“Maybe I wouldn’t because I’m stupid, but my heart would’ve been. I’m even more sorry I didn’t think to ask about them. We kind of skated around parent talk. How is your mom now?”
“The accident was bad, and Mom isn’t the same,” I start. “She suffered a very serious head injury. She was out of it for days, and we weren’t sure how severe the damage would be long term. It was impossible in the beginning for the neurologists to even make a determination. Each day something changed, but her traumatic brain injury has left her with a lot of short-term memory issues. She knows who we are, that Dad died, the accident, but she can’t remember where she put her shoes or if she made tea and left the kettle burning.”
“Where is she now?”
“She lives with me, I built her an apartment in a barn. It’s actually nicer than my house, and I offered for her to stay in the main house, but she said she couldn’t, she couldn’t find Dad.”
Violet’s frame falls a little. “Oh, Everett.”
I smile a little, because she looks so damn cute. “It’s okay. She has good and bad days, but we have a plan in place.”
“You are such a good man to take care of her like that,” Violet says before she leans in and kisses me. “She’s so lucky to have you as her son.”
Violet is one of the only people in the world who knows the truth. She was visiting her grandmother the day I found out that I wasn’t really their child, not blood related, at least.
I was broken beyond belief and I ran out of the house, needing to be alone, but when I walked down to the back of the property, Violet was there, and I lost it.
She listened, hugged me, and then told me that she would give anything to have parents who loved her the way mine loved me. That love doesn’t come from blood—it’s from the soul—and I was lucky to have two parents who were so willing to give me theirs.
“I wish I could give her more. I wish I could go back and tell my dad how much he meant to me.”
“He knew, Ev.”
“I know he did, but ... I could really use some advice at times. I wish I could tell him all the things I didn’t get a chance to.”
Violet shifts off my lap, curling up into my side. We both stare at the fire, the crackling sound filling the space. I pull the blanket off the couch and wrap it around us.
She tilts her head up, her amber eyes even warmer thanks to the glow of the fire. “I think when we love someone so much, they’re always with us, even when they’re gone.”
Yeah, I think she’s right, because no matter how far Violet went, she has always been in my heart.
“And sometimes they come back.”
She grins. “Sometimes tomorrow comes again ...”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.”
seventeen
Violet
“You’re pregnant,” the doctor says as she sits in the chair across from me.
I blink, my mind completely blank for a half second before it catches up. “What?” The word escapes out like a breath. “No.”
I can’t have a baby.
This must be some kind of horrible joke. Or they made an error.
“I’m guessing this is unexpected?”
She can say that again. “Are you sure this isn’t a mistake? I just had sex like six days ago. Isn’t it too soon?”
“When is the last time you had your period?”
My head shakes back and forth as I do the math. Oh, God, I haven’t had a period since I got home from my trip.
