32. Viola
Viola
Doc Nelson’s tincture took hold quickly. Jacob whispered my name. I wanted to speak the truth rising in my heart. I fought against the medicine. The room dimmed first. Then his face went dark.
Images broke the blackness. My mind wrestled twenty years of memories back into place. Once upon a time, my mother and father had found true love.
Father so tall beside me, his giant hand wrapped around mine. The lakeside path. Boats on the water. My white-stockinged legs. He crouched beside me. “Love is the greatest thing… the prize.”
A closed door. Don’t go in there. Mother’s sickroom. Her face blurred in my memory. I was five. Take control. Keep everyone else from dying.
Greta’s arms softened the edges of my pain. “I have plans, Greta.” Dear Greta brushed back my hair and sang me lullabies. “Plans are good, child.”
Father smiling, but not with his eyes. No memories of his grief, not back then.
“My dears, we are the lucky ones. Even though Mother is not with us, we are always surrounded by the cocoon of her love. A never-ending embrace. Can you feel it? An invisible bubble? We are living the happily-ever-after.”
My grief was a betrayal to them both. Hide it. Pull in deep. The cocoon. No mourning.
Faster and faster. Overlapping images. Versions of the people I love. Father. George. Sarah. Mrs. Newman. Greta. Growing up inside that fairy-tale cocoon, never questioning its strength… or its cost.
At fourteen, my favorite place was the overstuffed couch facing the fireplace. It was the best place to get lost in a book. On the day I emerged from the cocoon, I was lost in my reading and didn’t notice Father entering the library and closing the door.
Curiosity held me fast when I realized his quiet words weren’t meant for me at all, but for Mother. He spoke to her portrait.
I hoped to witness the magic of their communication—maybe even see evidence of my mother’s responses.
He slid open a drawer in his desk. The soft scrape of wood, the faint clink of glass—each echoed down the library and vibrated under my skin.
I dropped out of sight behind the couch and held my breath to hear his voice. He spoke of George. Yale in the fall.
My cheek slid along the cool green velvet as I inched onto an elbow and peeked over the back of the couch with one eye.
Father sat at his desk, staring at Mother’s portrait and turning a glass of amber fluid in his hand. I couldn’t see his face, but his shoulders were slumped.
He said quietly, “You left me. Now George is leaving too. It’s the right thing for him to do, but I don’t know how to protect him when he’s so far away. I don’t know how I’ll bear it.” His voice roughened. “Sometimes, it’s all I can do to make it through each day.”
He drained the glass. “Why did you have to leave us? Cruel to make me suffer so, to force me to be strong. So unfair—but I’ll be strong for them. Shield them. Take all the pain upon myself.” His last words were hollow, emptied of the bright hope he’d worn like a mask for years.
Around me, the cocoon ripped. It started as a snag, pulling at my heart, then fell to pieces—as if it had only ever been mist and cobwebs, shredding my understanding of the world.
I sank back onto the couch and wished I were anywhere else.
Love was not all-powerful.
We were not protected in a cocoon.
I prayed then for my mother to intercede—for a miracle to take away Father’s pain. I strained to hear her answer. But no answer came. The only sound was Father’s ragged breathing—then muffled sobs.
My silent tears joined my father’s. Lying on the couch, I realized the terrible danger of loving.
The risk of exquisite pain and despair. Love was not safety.
It was a weakness—the soft place where pain entered.
With swollen eyes, I stared at the coffered ceiling and made a vow.
I would not make the same mistake my father had made.
I would not love. I would not break. I would not become him. It was the beginning of my manifesto.
For years, I needed no other vow. But I would never marry without love. I would be a spinster.
Sarah laughed. “You’ll be lonely as a spinster.”
“Two cats,” I told her. “For company.”
I’d repeated my manifesto to Sarah only days before I fell from the train. I, Viola VanMartin, will avoid the trials of love and marriage…
Endless balls and dinners. Playing piano.
