Chapter 11 - Violet Comes Home
Forty-three days after the attack, Violet came home.
Not to the same house.
Neither Harper nor I could imagine asking her to walk through that hallway again.
We sold it.
The new place was smaller, near a park, with enormous windows and a porch Violet immediately claimed for herself.
Her recovery wasn't cinematic.
There was no single morning when everything became normal.
Some nights she slept.
Some nights she didn't.
Sometimes a dropped object made her flinch.
Sometimes she laughed so hard at dinner that I could almost forget the hospital.
Healing arrived in fragments.
So did our family.
Harper and I didn't reconcile romantically.
That wasn't the story.
But we became parents together again.
Real parents.
Present parents.
Rachel entered witness protection temporarily while Victor's prosecution moved forward.
Ethan visited often.
I watched him carefully.
Violet noticed.
“Dad.”
“What?”
“Stop interrogating him with your face.”
“I haven't said anything.”
“Exactly.”
Ethan laughed.
I did not.
Eventually, even I had to admit the kid had courage.
He had entered that house knowing something was wrong because Violet had texted him one word:
HELP.
He could have called police and stayed away.
He called police.
Then went inside anyway.
Reckless.
Stupid.
Brave.
Very sixteen.
Then one afternoon, Violet found something in her recovered backpack.
The crushed birthday envelope.
Inside was the card I had mailed before deciding to come home early.
She read it.
On the bottom I had written:
No matter how far away I am, I will always come home to you.
Violet looked at me.
“You almost made that sentence really awkward.”
I laughed.
May you like
Then she did too.
For the first time, the sound filled a house that wasn't haunted.
