Chapter 27
“How big is this beetle?” Noah asked, pointing at the picture.
Violet squinted at the page, then held out her thumb and forefinger. “The description says that it’s about this big.”
“That’s huge.”
“I know. We don’t have them here in London, thankfully. This one lives in South America.”
“Where’s that?”
“I can show you on the globe, if you’d like.”
“Oh, yes please,” Noah said enthusiastically.
She shifted the book into his lap and crossed the library to the globe that stood in the corner. Rotating it around, she placed her finger in the right place. “This is London,” she told him. “The blue here is the sea.” She traced her finger across. “And South America is right down here.”
“And these beetles can’t fly, right?”
“Well, I think they probably can, but not that far,” Violet told him. “They’re too small. They would run out of energy, and there would be nowhere for them to land. So don’t worry. They can’t come here.”
“I’m not worried about it,” Noah said. “I think it would be fun to see one! Maybe they’ll get on a boat.”
Violet had to laugh. “Anything is possible, I suppose.” She returned to sit beside him on the chaise. “Do you want to keep going with the book?”
“Yes,” he said, placing it back in her arms and reaching over to turn the page. “Moths!”
“Do you like moths?”
“Yes, they’re more interesting than butterflies,” he said. “I think they’re sturdier. I don’t know that for sure. But they seem sturdier, don’t they?”
“I think you’re right,” she told him. “Because you see moths flying into walls and things sometimes, and it doesn’t really seem to bother them. I’ve never seen a butterfly do that.”
“I wouldn’t mind being a moth,” Noah mused. “I think that would be interesting.”
She laughed. “You want to be a moth? And not a little boy?”
“Well, maybe only for a while,” he said, grinning at her. “Because I guess I can do all kinds of things a moth can’t do.”
“Like read.” She turned the book so it faced him. “Read this section here, okay?”
He frowned. “This book is too hard for me, Violet. You know that.”
“I think you can handle this part. I just looked at it, and I think you know all these words. Give it a try, at least, all right?”
He looked down at the book in front of him and bit his lip.
Violet waited. She knew Noah and knew he could do this. He was letting himself worry about it so much that he believed he wouldn’t be able to handle it. But if she was patient and gave him some time, he would move through his worry. He would manage it.
“Moths may live on…” he paused. “Only. Moths may live only a…”
“Keep going.”
“Fff…is it ‘foo’?”
“Almost,” she said. “Try the next word. See if that helps.”
“Days,” he said. “Oh! Few days!”
“That’s good!”
He looked up at her. “Really? They only live for a few days? That’s sad.”
“It’s all right,” she told him. “That’s how long they expect to live. They think about time differently than we do. We do things more slowly, because we have years and years. But moths…they do their whole lives in a couple of days. They’re just very fast about everything.”
Noah looked at the page for a long moment, biting his lip—Violet wondered what he was thinking. He was so pensive sometimes. She could imagine him putting together all kinds of pieces in his head.
When he looked up at her again, there was determination on his face. “I think we should go get Jonathan.”
“What?” Violet frowned. “Why do you want to do that?”
“He’d like this book. He would be interested in the moths, and I want to show him.” Noah got to his feet. “I’m going to go right now.”
“Noah, don’t do that. Jonathan is in his study. He’s working. We don’t want to bother him, do we?”
“He won’t mind.” Noah closed the book and hugged it to his chest. “Jonathan likes spending time with us. And he likes me more lately than he used to.”
That tugged at Violet’s heart. “Noah, that isn’t right. Jonathan always liked you. He doesn’t like you more now. Is this about the pranks?”
Noah’s gaze fell. He nodded. “He was so angry at me about that.”
“Well, yes, he was, but that didn’t mean he didn’t like you.
He doesn’t want you to end up getting yourself into some kind of trouble.
Neither of us wants that for you. It’s because we care about you that we want to make sure you behave yourself.
Because if you play a prank on someone other than me, they might get angry. You might be punished.”
Noah nodded solemnly. “I know,” he said. “I know I’m lucky you and Jonathan didn’t punish me.”
Violet closed her eyes briefly—of course, that wasn’t what she had wanted him to derive from what she’d said. He wasn’t lucky not to be punished. Punishment would be wrong. He was just a boy, just exuberant—she wanted to help him learn how to behave himself, not cause him to live in fear.
We’re all doing our best. Someday, they would reach the point where they were comfortable enough with one another that Noah wouldn’t expect punishment from them. Someday, they would know how to live together so much more easily.
Wait. No. That isn’t what will happen. Because we aren’t going to stay together. Because one of us—me or Jonathan—is going to leave.
She got to her feet and followed Noah, who was already halfway out of the room and on his way down to the study.
He was walking quickly, nearly running, and she thought of calling out to him to slow down.
But as the thought resolved itself in her mind, he was already drawing level with the study door, and there was no longer any point in saying anything.
