June 1963
Violet surveyed the living room with her hands on her hips and then grabbed and fluffed the sofa pillows. She started to straighten the books on the coffee table but the sound of a car outside made her freeze, and she didn’t resume her task until the vehicle continued on its way down the street. She checked her watch for the fifth time in the past hour. And then straightened the books again.
“She’s not going to care about the way the living room looks.” Bert was suddenly behind her. His voice was gentle but tired-sounding, as though he was not also counting down the minutes to Lainey’s visit. How could he not be anticipating this day after seven months of silence?
Then again, it hadn’t exactly been seven months of silence for him. He’d spoken to Lainey on the phone a few times since that terrible night. Violet had listened at the study door when he’d called Lainey and she’d agreed to speak with him. Violet had only heard Bert’s voice, of course, but she could tell by his responses and questions that Lainey was all right. She had moved in with Audrey and Glen. She didn’t need anything. She was not ready yet to talk to Violet.
From the awful things Violet had said to Audrey the night of the birthday party—for which she later had apologized to Audrey profusely—and from Bert’s own honest answers, Lainey had been able to surmise it was Violet who had insisted year after year that she not be told the truth. Lainey’s anger at Bert and Audrey had subsided for the most part, but not her resentment toward Violet. Until now. Lainey was coming to the house today. It would be the first time Violet had seen or talked to her daughter since November.
“I need to keep busy or I will go crazy waiting for them,” Violet said.
She wanted Bert to come put his arms around her and hold her close and tell her it was all going to work out fine, that today was going to be the day she and Lainey at last mended their broken relationship.
But he turned from her to head into the kitchen.
The rift between Lainey and the two of them had spilled over into their marriage. For the first few weeks after the party, Bert had blamed himself for not insisting that they at least consider telling Lainey the truth when she first started showing an interest in knowing who her birth mother was.
“Every time she asked about it, we lied to her,” he had said on the way home the night of the birthday party.
And Violet had said they hadn’t lied; they’d been vague. To protect Lainey.
“Protect her from what?”
And she’d had no answer for him.
Christmas had been especially hard. Lainey had spent it in Manhattan with Marc and his parents, who were visiting the States from Paris. Lainey had called Bert at his field office to tell him where she would be for the holidays, because she hadn’t wanted to call home and have Violet answer.
It wasn’t until after the first of the year that Lainey reconnected with Audrey, and nearly February before she was ready to have a longer phone conversation with Bert.
“I’m afraid she will never forgive me,” Violet had said to Audrey by phone the day she let Violet know that Lainey had moved in with her and Glen.
“Give her time,” Audrey had said.
“Give her time for what? What does time do?” Violet had responded in exasperation.
“Time gives us the opportunity to learn to live with a new reality, Violet. We can’t expect her to happily embrace a complex situation that we’ve had twenty years to become familiar with.”
“But she’s moved in with you!” Violet had whined, unable to rid her voice of the envy that dripped from it.
“Lainey is forgiving each one of us in her own way, Vi. And I’d rather she mentally worked this out here in this house, where there are people who love her, than in her dorm room. Don’t you agree?”
“It’s so unfair. It’s not like this was all my fault. I didn’t hold a gun to your head or Bert’s. You could have told her if you’d really wanted to,” Violet had exclaimed, and then immediately wished she hadn’t. It was Audrey’s and Bert’s loyalty to a promise they’d made that had kept them quiet. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“You’re right. It is not all your fault. She has projected all her hurt and disappointment onto you. I’m sorry about that, Violet.”
“Do you wish you’d never given her to us?” Violet had said a moment or two later, whispering the words through her tears.
Audrey had paused for only a moment. “If you’re asking me if I wish I had kept her, yes, I wish I had. But I didn’t. That’s not what I did. And, no, I don’t wish I had never given her to you.”
As jealous as Violet was when Lainey moved in with Audrey, she’d been grateful that she could now find out how Lainey was, especially as her bitterness toward Violet started to mellow. Lainey was leaving the next day for her long-awaited trip to Paris. Audrey had convinced her to drive up with her to Santa Barbara and patch things up with Violet before she left. Audrey had said they would be there by two. It was now a few minutes before.
Violet followed Bert into the kitchen. He was standing at the open fridge, pulling out a pitcher of iced tea.
