The Violets of March (33 page)

“Didn’t you call the police or an ambulance?”

He shook his head. “Bee said not to. She thought they might pin us for murder, say we forced her over that cliff.”

“So what did you do?”

He reached for his handkerchief. “We drove away. I was in a state of shock. All I could think of was that I deserved to be in jail. I felt responsible somehow, as if I’d caused her death.”

“But what if she survived the crash? What if she was lying in agony down there on the beach? What if you could have saved her? Elliot, what if that’s why she drove over that cliff? What if she
wanted to be saved
?”

He looked at me with eyes that seemed to beg forgiveness. “I will go to my grave with those same questions haunting me. But that car, seeing the way it was crushed—as horrific as that image was, it’s the one thing that gives me a fragment of peace. Nobody survives a crash like that. Bee was right. Leaving that night was our only option. In those days, we would have been convicted with zero evidence. It’s just the way things worked. We were there, so any jury would have determined that we drove her to it.”

I sighed. “Where does this leave Bee? Do you think she has any regret?”

“Yes,” he said. “A part of her died that night. She’s never been the same. It’s why we haven’t been able to face each other, even after all these years. There’s too much history between us, too much anguish. We can’t look at each other without remembering that night, and without remembering Esther.”

Just then, I recalled something I’d read in one of the articles about Esther’s death. While the wreckage of her car was found at the bottom of the cliff, there had been no body.

“Elliot, I read that they never recovered Esther’s body. How can that be?”

“Yes,” he said. “I read that too.”

I wondered if there was something he wasn’t telling me. How could her body miraculously disappear after such a horrendous crash? Had someone actually gone down and rescued her? Had she walked away from the crash unscathed?
Impossible
, I said to myself.

“What do you think happened?”

“I wish I could tell you that I thought she survived. Since the wreck wasn’t found until the next day, some speculated that she’d washed out to sea, to that beautiful water she loved so much.” He paused to consider the idea and shuddered. “Others believed she did survive. And I would be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that didn’t hold on to that hope, but it’s been too long. If she had survived, wouldn’t she have returned to the island, her home? Wouldn’t she have returned for her baby? Wouldn’t she have returned for . . . me?”

At that moment, I realized that Elliot didn’t know that Esther had been carrying his child that night. It seemed cruel and unfair to share the news with him now, a “you’re going to have a baby!” message some sixty years too late, so I kept quiet. He’d read about it in the book soon enough, and maybe that was the way he was supposed to find out.

“But there is something,” he said, looking hopeful for a moment.

“What?”

“Well, it might be nothing. But, for the record, that night as Bee and I were driving out of the park, we did see a car pulling in.”

“Anyone you recognized?”

“I can’t be sure,” he said, “but I’ve always suspected it was Billy—well, Billy Henry Mattson, but he goes by Henry now.”

“Wait,” I said. “Henry, the man who lives on the beach near Bee?”

“Yes, you know him?”

I nodded.
So Billy is Henry.
I thought about the way he’d acted when the conversation had turned to my grandmother and the woman’s photo he kept on his mantel, the one that had mysteriously vanished. Esther had considered him a friend in her diary, yet he was always appearing out of nowhere, which struck me as strange.
Was he stalking her?
I shivered.
No
, I reassured myself. Even if he had been crazy for her, Henry wouldn’t have carted off her body. But then my mind started to wander.
People aren’t always who they seem to be.
I remembered a time Annabelle and I had overheard a conversation between two seemingly posh women in an upscale Manhattan restaurant. They were practically dripping with jewels, and had that socialite air to them. Then one opened her mouth and said, “I’ve tried all different brands, but I just love Copenhagen. I like to dip after the kids are in bed, out on the terrace.”

Our jaws dropped when we heard her say it. The woman actually chewed tobacco—like the construction workers who howled at us on Broadway. It was like hearing that your best friend’s dad, the football coach, was a cross-dresser. It just didn’t fit.

