you do. I saw you catch the whiskey on his breath last night.”
“You saw no such thing.” She abandoned the dishes and slumped into the chair across from him.
He slid his hand toward her, but she did not offer hers in kind. “So be it,” he said, as he fished the buttonhook out of his pocket. “But what about Violet?”
“What about her?”
“I’ll say it if you won’t.” He scraped at the sludge under his fingernails. “Violet’s the one who killed Daisy. It’s her fault. We both know it.”
“Those words have never passed my lips!” Grace pounded her fist, knocking an empty teacup off the table. Porcelain shards peppered the floor. “Now look what you’ve done.” She swept the pieces onto a rag rug, lifted both sides, and shook it into the wash tin. “You’re not wanted here. Never were.”
“Just the same. You hold the words inside.” He pulled out his shirttail, wiped the hook clean, and put it back in his pocket.
“Where they belong.” She set the rug in place and went to the stove to brew her tea. Grace thought about the words, those words, beads of buckshot—solid, heavy, cold. Each leaden syllable primed to explode. All along, she’d been swallowing them whole, choking them down with roots and seeds and leaves.
“Come now. Ease your pain.” Grief pressed up against her back and pecked at her ear. Blood rose to his pallid cheeks. “Blame Violet. Give voice to your heart’s truth.”
Grace trembled at both his touch and his suggestion. I’ll not say the words, she thought. Better to push them deeper into her belly. What if the accusation shot past her lips while she scrubbed floors or sipped tea? You killed Daisy! What if she opened her mouth to pray, and fired the words instead? Our Father, who art in heaven. What happened to Eve when Cain slew Abel? Did she still love her child?
Grace pulled away from Grief and sat down at the table. “What do you know of me?”
“I know your fears. Your pain.” He tucked in his sullied shirttail and combed his parched fingers through his oiled hair. “We’re two halves of the same whole. Twins, born on the same day, tied together for eternity.” He stepped closer.
“Not another word about Violet, do you hear?” Exhausted, she dropped her head and wept.
“Poor Gracie. What’s to become of us?” Grief lifted her chin and blotted her tears with the back of his hand. “Stay with me,” he whispered. “I won’t leave you.”
A late-summer breeze pushed through the screen door, momentarily rousing Grace to a larger world, one with Owen, and yes, even Violet, and love. Her feet stirred, but her body remained rooted to the chair.
“Let’s do something about that pain,” Grief cooed. Grace nodded but held onto the words. “So much pain,” he continued. “So many tears.” He wiped her cheek again.
Grace leaned forward and pressed her lips against the hollow of his open hand.
CHAPTER TWO
WHILE THE THIRD GRADERS PRACTICED THEIR CURSIVE, Miss Reese called Violet into the hallway. On her slow march up the aisle, Violet looked to her classmates for some hint of her wrongdoing, but they kept their eyes trained on their papers.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Miss Reese said when Violet stepped into the hall.
She nodded. She wasn’t in trouble. There was some relief in that. The teacher was simply offering her sympathies. Violet should’ve been used to it by now. She should have been able to say thank you the way she’d been instructed so many times throughout the viewing and the funeral, but once again, the words stuck in her throat. She still didn’t know what words to use for Daisy being gone, but thank you hardly fit.
The teacher continued: “Your sister was a student of mine last year.”
Violet and Daisy had spoken about Miss Reese on several occasions. “She smells of rose petals,” Daisy had said, and standing this close, Violet realized it was true. Neither sister had ever had or even known such a young teacher. And so pretty. Violet had had Miss Philips the year before, a stern woman, all teeth and bosom, who wielded a switch with a marksman’s accuracy.
Miss Reese knelt down, and her long skirt billowed, sending a puff of air in Violet’s direction. “I said, your sister was a student of mine last year.”
Violet wondered at the repetition and nodded again, this time more vigorously.
The teacher pulled a handkerchief from the sleeve of her shirtwaist and held it out.
Violet had neither sneezed nor spilled anything, the only two reasons for a hanky in school, so she said, “No thank you.”
Miss Reese stood abruptly, shook out the folds of her skirt, and sent Violet back to her seat, alongside Olive Manley.
* * *
Later that morning, after the children had been released for recess, Violet sat on the steps listening to her teacher describe the morning’s encounter to Miss Philips. “Not a tear in her eye after only two months.”
“An odd duck,” Miss Philips said, her eyes trained on a spirited game of kick the can. As if to clarify her remark, she explained, “Only one in the yard that day other than Daisy herself. We’ll probably never know the truth.”
Violet glanced up and noticed several of her classmates listening to the women with rapt attention.
* * *
After recess, Olive slid into the empty desk next to Lydia Parker.
“And what’s wrong with the seat I gave you?” Miss Reese asked.
Olive’s eyes nudged at Violet.
“Perhaps you’d prefer to spend the rest of your day in the corner.”
“No ma’am.” Olive crossed over and dropped into her seat next to Violet, without looking at, speaking to, or brushing up against her.
* * *
When Miss Reese rang the bell for lunch, Olive popped up before the clapper finished sounding. The other students quickly followed suit. Violet remained seated, wiping down her pen tip and arranging her books, until she felt certain the room had emptied. She padded out to the schoolyard, convinced that self-imposed isolation somehow suggested she had a choice in the matter.
As she started down the hill for home, Evan Evans, known in the neighborhood as Evan Two-Times, bounded into her path from behind an oak tree.
“Slowpoke.”
Violet kept her head forward and her eyes straight ahead as she tried to move around the boy.
Evan mirrored her steps so she could not pass. “How come you’re alone? Everyone’s way ahead.” He winked in the direction of some overgrown elderberry bushes,
