily,” he said. “But I just don’t see it that way. I saw the way she spoke of Esther’s life, and her passing. It was all very real.”

  The wind picked up, and Jack instinctively wrapped his arms around me like a blanket. “I wish it could have ended differently for them,” he said, holding me tight. “But we can write our own story. Ours doesn’t have to be tragic.”

  He kissed my forehead softly as the ferry’s horn sounded again.

  “And to think I almost ran away, from you, from all of this,” I said.

  He squeezed my hand. “I’m so glad you didn’t.”

  We walked, hand in hand, onto the boat and nestled into a booth facing the Seattle side. The closer we approached the city’s skyline, the more I could sense Jack’s concern for his grandfather. What state would Elliot be in when we arrived? Would he be coherent? Would my presence bring him greater sadness, especially after reading the pages of the diary I’d mailed to him?