She expected that Noah would knock, but he didn’t. He threw open the door and went inside. “Hi, Jonathan!”
She lingered in the hall while Jonathan greeted Noah, assessing his mood—would he be angry at being interrupted?
He didn’t seem to be. He was speaking genially enough.
After a moment, she went into the room after Noah, and he looked up at her and gave her a smile without interrupting Noah’s conversation.
“I have to show you this moth,” Noah was saying. “Do you like moths?”
“I don’t know that I do,” Jonathan said. “The way they fly around makes me feel like they’re going to hit me in the face.”
“That’s true,” Violet chimed in. “Butterflies don’t really do that, do they? Jonathan, Noah and I were just talking about how moths are sturdy and don’t seem like they would be harmed by flying into things.”
“But,” Noah added, standing up a little straighter. “Moths only live for a couple of days, Jonathan. And that’s why I think I wouldn’t want to be one.”
“Right,” Jonathan said, grinning. “I’m glad we sorted that out, then. So you won’t be transforming into a moth.”
“No, I’m going to stay Noah,” Noah said. He was grinning too, enjoying the joke. “Or maybe become some sort of lizard, because they can climb up walls, and that would be fun to do.”
“At least we’re narrowing down our options,” Jonathan said.
“Can we have another picnic today?” Noah asked.
“I think it’s too close to dinner time now,” Violet said. “We don’t want to ruin our appetites.”
“Oh, I guess we don’t,” Noah agreed. “But maybe tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow I think it would be all right,” Violet said. “I’ll see what I can arrange for us.”
“Jonathan? Will you come too?” Noah asked. “Or will you be too busy?”
“I can take a break from work,” Jonathan said with a grin. “I need to challenge Violet to another rock throwing contest.”
“I thought you were ready to concede that I was more skilled at that,” Violet said, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh, I don’t want a rematch. This time we would be competing for distance,” Jonathan said. “I’m sure I can beat you at that. In a distance throwing competition, it doesn’t much matter which direction you throw. It all comes down to your strength, and I do think I have you beat there.”
“We’ll see,” Violet smirked, though she was sure he was right. The easy banter…it was one of the things she enjoyed the very most about Jonathan. The results of this contest meant nothing. The point was that they could tease one another about it.
Noah burst out laughing.
“What’s funny?” Violet asked him.
“I just think I’m lucky,” he told her. “Because how many people’s parents worry about things like who can throw a rock the farthest? I just think that it’s fun that my mum and dad…”
He trailed off, his eyes going wide.
The words had already been spoken. There was nothing to be done, no taking them back.
And they swept through the room like a hurricane.
Violet actually grabbed the back of a chair to steady herself.
Jonathan’s eyes had gone wide as well, though he quickly controlled his expression—she knew he had registered it too.
My mum and dad.
Things had gotten out of control. Things had gone much too far.
The room was silent. Noah looked from Violet to Jonathan, clearly waiting for them to react, but Violet had no idea what to say. Nor, it seemed, did Jonathan—he was now staring out the window as though he’d heard nothing at all. Perhaps he hoped the situation would simply go away if he ignored it.
Noah had stopped himself, corrected himself—but it was already too late. They had heard what he’d said, and they knew he’d meant it. He did think of them that way. That was how he saw the family.
Even that word is indicative of a problem. A bad one. Because this is not a family, and it never will be. We are all allowing ourselves to see things in ways that don’t really exist.
Someone is going to get hurt.
And the worst thing of all was the realization that the person getting hurt was likely to be Noah.
They had won his trust. They had won his affection. And one of them—either Violet or Jonathan—was going to leave, and he would lose someone he had trusted for the second time in quick succession.
She couldn’t bear to be in the room anymore. It was too painful to think about all these things with Noah watching her, looking up at her as if she might somehow come up with answers she didn’t have.
“You two keep reading the book,” she said. “I need to go tend to some things.”
Jonathan made eye contact with her, and Violet was sure he knew she didn’t have anything to tend to at all.
He understood the reason she was leaving the room right now.
He didn’t try to stop her, though, and she thought he must be feeling something very similar to what she was.
Maybe he had also been taken aback by what Noah had said.
Maybe he also worried about the implications.
Maybe he would leave sooner than he had meant to because he didn’t want Noah to get the wrong idea.
Which would mean I would get the house. But that didn’t seem as appealing as it once had, somehow.
When this had all begun, the idea of him leaving had been all she’d wanted, but that was no longer true.
Now there was a very large part of her that flinched at the thought of it, and at the idea of the pain that would surely follow.
She would grieve the loss.
Would she see him again? Or would they go their separate ways and never speak again?
Would this be the very last time their paths would intertwine?
Years from now, when she thought of Jonathan, would it be with a soft ache for something that had once been such a potent force in her life—but that, ultimately, had been fleeting?