Violetta Craft's Arc

Chapter 58 of 65

Friday morning Violetta stood in her downtown studio and looked at the table. Her sketchbook was open to a bodice she had drawn three weeks ago. She had not touched it since. Between the intern job Monday through Thursday and Elowen at night, Friday was supposed to be her day. She had spent the last two Fridays sitting in the chair with her hand on her stomach, too tired to cut. She pressed her palm flat against the table. Fifteen weeks. The curve under her shirt was no longer small. Her back hurt already, and it was only nine in the morning. She pulled the test strip out of her bag. She had taken it again last night just to see the two lines one more time, the green control and the pink result. She set it on the sketchbook and stared at both. Then she packed the sketchbook, the strip, and her key into her bag. She locked the studio behind her and drove home. Jordie was on the porch of the new house, Elowen on his knee, feeding her a cracker. He looked up when Violetta came up the steps sooner than he expected. "You okay?" "I'm giving up the studio." He did not move. Elowen reached for Violetta's hair. Violetta let her have it and sat down on the top step. "For how long," he said. "Until I'm in a good place again. Maybe a year. Maybe longer." She pulled the strip out of her bag and set it on the porch between them. "Fifteen weeks now. I can't stand at two tables. My back is done by three at the studio job. I come home and Elowen needs me. I sit down on Fridays and nothing happens." Jordie picked up the strip and turned it in his fingers. "The internship pays," she said. "I learn more there in a week than I learn alone in a month. The owner already talks about the ninety-day raise. If I push for my own dress right now I lose both." "What about the next showcase." "I'm not entering. Not this one." She said it out loud and it landed harder than she thought. "I'll enter the one after. When the baby's older. When I can stand a whole day." He set the strip on the step. "Okay." "Okay?" "You told me what you decided. I'm not going to fight it." He shifted Elowen to his other knee. "Call the landlord today. Don't sit on it." She called from the porch. The landlord said she could drop the key Monday and he would return the deposit within two weeks. She hung up and put the phone face down on the step. Elowen pressed a wet cracker into her hand. Violetta held it and did not move. The Friday table was gone. The showcase she had planned for was gone. What was left was the internship, the baby inside her, and the child on Jordie's knee.