“That’s for dinner tonight!” Violet said.
Bert sighed and put the pitcher back, and grabbed a bottle of Pepsi instead. “You need to relax, Vi.”
“I can’t relax.”
He shut the fridge door. “Well, you need to. Lainey deserves normal for a change. This is not normal.” He popped the cap and tossed it into the trash.
The sound of an idling motor outside riveted Violet’s attention to the window. She sprang for it and looked out. A brown truck had pulled up in front of the house.
“It’s just the UPS man,” she growled. “Did you order something?”
Bert shook his head.
Violet went to the front door and swung it open. The UPS man was setting a large box onto a hand truck. Then he was wheeling it toward her.
“Are you sure that’s for us?” she called out as he approached. “We’re not expecting anything.”
“If you’re Violet Redmond, this is yours. You know anyone in Montgomery, Alabama?”
Violet looked at the return label. “What on earth is Mama sending in a box so big?” Violet said more to herself than anyone else.
The UPS man asked where she wanted the box, and Violet frowned and told him he could bring it into the kitchen. This was not a good time for a surprise delivery, not with Audrey and Lainey due any minute. She would find out what was inside and then have Bert move the box to his study. She was still secretly hoping Audrey and Lainey might stay the night. She wanted to keep the guest room free of clutter.
“What is that?” Bert asked as he looked down at the box.
“I have no idea.” Violet signed the UPS man’s paperwork, and he left.
She grabbed a pair of scissors and slid one blade down the packaging tape. Inside the box were—at first glance—a myriad of old, friendly things: dolls she’d had as a child and that Lainey had also played with when they’d visited Montgomery, books, a jewelry box and other trinkets, and much more. A letter lay on top. Violet opened the flap on the envelope and withdrew the letter.
Dear Violet:
So sorry that things with you and Lainey are still jumbled. I am sure in time Lainey will come to see she has two wonderful mother figures in her life who love her. Most of us only have one, and some not even that.
Your father and I have decided to sell the house, like I told you we might, and retire to Florida. I’ve been going through closets and such and I found many old things of yours you might want, and I thought perhaps you could share them with Lainey as a way to reconnect with her. One thing mothers do is pass on what we love to our children. I was thinking she might enjoy having some of these things that used to be yours. It could be a start to gaining back the close relationship with her that you’ve lost for right now.
And even if she doesn’t want these old things, know that resentment is a hard companion to have around. She will tire of it, Violet. Don’t give up. Mothers never do.
I’ll call you next week sometime,
Love, Mama
Violet wasn’t aware that Bert was reading over her shoulder until she felt his arm around her waist.
“That was a nice thing for her to do,” he said.
Violet wiped her wet cheeks. “It was.”
She had just started to kneel at the box when through the open window she heard the sound of a car door closing just outside. They had been so intrigued by the box and the letter, neither one of them had heard a car pull up.
“They’re here!” Violet tossed the letter to the box and stood. She pivoted and made for the front door, which was still slightly ajar. She flung it the rest of the way open. Audrey was coming up the walkway alone.
Lainey wasn’t with her.
Audrey looked beautiful in turquoise pants and a matching top. Her long hair was pulled back from her face with a wide black headband. She carried an oversized woven bag dotted with large fabric daisies.
Words escaped Violet as Audrey closed the distance to them. They wordlessly exchanged embraces.
“She decided not to come?” Bert said, his voice polite but weighted with disappointment.
Audrey pulled off her white-framed sunglasses. “I’m so sorry. She . . . she changed her mind at the last minute.” Then she turned to Violet. “She did give me this to bring to you.” Audrey reached into the woven bag and withdrew an envelope. Written across the front was one word.
Mom.
Violet began to shake with tears she desperately wanted to rein in and knew she would not be able to. The word looked so beautiful, so tender, but the letter was in place of Lainey herself. She clasped the envelope to her chest and looked up at Audrey, willing her to tell her what she might expect to read on the pages inside.
Audrey seemed to know Violet wanted assurance that the contents would not destroy her. She said nothing. Audrey didn’t know what the letter said.
“Come on inside, Audrey,” Bert said.
Audrey stepped into the house and put her hand on Violet’s arm. “She doesn’t hate you, Violet.”
