Hey Friends,
It's me, and I'm back to give you the second chapter of this messy family drama turned thriller. We're coming down to the wire for Halloween, so I hope you've started thinking about your costumes—you could always go as a roll of toilet paper. This week's story is the second part of a two-parter, coming from a friend of Ravyn's, and don't worry, the thriller part is coming. So heat up a mug of chai, and get cozy, because tonight's read might put you on edge.
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Lots of Love,
Raine
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Here's the thing about Jay. Jay was always a little funny about money, in a penny pincher kind of way.
On one hand, he would often take me out for dinner or bring me home little treats and gifts, even after we had gotten married. On the other, whenever I asked to borrow money from him or asked him to pick something up, he would ask for every single penny back, always politely of course. He was good at being polite. And then there was the expensive apartment to think about.
The thing was, no matter how deeply I thought about it, adding and subtracting the sums in my head, I just couldn't quite place him anywhere on the financial relationship spectrum without doubting myself. One day he would ask for all four dollars and ninety-nine cents back for the extra butter I sent him out for so that I could bake cookies, as if he were seriously saving every single cent, and then the next night he would overspend on a lavish dinner, his treat to me as he would say, with top notch wine and the best service. None of it ever made any sense.
So when he told me one day that his apartment lease was going to be up and that he was thinking of buying a new one, it was safe to say that I was confused at first. Yet, we started seriously looking around at some places all over the city, until we found the perfect home.
"Oh, this is nice. This one is really nice. Much more my speed, I think. What do you think, Jay?"
"Whatever you like is fine. You'll be the one decorating it however you want, not me. As long as I have a parking space, I'm happy, " Jay smiled easily while walking around the living room.
"Of course. The apartment comes with two designated parking spaces, 24 hour security, and a lot of amenities. They're all listed in the brochure there. I heard the gym is really nice," the realtor, Anne, rattled off all of the benefits.
Then she leaned in, whispering loudly, "Oh, and one big thing I'll add, is that there is no co-op board, so if you make an offer today, the seller might actually give it to you tomorrow."
I think my pickiness was getting on our realtor's nerves, because she started laying it on thicker and thicker with the benefits each time we viewed a new property. But she was in luck with this one, because this one was special.
"I have to make a call, so I'll just let you two look around."
What struck me first was how light, bright, and airy this apartment was, with its white walls and elegant molding. More suitable for an art gallery than a home, and almost the complete opposite from Jay's moody lair, if I was honest. Something about it had the energy of a childhood ballet classroom. Each footstep made the light wooden floors creak, sounding like the giggles of little ballerinas dressed in pink and black. The window was open to let in the early Autumn air, the breeze raising its singsong voice like a young teacher saying, “Focus girls, focus gentlemen, the recital is in only a few weeks…”, causing the white gauzy curtains to sway as if prancing to the music of a tinkling piano in the background. Something about it was…happy—unfettered by any sort of resentment.
I stopped my train of thought to wonder for a moment. Was that how I felt while living in Jay's apartment? What did I have to resent him for? Or, or did he resent me for something?
No. How absurd. I lived with the man. I think I would be able to tell if he resented me for something, wouldn't I?
I stood looking out the window for some time, turning this over in my brain, as Jay slowly looked around the rooms, running his fingers over the molding on the walls, quietly lost in his own thoughts.
"Well? Are you satisfied with this one?" He suddenly asked, a hint of laughter in his voice.
"I'm satisfied."
"Good. Then I'll go find Anne and put in an offer to the seller. She can't have gone too far."
"How much do you think?" My voice came out smaller and more hesitant than I thought it would.
"Oh don't worry about it, I've got it all handled," he said nonchalantly, waving me off the topic.
I nodded as he walked away to find the realtor, twice as worried as I had been ten seconds before.
Whatever he offered the seller that morning worked because he was set to sign on it before the end of the week, and we could begin moving the next Monday. His lack of transparency however, was still a nagging issue that would not go away, no matter what I did. So, I did the thing I knew to do whenever that happened—I called up Wes to schedule a chat and chew around his lunch hour that Friday, a few days after we had finished moving into our new home.
"Well, well, well. You look rather glowy today, Vi. How is wedded bliss treating you? And with a new apartment too!"
He could never help his own ridiculousness sometimes.
"Oh and I hope you don't mind, but I ordered you your usual salad."
