“I took this,” Maya finally said.

Violet propped a hip against the counter. “I know.”

Maya lifted her face and met Violet’s eyes. “It won’t happen again.”

Violet took off her glasses and rubbed the lenses with the hem of her shirt. “I hope not. Trudy seems to like you.”

A shy smile emerged on the girl’s lips. “I like her too. And I’m sorry about the box.”

“You should be. I heard you tell Trudy you know where things belong. If that’s true, the opposite should be true as well. And something you didn’t pay for does not belong in your pocket.”

“I know. It won’t happen again,” she repeated, a whisper of obstinance in her tone.

“Okay then.”

Later, as the sisters locked up for the day, Trudy handed Violet a piece of paper. I think we could use an extra set of hands around here.

“Do you?”

Trudy nodded and tipped her head in a way that let Violet know exactly who she was referring to. Violet wrinkled her nose in derision. The girl was a thief. Violet wanted to be mad at her. She deserved to be angry. But something in Maya’s face had tempered Violet’s anger, and all she felt was a stubborn softness.

Trudy’s pen scratched across another sheet. She only works part time at the Shack. Three mornings and a couple afternoon shifts a week. And she told you herself it wouldn’t happen again.

Violet stared at Trudy. “You know about the box?”

She told me she likes it here. And that sometimes she does things she doesn’t mean to.

“She said all that to you?”

A lot can be said without words.

Tension leaked out of Violet’s neck and shoulders. “Yes, I’m quite familiar with that.”

1979

In the end Violet didn’t get a chance to stand at the altar next to her sister as maid of honor. No one did. During a late-spring weekend trip to New Orleans, Jay officially proposed to Trudy on Friday, married her on Saturday, and drove her home Sunday with a new ring set on her finger and a pink flush on her cheeks.

On Sunday evening Violet expected Trudy to walk in their house with nothing more than a suitcase full of clothes to wash and stories to tell of streetcars, jazz bands, and fruity drinks. Instead Trudy called Violet from Jay’s house up the river.

“We got married, Vi.”

“You did what?” Violet was at the kitchen table working on applications for master’s programs in biology and conservation at schools from Tuscaloosa to Tallahassee. She dropped her pen on the table and rested her forehead in her hand. She hadn’t mentioned anything to Trudy about having seen the bruises on the back of her arm.

“Jay proposed and I said yes. Then we passed the sweetest little church on the way home from lunch Saturday and the pastor was right there, so we went ahead and got married.”

“Just the two of you.”

“Well, and the pastor.”