Violet Evergreen's Arc

Chapter 2 of 11

Violet pressed the phone to her ear and heard a man clear his throat. The voice was lower than she remembered. Slower. Careful in a way the boy of nineteen had never been. "Violet. It's Danny." A pause. "I got your address from your cousin. I hope that's alright. I wanted to call before you drove up." She sat down at the kitchen counter. She reached for the envelope with his half of the photos and set it in front of her, an anchor. "It's alright," she said. He talked about the weather up north. He talked about the drive, which exits had gas stations. He did not sound like the boy who used to laugh into her neck. He sounded like a man reading from a list. She realized she had no idea who she was talking to. Nineteen years was a long time. He could be kind now, or cruel, or dull, or married. She was gripping the envelope like it could tell her. "Danny," she said. "Can I ask you something?" "Sure." "What do you do on a Saturday morning?" He went quiet. She heard a dog bark on his end and a chair scrape. "I go to the market by the lake," he said. "There's a flower stand there. The woman who runs it lost her husband last year. I buy a bunch of wildflowers every week and put them on my mother's grave. My mother died in March." Violet closed her eyes. She had not known his mother was dead. She had liked his mother. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to come out of pity." His voice broke on the last word and steadied again. "I wanted to hear your voice first. To see if you were still in there." She opened her eyes. The envelope sat under her hand. The framed picture of the smiling girl faced her from the windowsill. "I'm in here," she said. "I'm not the same. I run a greenhouse. I live alone. I like it." "Good," he said. He sounded like he meant it. "I was hoping you'd say something like that." They talked for eleven more minutes. He asked about her tomatoes. She asked about his work. He was a carpenter now. He built stairs, mostly. When they hung up, her coffee was cold. She had wanted the call to tell her whether to go or stay. It had not. He was a stranger who bought flowers for his dead mother. That was one true fact. She would need a hundred more before she knew him. She picked up a pen and wrote on the back of the envelope: Ask him things. Do not fill in the blanks. Then she put the envelope in her bag by the door, next to the invitation, and went out to water the greenhouse. The drive north was still two weeks away. She would arrive with questions instead of a memory.