Violetta Craft's Arc

Chapter 20 of 65

On Friday morning the doctor signed Violetta's discharge papers. Elowen stayed. The nurse explained the feeding schedule and the weight target and the phone number for the night desk. Violetta nodded at each line. She kissed her fingers and pressed them to the plastic wall of the incubator. Jordie carried her bag down the hall. In the parking lot he opened the passenger door and waited while she looked back at the building. She got in. He drove the long way home so she would not have to talk. The house felt too clean. Jordie's parents had swept the floors and stacked the mail. The puppy climbed her shins and would not stop. Violetta sat at the kitchen table and opened her phone out of habit. The post about Elowen had climbed again overnight. Strangers had tagged her in threads about her showcase dress. A local reporter had sent three messages. She read the top comment, then the next, then the next. An hour passed. Her tea went cold. She opened her sketchbook and drew a neckline. It came out wrong. She drew it again and it came out worse. She had not made a clean line in two weeks. Every time she set the pencil down she checked her phone. Jordie watched from the doorway. He said her name once. She kept scrolling. He crossed the room, took the phone from her hand, and put it face down on the counter. He said she could have it back at bedtime. He said the town could wait. He sat across from her and slid the sketchbook between them. Violetta stared at the blank page. Her hand shook a little. She pictured Elowen in the incubator and the whiteboard number climbing. She pictured the judge at the last showcase saying one clear idea. She wrote the word purple at the top of the page. She drew a straight line from the shoulder to the hip and let it flare from the waist. An A-line. One color. One silhouette. Nothing else. She drew it again cleaner. She drew it a third time and the proportions locked in. Jordie leaned over and looked. He said that one. She circled it. She wrote the date underneath and the words final shape. Her phone buzzed on the counter and she did not turn her head. The sketch sat on the table between them, small and definite, and for the first time in two weeks her hand had done what she asked it to.