Vi couldn’t help but laugh but what surprised her was the laugh was echoed by Mrs. Watkins. “I’m sorry,” Violet said gently, using that same tone she’d used with the woman’s mother.
“It’s oddly all right,” Mrs. Watkins said. “I suppose it’s rather a relief to have someone look at me and not assume I am a bad daughter because I have distanced myself from my mother.”
“I don’t think you’re a bad daughter,” Violet replied truthfully, reaching out to squeeze Mrs. Watkins’s hand. “I think you’re a good mother, and your children are so blessed that you decided to not be the next version of her, but to…to…break the chain and let them be something else entirely.”
Mrs. Watkins nodded.
“Can you tell us anything about Jason’s friends, the Tappers?”
Mrs. Watkins paused and then said, “They’re just another set of his victims who love him too much to push him away. If anyone has a right to hate them a little bit, it’s those two, but they don’t. They seem to dig out love and forgiveness for him more easily than anyone.”
Violet’s mouth twisted and then she asked, “Do you have their address?”
“I do,” Mrs. Watkins said. “I’ll get it for you before you go. Do you have any other questions?”
“What about his father, your brother?” It was Jack who asked, but they were both the recipients of a surprised expression.
Mrs. Watkins’s face smoothed over and her expression became even. “It’s harder for him than anyone. He’s done what he can.”
“Does your mother have so much money that she can just…endlessly supply him with it?”
Mrs. Watkins shook her head. “I don’t know how she’s doing it. I suspect we’ll find she’s in debt when she finally passes. Or she’ll run out of money, and one of us will have to take her in.”
Violet could imagine how that might feel when the day arrived.
“One thing I can tell you for certain,” Violet said, leaning in, “is that if your children are like you, they are not tepid.”
Mrs. Watkins sniffed and then to Vi’s surprise, the older woman dabbed a tear away in the same manner as her mother. Violet couldn’t help but wonder which of them was the actress. Or perhaps, Violet thought, they were both in earnest. Channeling the emotions they were feeling in the moment and believing what they were saying at the time. Violet squeezed her hands and when Jack finished asking questions, they rose to leave.
“Jack,” Violet said, shaking her head. “Never let me describe our children as tepid.”
He laughed, dispelling the empathy Violet was feeling. “They’ll be yours, Vi. My children might have ended up tepid. But yours will be telling tales of wolves in the walls, sliding down the banisters, and probably setting things on fire. We’ll be pulling out our hair and collapsing in a heap while they continue to rain destruction down, skipping over our exhausted forms.”
Violet paused and then nodded. She really had been a horrible child. Jack, however, Vi could see as being a quiet little boy who had probably been gentle and kind and far, far too observant.
“I like the idea of a little you,” Violet told him simply and leaned against his arm.
Chapter 7
In the morning, they checked on Rita again. Her color had fully restored and she walked with a spring in her step. Jack disappeared into the office with Ham while Vi followed Rita to the parlor and sighed into a cup of coffee.
“Are you all right?” Vi asked, unable to keep herself from asking.
“I am.” Rita crossed her fingers over her heart. “I feel well even though Ham won’t stop feeling my head.”
“As in a fever?” Violet demanded. “Like the baby is making you ill?”
“He just doesn’t know what to do,” Rita said with a bit of a laugh. “It’s kind of—”
“Suffocating?” Vi asked.
Rita nodded and then muttered, “He feels my pulse too.”
Vi rose and started straightening their parlor. She couldn’t help herself as she stacked the books and then fluffed the pillows.
“Would you stop?” Rita demanded.
“No.” Vi arranged the little bric-a-brac over the mantle and then lifted a brass sheep. “This is horrible.”
“It came with the house. We must find decor of our own before those sheep murder me in my sleep.”
Vi laughed and then admitted, “When I had bad dreams, before Jack and I married, I couldn’t sleep without his heartbeat. I had bad dreams endlessly because of all the bodies and…” Vi winced.
“I have bad dreams, too,” Rita admitted.
“Even now,” Vi said, “I sleep on the side by his heart, so I can hear it while I fall asleep.”
“Well, you still have bad dreams,” Rita told Vi.
Their gazes met and Rita nodded once. It was all they needed.
“You’re better at hiding them now,” Rita suggested.
“So are you,” Vi suggested.
“It’s always Ham in my dreams.”
“Those dreams will change to be about your baby when he arrives,” Vi said, giving her friend the horrible truth that they both feared. “It’s who we feel the need to protect. Our most vulnerable. For me, it’s the twins and Lily. Soon it will be little Ham Junior.”
Rita sighed. “I shall have to start listening to Ham’s heart then. And, perhaps, forgive him for the whole pulse checking thing.”
“You don’t think I’m odd then?”
“That,” Rita told Vi fiercely, “is the sweetest, most tender thing I have ever heard.”
“More tender,” Vi asked, “than Ham feeling your head or seeking out your pulse?”
Rita frowned. “I do feel suffocated. I’m an adventuress. I traveled the world without Ham and women have been bearing babies for centuries.”
Neither of them commented on how many women didn’t make it through.
Vi suddenly laughed and then laughed harder, somehow giddy in the truth of their fears. There was also, however, a touch of a crow in her near-hysterics.
“You think this is funny?” Rita asked. “Wait until it’s you. Jack is as—if not more—protective than Ham.”
Vi
