Chapter 49

49

We’ll be fine. Go. Have fun.” I flipped the puzzle pieces right side up on the floor and forced myself to look at Violet. She didn’t lift her eyes. You had a work thing. They were more frequent than they used to be, it seemed, and you looked different when you left the house now. Layered your clothing, belted your jeans. You looked handsome and I told you so earlier, in our bedroom.

“Same old guy you married,” you’d said.

I couldn’t have said the same of myself, and we both knew this, our eyes meeting in the full-length mirror behind the door.

The solar system puzzle had one thousand pieces and hadn’t been in our house before I left. Your parents had stayed with you and Violet while I was gone. Your mother and I hadn’t spoken about much since Sam died, although she had called every two days for months to say a quick hello, to offer to come stay, to say she was thinking of me. She was trying, but she didn’t know how to be around me, and I didn’t know how to be around anyone. They’d been gone before I arrived home from the retreat, although the cookies she made were still warm on the counter. The babysitter was there when I came through the door—I hadn’t seen her since Sam died. Her eyes were swollen and red. We hugged and I thought of the sugary smell she had left on him whenever I took him from her arms.

Three days. That’s how long it took for Violet to speak to me after I walked back into our home. Sam had been dead for nearly seven months by then. She started at Neptune and I worked on Jupiter. Eventually we met somewhere near the sun.

“Why did you leave?”

“I needed to feel better.”

I passed her the piece she was looking for.

“I missed you while I was gone,” I said.

She punched in the piece and looked up at me. People always told me she looked older than her age, and I didn’t see it until then. The color in her eyes looked darker to me. Everywhere I looked in the house, everything was different. Everything had changed. I looked away from her first. Bile filled the space under my tongue. She watched me swallow. And swallow again. I excused myself to the bathroom.

The puzzle was put away when I came back. I found her in her bedroom reading a book. She had no doubt heard me retching into the toilet.

“Do you want me to read that to you?”

She shook her head.

“My stomach’s a bit upset. From dinner. You feel okay?”

She nodded. I sat at the end of the bed.

“Do you want to talk about anything?”

“I want you to leave again.”

“Your room?”

“Leave us. Me and Dad.”

“Violet.”

She turned the page.

My eyes welled. I hated her. I wanted him back so badly.