Then I remembered that I was twenty-six, and while Violet had promised a huge amount of money for the book’s completion it wasn’t nearly enough to contemplate complete freedom. There were increments as I aged, but I didn’t know how much and when. It occurred to me I’d failed to ask Mr. Sobel a lot of important questions about the will.

Mr. Sobel.

Did he know about his cousin Sam’s relationship with Violet? Since I’d read her diary and reconstructed her day with Sam in Atlanta, I knew how she’d chosen her attorney years later. I was almost positive, though, that she’d never told Melvin Sobel about her relationship with his cousin—or that she’d visited him at his home when he was a baby.

Did no one in his family ever mention Violet? Considering her exit, it was possible. Mr. Sobel certainly hadn’t known Violet was pregnant at the time.

I shook my head to stop wandering through cobwebs and took Rick’s advice. I dug out a beautiful purple journal with Violet engraved in gold script on the front cover. Today I would allow myself to read it. I pulled Halle onto my lap and turned to the first page, practically purring along in anticipation.

Part Two

sixteen

VIOLET

Birmingham, Alabama 1960

Violet consulted her Cartier watch and patted the pearls at her neck nervously. The Junior League’s placement committee would be meeting here in thirty minutes. She ran through a mental checklist: crackers, cheese ball, crab dip, mixed nuts, fruit salad, chicken salad, potato salad, deviled eggs, yeast rolls, centerpiece, napkins, plates, forks, crystal, sweet tea, wine, Cokes and Tabs...dessert. Oh lord—had Beatrice remembered the lemon icebox pies? She raced to the kitchen, heels clicking a frantic tattoo on the polished wood floor. Yes, thank goodness, the pies were on the top shelf.

Now, if Tolly would just stay at the club until nine or so. He hated these “home invasions,” preferring to write an enormous check to The Country Club of Birmingham or a restaurant when it was Violet’s turn to host.

Tolliver Burnette “Tolly” Thompson was known to almost everyone in his insular world as Dr. Thompson. He allowed the use of his nickname by his wife, in-laws, sister, and three or four colleagues. Not only was Tolly a well-respected surgeon; he was married to a beauty twenty years his junior. He had a handicap of seven on the golf course, a mansion in Mountain Brook, and a bourbon addiction that beckoned with gentle, cradling arms every afternoon. If he had to stay at St. Vincent’s to monitor a patient, there was a monogrammed leather flask in his pocket. By mutual agreement, emergency surgeries were assigned to partners on call after twelve o’clock each day—no exceptions. Doctors Lacefield and Healy took up the slack because it was worth it to have Tolly’s name on the practice.