“Good. I left you a pill next to the bed with some water. You can take that if you need it for pain.” Tolly shrugged into his jacket. “I wish I hadn’t had to hit you, Violet. I think we both know I’ve worked hard to control my temper at every provocation from you. You became so outrageous I couldn’t ignore it.” He waved at the window. “There is no other woman out there. She lives only in your twisted, jealous imagination.” Her husband bent to kiss her forehead as though it wouldn’t thoroughly repulse her. “You’re all the woman I need. Enough trouble for one man, surely.”

Violet listened as he made his way out and started the Corvette. Then she let herself cry for poor Beatrice, and for her own complete loss of hope. How could she have forgotten that Tolly always won?

twenty-seven

RONNI

I clutched my stomach and shook my head at Deanna. “I can’t do this. You don’t understand. I don’t know her. I don’t want to know her.”

She turned from petting Halle and said, “Look, Ronni, if anyone in the world can understand your feelings, it’s me. But I’m afraid if you don’t at least try to reconcile with your mother you’ll regret it. Surely you see that.”

“No, I don’t. She shut me out of her life for over twenty years. She made no attempt to find me. She went her own way happily without her daughter...”

“All of those,” she interrupted, “are things I said about Violet before I knew better.”

I wished she didn’t feel it necessary to fix my life. It was broken enough with the loss of Rick. All I wanted to do was crawl in bed with a good book and a pizza. Instead, I had Florida’s preeminent amateur psychiatrist in a polyester pantsuit dragging me out the door to meet with a woman I’d been avoiding, mentally and physically, for years. For good reason. Deanna was the closest thing I had to Violet, though, and I felt like I should listen to her.

She swung open the door to my apartment and waved me through, clutching the address in her hand.

An hour later we drove up to a small, grayish-white cement block house with the thoroughly depressing remains of a flower garden sticking out of three tires in the yard. A shiny Buick SUV sat in the gravel driveway. At least her relationship with the used car dealer had paid off. I glanced at Deanna, who looked every bit as unimpressed as I was.

“We can still leave. It’s not too late,” I said.

She grabbed my hand and smiled, trying to pat away my fear. “Come on. How bad can it be?” Deanna opened her door and began walking up the narrow footpath to the tiny fake porch. I had no choice but to follow.