The Violets of March (28 page)

My heart started beating faster. I remembered seeing Janice at the church. Could she have overheard my confession somehow? No. Impossible. “I don’t know what you mean, Janice.”

“Of course you do,” she said. Her eyes were wild now, and her voice louder. “Don’t just stand there with that pretty face and play dumb. You were unfaithful to your husband. I know because I saw you that night on the beach at Elliot Hartley’s house. He had his hands all over you. It was unchristian.”

I turned around to look at Bobby, who was listening to the entire exchange from the sofa, a few feet away. He was standing now. “Esther, what is Janice is saying? Tell me this isn’t true.”

I looked at my feet. “Bobby,” I said. “I . . .”

“How could you?” he demanded. He looked visibly shaken.

I ran over to Bobby. “I wanted to tell you, but then you were sick, and I . . . Bobby, I never meant to hurt you. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“After I loved you, after I gave you everything you could ever want, you go and give yourself away like a cheap whore?” The words stung, but his tone, angry and desperate, hurt more.

I approached the couch and reached my hand out to him, but he pushed it away. “All I ever wanted was for you to love me the way I loved you. How could you betray me like this, Esther? How could you?”

Bobby sat down and buried his head in my lap. I began to stroke his neck, but he stiffened at my touch. “No,” he said, suddenly sounding angry. “I won’t take your pity. I won’t take it. If you want to be with that son of a bitch, go, get the hell out of here. I don’t want to be married to a whore! A lying whore.”

My hands were trembling, and I realized that Janice was still there, watching the scene unfold, in all of its ugliness, from the doorway.

Bobby stood up and started pacing the floor. For the first time ever, I was afraid of him, afraid of what he might do. He grabbed my elbow and pulled me back toward our bedroom. I clenched my fists tightly as he pushed me onto the bed. I watched as he threw a suitcase on the floor, before opening up my closet and piling some of my dresses inside. “You’ll need these,” he said, “to look extra special for him.”

Then he went to the dresser and pulled out my nightgowns. “And these,” he said, “for romantic nights.” He closed the suitcase and walked it toward me, dropping it on the floor, where it nearly landed on my feet. “Here,” he said. “Go.”

“But Bobby,” I said, starting to cry, “I never said I was leaving. I never said I wanted to leave you.”

“You did when you slept with Elliot Hartley,” he said. “But the baby!” I said. “Our baby? I won’t leave her.”

“I’ll raise her myself,” he said, “and when she’s old enough to understand, I’ll tell her that her mother was a whore, a whore who left her husband and child for another man.”

There was that word again—that horrible word.

“No, Bobby!” I cried, but he grabbed my arm and dragged me, and the suitcase, to the front door. I reached for my purse, with my diary safe inside, and was able to grab it before Bobby forced me out onto the porch.

“Good-bye, Esther,” he said. And then he slammed the door and locked it.

I could see Janice watching from inside my house as I walked out to the driveway, but even though I was trembling, I didn’t give her the satisfaction of crying in front of her. I would save that for later. All I could think about was my next move: Where was I supposed to go? What was I supposed to do? I looked out at the lonely road. Should I go back to the door and plead with Bobby to take me back? Beg him for a second chance? When I saw his face buried in Janice’s shoulder, I knew the answer was no. So I opened the door to the Buick, tossed my suitcase in the backseat, and started the engine. My heart ached as I pulled out of the driveway; for my daughter, for Bobby, for a life I had failed. The only thing I could do was to drive. And as I revved up the engine and pulled onto the road, I glanced in my rearview mirror one final time, knowing it would be my last look at that little blue house, where a baby was fast asleep and a husband who once loved me grieved by a warm fire. I felt ashamed and lost.

There was only one place left for me to go. I just hoped Elliot would be waiting when I arrived.

I sped along the road, ignoring stoplights and street signs, past Fay Park, past the winery, and down the road that led to Elliot’s house. I parked, and walked down the driveway, and when I arrived at his doorstep, I knocked. Even though I’d refused him before, surely he still loved me, I told myself. Surely he would welcome me with open arms when I told him I was carrying his child?

But there was no answer. I waited there for a while, just in case he’d been on the phone, or asleep. But there was no Elliot, just the sound of the wind blowing the screen door open and then slamming it again with such force it frightened me.

I thought about sleeping in the car, right here in his driveway, waiting for him to come home, but it was cold, and I didn’t have a blanket. I remembered Frances’s offer to stay with her, so I started the engine again.

She lived just down the beach. I could have walked, but not with a suitcase. And the wind was too cold. I drove down the long driveway and was relieved to see that the lights were on, and when I stepped out of the car, I could hear music playing inside.

I left the suitcase in the car and walked to the front door. I peered in the window, and could see Frances talking to someone in the living room. She looked excited, animated, more so than she usually was. And then I could see why: Elliot was with her.

Frances was fiddling with the record player when Elliot walked toward her, reaching for her hand. I stood in the cold, watching through the window, as the two of them danced and laughed, and sipped their martinis. I rubbed my eyes, hoping that what I was seeing was just a figment. Of course, deep down I’d suspected something, but seeing it there, right before my face, I blinked hard. This couldn’t be happening.

Part of me wanted to open the door, storm into the house, and make them feel the shame and desperation I felt. I ran my fingers along the copper doorknob, and opened the door slowly, before closing it again, a little louder than I had intended. No. This was all too much for me. It was time to go—far away from here. I ran back to the car, driving away so quickly that the tires skidded and squealed. I took one last look behind me and could see Frances and Elliot outside in front of the house, waving at me to stop, to come back. But it was too late. It was all too late.

I drove to Fay Park, where I parked the car and sobbed like I’d never sobbed before. In one night, I’d lost a husband, a child, a lover, and a friend. And all I had to show for it was a suitcase stuffed with mismatched clothes, and a baby growing inside of me.

I thought about my diary, this book I was working on at the suggestion of a fortune-teller. But for whom? And for what? And after reading through the pages, what have I learned? That I’ve failed at love and at life? I had an urge to set a match to it. But I stopped myself. Maybe it did have some value, as the fortune-teller had explained.

I knew I had serious decisions to make that night. One involved Bobby and the baby. There would be no final good-bye to Bobby—he’d made that much clear—but I longed to hold my sweet daughter once more, to tell her I loved her and to promise her that there was no other way.

And this is where my story ends. I loved and lost. But at least I loved. And on this dark, lonely night, when it’s all come crashing down, that small fact gives me comfort.

What is next for me? In my heart, I know what needs to be done.

I turned the page, but it was blank, and so was the next page.

What? Why does it end so suddenly? This isn’t how it’s supposed to end.
Actually, it wasn’t an ending at all. It was a nonending. I opened up the drawer to the nightstand, hoping a loose page might have detached from the spine, but there was nothing but a layer of dust.

I felt a sense of loss as I closed the diary, stroking its worn velvet cover once more before carefully setting it back into the drawer where I’d first found it. Life already felt lonelier without Esther in it.

March 14

“I miss you,” Jack said over the phone the next morning.

“I miss you too,” I replied, wrapping the curly phone cord between my fingers, wishing it was his hand interlaced with mine. “I’ve been so tied up here with Bee and the aftermath of Evelyn.”

“It’s OK,” he said. “I was wondering if you wanted to join me today, for a picnic. There’s a place I’d like to show you.”

A picnic. It was cute. In all my life, no man had ever asked me to go on a picnic. I looked outside at the gray clouds rolling in, and the choppy water, which actually appeared to be quite angry as it churned and splashed against the bulkhead. It certainly wasn’t picnic weather, but I didn’t care.