The Violet Hour: A Novel by Katherine Hill Page B

had to be told. The party guests first and foremost. Fortunately, Mary found comfort in the phone. She grieved, not by crying or shouting or needing to be by herself, but by pressing the hard plastic to her ear and telling the story to friends and relatives—some as soon as an hour after he passed. She needed to be straightforward, to convince herself it was real. Her father was dead; he had died; party’s off.
    Once she’d gotten through her share of the most urgent calls, she sat down in Howard’s leather office chair, covered her eyes with her hand, and envisioned a map of the United States. In her mind the country was dark, with tiny white lights marking the locations of her aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends: the modern Fabricant universe, fully graphed and illuminated. She’d called each of the brightest lights: New Jersey, St. Paul, Colorado Springs. She’d even called her mother’s sister, Trudie, who lived in a retirement home near Phoenix and who thought that everyone who phoned was her dead daughter, Leigh.
    Still, Mary wasn’t satisfied. A large swath of the country remained grimly in the dark; a light was missing out west.
    O N THE S UNDAY that Howard Fabricant died, Abe awoke in San Francisco fog, with a chafing itch in his throat.
    He sailed now more than ever, and he looked like a seaman, his cheeks tawny and taut, his hands chapped as old leather gloves. His new boat was shorter, leaner, and lighter than the tarnished one, and under its sails he sought a more physical life. He wore wind-resistant pants and white T-shirts full of holes. He sang chantey songs on the waves and in the shower. When he walked onshore, it was as though he rolled, flowing to the office and ebbing back each day.
    His old mentor Sam Upchurch sometimes came out with him, and in recent years, he’d made a few other friends at the yacht club. He’d even found an apprentice: his secretary’s son, a goofy kid who’d somehow developed a thing for boats. He liked Asante because he reminded him of his own youthful fascination. Abe had seen the ocean for the first time on a trip to the Jersey Shore when he was five. He knew the water was dangerous, but he felt compelled to run in anyway. His parents had egged him on from the sand, flinging their hands overhead. They’d been brainy Philadelphians, eccentric; they wanted him to see the world. Later, in the surf, his mother squatted down and pointed at a white triangle perched defiantly on the faraway waves. “Hey, water boy,” she’d said. “Wouldn’t that be a fun thing to do?” He had his mission.
    Twice a week now, the teenaged Asante came to sea with Abe, giggling across the deck, tying perfect knots, and trying to predict the changing winds. When the air was calm and they dropped anchor, Asante entertained himself by reading aloud. His favorite books were drippy spiritual fables, books like Siddhartha and The Alchemist, which he never tired of defending to Abe.
    Some years back, sailing had been a useful escape. Offshore, there was no risk of encountering Cassandra or any of her arty friends. Butthe sea was also a better way of life. It was indifferent and uncluttered, solitary, which had always suited him. If he’d had anger once, he didn’t now. The ocean had all but washed it away. That, and Proposition 215, which brought cannabis back into his life just as his marriage was drawing to an end. On the water, and under the influence of self-prescribed, hand-rolled grass, he became more aware of himself and the world. He’d thickened with age, expanded, but so had the ocean, both of them growing more powerful as human civilization declined. Eventually, of course, he’d die—he was as guilty as any carbon-emitting life form—but not for many years. For now he still had his strength.
    Downstairs in the kitchen, he drank a full glass of water with his pill and brewed his coffee as usual. By nine, the itch in his throat had become a full-blown ache; twenty minutes later