The tears slid down steadily now.
Bert’s arm was at her back. “You want to read it alone in the bedroom, Vi?”
Violet shook her head. She did not want to be alone. She turned to him. “I don’t think I can read it!”
His eyes were misted, too.
Violet turned to Audrey and handed her the letter. Audrey silently took it. She sat down in one of the armchairs, and Bert and Violet moved to the couch and sat down, too. They sat forward on the cushions, and Violet was glad to have Bert’s hand in hers.
Audrey took out the letter and began to read:
Dear Mom,
I’m sorry I am not there with Audrey right now. There will be a time when I can look at you and not be angry, but that time hasn’t come yet. I’ve lived long enough to know that when someone you love hurts you, it takes longer to heal. And I do still love you. But my heart feels tattered right now, and I can’t trust you.
I know why Audrey gave me up. I know why she wanted you and Dad to take me. What I don’t understand is why you made them promise not to tell me the truth, especially when I wanted to know where I came from. When I was a teenager, I asked Audrey once if she knew who my birth mother was. She told me that was a question for you and Dad. When I asked Dad if he knew who she was, he just said he knew that she had loved me and wanted me to be happy. But when I asked you if you knew who she was, you said you didn’t. When I asked you if you knew what her name was, you said no.
Audrey says you did what you thought was best for everyone, not just for me, but for her and for you. But she also told me, because I insisted on her honesty, that she never demanded of you and Daddy that I not be told. Not telling me was your idea. I don’t understand what terrible tragedy you were attempting to prevent. You knew how much I wanted to know who my birth mother was.
Year after year you let me think “Auntie” Audrey was just a good friend who couldn’t have children and that my birth mother was some troubled, unwed girl in need of rescue. Audrey insists you did rescue her—and me—and that she had been in a desperate situation. But she wasn’t some nameless stranger. She was the person you always told me was your best friend.
You were always such a good mother to me. And this—all of this—doesn’t seem like something you would have done.
I am leaving for France tomorrow, as you know. And I think this trip is coming at a good time. Perhaps when I am far, far away from everything and everyone I thought I knew, I can make sense of this. Or at least learn to live with it.
I’m sorry I can’t just let this go like none of it matters. I know you want me to. But that’s not how you raised me.
Lainey
When Audrey was finished, the room was silent. After a few moments, Audrey handed the letter back to Violet.
She took the letter and folded it with a shaking hand. Bert put his arm around her and pulled her close. His touch in that way was exquisite and yet piercing. Love had such sharp edges.
“I never wanted it to be like this,” Violet whispered as she held the letter’s words, folded from view, in her hand.
“Of course you didn’t,” Bert said, stroking her shoulder. “None of us did. Lainey will come around.”
Violet wiped away her tears and looked up at Audrey. “I’m sorry I told her I didn’t know your name or who you were. I hated lying to her. But she kept pressing me. I . . . I wanted her to stop.”
Audrey looked down at her empty hands. “We’ve all made choices we might’ve handled differently if we knew then what we know now. Bert’s right. She’ll come around.”
The three of them were quiet again for a few moments.
“Can you stay for dinner? Bert is grilling steaks,” Violet said.
Audrey shook her head. “I’m going to head back before too long. Glen’s not well and I don’t like being two hours away.”
“So sorry to hear that,” Bert said.
“Yes, so sorry,” Violet whispered.
“But I can stay for a little while and we can visit and catch up.”
Audrey told them that her most recent role on The Twilight Zone was going to be her last for a while, maybe for good. She wanted to spend more time with Glen and was actually looking forward to retirement.
Violet couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This was not the Audrey she knew. “But all your life you wanted to be a star and now you are one. And you want to quit?”
Audrey smiled lightly. “I wanted to be wanted. And for the past dozen years I’ve known firsthand what it’s like to be sought after. It’s funny how when you get what you’ve always longed for, sometimes the reason you wanted it no longer exists.”
She went on to talk about the different philanthropic ventures she and Glen were involved in, and that they were planning to spend the autumn months at a Tuscan villa they had just bought in Italy.
“Maybe you two could come visit us for a week or two this fall,” Audrey said.
“What about Lainey?” Violet replied.
