The Violets of March (22 page)

T
he nearest hospital was thirty minutes away, off the island in Bremerton, a small city to the west. We crossed a bridge to the peninsula, and I instantly felt the island’s aura dissipating, like coming back down to earth from some otherworldly stratosphere.

When we arrived, Jack and I ran to the reception desk and asked Evelyn’s room number.

The white-haired woman behind the counter took so long, I wanted to jump over the desk, commandeer her computer, and find the information myself. The tapping of my finger on the counter probably told her as much.

“Yes,” she said, “here she is: sixth floor.”

When we got to her room, Jack stood back. “I’ll wait outside,” he said.

I shook my head. “No, come in.” I wouldn’t let him feel like an outsider, like he was shunned. Not any longer. Whatever reservations Bee had about his family would end with this generation, I decided.

“Nah,” he said. “It’s OK. I’ll be here when you need me.”

I didn’t push him, and instead nodded and opened the door to the room. Inside, Bee was sitting at Evelyn’s bedside, holding her hand.

“Emily,” she said, “we don’t have much time left.”

“Oh, cut it out, Bee,” Evelyn said. I was glad to hear the life, the spunk, was still in her voice. “I will not let you carry on like this, sobbing like a baby. Will someone get me out of this awful gown and into something decent, and for the love of God, someone get me a cocktail.”

I could see why Bee loved her so much. I loved her too. “Hi, Evelyn,” I said.

She smiled, and when she did, I could see the exhaustion in her eyes. “Hi, dear,” she replied. “I’m sorry, your geriatric friend has probably pulled you away from an exciting date.”

I smiled. “I actually brought him with me.”

Bee looked up at me, concerned, as if the thought of Jack being near her caused her great consternation.

Evelyn ignored Bee’s mood. “You light up when you talk about him.”

No one had ever said I lit up around Joel. In fact, it had been just the opposite. People always told me I looked tired, worn down, when we were out together.

“Enough about me,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

“Like an old lady with cancer,” she said. “But a martini would help.”

Bee sat up, as if she knew exactly what she had to do. “Then a martini it is,” she said, standing. “Emily, will you stay here with Evelyn? I’ll be right back.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said reassuringly. I thought it was sweet that she was going to try to fulfill her dying friend’s wish, but I wasn’t sure how she would pull it off. Drive to a liquor store? Buy a shaker? And then there was the business of smuggling the ensemble in past the nurses.

Once Bee had left, Evelyn leaned in. “How’s your reading coming?” she said. There were so many wires and monitors hooked up to her that it felt strange to talk about anything other than her illness, but I sensed that she wanted none of that.

“I’m absolutely enthralled,” I said.

“How far are you into the story?”

“Deep,” I said. “Esther has just gone to meet Elliot at his house.”

Evelyn closed her eyes tightly, and opened them again. “Yes,” she said.

A nurse entered the room and fiddled with an IV line. “Time for more morphine,” she said to Evelyn.

Evelyn ignored her and continued to stare at me intently. “So what do you think?”

“About what?”

“About the story, dear. The love story.”

“How do you know this story, Evelyn?”

She paused and smiled, looking up at the ceiling before her eyelids got heavy. “She was always such an enigma.”

I gasped. “Evelyn, who?”

Her breathing was labored and slow and it occurred to me that the intravenous medicine had kicked in. “Esther,” she said softly. “Oh, how we loved her. We all loved her.”

Evelyn’s eyelids looked heavy, and I stifled my urge to quiz her further.

“You will make it right, dear, I know you will,” she said weakly, slurring her words. “You will make it right for Esther, for all of us.”

I reached for her hand and laid my head on hers, watching her chest rise and fall with each strenuous breath. “Don’t worry, Evelyn,” I said. “You don’t have to worry anymore. Just rest.”

Bee returned about thirty minutes later, looking exhausted herself, with a brown paper bag in hand. “Evelyn, your martini. I will make it now.”