Another salad. One thing about any meetups with Wes was that there was usually going to be a salad involved. He said that salads were almost always the precursor to great gossip, or as he would say it, "sharing information". That, and wine nights.
"Oh good, I was needing one today," I sighed tiredly.
"Uh oh. What's going on?" He took a sip of his fruity drink. Some bright purple concoction with a flower dangling on the rim.
"Oh, I want one of those. What is that? Maybe I should order it..." I tried to change the subject, embarrassed of even thinking about bringing up the cracks in my marriage so soon after the wedding.
"No. Don't try to change the subject. Just get straight to the point." He sounded more like a parent than anything else.
I paused for a short moment, looking at him, then turned to look at the other diners on the rooftop, engrossed in their own conversations. I got straight to the point.
"I'm starting to think that you might be right about Jay." I stopped.
Started again.
"At least as far as the fact that there doesn't seem to be any transparency about him. I mean, he does seem to be an open book, with a laid back personality, and whenever I ask him questions, he usually just answers..."
Stopped again. A short pause.
"But I kind of feel like some things just aren't adding up, just not making sense about him. It feels like I'm the only one who is missing something about him."
I paused again, clasping my hands in my lap while Wes hummed, his frown deepening.
"Like, like last week when we were closing on the new apartment. I asked him straight up how much he was going to offer for it, right? And he told me not to worry about it." I was starting to think that I sounded crazy. So many girls would want a "don't worry about it" kind of husband.
"And so I'm assuming that your name is not also on the apartment?" Wes was now reaching up to take off his sunglasses, growing a little more serious by the minute.
"No. It was all him. He was the one who handled it."
"Do you at least know how much the apartment was going for?"
"No you don't." Wes answered his own question. "Let's just have a look at what other apartments like your's in the same area are going for these days. We have an idea, but let's just see," he said whipping out his phone from the inside of his suit jacket.
His eyebrows began to rise.
"Well, I'll tell you it's not cheap. Some of them are a couple million actually. Do you know around how much he's making or if he has anything saved up or property left to him?"
"No, you don't." Wes answered his own question again. "Well you never looked too deeply into him before you got married and it shows. I hate to say it, so I won't say it..."
"Wes, don't say it."
"I told you so."
He continued, "But, all we need to know is if what he's bringing in, is matching what he's shelling out. Just give me a day to do some digging, I'll make it my special project, and then you can come over for wine and info tomorrow night."
In the hours that followed our little conversation, I started to look at Jay a little differently, searching for anything that might give away what he's been hiding. When I could find nothing, I began to think about all of the possibilities of why the money wouldn't be adding up.
Was he involved in something illegal? Something so terribly immoral that I would never be able to look at him again with anything other than disgust?
Was he a disgusting, awful, kind of person?
If he was caught, would I go down with him?
I looked over at him typing something on his laptop near the corner lamp in the living room, glasses reflecting the bright screen. He had mentioned that he was writing an article on his recent research for one of his favorite medical journals. He was excited about it.
By the next morning, not knowing the truth had become the worst part of it all, and the thoughts just kept coming and coming, giving me no respite.
Finally, the call came on Saturday night, while Jay was at the hospital.
"Is he out?" Wes whispered on the other end.
"Yeah, he's at work. I thought you were just going to text me when to come over."
"Well I would've, but it's a little more complicated and closer to home than I thought, and I just wanted to warn you, in case you didn't want to come and listen."
I stared at the overstuffed velvet couch, one of the few pieces of bachelor furniture that Jay kept after the move, and went to my closet to get dressed.
"Here's the thing..." Wes started. We were sat at his white kitchen table, looking at a wall with a bunch of sticky notes on it. "It's nothing bad bad, but more along the lines of messiness and confusion."
"Okay..." I nodded and gestured toward the papers. "Let's hear it."
"Right. Well, at the very least, you'll be happy to know that he has no record," Wes pointed to the bright green sticky at the top left corner. "Nor does he seem to have any secret children you don't already know about."
"That's a good start I guess."
"It is. It is a good start," Wes agreed.
"The real issue of interest started once I got off of looking through the public records and turned to his social media."
"Really? But I had checked his social media right when I first started dating him. That's like lesson number one, Wes." I shook my head.
"Yeah but did you take the time to scroll all the way down?"
