The Violets of March (21 page)

March 9

I
could hear the phone ringing in the living room the next morning, ringing so intently and consistently that it jarred me out of a perfectly pleasant dream.
Isn’t Bee going to get it?

On the tenth ring I stood up, groggily, and walked out to the living room.

“Hello?” I said in a tone that let the caller know how I felt about being disturbed at seven forty-five a.m.

“Emily, it’s Jack.”

My eyes shot open. I recalled writing my cell phone number on a scrap of paper the night I visited his house.
So why is he calling the landline?

“I’m sorry for calling so early,” he said. “I’ve been trying your cell, but it’s going straight to voice mail. Anyway, if it’s not too early . . .”

“No,” I stammered. “It’s not too early.” My voice sounded more eager than I’d anticipated.

“Good,” he said, “because I wondered if you wanted to meet me for a beach walk this morning.”

“Now?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You have to see what’s happening on the shore right now. Can you meet me in ten minutes?”

As I trudged down to the beach, I could see Jack way ahead—well, a speck that was Jack. We waved as we walked toward each other.

“Morning!” Jack shouted from his vantage point on the shore, which was several hundred feet away.

“Hi!” I yelled back.

When we finally met, he pointed ahead. “The thing I want to show you is around the bend.”

“The thing?”

He smiled. “You’ll see.”

I nodded. “How did your trip to Seattle go?”

“It went well,” he said. And that was all. “Sorry I didn’t call sooner,” he added, without offering an explanation.

We rounded the point, and followed the beach a little farther as it curved around the hillside. Jack stood still for a minute, looking out toward the sound.

“There,” he said softly.

“Where?” I said, and then I saw it, a spout of water streaming up into the air, and then something enormous undulating beneath the sea.

I smiled like a child who has just been dazzled by a jack-in-the-box. “
What
was that?”

“An orca,” Jack said with pride.

Bee always spoke of orca sightings, but even during all those summers on the island, I had never seen one with my own eyes.

“Look!” Jack exclaimed. There were two now, swimming close together.

“They come through here every year at this time,” he said. “I’ve always loved it. I used to sit here, right here”—he paused and pointed to a boulder about the size of a large stump, embedded in the sand—“when I was a boy and watch the whales go through.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off of the water. “They’re spectacular,” I said. “Look at the way they’re swimming, with such strength, such purpose. They know where their journey is taking them, even without a map to guide them.” Then I paused as a thought struck. “Jack?”

“Uh-huh?”

“You said you were here as a boy. Were you ever here during the summers?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling a private smile. “Every summer. The house I live in now, it was my family’s old beach house.”

“So why didn’t I ever meet you during those summers?”

“I wasn’t allowed to go down that way,” he said, pausing. “Toward your aunt’s house.”

I grinned. “I wasn’t allowed to come up this way, either,” I said. “You’d think I would have seen you at least once.”

His eyes met mine. “You don’t remember, do you?”

“Remember what?”

He shook his head playfully.

“I’m sorry,” I said, racking my brain and wishing I could recall something, anything. “I don’t.”

“You were fourteen—and beautiful, if I might add,” he said. “My dog had gotten off his leash, and he ran down in front of your aunt’s house. You were lying on a beach towel with another girl. You were wearing a bikini. A pink bikini. And Max, my dog at the time, ran right over to you and licked you on the face.”

“That was you?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it.”

“
Oh gosh,
” I said. “I do remember being licked by that dog.”

“Yeah,” he said, “you didn’t seem too happy about it.”

“Oh, and then he ran away with my sandal in his mouth,” I said, and as I did, the memories came rushing back.

“Some way to impress a girl, huh?”

I cocked my head to the right and looked at him in a new light. “Oh my gosh, I remember
you
,” I said. “You were really skinny?”

“Yes.”

“Braces?”

He nodded.

“
That
was you?”

“Yep, in the flesh.”

I couldn’t help but laugh.

“What?” Jack said, pretending to be hurt. “You mean you didn’t find a tall, gangly kid with braces and acne attractive?”

