Violetta Craft's Arc

Chapter 28 of 65

Elowen came off oxygen on day eight. The doctor watched her numbers for two more days before signing the discharge papers. Jordie loaded the car with the diaper bag and the folder of instructions. Violetta buckled the car seat with hands that still shook a little. Ten days in the step-down unit, and now they were driving home. Jordie took the long way again. Violetta sat in the back with her hand on Elowen's foot. The house looked the same from the outside, but inside the air felt thicker. The puppy scratched at the gate. The nursery door was closed to keep the dust down. She set the car seat on the couch and stood over it for a long minute before she moved. Her mother came by that afternoon with a casserole and a bag of small clothes. Missy trailed behind her, holding a folded paper crown she had made at school. Paul carried in a new air filter and set it up in the living room without being asked. Max and Jett stood in the hallway, unsure what to touch. Violetta watched her family fill the small space, and for the first time in three weeks, she did not feel like she was drowning. After Elowen fell asleep, Lymber sat at the kitchen table and asked the question plainly. What about the dress. Violetta said she had withdrawn. She said it was done. Lymber nodded once and did not push. Paul was the one who spoke. He said the junior showcase still counted. He said she had won it once with a green dress and no sleep, and she could enter it again. It was not the senior slot, but it was a runway, and the scouts still watched the underclass rounds. Violetta had forgotten the junior showcase existed. She had spent eight months aiming at the wrong door. The junior entry deadline was six weeks out. Six weeks was not ten months, but it was enough for a simpler dress, one clear idea, the purple A-line she already had cut. She could work at the downtown studio in short blocks while Elowen slept at home with Jordie or her mother. She could enter as a junior one last time before she aged out. She pulled her phone across the table and opened the coordinator's email. She wrote a new message. She was withdrawing from the senior track for good, but she wanted to file intent for the junior showcase. She listed the dress name and the fabric and hit send before Elowen stirred. Missy set the paper crown on the table between them. Lymber offered to drive her to the family locker in the morning to pick up the materials. Violetta said yes. Then she went to check on Elowen, who was breathing on her own in the bassinet, quiet and even. The deadline had changed. The dress was still hers.