Mistaken Consequences

Chapter 42: Mid-October: Part II

Hamish watched as Vera came into the living room, cradling a picture album to her chest. He'd seen pictures of Violet before – on Vera's phone and in the frame in her home office – but she'd never gotten out the album she kept on the bookshelf behind her desk.

She crawled up onto the couch beside him, tucking herself under his arm so she could lean into him, and he wrapped his arm snugly around her as he pressed a kiss to the side of her head. Vera let out a shaky breath as she set the book across their knees and flipped it open. She started to skip ahead, searching for the page where Violet's life began, but he reached out and stilled her hand.

"Can we see the rest?" It was partly curiosity about her life before the Order, partly his attempt at giving her time to ease into her story.

Vera nodded and let the pages fall back to the beginning.

He'd heard stories of her parents before, especially her mother, but he'd never actually seen a picture. He could see bits of her in both of their pictures, but there was something that didn't quite match either. When he realized what it was, he wanted to cry for her.

Pain. There had been so much pain and loss in Vera's life, it had become a part of her, no different than the clothes she wore or the makeup she put on each day. Her parents didn't, couldn't, share that trait with their daughter. Vera's pain didn't match her mother's tranquil expression or the mischievous glint in her father's eyes.

There were other family members within the pages as well. People Vera either didn't know or didn't care enough about to mention in more than passing. Her grandparents got a brief mention, though he got the feeling they hadn't been close.

But it was the pictures of the very young Vera that got his attention the most. There weren't many – she had another album for those, she told him – but in those images, he could see Lily's childhood come to life. He could see her smile, the way her eyes gleamed with excitement. Pushing her on the swings – he wondered if Vera would let him put a swing set here when she was a little older. Christmas mornings unwrapping gifts. Birthday parties with a houseful of little kids, watching Lily blow out her candles.

There were other pictures too. A young Vera in some sort of frilly pageant gown. A group of girls, one of which he assumed would be Vera, on stage at what looked like a dance show. Vera holding up a blue ribbon, a gap-toothed smile bright on display. She flipped through all of them, giving him a moment to look but then moving on, before she finally paused at a picture of her in a long, pale blue dress, standing beside a young man. She tapped the picture with one finger.

"This was Violet's dad. Nathan."

Hamish studied the young man, more of a boy here really. He wasn't a big kid, only an inch or two taller than Vera had been, with a lanky frame he hadn't yet grown into, despite the muscles he'd clearly been working for. He still had that baby-faced look to him, though Hamish could spot a few areas of acne, signaling the start of puberty.

"How old were you here?" he asked, curious. He knew Vera had been sixteen when Violet was born, still a kid herself really, but the two kids in this photo just looked so young.

"This was freshman year. I was still fourteen. Nathan was already fifteen." She snuggled closer to him, so he shifted, allowing her to move in a little closer. "My mom didn't know it when she chose this picture for Violet's album, but this was the night I lost my virginity. It was the Winter Formal, so curfew was later than usual. We snuck out of the dance early and went back to his house, since we knew his parents were planning to be out. We had talked about sex, a lot. I guess I thought it made us seem more mature? Because we didn't jump straight into it? But I don't think either of us were actually planning for that to be the night, or at least I wasn't. But it did.