The Violets of March Read Online Free PDF

the patchwork of sandy and rocky shore—it was breathtaking. I had the urge to run out there right at that moment and dig for clams, or lift up rocks and look for crabs, or strip down and swim to the buoy the way I had done in the summers of my childhood. I wanted to immerse myself in that big, beautiful, mysterious body of water. The thought, for a second, made me feel alive again, but it lasted only a second. So I slathered my pancakes in Bee’s raspberry jam and ate.
    The table was just as I remembered, covered with the yellow oilcloth printed with pineapple, a napkin holder decorated with seashells, and a stack of magazines. Bee reads each issue of The New Yorker , cover to cover, and then clips out her favorite stories, plasters them in Post-it notes containing her comments, and mails them to me, no matter how many times I tell her that she really shouldn’t bother; I have a subscription to the magazine.
    After I’d set my plate in the dishwasher, I walked down the hall, peering into each room until I found the one where Bee had placed my bags. In all the years I’d visited her as a child, I had never set foot in this room. In fact, I didn’t recall it ever being there. But Bee had a habit of keeping certain rooms locked, for reasons my sister, Danielle, and I would never understand.
    Yes, I decided, I would have remembered this room. The walls were painted pink—which was strange, because Bee hated pink. Near the bed there was a dresser, a nightstand, and a large closet. I looked out the paned window that faced the west side of the shore and remembered Bee’s suggestion to go on a walk. I decided to unpack later and head for the beach. I was too weak to resist its magnetism any longer.

Chapter 3

    I didn’t bother changing my clothes or brushing my hair, preparations I would most certainly have made in New York. Instead, I threw on a sweater, jammed my feet into a pair of army green rubber boots that Bee kept in the mudroom, and made my way outside.
    There is something oddly therapeutic about trudging through marshy sand, the feeling of squishiness below the feet signaling to the brain that it’s OK to just let go for a while. And that’s what I did that morning. I didn’t scold myself, either, when my mind turned to Joel and a thousand little random memories from the past. I crushed a hollowed-out crab shell with my boot, crunching it into a thousand pieces.
    I picked up a rock and threw it into the water as far and as hard as I could. Dammit. Why did our story have to end like this? Then I picked up another, and another, throwing them violently into the sound, until I slumped over on a nearby piece of driftwood. How could he? How could I ? In spite of everything, there was a small part of me that wanted him back, and I hated myself for it.
    “You’re never going to skip a rock with a throw like that.”
    I jumped at the sound of a man’s voice. It was Henry, walking slowly toward me.
    “Oh, hi,” I said self-consciously. Had he been watching my tantrum ? And for how long? “I was just . . .”
    “Skipping rocks,” he said, nodding. “But your technique, sweetheart—it’s all wrong.”
    He bent down and picked up a smooth sand-dollar-thin rock and held it up to the light, scrutinizing every angle. “Yes,” he finally said. “This one will do.” He turned to me. “Now, hold the rock like this, and then let your arm flow through like butter as you release it.”
    He threw it toward the shore and it flew across the water, where it did a little six-hop dance on the surface. “Rats,” he said. “I’m losing my touch. Six is terrible.”
    “It is?”
    “Well, yeah,” he said. “My record’s fourteen.”
    “Fourteen? You can’t be serious.”
    “As I live and stand here,” he said, crossing his heart with his hand the way you do when you’re eleven years old. And a member of a Boy Scout troop . “I was once the rock-skipping champion of this island.”
    I didn’t feel like laughing,