“Hold on for a sec.” I texted my mother. Did you know about the hot tub?

She texted back. Just found out. I’m discussing it with our lawyer.

I wished she’d talked to me before she talked to her attorney.

“I am so sorry.” Louis shrank, collapsing in on himself.

Maybe the hot water caused my grandmother’s stroke, maybe it hadn’t. “Honestly, sneaking off to the hot tub is so quintessential Violet. She always lived life on her own terms. Really, the only surprise is that something like this hasn’t happened sooner.”

Louis teared up. He lifted his saxophone. “Mind if I play for her?”

“Go ahead.”

He touched the instrument to his lips that drooped almost exactly like my grandmother’s, then he played a meandering jazz piece, tenderness turned into melody.

By the time he finished, I was blinking back tears. “Are you a professional musician?”

“I’ve been a lot of things.” For a second, he seemed to be content to leave it at that. Then he looked from Violet to me. “I floated over from Cuba to Florida on an inner tube when I was ten. Back then, if your feet touched US soil, you were granted asylum. I stayed with an uncle who owned a restaurant in Miami.”

His gnarled fingers caressed his saxophone. “Couldn’t cook. Burned everything. Wasn’t any better as a waiter either. Lost my uncle more money in broken plates than my work was worth. If I couldn’t work in the kitchen and couldn’t work the floor, I had to entertain. I played the saxophone a little already, so I learned to play better. Soon, people came into the restaurant just to listen to me. Ended up cutting three records. Had my fifteen minutes of fame.”

He stayed for the better part of an hour, soothing my soul. I hoped Violet could hear him.

After Louis left, I laid my head on Violet’s pillow. “I couldn’t love you more if you were an oil baron bidding a million dollars on a Broadway ticket at my auction.”

She didn’t say I love you back, but I could feel it anyway. Like when you were near water, and you closed your eyes, and you still knew you were near water because the air was different. Her love clung to my skin, my hair, my heart.

I stayed like that until my neck hurt almost as much as my soul, and then I walked around the room. I had brought my laptop with me, but I wasn’t in the right mind for work. I had the little green diary too, but I couldn’t focus on that either. Jo’s hopeless crush on Eduard would have to wait.

Diya called. “How is she?”

“The same.”

“I’m so sorry, Em.”

“She’ll wake up soon. Her brain just shut the noise down while it’s recovering.”