“No,” I said. “I mean, no it’s not that, it’s just that, well, you’re just so
different
now.”

“No, I’m really not,” he said. “I’m exactly the same. Except the acne’s cleared up. You haven’t changed much yourself. Except you’re even more beautiful than I could have imagined you’d be.”

I didn’t know what to say, so instead I just smiled, a smile that started inside and traveled to my face, where it stayed for the rest of the morning.

“Hey, want to come up to my place?” he said. “I’ll make you breakfast.”

“I’d love to,” I replied. And without thinking, I reached down and grabbed his hand, and he instantly weaved his fingers into mine, as if we’d done this a hundred times before. So what if he had been on a date the night before? So had I. We were even. What mattered now was that we were together.

I sat at the stool at Jack’s kitchen island and watched as he ground the coffee beans and then cut five oranges in half and sent them through the juice press. Then he pulled out a bowl and started cracking eggs. I sat there, mesmerized by his movements in the kitchen. He was swift, yet precise. I wondered if Elliot had ever made Esther breakfast.

“I hope you like French toast,” he said.

“Like?” I said. “Too small of a word. I
love
French toast.”

He grinned and continued whisking. “So,” he said, “did your aunt tell you any nasty stories about my family?”

“No. She won’t give me any details. Any chance you can fill me in?”

“I’m really the last to know about the skeletons in the family closet,” he said. “All I know is that my father warned me early on that we were not welcome at Bee Larson’s house. And that scared the hell out of me as a kid. I imagined she was the witch in the Hansel and Gretel story. My sister and I were sure that if we stepped foot on her property, she’d capture us and lock us up in her dungeon.”

I giggled at the thought of that.

He nodded. “We used to think her house was haunted.”

“Well, it’s not hard to come to that conclusion,” I said, thinking of the old house’s second-story rooms, which were mostly locked, and those creaky wood floors. “Sometimes
I
think it’s haunted.”

Jack nodded, measured out one teaspoon of cinnamon, and whisked it into the egg mixture. “I wish I knew more about the circumstances behind all of that,” he said. “I should have asked my grandfather.”

“Oh, you saw him?”

“Yeah,” he said. “He lives in Seattle. I was just over there yesterday. I go over at least once a month and spend a few days with him.”

“Maybe you could ask him about it next time you speak to him,” I suggested. “Because, Lord knows, I’m getting nowhere with Bee.”

“I will,” he said.

Jack’s talk of his grandfather made me think of my own. I loved how, when I was a child, he’d let me spend hours with him holed up in his study. Seated at my makeshift cardboard-box desk, I’d adoringly watch him work at his big oak secretary, where he paid the bills and I pretended to type letters. Grandpa always let me lick the envelopes before he took them out to the mailbox.

Grandma Jane, on the other hand, had died quickly and suddenly, of a heart attack, and at her funeral, when my mother asked me if I’d share a memory at the church from the pulpit, I told her I wasn’t comfortable with public speaking. But the truth was more complicated than that. As I stared at her casket, I looked around. Mother was crying. So was Danielle. Why didn’t I feel anything? Why couldn’t I muster the sadness that the passing of a grandparent deserves?

“You’re lucky,” I said to Jack.

“Why so?”

“Because you’re close to your grandfather.”

“Oh, I know,” he said, dipping thick slices of bread into the egg mixture. I could hear the sizzle of the bread hitting the hot butter when he dropped each slice into the cast iron skillet. “You’d really love him too. He’s such a character. Maybe you could meet him sometime. I know he’d be crazy about you.”

I smiled. “How do you know?”

“I just know.”

The coffee machine beeped, and Jack poured me a cup.

“Cream or sugar?”

“Just cream,” I said, watching to see if he also poured a cup, but instead he reached for a glass of orange juice.

Annabelle had been doing some unscientific research on couples and coffee preferences. According to her very preliminary findings, if you could even call them findings, people who like their coffee dressed in the same manner have greater success in marriage.