"Yes. I did," I answered flatly.
"Oh." He would probably deny it, saying that he doesn't revel in the messiness of others' lives, but Wes seemed to be having fun being my private investigator.
"Well, in any case, even if you did scroll all the way down on all of his accounts, you still would not have found anything because you most likely were not looking for anything specific."
"Makes sense, please continue." I just wanted him to get to the point.
"Right. Well, on the Fourth of July in 2013 he posted a picture of himself at a barbecue and tagged someone named Will Long in it. I searched the name and figured out that Will Long is his cousin." Wes pointed to a printed paper with the photo and the post, taped up on the wall.
"So, then I decided that it might be more fruitful if I went the family route, because that was always somewhat of a mystery for you, and that's where it got interesting." Wes now got up from his seat and stood right in front of the wall. "I searched Will to figure out who his parents were and went from there. It then turned out that his mom and Jay's dad were half siblings." He pointed to two blue stickies with a string attached between them and put the tips of his fingers together for extra illustration.
"Okay. Standard."
"It was standard, until I tried looking for his mom, and that's when I had to turn back to the public records, because..." He now pointed, this time in more of an accusatory manner toward a picture so pixelated I had to get out of my seat to have a closer look. The name was on a sticky underneath it.
"Look familiar?"
My stomach dropped as if I were going down the first big hill on a roller coaster.
"Oh no," I whispered. "Ooooh no, no, no. We're not doing this right now." I wouldn't believe it. Wes had to be lying, he had to be playing a joke on me, and it's just gone too far this time.
"I—"
"It's—"
I couldn't even manage to finish a sentence as I tore the picture off the wall and stared blankly at it. The words just refused to come out of my mouth, getting tangled up in one another.
I remembered the face well enough, and I was surprised I hadn't seen it in my own husband.
Helena Frankl had knowingly brought chaos and misery to my family.
This complicated things. A lot. As Wes and I sat back down at the kitchen table to stare some more at the wall in silence, a pair of keys jingled in the door.
"Oh Scarlett's home," Wes sighed in relief. Anything to slice through the tension in the room.
"Yes, I'm home, I'm home. But I'm dead tired, so don't bother me tonight. I'm just going to eat and then get into bed. What do you want to order? I was thinking breakfast for dinner."
"Oh that sounds good. I'll make the call to the place around the corner. Vi, are you staying?"
I nodded. Might as well. After placing the order online, Wes came back to the kitchen table and sat down again, deep in thought.
All of the sudden, he perked up, turned to me and asked, "You said that your dad introduced the two of you in the beginning, right?"
"Yeah, he did. I just assumed that Jay was some sort of young doctor that he had taken under his wing and thought I would get along with."
I paused for a moment. "But you know, now that I think about it, the circumstances were a little odd."
"How so?" Wes took a sip from his wine glass.
"I knew he was trying to play matchmaker of course, but something about it wasn't quite as casual as I had thought those things went. See, I had always thought that maybe if parents found someone they thought was a good match for their kid, they would just make the introductions and then sit back and watch what happened."
I thought for a moment. "I mean, he knew I was struggling back then trying to get the studio going and that I was taking whatever handouts I could get, and he definitely manipulated the situation. It's just that he was awfully aggressive with it. He made sure I was there to meet Jay every single week, until Jay finally asked me out. I just didn't question it because Jay was taking me out to eat every week so I didn't have to worry about buying my own dinner."
"But why was he going through all of that trouble?" I asked myself out loud.
"Perhaps he just wanted to see you settled with someone stable?" Wes guessed.
Then we both looked at each other. "Ehhh..."
"Never mind," Wes continued.
"Why would he want you to marry his mistress's son?"
Scarlett shuffled out of the bedroom, now dressed in a fuzzy blue loungewear set, apparently not too tired to join the conversation.
"He probably promised her that he would take care of her kid before she died. If her kid married you, he would get some of your inheritance and would always be taken care of. Even if you divorced, as long as the money came to you after the marriage had been registered, he would at least get half. He would get all of it if he were widowed though."
She knitted her brows together. "It's really simple, guys. Your dad just wanted to financially support Jay and be a father figure to him under the radar and without guilt. He was just banking on the fact that you're still a trusting kind of person, and that even if you did get a prenup, you were going to make it as nice as possible for Jay."
