Chapter 24
STRENGTHS AND ECHOES
ROWAN
What makes someone unforgettable to you?
ChaosInPurple: For me, it’s kindness.
Not the loud, performative kind that wants applause, but the quiet kind that shows up in small moments when no one is paying attention. The way someone treats people when they have nothing to gain from it, the patience in their voice, the gentleness in the way they listen.
Those little things stay with me far longer than grand gestures. They tell you who a person truly is.
I’m happy watching Violet sit beside my mother, sipping coffee and smiling softly while Mom goes on and on about Dad’s greenhouse and the lavender mist he makes every spring—the same one Violet complimented again, saying it makes Mom’s hair smell like a field in summer.
Now a small glass bottle of that very mist sits on the table between them, its label written in Dad’s careful handwriting. It’s Mom’s gift to Violet.
“Have you always lived here?” Violet asks, curiosity lacing her voice.
Mom nods. “Yeah. This is the house where Zane and my love started.”
Violet exhales almost wistfully. “Wow. That is so beautiful.”
But I see the shift before she continues. The way her fingers tighten slightly around her cup, the way her shoulders square as though she’s debating whether to say whatever’s next on her mind. Then her eyes flick toward me for the briefest second, and I give her a small smile.
I don’t want her to retreat. I don’t want her to censor herself out of fear. I know my parents. They do not judge; they only care and love.
As if she understands that, Violet turns back to Mom, and when she speaks again, her voice has thinned.
“Watching you, I’ve been wondering for the first time since the accident what my parents were like.
My friends told me I lost them very young.
” Her gaze drops to her lap. “But I don’t know if I ever had memories of them that I’ve now forgotten or if I never had any at all.
And sometimes, I wonder if it would hurt less if the latter was true.
Then I wouldn’t have to live with the ache of forgetting something I once knew. ”
Mom’s expression softens as she looks at Dad. They share one of those silent exchanges that have always left me in awe. Dad tilts his head almost imperceptibly, as if offering quiet consent to whatever Mom asked.
She reaches across and covers Violet’s hand with her own.
“I didn’t have a big family either. For a very long time, it was just me and my mother, and then she passed away from a brain tumor.
When I was diagnosed years later”—her tone is soft but unflinching—“I wasn’t just scared of the unknown.
I was terrified of the known. I was terrified of what I had already seen, of the possibility that I might wither away the same way my mother did. ”
My body goes rigid. We rarely speak about Mom’s illness this openly, but today it’s laid bare in front of us.
Violet lifts her eyes slowly, and the pain in them hits me with force.
“But,” Mom continues softly, “that illness also brought me the greatest gift of my life. It brought me Zane. It brought me everything I have today.”
A tear slips down Violet’s cheek, and every part of me wants to cross the space between us and gather her into my arms. I want to shield her from her own ache, from the weight of memories she cannot reach but still mourns.
Mom gently brushes the tear away with her thumb.
“I am not trying to belittle your pain, Violet. And I would never say that what you’re going through is small.
I cannot even imagine how frightening it must be to live with uncertainty all the time, not knowing what you have lost or what you might regain.
But when life feels unbearable, when it feels like you’re standing at the edge of something too vast to comprehend, what helps is hope. ”
Her fingers tighten around Violet’s. “I want you to hold on to the hope that one day, when you look back at this time, you will realize that the pain you carry right now allowed you to cherish the happiness that came into your life even more deeply. Sometimes we have to walk through fire to understand the gift of warmth. And you are not alone in this. We’re all here for you.
Not just Rowan. But me. Zane. Archer. Their cousins. Your friends. Our whole family.”
Mom cups Violet’s face the same way she does with Archer and me when she wants us to truly hear her.
“I want you to remember this too,” she whispers. “God only gives as much pain as you are strong enough to endure.”
Violet’s eyes close, and then she leans forward and wraps her arms around Mom. “Thank you,” she whispers quietly, as if the words are meant only for my mother’s ears.
A few moments later, Violet finally pulls back from Mom’s hug. “I’m so happy I came here today.”
Then she turns to me and smiles. That smile doesn’t simply warm me—it undoes me. It reaches into the darkest, most guarded corners of me and lights them up without permission, without mercy. She doesn’t even realize the power she holds.
