in violet’s wake
Copyright © 2013 Robin Devereaux-Nelson.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Devereaux-Nelson, Robin.
In Violets Wake : a novel / Robin Devereaux-Nelson.
pages cm
1. Divorced people--Fiction. 2. Male friendship--Fiction. 3. Self-realization--Fiction. 4. Road fiction. I. Title.
PS3604.E8855I5 2013
813’.6--dc23
2013017911
ISBN 978-1-59376-571-2
Cover design by Natalya Bolnova
Interior design by Tabitha Lahr
Soft Skull Press
An Imprint of COUNTERPOINT
1919 Fifth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
Distributed by Publishers Group West
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Jimi
Thanks for getting me. Mostly.
Contents
She’d left a half-empty bottle of tequila. She’d left a lot of other things too, but right now Marshall figured the Patrón would serve him better than mismatched dishes, odd socks, and the wedding ring lying in the ceramic dish at the edge of the kitchen sink. Marshall avoided looking at it as he pulled down a glass from the cupboard and poured himself a shot. He waved the tequila under his nose and grimaced. Tequila wasn’t his drink; it was Violet’s. He turned to the refrigerator and began rummaging in it for a slice of lime or lemon. There was nothing in there but a moldy orange and a net bag with a few withered grapes in it. He left the rotten fruit lying on the refrigerator shelf, scooped up the Patrón, and bravely downed it in a gulp. He poured himself another.
He left the shot glass in the kitchen and took the bottle into the nest he’d built himself in the living room over the last three weeks. The answering machine blinked next to a pile of unopened mail in the foyer. Around him, the house was in shambles—drawers emptied, windows bereft of curtains, all the homey touches