“What about her? She can come if she wants to.”
“But she’ll be in school.”
“Then she can come some other time.”
Audrey seemed to be suggesting that it was time for the three of them to start living without Lainey at the center of their universe.
Easy for Audrey to look at it that way; she had Lainey’s forgiveness.
Audrey turned to Bert. “There are lots of birds to photograph in Tuscany.”
He smiled. “That reminds me. I wanted to give Lainey one of my cameras for her trip to Paris. I’ll be right back.”
Bert left the room. The women watched him leave.
“Are you two all right? With each other, I mean?” Audrey asked in a low voice.
Violet’s first response was to tell Audrey that of course they were all right, but she was feeling alone and vulnerable and very much in need of her friend’s companionship.
“I hope so. I think so.”
“Bert’s a good man. And he loves you.”
Violet turned to face Audrey. “Does he?” The two words spilled out of her heart as well as her mouth, surprising them both.
“Of course he does,” Audrey said with gentle force.
“He’s disappointed in me.”
Audrey leaned forward and took Violet’s hand. “He’s just disappointed in the general state of things.”
Violet sighed. “I wish I could fix it. I wish I could just kiss the wound and make it all better.”
Audrey squeezed her hand and let go. “Spoken like a true mother.”
Violet looked up at her friend. Sometimes, as at that moment, Violet could see Audrey in her mind’s eye, sitting on the little cement bench at the studio commissary the first day she met her and the two of them were both young and full of dreams. They’d both managed to seize what they had so desperately wanted. And yet here they were, all these many years later, and it seemed as if what she had so determinedly clutched to her chest was struggling to free itself from her grasp.
Audrey stood and pulled the handles of her woven bag over her shoulder. “I should probably start heading back.”
Violet stood as well. She suddenly decided she wanted Audrey to take something for Lainey, too. As a peace offering of sorts. She’d look for something in the box her mother had sent.
“I’d also like you to give something to Lainey. From me,” she said.
Violet went into the kitchen and Audrey followed. Violet bent over the box.
“My mother sent me a box of things that were mine when I was young that she and Daddy have kept at the house for me,” she said as she began to sift through the contents. “They’re moving and emptying closets and such. I was thinking maybe one of my old dolls would cheer Lainey up.”
“How wonderful that your mother saved all these things for you,” Audrey said in an astonished voice. She leaned over the box, too, her gaze taking in all the saved pieces of Violet’s childhood.
“I have this one doll from France. A cancan dancer,” Violet went on. She uncovered a muslin-wrapped bundle. “If it’s in here, you can—”
But Violet didn’t finish. Her words froze in her mouth as the fabric fell away, exposing at first folds of green velvet, then gold braid, and the iridescent tail feathers from a farmyard rooster.
Audrey gasped next to her.
Lying on the unfolded muslin was the curtain hat from Gone With the Wind.
“Oh . . .” Violet breathed.
“How in the world did your mother get that hat?” Audrey said, incredulous.
The room seemed to spin, and heat flared to Violet’s cheeks.
“That is the hat, isn’t it?” Audrey seemed happily dumbfounded.
Violet could only nod.
“How did she get it?”
“I sent it to her,” Violet whispered.
“When? When did you find it?”
“The day after you took it.”
The curious smile on Audrey’s face slowly morphed into a doubtful grin.
“What are you saying, Vi? That you had it this whole time?”
Violet slowly nodded.
“Why?” Audrey asked, her expression one of bewilderment, not anger. After what the truth had done to her relationship with Lainey, Violet had no desire to repeat that situation. Perhaps this was just a little thing; perhaps Audrey would laugh about it. Perhaps Bert would, too. But she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything anymore. She knew only that this hat had been the beginning of every deceitful thing she had done to win her heart’s desires.
“Don’t ask me that, Audrey.”
Audrey stared at her, her gaze betraying that she was puzzling over what would have motivated Violet to hide the hat all those years ago. “Does Bert know you have it?”
Two tears that had formed at the corners of Violet’s eyes spilled out and slid down her cheekbones. “No.”
Audrey opened her mouth to say something else, but Bert’s voice called out to them from the hallway. He was asking Violet if she knew where his lens cleaner was. He was coming their way.
