She was the same age I was when I last saw my mother.

I usually said good night standing in her doorway. That evening, I sat on the end of her bed and I put my hand over her feet under the blanket. I squeezed them. I had done this when she was younger, before she stopped letting me touch her. She looked up from her book and met my eyes. She didn’t pull her feet away.

“Nana misses you. She said so the other day.”

“Oh,” I said gently, surprised Violet would tell me this. Your mother and I still hadn’t spoken.

“I miss her, too.”

“Why don’t you call her?”

“I don’t know.” I sighed. “I think it will make me feel too sad to talk with her. I bet she loves Jet, doesn’t she?”

Violet shrugged dismissively. I wondered for a moment if she was envious of the attention he got in your house, but then it occurred to me that maybe she thought I was better off not hearing about your son. Her eyes flickered as they wandered the room, and I wondered if Sam had crossed both of our minds then. I wanted desperately to mention him, to put him there in the bedroom with us. I looked back down at the shape of her feet under my hand. I felt strangely calm.

“Is there anything you want to talk about? Anything at school, or . . . anything else?” I didn’t want to leave her room. I didn’t want to take my hand off her.

She shook her head. “No, I’m good. Night, Mom.” She opened the book to the page she’d held with her finger and settled her back into her pillow. “Thanks for the movie.”

I fell asleep that night on the couch, still in my clothes, thinking about how nice it was to be around her. I wondered if things were changing.

I woke up to light footsteps on the wooden floor above. It had been six years since Sam died, but my instinct to wake in the middle of the night at the slightest noise was still just as strong as when he was born.

Violet was walking on her toes, moving from her room to mine. The door opened. Was she looking for me? I wondered if she would call for me. Her steps became even quieter. She was near my dresser now. I heard the hanging brass handle touch the wood. And then again when it closed. She’d been brief. Efficient. I wondered which drawer, what she was looking for. The bracelet I’d found tossed aside on the bus months ago was in there. Of course. I should have thrown it away—I never would have imagined she’d find it. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone into my room. I heard her steps carry her back to bed. I waited, giving her time to fall back asleep, and then I went upstairs quietly. I put on my nightshirt and checked the drawer—the bracelet was still there. She hadn’t taken it if she had seen it.

* * *

? ? ?

She was pleasant over breakfast. Not friendly, not chatty, just pleasant. I dropped her off at your house and watched from my car as she ran up the driveway and flew through the door. I could see Gemma through the living-room window, rushing to greet her, to welcome her home.

That was when the idea first came to me. To drive back later, after the sun had set. To watch you all at night.

77

After you and I met, I stopped going to my father for the things I needed the most. Comfort, advice. He became less useful to me. This must have become apparent to him in the way I glossed over the details of my life when he called, changing the conversation back to him. I didn’t let him in anymore. I’m ashamed of this—I knew I was the only thing he had.

On the day he dropped me off at my college dorm, he kissed me good-bye on the head and walked away quietly. When I looked out the window hours later, he was still there, leaning against a tree, looking up at my building. I closed the curtain before he saw me looking out. I think often about that—the way he stood there.

The month of graduation, it occurred to me one morning that he hadn’t called at all since I’d been home for the holidays. I planned to phone him that weekend and then never did, although I told you I had, and that he was eager to see me. Instead I showed up at his house unannounced the evening after my exams. I told him I had to drop some things off from my dorm room. We exchanged a few cordial words and then he went to bed early. I decided to stay one more night. The following evening, I cooked us a chicken the way I knew he liked it. I waited for him to come home from work, but the hours rolled on. When he came in just after ten o’clock, he smelled like booze and sat at the kitchen table, looking at the cold plate of food while I leaned on the counter. I think we both thought of my mother then. I poured us each a drink of whiskey and sat down. I hadn’t planned on asking him, but I did:

“Why did she leave me?”

* * *

? ? ?

He was gone before I woke up in the morning. My head pounded from the bottle we’d finished together. I drove back to campus and packed the last of my things. You and I were moving in together the next day. It became hard for me to think about my father after that night. I was desperate to leave my past behind. He was too much a part of my mother and me, although he had never been the problem.

When the police called to tell me that he’d been found dead in his home, that they suspected he’d died in his sleep from a heart attack, I handed you the receiver and lay on our warm parquet flooring in a beam of morning sun. We’d been living in our apartment for four months by then.