But, no, not Henry.
I tried to repress the thought, but it stubbornly held on. The island of my childhood had weathered clouds and rain, but now it was dark with secrets.

“Elliot,” I said, remembering my own journey on the island. “I know what it feels like when you can’t quite get at the heart of a story.” I paused and gazed deeply into his troubled eyes. “What is your heart telling you about Esther after all these years?”

He looked away. “I’ve been trying to make sense of this for the better part of my life. All I know, and perhaps all I will ever know, is that Esther took my heart with her that night. Took it for good.”

I nodded, worried that I may have pushed him too far. “Don’t you worry,” I said. “I’m going to do everything I can to find the answers—for you and for Esther.” I looked at my watch, then stood up. “It’s truly been an honor meeting you. Thank you for all you shared with me.”

“It was my pleasure,” he said. “Oh, Jack is coming to visit this afternoon. You could stay to see him if you’d like.”

“Jack?”

“Yes,” he said. “He didn’t tell you?”

“Um, yes,” I said, caught off guard, “but I have to catch a ferry. Bee is expecting me.”

“Oh,” he said. “I’d hate to see you go so quickly.”

I thought about staying, but quickly strengthened my resolve when I remembered the woman who’d answered the phone at Jack’s house. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I just can’t.”

Elliot look disappointed, but conceded.

“Wait,” I said, pausing to think about what I was about to say. “I don’t mean to pry, but do you know if there’s a woman staying with Jack? A friend or family member, maybe?”

He looked puzzled.

“It’s just that”—I paused and fidgeted with my sweater—“it’s just that I called his house last night and a woman picked up. I thought it was strange, that’s all.”

He nodded. “Oh, yes, I think he did mention a woman, someone new.”

“Oh,” I said blankly.

He winked at me. “I don’t know how that boy is ever going to settle down with so many pretty women in his life.”

“Right,” I said. He may have meant it as a compliment, but his words stung. Suddenly, the past couple weeks with Jack flashed before my eyes like a cheap romance novel, one in which I had been duped.
How have I been so naive? Why didn’t I see this coming? How did I let myself read into things that weren’t there?

I thanked him for the visit, and let myself out—with a heavy heart and a long list of unanswered questions.

So much for true love
, I thought as a cab drove me back to the ferry,
at least in my life
.

I was both happy and worried when I arrived back at Bee’s later that day. However gingerly I chose to broach the subject, it would still be as startling and provoking as picking up a very old and very valuable bottle of wine and proceeding to smash it on the floor, right in front of the people who were saving it for their fiftieth wedding anniversary.

“Hi, dear,” she said. “Did you go into town?”

“No,” I said, sitting down on the couch, across from her chair, where she was busy working on a crossword puzzle. “I was in Seattle this morning.”

“Oh,” she said. “Doing some shopping?”

“No, I was visiting someone.”

She looked up, surprised. “I didn’t know you had any friends in Seattle, dear. You should have told me last time we were in the city. We could have invited her to join us.”

I shook my head. “He probably wouldn’t have come,” I said.

“He?”

“Yes, he. Elliot Hartley.”

Bee dropped her pen in her lap and looked at me as if I had just said something unforgivable.

“Bee,” I said, “there are some things we need to talk about.”

She nodded as if she had known this day would come. And when I opened my mouth, it was like a flood; everything came out.

“I know about my grandmother,” I said. “My real grandmother. I found it, Bee, the diary she wrote, and I’ve been reading it since I got here. It’s the story of the last month of her life—right up to the end. And it wasn’t until this morning that I fully recognized the characters, that you and Evelyn were there, and Henry. Elliot filled me in.”

I spoke in a hurried, almost panicky voice, as if I was trying to pack an entire lifetime of secrets into a single paragraph. I knew I had little time before Bee would ice over and retreat the way she always does when someone brings up an uncomfortable subject.

“And you believed him?”

“Why shouldn’t I, Bee? My grandmother loved him.”