In an instant Audrey had the hat and its muslin covering in her hands and was slipping it into her woven bag. When Bert rounded the corner with a Leica camera in his hands, the hat was nowhere in sight.
He looked with concern at Violet. “You all right?”
Violet could only nod as she wiped her eyes.
“She was looking for one of her old dolls to send home with me to Lainey,” Audrey said quickly. “But it wasn’t in the box.” Audrey reached out her hand to pat Violet’s arm. “Maybe your mother doesn’t have it anymore?”
Violet nodded. “Maybe not.”
Audrey looked at the camera in Bert’s hands. “That the one you want me to take to her?”
“Yes. I just wanted to clean up the lens a little.”
“I saw the bottle of lens cleaner on your dresser last night,” Violet said, unable to take her eyes off Audrey’s woven bag.
“Oh. Right.” Bert spun away, back down the hall.
“What do you want me to do with it?” Audrey said as soon as Bert was gone, softly but with no emotion. Violet could not read her friend’s thoughts.
“I’ve never known the answer to that,” Violet whispered back.
The two of them stared at each other for a moment.
“You know, I always liked that hat,” Audrey said a moment later, her deep voice low and rich. “I’ve always admired what it was made from. It scared me a little, too, what it was made from.”
“It still scares me.”
Bert was coming back. The women fell silent. He had placed the camera in a leather bag and was dropping the lens cleaner inside it as he came back into the kitchen. “Lainey knows how to use it. This camera was her favorite when she was a teenager. Give it to her with our love?” Bert offered the bag to Audrey and she took it.
“I will.”
Bert put his arm around Violet’s waist. “From both of us?”
Audrey smiled. “Of course.”
She turned to leave, and Violet found she could not put words together to say good-bye.
“We’re so sorry you can’t stay for dinner,” Bert said, when she said nothing. “And we’ll keep Glen in our prayers.”
“Thank you. That means a lot to me.”
The three of them walked to the front door. Bert hugged Audrey and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you for all you are doing for Lainey right now.”
“Of course. Good-bye, Bert.” Audrey turned to Violet and pulled her into an embrace. “Think about what I said?”
“What you said?” Violet replied, trembling.
Audrey pulled away. “About you and Bert coming to Italy this fall. It would be nice to just sit and talk without having to rush off somewhere. We barely got to talk about anything today.”
Violet licked her lips. “Yes. That would be nice.”
“Kiss Lainey for us!” Bert said as Audrey started to walk toward her car.
“I will.”
Violet watched as Audrey strode confidently toward her silver Thunderbird.
“She has a new car,” Bert said.
But Violet barely heard him. Her eyes were on the woven bag with the fat, floppy daisies running riot across it.
“Tell me you love me, Bert,” she murmured as Audrey drove off.
Bert looked at her. “You know I love you, Vi.”
“Why? Why do you love me?”
He laughed. “Do we have to have reasons?”
“Don’t we?”
He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “No. We don’t. I don’t think it’s love if there are reasons. Reasons are for why you like someone.”
Audrey’s car was getting smaller in the distance. “Do you ever wish you had married someone else?”
“What? No! Do you?”
She turned to him. “Never. You are the only one for me. You always have been. Always will be.”
He cupped her face in his hand. “That’s reason enough if I needed one. And you are the only woman for me. Where is all this doubt coming from?”
Violet put a hand to her heart. “From here.”
Bert took her hand and kissed it. “We’re going to be okay. Lainey isn’t the glue that keeps us together. We are. We’re the glue. Okay?”
She nodded and they went back into the house, where she spent the rest of the afternoon going through the box her mother had sent and remembering the time of her innocence.
• • •
Two months later, on a blazing-hot August afternoon, a trans-Atlantic phone call came to the house. Bert answered it and he yelled for Violet, who was hanging up undergarments to dry in the bathroom.
“It’s Lainey!” Bert yelled. “She’s calling from Paris!”
Violet dropped the hosiery and ran to where Bert stood with the telephone receiver in his hand. Bert held it so they both could hear.
“I’m here, Lainey!” Violet said excitedly. “I’m right here!”
Lainey’s voice sounded remarkably clear considering how far away she was.
She sounded like she was just next door when she told Violet and Bert that she and Marc Garceau had just eloped in Marseille.