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GRIEF AND SADNESS

NEW YORK, 2023 - 2 WEEKS LATER - THE OUTSET OFFICE 

Scarlett Johansson was not having a good day. 

October was always hard. It was something she wished got easier, but it never did. She just wished she could get the whole month off. But she had a business, an acting career, and two small kids. Everyone needed her to focus. 

She had just received a new script for an Avengers movie, and that was announced a few weeks ago as well, so she tried to keep her mind to that. A familiar work space would do her good. 

Until she got one phone call. She arched her eyebrows when she saw the caller id. Sighing as she grabbed the phone, she answered the man. 

"Hey, Ryan." She picked up the phone. Her ex-husband rarely called her, but September was that one time a month. 

"Hey, Scarlett." He spoke softly. They had fought a lot towards the end of the marriage. But surprisingly, losing the small kid that kept the bond between them existing just kept both of them incapable of fighting. They had lost too much, so it wasn't even worth it. 

"Hey, what's going on?" They had last spoken about a month ago. Ryan had sent flowers to her, a yearly gesture both of them did to each other, and they had a tearful conversation with them. 

"Are you getting any calls from a detective?" He wondered, sounding lost and confused. Scarlett blinked. Why would she be getting any calls? They had settled Violet's case a long time ago. They kept investigators looking, but the police were clear in telling them they knew the case was a lost cause. 

"Not really?" She responded. "Have you?" 

"Not exactly. But my lawyer got a call to confirm some statements made about Esther. You know, while she worked with me." His voice turned bitter towards the end. Scarlett felt her teeth clench. The woman was fishy. And everyone told her there were no clues or evidence, but she had always known she had something to do. Ryan did as well. 

Esther Williams had never liked Scarlett, that was something very clear within the first minutes of meeting the woman. She was respectful in front of everyone that mattered, so Scarlett never paid attention to her. But now she really wished she had. 

She had turned very hostile towards Scarlett during the pregnancy, but again. A secret pregnancy meant she was rarely seen outside her house. So Scarlett, between staying with her sister and mother, rarely found time to care about the assistant. 

While everyone was excited to meet the baby girl, Scarlett remembers her being the only one from Ryan's team to not interact with the girl at all. She had left the room everytime Scarlett visited Ryan on sets or his office, and when they separated, she refused to be left alone with the baby, even if Ryan just needed her for a minute. God, even Blake, Ryan's new girlfriend after they moved on, got to know the kid more, before she was taken from them. 

Scarlett could still recall every detail of that nightmare as if it had happened just yesterday. The accident had been a chaotic mess of screeching tires and shattered glass, and in the midst of it all, Violet had disappeared. 

"Ryan," Scarlett spoke after a while, her voice trembling. "I can't do this anymore. I can't keep living like this, not knowing what happened to Violet. And I can't get my hopes up everytime they think they found something. I don't think I could survive it again."

Violet had been just a toddler when she was taken away. Scarlett often wondered what kind of young woman her daughter had become, what interests she might have, and what dreams she harbored. She missed out on all the moments that a mother should cherish – the first day of school, birthdays, scraped knees, and whispered bedtime stories. It was a mother's nightmare, a relentless agony that only grew with time.