I sipped my coffee, and walked into the living room, where Russ was curled up next to the fireplace. He looked cozy and teddybearish, as all golden retrievers do. I squatted down to pet him, and I noticed a small piece of green paper in the corner of his mouth. The rest of what looked like a chewed-up green file folder lay to his right. There were some loose papers scattered around him too.

“Russ,” I said, “you naughty dog. What have you gotten hold of?” He rolled over and yawned, and I saw that there were more rumpled papers beneath him, presumably papers he had planned to snack on. I picked up a slobber-drenched page and squinted. Most of the type on the page was blurred and torn, but at the top were the words “Seattle Police Department, Bureau of Missing Persons.” I set it down, a little startled, and picked up another, which was a photocopied news clipping from the Bainbridge Island paper. It looked old—I could tell by the type—and also nearly unsalvageable.

“Emily?” Jack called out from the kitchen.

I nervously dropped the page in my hand. “Uh, I’m just here with, um, Russ. He seems to have gotten into something.”

Jack appeared around the corner with a plate of French toast in his hands, but he quickly set it down.

“Russ, go to your bed!” he shouted.

“Let me help you,” I said.

“
No
,” he said, one decibel below a shout. “I mean, no, sorry, you shouldn’t have to help with this mess. I’ve got it.”

I took a step back, wondering if I’d seen something I shouldn’t have. Jack tucked the file and its dilapidated and slobbered-on contents under a stack of magazines on the coffee table.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “I wanted this breakfast to be perfect.”

“No big deal,” I said. “Dogs will be dogs.”

I watched Jack pile the pieces of French toast one on top of another and then dust the platter with powdered sugar.

“There,” he said, holding out a plate for me. “Your breakfast.”

I reached for my fork just as the phone in the kitchen rang.

“I’ll just let the machine get it,” he said. I took a bite and nearly swooned, but my attention drifted when I heard a woman’s voice on the answering machine.

“Jack,” began the voice, “it’s Lana. It was so good having dinner with you last night. I wanted to—”

Jack raced out of his chair and turned the machine off before she could continue.

“Sorry,” he said a little sheepishly. “That was, uh, a client. We met last night to discuss a painting.”

I didn’t like the tone of her voice. It sounded too personal, too intimate. I wanted to ask him twenty questions. No, two hundred questions. Instead I smiled politely and continued eating. I didn’t doubt that the woman was a client, but if that was all, what was he so skittish about? What was he trying to hide?

Just as he sat down and took a bite, the phone rang again. “Good grief,” he said.

I gave him a look that said, “It’s OK, go answer it,” but I really wanted to pull the plug out of the wall so that whoever this woman was, she wouldn’t call again.

“Sorry,” Jack said, running back to the kitchen to answer the phone.

“Hello?”

He paused for a few moments.

“Oh no,” he said.

There was a long pause before he spoke again. “Of course. She’s right here. I’ll get her.”

Jack ran back into the dining room and motioned for me to come to the phone. “It’s your aunt.”

My heart nearly jumped out of my chest as I picked up the phone.

“Emily?” Bee’s voice sounded frantic and confused.

“Yes,” I said. “Bee, what is it? Is everything OK?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you, but Henry was out on the beach this morning and he said he saw you walking toward Jack’s so I, well . . .” Her voice was quivering.

“Bee, what is it?”

“It’s Evelyn,” she said, sounding lost. “She was here for breakfast this morning. And she . . . she collapsed. I called 911. They’re taking her to the hospital now.”

I didn’t hesitate. “I’ll be right there.”

“No, no,” she said. “There isn’t time. I’m leaving right now.”

“I understand,” I said. “You go. I’ll find my way there.”

I didn’t have to ask if Evelyn had hours or minutes left. I already knew. And I sensed that Bee knew too, instinctively, in the way of twins, or soul mates, or lifelong friends.

I hung up the phone. “Evelyn is in the hospital,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief.

“I’ll drive you,” Jack said.

I glanced at the table and the plates full of perfect French toast that had suddenly lost their appeal.

“Just leave it,” he said. “If we go now, we can be there in under a half hour.”

Chapter 11