He would get all if he were widowed.
I felt my arms prickle and heat up as a surge of rage passed through me. It wasn't just another woman, he had a whole other family on the side.
I exhaled slowly and looked away from my friends. Then I came back to the present.
"Oh. That reminds me of one of the other things I came to ask you guys about." I pulled the corset I wore at the wedding out of my purse and set it on the table, digging my fingers in the little slit I had left in it after sewing it back up.
"Remember when Aunt Margaret gave me this?"
"Now look Violet, we may know about a lot of different things," Wes held his hand up and huffed, "but we don't really know anything about sewing, or vintage fashion."
"No, it's not about the corset per se. Just give me a second."
I dug my fingers around in between the layers and the boning until I was finally able to fish out what I was looking for. I held it up.
"This doesn't count as our joint property, does it?"
"Oh wow. You could probably buy like, twelve of your apartments with that," Wes muttered, leaning across the table to get a better look.
Pinched between my forefinger and my thumb was just about the largest, most glittering, yellow diamond I had ever seen in person. It made me nervous just to touch it or even have it in my possession, always checking to make sure it was still safe and sound. Ever since the wedding, I had felt the overwhelming urge to just get rid of it.
"Scarlett, you know a bit about jewels, your dad was a jeweler. What do you think?" I turned to her.
She gently took it from my fingers, turning it this way and that.
"Definitely vintage. The inside of the band says that it was made by...Oh, this is an Antony Burton."
She handed it back just as carefully. "Wes is right. This could probably buy you twelve of your new apartments. Antony Burtons go for quite a sum these days and this ring should be the only of its kind by him. You need to keep this one safe."
Once I got back home, I immediately took out my sewing kit and worked on repairing the tear in the corset as seamlessly as possible, forcing my fingers to work quickly before Jay got home. When I finished, I looked around the bedroom for places to hide it.
Under the bed?
No, that one was too obvious.
Behind my vanity?
No, if he found such a special garment stuffed back there, he would get suspicious.
In plain sight...perhaps?
In plain sight. I looked at my closet and the bare hanger and plastic which it had been kept in this entire time. Yes. Yes, that might work. If I simply left it exactly where it had been to begin with, there would be no reason for him to suspect anything. What purpose would he have to go feeling around my old wedding dress and corset in the closet? Absolutely none.
I placed the corset back in its plastic wrapping and hung it up at the same exact angle as it had been when I took it earlier in the evening. Then I quickly got into my pajamas and jumped into our plush white bed. I closed my eyes tight and thought to myself, debating how to handle the coming days. Jay didn't need to know that I had found out any new information about him, and I could never hide my emotions very well, so it was best just to avoid him until I could get my poker face under control. Yes, I'll just avoid him as much as possible.
If he was widowed, he would get everything.
Scarlett's words bounced around in my head constantly in the weeks that followed our revelation. Every passing moment, I thought about all of the ways he could possibly kill me, but there were just too many to prepare myself for. They swirled around in my head, gruesome, evil images replaying themselves over and over, steadily chipping away at me. He would know exactly how to get the job done without leaving a mark, and I knew him, he was too timid to leave a mark, and too particular to make a mess. He was timid, but he certainly wasn't stupid. I knew him. He would do it, and then make a lousy attempt to save me, in order to make a story so believable, even he would go for it himself—a bereaved newlywed who saves multiple lives every day, but couldn't even save his own wife.
How tragic.
I soon became constantly suspicious of him. I even began to make rules for myself:
1. Never eat or drink inside of the home.
I would eat my breakfast, my lunch, and my dinner outside at restaurants, changing them frequently so I never dined any one place twice, and absolutely no leftovers were ever taken home.
2. No bubble baths, and keep showers short.
Where I once loved a good bubble bath, I now avoided them like the plague, visions of him with my electric curling iron squashing any desire for one.
3. Never relax.
I couldn't risk it. I couldn't sleep—that was unthinkable. Neither of us slept, I was sure of it. I simply laid on my back, eyes ever so lightly closed, with my hand under my pillow, gripping the kitchen knife I kept there, and waited the few hours until the break of day. Even when his breathing slowed and deepened into the usual soft snores, I lay awake, waiting for the break of day.
All of this went on for weeks, until one evening, when I accidentally broke one of my rules.