“And you are going to be here every week,” Mom declares, clapping her hands once.
“I’m not listening to you two anymore.” She throws Archer and me a look that is pure maternal decree.
“Violet is going to accompany Ro. We are reinstating Saturday breakfasts.” She turns toward Violet and points a playful but decisive finger at her.
“And you are not allowed to make excuses.”
Violet laughs, and the sound of it feels like sunlight breaking through heavy clouds. “Believe me,” she replies, her eyes sparkling, “I am not planning to make any excuses.”
Mom’s smile widens so brightly I swear I have rarely seen it stretch that far across her face.
Suddenly I understand the whole allure of being a girl-mom.
Archer and I have given her love, pride, chaos, and gray hair, but I don’t think we have ever made her beam like this.
What surprises me is that I don’t feel jealous.
Watching my mother look at Violet like that feels a little too much like watching someone already claim her as ours.
I love every damn second of it.
“Weren’t you guys on a trip to bring a foster dog home?” Violet tilts her head.
The smile fades from Mom’s face. She turns toward Dad and his jaw tightens almost imperceptibly, his wrist curling where it rests on the table. Beside me, Archer goes still at the exact same second my spine stiffens.
I hate when this happens.
Sometimes the pets my parents bring home aren’t frightened strays hiding under porches.
Sometimes they’re animals so broken that the rescue requires police and paperwork and a kind of restraint I do not know how they manage without losing pieces of themselves in the process.
I can only hope this isn’t one of those times.
Mom draws in a breath before she speaks. “This was actually our second trip. The second time we drove out to bring this baby home.”
“Oh.” Violet’s voice is apologetic. “So you couldn’t bring him home even now?”
Mom shakes her head slowly. “No. At least this time he was able to drive with us.” Her voice trembles and she pauses to swallow. “Sometimes, in this work, we see things that shake me more than I expect. I don’t understand how we humans are capable of so much cruelty.”
Her voice falters on the last word, and Dad is already at her side, his hands settling on her shoulders, reminding her she’s not alone in carrying what she has seen.
“I am so sorry.” Panic flickers across Violet’s face as she looks at me, and I give her a brief smile and shake my head, telling her without words that none of this is her fault.
“It’s-s not your f-fault,” Dad confirms, before she can sink any further into misplaced guilt.
“He’s somewhere in the house right now?” Archer asks, one brow lifting, and I know he is thinking exactly what I am. How did we not notice him?
Dad shakes his head again. “He w-wouldn’t come inside. He’s in th-the greenhouse. He s-seems to feel safer close to the p-plants.”
“What happened?” I sign the question and Archer’s voice translates it aloud.
Dad exhales through his nose before he answers.
“He was d-diagnosed with a rare autoimmune c-condition called Uveodermatologic S-syndrome.” There is an edge to his voice.
“It b-began with severe uveitis. Th-that’s when the inside of the eye b-becomes inflamed.
Think of it like s-swelling in a place that has no r-room to swell.
The p-previous owners tried to treat him with steroids drops…
but the d-damage progressed too fast. He eventually l-lost his sight. ”
Mom’s voice softens, but it only makes it worse. “That meant he needed constant and expensive care and major life adjustments.” There is a quiet bitterness woven into her next words. “And they decided he was too much for them… so they abandoned him.”
Archer’s palm slams flat against the table. “They fucking what?” His voice is low, vibrating with barely restrained fury.
The old, familiar burn rises in my throat, sharp and corrosive. I will never understand how someone can claim love for a living thing and then withdraw it the moment it requires sacrifice.
Tension radiates from Dad like heat off asphalt in summer. I know that if Mom and Violet weren’t here, he wouldn’t be this restrained.
“He was spotted wandering along the highway,” Mom says quietly, “thin and disoriented enough that strangers called animal rescue. It seems he had been living in the woods, surviving on whatever scraps he could find. I can’t even imagine how scary that must have been.”
My chest caves, as if something inside me has tightened into a fist and refuses to let go.
He was living in the woods.
He was alone in the cold.
The words repeat in my head with a sickening familiarity that makes my stomach twist.
There are too many details that feel like echoes of my own story, the hours I have tried to bury.