The Violets of March by Sarah Jio Page A

would, without fear, without question, and without knowing if it might be my last.
It’s been close to a year, hasn’t it? Do you remember? That day on the ferry coming back from Seattle, I knew I could see hesitation in your eyes when Bobby announced your engagement. Tell me that was what it was, because I have racked my brain for months about why we didn’t end up together—why it wasn’t you and me, instead of you and Bobby. Esther, since the day we chiseled our names into Heart Rock when we were seventeen, I knew we belonged together—forever.
    I sat up in bed and set the pages down. Heart Rock? Wasn’t that the same rock Greg had taken me to just tonight? I felt an eerie sense of connectedness to the pages as I picked them up and continued.
I should have told you all of this long ago. Before everything happened. Before you doubted me. Before Bobby. Before that awful day in Seattle. And I will forever be haunted by that.
I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again. That is the reality of war, and I suppose the reality of love, too. No matter the outcome, I want you to know that my love endures. My heart is, and forever will be, yours.

Elliot

I don’t know how long I sat there at the table, just staring at the letter, reading it over and over again, studying it for clues, anything. Then I noticed the postmark: September 4, 1942. It had been sent almost six months ago. Either the military mail system moved at a snail’s pace, or—dear Lord—Elliot could be . . . I swallowed hard, and didn’t let my mind go a step further.
I don’t know how long I let the baby cry—it could have been minutes or hours—but when the phone rang, I sat up, straightened my dress, and answered it.
“Hello?” I said, wiping away tears.
“Dear?” It was Bobby. “Are you all right? You sound upset.”
“I’m not,” I lied.
“I just wanted to tell you that I’m working late again tonight. I’ll be on the eight o’clock ferry.”
“OK,” I said, without emotion.
“Kiss our sweet angel for me.”
I hung up the phone and turned on the radio. Music would help. Music could ease my pain. I sat there at the table, staring at the wall, when “Body and Soul” came on. It was the song Bobby and I had danced to at our wedding. I had thought of Elliot with each step, because it had been our song, and now, as I stood in my living room, I danced alone, and let the music soothe me, since Elliot couldn’t:

My heart is sad and lonely
For you I pine, for you dear only . . .

By the second verse, the song felt haunting, cruel, even. So I switched off the radio, tucked the letter into the pocket of my dress, and went to get the baby. I rocked her until she fell asleep again, and while I did, I couldn’t stop thinking about what a tragedy it is to be married to the wrong man.
    I wanted to read more. I wanted to know what had happened, early on, between Esther and Elliot that had led to this. And I wanted to know, as Esther did, if the love of her life was still alive. I worried about Bobby, too, good and decent Bobby, and the baby. Would Esther leave them if Elliot came home from war? Would Elliot come home from war? But it had been a long day and my eyes were closing.

Chapter 6

    March 4
    “ Y our mother called last night,” Bee said at the breakfast table, her head buried behind the Seattle Times . Her face was expressionless, as it always was when she spoke of my mother.
    “Mom called . . . here ?” I asked, applying a generous slather of butter to my toast. “That’s strange. How did she know where I was?”
    My mom and I weren’t close, not in the traditional sense. Sure, we talked on the phone, and I’d visit her and my dad in Portland often enough, but there was always a part of her that seemed distant and closed off. Our relationship was tinged with an unspoken disapproval, one I could never understand. She’d been nearly heartbroken when I chose creative writing as an emphasis in college. “Writing is such an