I got home around 7:00 after having dinner at one of the health food cafes around town. Jay was sitting on the couch in the living room, typing away on his laptop.
"Oh Violet, you're home," he said dryly.
My heart stopped and I stilled. I thought I had been successful enough at avoiding him without raising any questions. Apparently I had not.
"Yeah, it's been really busy at work lately. We're getting in a large order for one of my designs, so everything has to be just perfect."
Maybe he wasn't entirely as suspicious as I thought, and the situation could be saved after all. We'll just keep things as diplomatic and light as possible. I swallowed and attempted to make eye contact for a few moments.
One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi...
I looked over at the kitchen.
"Oh congrats on that, I know you've been working really hard for a long time on your studio." He set his book down on the coffee table and used his shirt to clean his glasses, then quietly placed them back on his face.
"Yeah thanks, that means a lot, Jay." I glanced at him again and flashed him a tight-lipped smile. I wanted to get out of the room so badly, but it seemed that he was insistent on some type of interaction between the two of us today. He scratched his head and leaned forward in his seat a little.
"Is your client offering a particularly good price? A fair price, I mean. I wouldn't want you to be taken advantage of." He still looked at me, his voice low, pushing for some sort of eye contact.
What an odd thing to say...
I was quiet, desperately wishing that he would just let me leave, but he would not. He refused to. We stayed like that, trapped in a heavy silence, both waiting for the other to say something. He looked down into his lap.
"You've stolen money from me, Violet."
It was so soft, so indistinct, that I almost didn't catch it above the whirring of the washing machine down the hall. All of the sudden, a feeling of dread took root in my stomach and grew upwards to my heart, branching all throughout my chest. The clock on the wall ticked.
He knew.
My muscles tightened, and after a second, my feet gripped the floor, pushing off. I raced to the bedroom, setting down the dessert I had taken home on my nightstand, and ripped open the closet, searching for the corset at the back.
"Oh, good, it's here," I whispered to myself.
I unwrapped the garment from its plastic and felt around beneath the top layer for the ring. I frantically ran my hands all over the corset, hoping to feel something. I swallowed back the bile rising up my throat. There was nothing. The ring was rather large and would have been discovered by now. I tightened my jaw and strode back to the living room where Jay was now leaning up against the back of the couch.
"Give it to me. Right now." I held out my hand, and stared him straight in the eye, demanding the ring back through clenched teeth.
"Of course I'm not going to give it to you. In any case, I can't. It's already been moved to another location entirely. And actually, I wouldn't have found it without your help: acting all jittery every single day, avoiding any sort of conversation, and always stopping by the closet to touch your old wedding corset. So I simply went to have a look." His usually charming lopsided smile now looked twisted. All of the sudden, he looked like the ugliest man in the world.
"Give it, Jay. It's mine. Aunt Margaret gave me that ring. It's mine."
He just smiled back, self-assured. My eyes darted around. I wouldn't have thought this a few months ago because he seemed so laid back and honest, but something about him told me that he was bluffing. The ring was still somewhere around the apartment.
If I were him, where would I hide it?
His pants pocket.
I rushed at him, and pushed him backwards over the couch. The look of surprise on his face would have been the funniest thing, if we weren't in a potentially homicidal situation. I quickly shoved my hand in his right pocket and felt around until my fingers could wind themselves around the ring.
Got it!
I scrambled up from the floor, out of the heap of limbs and began to crawl back over the couch until a long arm reached up and grasped at my shirt, snatching my body back and launching the ring backwards into the kitchen.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
The sound of precious metal hitting tile was deafening. I stopped for a beat.
A beat was long enough, as Jay was already up and dashing to kitchen to get the ring. He was too clumsy and uncoordinated though. I beat him to it, sliding across the tile and snatching the ring up from in front of the dishwasher.
That's when I realized that we could never go back to how things had been before this. Only one of us was going to get out of this apartment with the ring. I knew I had to protect myself, I had to be the one to make it out, so I slammed open the door of the dishwasher and found one of Jay's nice Japanese kitchen knives. He always loved cooking with those knives. I shakily pointed it at him as he placed one foot in front of the other, slowly coming towards me, breathing heavily. Then, he charged right at me.
And I fell backwards.
