Acts of Violet(82)

The coffee cup almost slips out of my hand. “Did you say swan?”

“The Old Swan.” Her response is cautious. “It’s the hotel where Agatha Christie was found. What it’s called today, anyway. Um … why the big reaction?”

“I don’t know. Something about swans.” A warm gust of air passes over us, perfumed with honeysuckle.

I can’t worry my daughter about my mental well-being, or worse, send her scurrying down a labyrinth of coincidences that could all hit dead ends. “So why was she pretending to be someone else at the hotel?” Hopefully, Quinn won’t press the swan issue.

The corners of her mouth turn down. “Nobody knows. And when they asked her about it, she said she couldn’t remember a thing. She was in some sort of fugue state. At the time, people thought it might’ve been her way of getting revenge on her husband for leaving her—public sympathy and all that. Or maybe finding out about the affair was so traumatic, it sent her over the edge. But there’s no official record, just a bunch of speculation.”

“What do you think happened to her?” My use of a pronoun over a proper name is deliberate. As much as I’d like to discuss anything other than Violet, that might be what my daughter needs right now.

“What do you think happened to her?” The question lobbed right back at me.

The question. Always asked. Never answered adequately.

“I don’t know enough of the circumstances,” I hedge.

“If you had to guess.”

As many times as the question has been posed to me, as many times as I’ve given variations on the same noncommittal response, it only hurts when Quinn asks it.

“I think, even though it looked like she had a good life on the surface, she was unhappy and needed to escape,” I say. “Nobody will ever know why. None of us were in her head, you know?”

“I guess.” Her gaze shifts over to me. “I think she stayed quiet because she was afraid that if she told the truth, nobody would understand.”

“Maybe.” My calves twitch and I flex my feet, then point them. God, I just want to run and run and run. Even if it’s a loop, even though I always come back and would never dream of doing otherwise, it’s the only escape I have. “Do you want to walk around some more?”

“In a minute.” Before I can stand, Quinn’s hand on my arm anchors me back down. “You love to complain about how we never have quality mother/daughter time—whatever that is—so how about we hang out here a bit?”

“Of course.” Why do I feel like I’m being chastised? Another joy of motherhood: doing your best to understand your child and feeling like you’re getting it wrong over and over again. “So how have you been doing? What have you been doing?”

“I’ve been spending a lot of time in the library.”

“Just what the mother of a college student loves to hear.”

“Not at SJU. I’ve mostly been there.” She tilts her head in the direction of the Willow Glen Library two doors down. “Researching local history and stuff.”

“Oh yeah?” Every part of me resists asking whether it’s a project for school. Instead, I go with, “Find anything interesting?”

“Tons.” The word is so loaded and her nod so slow.

“Anything you want to share?”

“It’s funny, when I told you what happened with Agatha Christie, I thought some of it might be familiar to you?”

“I get it, you want to talk about Violet. But there’s nothing—”

“This isn’t about Aunt Violet. This is about you.”

Come on now, it’s never about me. “I’m sorry, Quinn, but your riddles are going over my head. I told you, I never heard that story before. I’m not hung up on unresolved disappearances like you are.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of the problem.”

“Any chance you can just tell me what you’re getting at?”

But she won’t spit it out. The way she tilts her chin this way and that, like she’s the cat and I’m the cornered mouse, tells me she’s going to do this at her own pace, and if what comes next is unpleasant, that’s on me.

“Since I’ve been at the library a lot, I’ve been talking to Mrs. Toback more.” An expectant pause, but I don’t take the bait. “I think you give her a bad rap. Sure, she’s nosy, but how could she not be, considering? And she’s not mean and gossipy about it—she’s more of an Aunt Violet fangirl than anything. Says she still gives You Are Magic and Life’s Great Illusion as gifts, and she makes sure the library is well stocked with both. Mrs. T’s also been helpful with my research. Willow Glen’s library isn’t super high-tech, so a lot of local newspaper archives are still on microfilm. You ever use a microfilm reader? It looks like one of those computers in an eighties movie.”

My stomach flips as Quinn reaches down and retrieves a folded-up piece of paper from her sock. Shaking it open, she smooths it out on the bench between us and turns it so I can read.

It’s a 1987 article from the Finchley Free Press. About a cave-in at the mines. About me.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say here, but I’m guessing it’s going to be the wrong thing.” She glowers at me. “Quinn, what do you want from me? I’m still a total blank on all this.”