Violette Between by Alison Strobel

Author:Alison Strobel [Strobel, Alison]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-55065-1
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2013-09-12T00:00:00+00:00

August 9, 2005

It was getting easier for Christian to leave Violette’s side and venture out during the day. He had started sleeping at home and spending most of the morning at the hospital, then taking the afternoon to go eat, run errands, and give himself some time to think away from the stale air of Violette’s room. He made an effort when he was out to think about the world the way Violette did, to look for random beauty and expect the day to be a good one instead of demanding proof beforehand. It kept his mind on things unrelated to comas and the medical world in general.

Today he was going to Violette’s house to take in her mail and check on things. Alexine had apparently gone over once before, and Christian felt bad that he hadn’t thought to do it himself. He pulled up to the cottage and couldn’t help but feel tense at the sight of it. Despite all the time he’d spent here, it was still Saul’s and hers.

He walked to the corner and emptied the mailbox. Mostly circulars and credit card applications, as well as some bills and one personal letter. He wondered who the letter was from, realizing there was still a lot he didn’t know about her.

Once inside, he opened the windows to air the place out. He sorted the mail on the kitchen table—making a pile each for the bills, applications, and personal mail—then added the items from the stack Alexine had left a few days prior. He threw the circulars in the recycling, pleased that he did know her well enough to know she’d do the same.

It was an eerie feeling, being in Violette’s house without her. He hoped the neighbors recognized his car and didn’t think him an intruder. He’d never met any of them, and Violette didn’t mention them in anything other than a generalized way. It saddened him to think of her being a hermit here on this block. The neighbors didn’t know what they were missing.

He resisted the urge to tiptoe from one room to the other. Trying to feel normal, he walked from the kitchen to the two bathrooms, flushing the toilets and running the faucets so the water didn’t stagnate. A red 4 blinked on the answering machine in the living room, and he wondered if he should write down and erase the messages to make more room. His finger hovered over the Play button for a few seconds before he moved on. That was a little too personal.

Little reminders of Saul seemed to jump out at him. Framed photos—Violette in her wedding dress, Saul in his suit; a Hawaiian locale of some sort with Saul standing on a beached surfboard—their wedding album on the coffee table, the stereo equipment Christian could almost guarantee would not have been a Violette purchase. He had the perfect opportunity to clear out Cynthia’s belongings when he’d moved to California, but Violette never had that chance. He wondered what else she’d kept.

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