I looked up at the bright, elegant walls, as the warm light from the lamps wrapped around me. I reached down and felt at my stomach. Something sticky and thick and hot was oozing out of me. I would have laughed, but it hurt too much. Of course, the one thing we always argued about non-stop during our short time together: which way to load the knives in the dishwasher. I had always said that it was more hygienic to place them upward and to just be careful around them. Jay always said that the dangers of doing so outweighed the benefits.
I looked over at him. Jay had backed up to the other side of the kitchen, his hands covering his mouth, eyes bulging, and now stood very still, waiting for something. After what seemed like hours, he slowly began to step forward again, the creaking floorboards no longer sounding like the happy giggles of little ballerinas, but instead mocking me as if to chant, "You fool! You fool! For a yellow diamond, you fool!"
I swallowed thickly, as the pain spread up to my chest. I didn't dare move. Jay stood over me, wringing a kitchen towel in his hands, still waiting, still watching me. His breathing shallow and his eyes darting between my face and the offending wound, quickly growing redder by the minute, he finally took the wadded up Halloween towel with the floating little white ghosts on it, and pressed it lightly on my torso, as if cleaning up a spill on the counter.
I closed my eyes and laughed again to myself. How ridiculous.
For a yellow diamond.
I had always hated watching that last awful moment, but I had seen it enough times before and this moment was no different than the rest. She lay there, motionless, draped over the door of the dishwasher, the red kitchen towel, soaked and balled up on top of her. I took a deep breath and thought. How was I going to get out of this? I was the first one people would point to once word got out.
Get rid of the diamond first, Jay.
Yes, let's do that first. I walked around her and plucked the ring up from the black and white tiled floor, and took it to the bedroom to put safely in her jewelry box, out of the way of the scene.
Now call the ambulance, Jay.
I sat down at the kitchen table, and with shaking hands, I dialed the number for an ambulance and then hung up. They would arrive in a few moments.
I folded my hands at the kitchen table to stop them from shaking so much, and waited for a moment, debating what else should be done before they arrived.
She was emptying the dishwasher and she tripped and fell on the knife, Jay.
All right, that was believable enough. I left my seat and bunched the rug in front of the sink. As if someone had tripped. Yes, that looked good enough. I stood at the sink for another moment, considering what else to do.
I knew that once the ambulance arrived at the apartment, it was going to be a long, uncomfortable night full of questions. I needed to eat something before I left. I hadn't eaten anything all day, and who knew when I was going to get my next meal?
I opened the fridge next to the sink and looked around inside for a bit. Nothing. Both of us had been eating out so much that the fridge had become completely bare. Same with the pantry. I sighed, looking around.
Oh! Violet's chia pudding she left on her bedside table!
I grabbed a spoon from the drawer and rushed back to the bedroom to find it right where I saw her leave it thirty minutes before. I dug in. Each spoonful tasting like heaven after the evening I'd had.
Sweet and refreshing from the berries on top.
Another spoonful.
Rich and slightly bitter from the chocolate mixed in.
Another spoonful.
Crunchy and nutty from the—
Oh no. Oh no, no, no.
I looked at the label. Cashews. Immediately I could feel the stinging all over my body as the hives began to emerge on my arms, my skin tightening. I dropped the cup to the ground and tripped over my feet rushing to the bathroom to rip open the medicine cabinet. Where was it? Where was it?
Where was it?
The rattling of bottles pounded in my head as I tore through rows and rows of cough syrups, antiseptics, ointments, and decongestants. The stinging in my throat was getting more and more unbearable by the second. My chest tightened with panic as my breaths grew shorter.
My coat pocket. I put it in my coat pocket today!
I stumbled out of the bathroom and tripped, my face hitting the chair at Violet's vanity. No matter. It's fine, I just had to make it to the living room, no matter what. I just had to cross the kitchen and make it there. That's all I had to do.
I saw my coat, still hanging on the back of the sofa, and I began to crawl out of the bedroom, dragging myself along the floor until I got to the black and white checkered tiles in the kitchen.
Just pass the kitchen, Jay, and then it will be there on the back of the sofa.
I dragged myself along the tile, my hand clutching at my neck, starting to scratch at it, as if that would do anything. I was hardly getting a breath in, the swelling becoming all too much, as I inched along the tiles, but if I just made it past Violet and across the kitchen to the living room, then everything would be fine.
If I just made it past Violet and across the kitchen everything would be fine.
It all would be fine.