Page 76 of Whirlwind

Mom’s ring tone went off, and her strained eyes darted to her big leather shoulder bag next to me on the counter. I dug into the bag and fished out her cell phone. Dad. I hit Reply.

“Erica?” Dad’s voice pleaded.

“What do you want?” My tone was crisp. All the women’s eyes were riveted on me.

“Violet? Are you with your mother? Is she okay?”

“You give a shit?”

“Put your mother on the phone. Now.”

“No. You’re going to listen to me. Mom does not want to talk to you right now, and neither do I.”

I clicked off the phone and tucked it back in Mom’s tote.

Mom wiped at her eyes. “Enough of this. I have a Two for Tuesday to run in my coffee house.” She moved to the sink, turned on the faucet and scrubbed her hands with soap like a surgeon prepping for the operating room.

“That’s my girl.” Alicia picked up all our drink cups.

“Jill, Shelby, and Grace have been keeping things moving,” I said. “I caught up on the coffees until that shit Aaron finally showed up. Mom, he’s been late almost every day this week. When are you going to fire him already?”

Mom tied her Meager Grand Cafe apron tightly around her slim body and gave me a quick smile. It’s what Mom and Gigi always did when they were in crisis mode. Be the pillar, the rock, carry on. “Today feels like a real good day for that.”

Yes, it was. Men could go fuck themselves.

30

Violet

I saton my suitcase on the floor of my bedroom, easing the heavy zipper around the case. “Come on, come on.”

I stacked my underwear and all my T-shirts in the second suitcase on my bed. I’d already packed Mom’s suitcases and had them in my car.

I heaved my other suitcase off my bed and onto the floor, and another image of Dad doing Ladd’s mother invaded my mind. In a coatroom of a restaurant.

Stop.

I flung open a garbage bag, the snapping noise of the heavy plastic a loud burst through the thick silence of the empty house. I tossed in all my shoes, sandals, sneakers, boots. The boots Beck loved so much. Something in my chest pinched at the ugly, stinging memory of that shattered look on his face when I’d left his loft in Nashville with Ladd.

That familiar chill raced over my skin. Guilt, regret—my old friends. What’s a little more tossed on the mountain on my back?

But I cared about Beck. I cared about what he thought of me. I didn’t like this.

I wiped my damp hair from my face, yanked out the handles on my two suitcases, and rolled them through the house to the back door in the kitchen. Dad’s blender cup stood in the sink filled with cloudy water. The counter was clean. The slow cooker was plugged in but off, so I unplugged it. No need to make the appliance a fire hazard.

You never know. Been there done that!

I loaded my suitcases into my car and returned to the house. Walking through the living room, my gaze raced over the myriad of framed photographs of all of us on one wall and lingered, as always, on the one of me, Jess, and Five that Dad had taken at the powder houses, the three of us, not more than eight years old, laughing and wild having just played an intense game of tag and prisoner. That photo had survived the fire. Still in its original frame, too.

Great-Grandpa Hildebrand’s precious Remington sculpture of a bucking horse and rider, which had also survived the fire, gleamed from the oak sideboard. The newly re-upholstered buffalo hide easy chair which Mom and Dad had been so pleased with stood on its own by the fireplace. I let out a sigh as my hands stroked the soft, plush leather. Would Mom would ever return here? Would I? I should have moved out a while ago, but I liked being home, always had.

Back in my room, my gaze landed on the precious dollhouse Grandpa Owen, mom’s dad, had made for me. Once I figured out where I’d land, I’d come back for it.

I reviewed my mental checklist once more—my cameras, the lenses, the tripod, ring light, my laptop, jewelry and makeup, shoes and handbags I was using right now. Done.

One more thing that I’d saved for last. I took the antique snow globe from my dresser that Gigi had given me after the fire when we’d moved in to this house. Inside the watery glass dome was a miniature of Dillon’s General Store in Meager on the block where it was located—it even had the old fashioned lamp post that still stood on Clay Street on the corner.Greetings from Meager, South Dakotawas etched in gold on the smooth wooden base.

From the early forties, the snow globe had been a popular souvenir item at the store, affectionately called the “five and dime” by Meager locals for decades. This was the only snow globe that had survived the years and so many Dillon children, and then it had become mine.

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