The Violets of March by Sarah Jio Page B

unhappy path,” she said. “Do you really want to do that to yourself?” At the time, I shrugged it off. What did my mother know about the literary life? Yet, the words followed me through the years, and haunted me quietly until I began to wonder if she was right.
    And as I wrestled with my mother’s censure, her natural relationship with Danielle, who was two years younger than me, did not go unnoticed. When I got engaged to Joel, I asked her if I could wear Grandma Jane’s veil for my wedding, the one I’d clipped to my hair during dress-up sessions a hundred times as a girl. Instead of giving me her blessing, however, Mom shook her head. “No, I don’t think that veil is right for your face,” she said in protest. “Besides, it has a tear.” I was hurt, but even more so three years later when Danielle walked down the aisle wearing the lace veil, perfectly pressed and mended.
    “She called your apartment, and your friend Annabelle told her you were here,” Bee said. I could hear that tone in her voice, the one that said she took pleasure in the fact that my mother was out of the loop on my life.
    “Did she say whether it was important?”
    “No,” she said, turning a page of the newspaper. “She just wants you to call her back when you can.”
    “OK,” I said, taking a sip of coffee. I paused and then looked up again. “Bee, what is it with you and my mom?”
    Her eyes widened. I knew I’d caught her off guard. After all, I’d never before asked her about family matters. This was new territory for both of us, but there was something about where I was and what I’d gone through that made me feel bolder.
    She set the paper down. “What do you mean?”
    “Well, I’ve sensed some tension over the years,” I said. “I’ve always wondered why the two of you don’t like each other.”
    “I love your mother dearly, always have.”
    I scrunched my nose. “It just doesn’t add up,” I said. “Then why do you barely speak?”
    She sighed. “It’s a long story.”
    “I’ll take the short version, then,” I said, leaning in closer, clasping my hands around my knees.
    She nodded. “Your mother used to come stay with me as a girl,” she told me. “And I loved having her. So did your Uncle Bill. But one year things changed.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well,” she said, carefully choosing her words, “your mother started asking questions about her family.”
    “What about her family?”
    “She wanted to know about her mother.”
    “Grandma Jane?”
    Bee looked out the window at the water. Grandma Jane had passed away about ten years ago. Grandpa was devastated, and so was my mom, though she’d had a complicated relationship with her mother. I’d felt a little indifferent about Grandma’s passing, as awful as that sounds. It wasn’t that she was unkind to me. Every year on my birthday, even after I graduated from college, she sent a birthday card, with well wishes written in the most beautiful cursive handwriting—so elegant that I needed my dad’s help to decipher it. She displayed photos of my sister and me on her mantel. Still, there was something missing about Grandma Jane. Something I could never quite put my finger on.
    She and my grandfather left the island when my mom was young and moved to Richland, a city in Eastern Washington that’s about as exciting as boiled broccoli. I once overheard Bee talking to Uncle Bill about how they’d been “hiding” there for too many years, that Grandma Jane wouldn’t let Grandpa move back to his home, the island.
    Every year we’d visit Richland for Christmas, but I never wanted to go. I loved my grandpa, but with my grandma, well, there was just something forced about it that even a child could detect—the sideways glances she’d send my way at the dinner table or the way she’d stare at me when I spoke. Once, when I was eleven, my parents left my sister and me in Richland for the weekend while they went on a trip. Grandma offered