Society’s glittering pretense. I discouraged suitors without being overtly rude, not wanting to cause embarrassment to George or Father, but it was exhausting.
I stayed at the fringes, and Sarah stayed with me.
I longed for a home outside the city, away from society, a place where I could be myself, in control of my own world.
My sleeping brain filed my returned memories into the proper places, collating them alongside my new memories. And through it all, a light flickered. Jacob. So many images of Jacob. The walls I’d built trembled under the weight of his smile, his touch, his steady kindness.
I remembered his kiss.
There was no way to force Jacob and my manifesto into the same place in my heart. I had to let go of the part of me that longed for his kiss. I had to flee from love.
Then a deeper, merciful sleep claimed me, without dreams or memories.
Iwoke in an unfamiliar room. It wasn’t my cozy little room with the Jensens, nor was it my room in Chicago. Two versions of me fought for control. Dissonance grated. Each hand played in a different key.
George sat near the window with a cup of steaming coffee.
I pushed up to sitting. “George.”
He rushed to my side, pulled me up into a bear hug, and laughed. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you, little sister!”
“You found me.” I pulled back to look into his familiar face. “I remember everything.” I squinted at him. “Well… I think I remember everything, but how would I know if anything is missing?”
He mussed my hair. “Always have been a knucklehead.”
I fell back onto the bed, my skin stretched thin over too many memories. A neatly folded pile of clothing caught my eye, clothes I recognized from the farm. “Was Jo here?”
“Jacob. He rode back and had dinner with me last night. He was concerned about you, as was his whole family. You certainly made an impression,” George said with a smirk.
I looked away, but my cheeks warmed.
“I like him,” George said. “He seems an upstanding sort of fellow. Don’t you think?”
“Yes.”
“Very different from all those men in Chicago.”
“Yes.”
“Jacob told me all about your adventures. Either he’s the best storyteller I’ve ever met, or you’ve had more excitement in the past week than in your whole prior life.”
I judged George to be ignorant of my adventures in kissing and let out my breath. “You have no idea.”
I thought of my days with the Jensens. “It was amazing… working in the field, racing the storm, fishing, chores, reading together at night. Oh, and Jacob is the best storyteller you’ve ever met. He has a gift. Truly.”
Speaking his name dropped the music in my heart three octaves. The strength of my regard rounded out a deep chord that hung in the air.
My manifesto didn’t include Jacob. How could that be? Maybe I could include him as a friend. My vow allowed for friendship.
Friendship.
With Jacob.
The thought warmed and gutted me all at once.
I had to trust the wisdom of my former self. Here. Now. I couldn’t think clearly about anything, especially Jacob.
George passed me a cup of tea.
“You were pale as a blank page yesterday. I’ll get you home soon. Father is sending Greta and the train car to collect us tomorrow, if you’re up to traveling.”
“I’m stretched, detached, as if I’m in a dream.
” Leaving would be like stepping away from the piano mid-piece, the unfinished melody haunting me.
I needed a plan to get through this. Jacob’s face filled my mind—would probably always fill my mind.
I needed a plan to say goodbye. A plan for an impossible friendship.
“You’ll feel better once we’re on our?—”
“I need to say goodbye… to the Jensens. I’ll be forever grateful. They did so much. Can something be arranged?”
“Of course.”
But how could I say goodbye?
A knock at the door.
George opened it and motioned Jo inside.
“Viola.” She strode over to clasp my hands. “You look so much better than yesterday.”
“I feel much better, thank you. Please, Jo, I need to see… I need to see all of you before?—”
“That’s why I’m here.” She placed a folded page on my lap. “An invitation.”
I scanned the words. “A farewell party? For me? Please, George, can we go?”
“Of course, of course. Thank you for the invitation. What can we bring?”
“Only yourselves. We’ll take care of everything.” Jo clapped her hands. “See you tonight.”
I slumped back on the bed.
Tonight, then.
Blasted vow…