I could see a storm brewing in her eyes. “So did I,” she said in a distant voice. “And look how things turned out.”

“Bee,” I said softly, “I know about her last night on the island. I know that she saw you two together, and how you drove off after her.” I paused, worrying about what I needed to say next. “I know that you left her there, Bee. How could you leave her there like that? What if she was hurt?”

Bee’s face had gone white, and when she opened her mouth to speak, I almost didn’t recognize her voice. “It was a terrible night,” she said weakly. “When Elliot came over, I knew he shouldn’t have been with me. We both knew that. But your grandmother had ended things with him, and I longed to know how it would feel for him to hold me. I’d thought about that a million times since I met him in high school, but Esther had always had his attention, until that night, when he seemed to want
me
.” She shook her head as if the very thought of that was naive, silly somehow. “Do you know what that felt like?”

I was silent.

“I told myself it was OK,” Bee continued. “I convinced myself she would approve.”

“But then she saw you two, and . . .”

“And I knew, we both knew, that it was a mistake.”

“So you drove after her.”

She nodded and buried her head in her hands. “No,” she said standing up. “I can’t. I won’t. No, we’re not talking about this.”

“Bee, wait,” I said. “The diary—did you read it?”

“No,” she said.

“But how did it get here?”

She looked at me with wild eyes. “What do you mean,
here
?”

“Here in this house,” I said. “I found it in my bedroom. In the bedside table.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I hadn’t been in that room in thirty years. It used to be her favorite room. I had it painted pink, for her and the baby. She was going to leave him, you know, your grandfather.”

“So why did you have me stay in that room, Bee, if you weren’t going to tell me about my grandmother?”

She looked depleted, as if she’d run out of answers. “I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I just thought you deserved to be there, to be in her presence.”

I nodded. “I think you need to read Esther’s diary,” I pleaded. “You’ll see that she loved you. You’ll see that she forgave you.”

“Where is it?” she said, suddenly looking frightened or spooked, or both.

“I’ll get it for you.” I walked to my bedroom and returned with the red velvet journal. “Here.”

She took it in her hands, but there was no warmth or recognition in her eyes, just anger, and then the tears came.

“You just don’t understand,” she said, not making any sense to me.

“What, Bee?”

She wiped away tears. “What she did to us. What she put us through.”

I walked over to her and rested my hand on her shoulder. “Tell me, Bee. It’s time I knew the truth.”

“The truth is buried,” she said, taking a deep breath. There was rage churning in her eyes now. “I ought to destroy this thing,” she said, walking to her bedroom.

“Bee, wait,” I said, following after her, but she closed the door quickly, latching it behind her.

I waited outside Bee’s door for a long time, hoping she’d come out and praying that she’d break through whatever pain she was holding on to, so we could talk about my grandmother openly and honestly for the first time ever.

But she didn’t. She stayed in her room all afternoon. And when the seagulls began shrieking the way they always do around dinnertime, I expected her to appear and start poking around the kitchen, but she didn’t. And when the sun set, I figured she’d give in and head to the lanai to mix herself a drink. But she didn’t do that, either.

So I opened a can of soup, combed through the newspaper, and tried to interest myself in some made-for-TV drama, but by nine, I found myself yawning and wondering about the month of March. I had been on the island for almost three weeks, and so much had gone on, but so much had gone
wrong
.

I’d made a promise to Elliot, and to my grandmother, to find answers. Yet, I hadn’t considered that maybe my grandmother had simply wanted to leave this world. Who was I to stir up the past, to stir up
her
past?

I felt too discouraged to think about it anymore. Jack had left two messages on my cell, but I didn’t return his calls. I was too weary—from his secrets, from Bee’s, from Esther’s. So I called the airline to change my departure. It was time for me to return to New York. I knew in my heart that if I were to learn from Esther’s story it would be to stay and fight—for truth and for love. But I was much too tired for that now.

Chapter 18