“Shhh,” I said. “She’s sleeping.” I made room for Bee to take her rightful place by Evelyn’s bedside, to soak up every last second with her best friend.

Jack had been in the waiting room for at least an hour, and when I walked out to see him, he stood up nervously. “Did she . . . ?”

“No,” I said. “Not yet. Bee is with her now. But there isn’t much time.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

He walked toward me, and his eyes searched my face. Right there in the waiting room he wrapped his arms around me and held me tight, tighter than anyone had held me before. I looked out the window, over his shoulder, and the view wasn’t much—large stretches of pavement with an occasional clump of dandelions courageously poking up out of the asphalt—but a boarded-up movie theater caught my eye. The marquee read E.T., and I wondered if it had remained like that since the 1980s.

I looked up at Jack, and this time I really looked at him, deep into his eyes. He pulled me close and kissed me. Even though everything felt unsettled and unanswered, at that moment, I couldn’t deny the fact that everything also felt right.

Evelyn died a few hours after I left the room, but not before Bee had made her that martini. In mere minutes, she had shaken over ice gin and vermouth, garnished with an odd number of olives for luck. Evelyn had opened her eyes briefly and shared a final drink with her best friend. It was a parting act that suited them perfectly, and when we were home that night, Bee made another round, and we toasted Evelyn’s memory.

I asked Bee if she wanted me to stay up with her, if she wanted a shoulder to cry on, but she said no, that she just needed sleep.

I did too, but not with Evelyn’s words ringing in my head.
How did she know Esther? How did the diary end up here, in Bee’s guest room? And why did Evelyn think these pages were meant to be found—meant to be found by me?

Chapter 12

March 10

I
didn’t want to get out of bed the next day, but I couldn’t sleep, either, so I turned my attention to the diary.

Bobby was asleep when I got home from Elliot’s. I knew when I walked in the front door, because I could hear him snoring, just as I had left him. I undressed and pulled back the bedspread inch by inch, praying I wouldn’t wake him. I stared at the ceiling for a long time, thinking about what I’d done, thinking about where I’d go from here, but no answers came. And then Bobby rolled over and flung his arm over me, pulling me close. I knew what he had in mind when he started nuzzling my neck, but I rolled over and pretended to be asleep.

The next morning, when Bobby had left for work, I wanted to call Frances and tell her everything. I longed to hear her voice, and her approval. Instead, I called Rose in Seattle.

“I saw him last night,” I said.

“Oh, Esther,” she said. Her tone was neither judgmental nor encouraging. It reflected the worry and excitement and terror I felt about the decisions that lay ahead. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

She paused for a minute. “What does your heart tell you?”

“My heart is with Elliot. It will always be with Elliot.”

“Then you know what you need to do,” she said simply.

Bobby came home that night, and I made him his favorite meal: meat loaf, boiled potatoes, and string beans with butter and thyme. On the surface, it was as if nothing had changed. We were a happily married couple having a nice anniversary dinner. But I carried a heavy weight on my shoulders, the weight of great guilt.

With every glance from Bobby, every question, every touch, my heart came closer to bursting. “What’s different about you?” he asked at dinner.

“Nothing,” I said quickly, worried that he could see right through me.

“It’s just that, well, you seem different,” he continued. “More beautiful than ever. March becomes you.”

I felt as though I could no longer carry on and decided that I needed to go to the priest and air my secrets in a confessional booth.

So, I dressed the baby in her Sunday clothes and we drove to Saint Mary’s. My heels clicked on the wood floors as I walked through the church to the row of confessionals along the right-hand wall. I walked into the first one and sat down, bouncing the baby on my lap.

“Father,” I said. “I have sinned.”

“What is it, child?”

I suppose he expected me to say something like “I have gossiped” or “I have coveted my neighbor,” or something generally benign. Instead I opened my mouth and said the unthinkable.