Violet

Chapter 6: The Book

Daddy left for work around 3 PM that same day while I sat on the floor and listened to Mommy talk on the phone. It was 10:30 PM now and Dad would be home soon. She smiled and twisted strands of her hair as she spoke. Who she was speaking to, I had no idea; I just knew the voice sounded like a man's voice and it wasn't Daddy's.

"I don't know, Mark," my mother said into the phone while looking at me. "I don't know how much longer I can take this. He's always in that art room. I stopped going in there after he lashed out about his privacy."

I listened to the jibber jabber on the other line of the phone. The voice was rough and loud at the same time. I crawled toward the small pile of toys in front of me and started biting the legs of a barbie doll. I looked at my mother and she smiled at me. 

The front door started turning and my mom said goodbye then quickly hung up the phone. She put it on the couch and clapped her hands together while she watched me play. I faced the door and watched as my father walked in. His face expression was gloomy and full of guilt or concerned. He shut the door and just stood there for the longest second.

My mother stood up and walked over to him. "Honey? What's wrong?"

He dropped his bag to the floor then removed his jacket. "I was fired."

"Fired!?" my mother called out. "For what?"

"I don't know," he said, then plopped down onto the couch. "The boss is a damn joke. He's always angry about something."

My mother licked her lips and slowly shook her head. Tears swelled up in her eyes. She closed them and covered her hands with her face.

My father stood back up and walked over to her. "Honey," he rested his hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, I'll find-"

My mother jolted her arm away from him. "Unbelievable." Her eyes were wide and she crinkled her nose in disgust. "Then you have the audacity to lie. Your boss calls me almost every day and tells me how you spend your time painting. He tells me how you leave mice traps around work and how you use the ones you catch in your art." The tears poured out uncontrollably. "I don't know if I can do this anymore."

My father quickly pulled her in for a hug. "No, no, no. Hey, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Veronica."

"You always say that," my mom said. "But you don't show me you're sorry. You're just-ugh!" She broke away from him and ran upstairs.

I started to cry and Daddy picked me up to rock me. "Hey, don't cry. Daddy's here." He picked up one of my toys and shook it above my head. My crying dimmed down a bit as I saw Daddy smile. I reached for his face. You can give a baby a thousand toys, but their favorite will always be your face. He laughed as I playfully smacked his nose. He continued playing with me for a while until my mother finally walked into the living room. My father quickly sat me down when he saw her reaching for the keys.

"What are you doing?" he asked her.

She grabbed her coat off of the coat rack and put her hand on the doorknob. "For a drive. Make sure Violet sleeps soon," she said. And then she walked out of the house.

***

I think I cried since mom left. Dad kept trying to leave me while he went off to paint. Just like mom, I wasn't having it. He came back into the living room. You could tell he was definitely angry by the redness of his cheeks. He picked me up roughly and carried me in his art room then set me down. He started rummaging through his suitcases. 

"Did mom ever take out those baby books?" he asked, talking to himself. He set aside another suitcase and opened a new one. When he opened it, a large, heavy, black, and dusty book fell onto the floor, echoing a huge thud through the air.

Daddy picked it up and rubbed the dirt off of it. The cover had strange looking symbols and designs over it. "I almost forgot about this." He sat it down on his desk and picked me up. "Can't find the books. How about we give you a nice warm bath?"

And the days after that one would bring many hard ones, days I could never imagine.