Violetta Craft's Arc

Chapter 1 of 65

Violetta Craft turned sixteen in a house built for showing off. Two hundred people packed the three floors of the Edgebrook Residence, drinks in hand, music loud enough to shake the glass railings. Her mother had wanted a party. Violetta had wanted a sewing machine and a quiet Saturday to cut fabric for her showcase dress. She got the party. She also got the nausea, three days late now, that she had been swallowing down since Tuesday. She hid in the upstairs bathroom while the last guests hugged her mother goodbye. Jordie Daniels stood in the hallway with his jacket still on, hands in his pockets. He was seventeen and thin and had been her boyfriend for three years. She had told him that morning what she was afraid of. She had made him promise not to say anything until the cake was cut and the candles were out and her father had taken the twins to bed. "I'll go," Jordie said through the door. "Corner store's still open." "Get two," she said. He came back in under twenty minutes with a paper bag and rain on his shoulders. Violetta took the bag into the bathroom alone and locked the door. She read the instructions twice because her hands were shaking. She sat on the tile floor after and watched the little window on the strip. One line came up fast. The second line came up slower, but it came. Pink, clear, not a question. She set the test on the edge of the sink and pressed both hands over her mouth so Jordie wouldn't hear her through the door. She found her mother in the kitchen wiping frosting off the counter. Her father was carrying folding chairs out to the garage. Violetta held the strip flat in her palm and put her palm out where her mother could see. Lymber stopped wiping. She looked at the strip, then at Violetta's face, then back at the strip. She called Paul in from the garage without raising her voice. He came in still holding a chair. He set the chair down when he saw them. Nobody sat. Violetta told them both what the second line meant. She said Jordie was downstairs. She said she was sorry about the sewing machine, which was a stupid thing to say and she knew it as soon as it left her mouth. Her mother took the test out of her hand and set it on the counter between the three of them. "Okay," Lymber said. "We start here. Together." Paul pulled Violetta against his chest and held her there. Downstairs the front door opened and closed as Jordie let himself out into the rain. In the sewing room off the hallway, the half-cut bodice of her showcase dress waited on the dress form, pinned but not yet stitched, and Violetta already knew the measurements were going to change.