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I brush my hair back from my face so I can get a better view of the way her hips sway. Who is this version of Violet and what is the real reason she is back in town?
CHAPTER 4
VIOLET
My thoughts are on The Rusty Oak, and it’s owner, too. He seemed different when I talked with him yesterday afternoon, more serious. It’s good that he can turn off his emotions toward me.
The one thing that stopped me from texting him about a job right away was the fear that he might think it meant he and I would have sex every night after our shifts ended. And while my body would thank me for letting him run his hands all over me, I’m smart enough to know that would not be a wise decision.
I need to make some money. It’s one of the things I gave up by coming back to Maplewood.
“Honey, are you ready to get started?” I hear my mom’s voice call to me from her bedroom, and a feeling of dread settles over me. I don’t want to dive into this task, but I know that my mom needs me. She is probably dreading it as much as I am.
“Give me a sec!” I call back as I head to the fridge and grab an energy drink from it. I haven’t been sleeping well since I came back to town three nights ago. Even though I’m sleeping in my childhood bedroom, it doesn’t feel the same anymore. All of the posters I had up as a kid have been taken down. The drawers of my desk have been cleaned out, and it’s just a shell of the room where I spent my childhood.
Taking a gulp of the fizzy energy drink, I head to my parents’ bedroom and settle into a spot on the floor. My mom is sitting on the bed, and she’s got the top drawer of the nightstand open.
My father’s Bible is in her hands, and my eyes burn at the sudden wave of grief attempting to take over. That’s been happening a lot lately. I tend to waffle in between crippling agony and numbness. Just an endless nothing that nobody warned me about before losing my dad. It’s why I went looking for casual sex. I was desperate just to feel something.
I look away and scrunch my nose up to keep the tears from coming.
My mother clears her throat. She must be feeling the same wave of emotion.
I take a shaky breath and set my drink on top of the nightstand. I need to take charge if we’re going to get anywhere today. “How about I take out each thing, and you tell me to keep, donate, or trash?”
My mother already has a very flat, very empty trash bag beside the nightstand.
“I just don’t know if I can throw away anything that belonged to him. I miss him so much, and throwing away things that meant something to him feels like I’m throwing away pieces of him.”
I understand my mother’s reluctance, but it needs to be done. His things can’t stay here indefinitely when he’s not around to use them anymore. I reach into the nightstand and shuffle around for a moment until I pull out a gum wrapper. “Look, this is an easy start. Clearly trash. We don’t need to keep gum wrappers.”
“That’s spearmint!” Mom starts, reaching for the wrapper. At first, I think she’s going to fight me on it, insisting that we keep this wrapper because it might have been the last piece of gum my father ever chewed before his heart attack. But she doesn’t. She just turns the paper over in her hands with a mournful look on her face before handing the paper back to me. I shove it into the garbage bag and keep pushing forward.
I know that if I stop and let my emotions take over, I won’t get anything done. My mother’s hands tremble as she clutches the Bible, which she seems determined not to let go of, and I can see the struggle in her eyes. I take a deep breath, trying to stay focused.
Next, I find dad’s old wristwatch. The leather band is worn, and the face is scratched, but it’s still ticking. “Remember when I gave him this?” I ask, holding it up for Mom to see.
She smiles faintly, her eyes misting over. “He wore that watch every day for years. I remember he used to tap it absentmindedly while reading the paper. He loved that thing.”
“Should we keep it?” I ask gently.
“Yes, definitely keep it. I know I can’t keep everything, but that watch is too beat up for anyone else to want it, it means so much to him, so it really means something to me.”
“You don’t have to justify it to me. It makes me think of…” I pause for a moment to gather my emotions and stop myself from crying. “...the Father’s Day I got it for him, but I don’t remember how old I was.”
“You must have been ten or eleven. It was somewhere around then.”
We both gaze reverently at the watch before I set it on the bedspread next to my mother.
Reaching back into the drawer, I pull out a stack of letters tied together with a faded blue ribbon. My heart skips a beat as I realize what they are—love letters my father wrote to my mother when they were dating. I hand them to her, and she unties the ribbon with shaky hands.
“I remember these,” she says, her voice thick with emotion. “He used to write me letters every week. I never knew what he’d say next, but I memorized every word of them.”
Tears spill down her cheeks, and I reach out to hold her hand. “Mom, it’s okay to feel this way. We can take our time. Today, we’ll just do the nightstand. We won’t try to go through his desk or closet or anything else, okay?”
She nods, squeezing my hand before placing the letters beside the watch. “Let’s keep those too. I don’t think I could ever get rid of them.”
As we continue, the process gets a bit easier. We find a few more items that bring back memories, and my mom starts to smile more as she shares stories about my dad. It’s bittersweet, but it’s also healing in a way.
