In every color
Chapter 9. Sweet violet

"Did you talk to Tali earlier about last night? How did it go?" Jubal brought up the subject as he stepped out onto the porch, trying to divert Jess's attention. Besides, it was good for him to be able to focus on something else, other than what had just happened with Isobel in that pantry, to get his brain out of the thick haze in which it had been shrouded in.

And anyway, he liked being able to talk to Jess about the problems they had with their kids. Exchanging notes.

"It was bad," Jess replied, bitter, "She's mad because starting Monday she's grounded."

Jubal raised his eyebrows. "Grounded? Really?" he said cautiously.

"She can't get away with sneaking out in the middle of the night," Jess replied sternly.

"But she didn't," Jubal pointed out.

"Only because you stopped her."

"Yeah. That's why robberies have higher penalties than attempted robberies."

"Don't defend her. She has to learn that she can't do things like that," Jess declared. Then he hesitated. "Are you going to punish Tyler?"

Jubal calmly shook his head. "No."

Jess gave Jubal a disappointed look. "You're too soft."

"Perhaps. I think Ty got the message. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think he'll do it again. He's never done anything like this before. Has Tali?" Jubal asked, finding it strange.

"No, but I can't wrap my head around it," Jess said in exasperation, making that stubborn expression of his.

"Apparently Tali and Ty could, at least until last night. I don't think they even thought it was a mischief. Look Jess, you know I don't mean to tell you how to raise your daughter, but can I make a suggestion?"

"Sure, go ahead"

"Tali is a good girl. Before you forbid her things or punish her, I think you should reason with her, explain to her why you got angry. If not, she won't understand and, next time, she'll look for a way not to get caught, not to avoid doing what is wrong..."

Looking up at the sky, Jess seemed to reflect on it.

"This is not to say that you never punish her," Jubal added. "But better save it for when she knowingly does something wrong. That it will happen," he affirmed. "Because. She. Is. Thirteen."

That made Jess laugh. "Yes, I'm afraid it's not going to get any better," he said with humor and resignation. "We're toast, aren't we?"

"Yep, probably," Jubal admitted. "And I twice as much as you. It should at least console you a little," he joked."

"Now that you mention it, a little, yes," Jess admitted slyly.

·~·~·

It took a long while and washing her face with cold water to calm down. Still, Isobel couldn't understand how she could feel so frustrated with herself and yet so elated. Her plan had been an utter failure. Not only had it not cleared things up between them, but it had become even more complicated. However, it didn't stop her from feeling like she was on cloud nine.

When she finally got out of the house, Tali and Jess were teaching Tyler, Sarah and Jubal how to play lacrosse. The very instant Isobel crossed the threshold, Jubal immediately sought her out with his eyes; he gave her a hopeful yet shy smile that Isobel returned, but which made her sigh in such a way that she decided to keep her distance, at least for the time being.

Abi had sat at the porch table, and was focused on some sort of manual labor. Isobel approached her curiously. The girl was skillfully braiding small colored rubber bands on a compact plastic loom, with the help of a crochet-like needle. Next to her was a tin box filled with small purple candies. She lifted her head to take one. When she saw Isobel, she offered her the box with a smile that lit up her little face in a very familiar way again.

"Do you want some?"

Nodding, Isobel took one of the candies. It was shaped like a flower, and smelled of violets. When she popped it into her mouth, the taste surprised her. It actually tasted like violets. It was like eating a sweet flower. "Mmm... It's delicious!"

"Isn't it? My mother brought them to me, from Madrid. You can only find them there, you know?"

"Does your mother often go to Spain?"

"No. She went on honeymoon. She remarried recently, to Allan."

That surprised Isobel. Part of her wondered how Jubal would have taken it. It wasn't a very good sign that he hadn't mentioned anything at all. In any case, she smiled with a touched smile as she realized that Abi had gladly shared with her a gift from her mother, which also could not possibly be replaced.

In the meantime, Abi had gone back to her work.

"What are you doing?" Isobel asked.

The girl raised her head again. "Bracelets. I want to give them as gifts. Look. This one's for Uncle Jess," she pointed to a black and brown striped one with fine royal blue details, "this one's for Sarah," she showed her one with orange and pink gradients, "and this one I'm making for Tali," a green and purple diamond design that looked like scales.

For just bracelets made of rubber bands, the designs were surprisingly harmonious and the colors were tastefully chosen.

"Did you make them all yourself?" said Isobel in sincere admiration. "They're beautiful, Abi. You have talent."

Abi smiled very pleased. "Would you like to help me?"

"I don't know how to do it."

"I'll teach you! It's very easy. Do you want to?" she asked eagerly.

With a feeling of tenderness and contentment that she had not felt for a long time, Isobel delightedly agreed. Abi pulled another small loom and needle from her backpack. She taught Isobel to follow Tali's and started another bracelet, made with pale green, blue and mauve.

The two braided the bracelets while eating candy and watching the others have fun playing lacrosse.

Jubal celebrated a goal with Tyler and Isobel studied his movements and his smile with a racing pulse, barely controlling the urge to be alone with him again.

"[Do you like my Dad?]" Abi suddenly asked in Spanish casually, while continuing to braid.

Isobel noticed herself tense up. She decided that maybe Abi wasn't meaning what she thought she meant. "[Sure. We get along very well]," she answered, feigning a carefree air.

"[No. I mean do you like him]," Abi replied with emphasis. And there was no confusion whatsoever in what she meant.

"[Aaaam... Well...]" Isobel struggled to find an evasive answer and not blush at the same time. The sensual memories of Jubal's lips, of his body, of the warm touch of his hands just a while ago, and the intensity of what Isobel was feeling allowed her neither.

"[I think he likes you a lot]," Abi added, still looking at what she was doing. "[He's been very sad. But when he's with you he's always smiling, you know]". When Isobel said nothing, Abi raised her eyes and looked at her. What she saw seemed to cheer her up. "[I'm just saying it would be great if you liked him too]," Abi said with a mischievous little smile.

All Isobel could do was bite her lips and try to pretend. She kept thinking that going along with it would be foolish, but there was a part of her that, with each passing moment, saw it more and more as a rare opportunity unusually within her grasp.

Jubal's voice echoed within her: What do you want?

·~·~·

Jess, who was refereeing the game, gave the victory to Tali and Sarah, with a score of 3 to 5. The two celebrated with cheers and high-fiving sticks. They had played a supersimplified version of the game, with no goalies and victory to the first to five goals. Jess patted Tyler's back.

"Hey, you guys did great."

Sarah laughed. "Come on, the three of us are so bad." Jess grabbed fondly by her shoulders.

"Not for your first time playing," Tali encouraged them. "Ty's pretty good at it," she added, smiling at the boy. "Did you guys like it?"

"I did," Tyler answered immediately, a little flushed.

Sarah nodded. "Well, it's not baseball," said Jubal, smiling, "but it was a lot of fun."

Leaving the other four to practice passing the ball to each other, Jubal headed for the porch. He was anxious to talk to Isobel, to see what would happen next. Unfortunately, there were too many people in that house and it wasn't going to be easy to get another moment when no one would interrupt them. "Hey, what are you doing?" he asked as approaching.

Unconsciously, his smile grew even wider as he looked at Isobel.

"[I told you so,]" Abi crooned. For once, Jubal understood the sentence, but the context was missing. "We're making bracelets. For Uncle Jess, Tali and Sarah," the girl pointed.

Isobel was grateful that Abi had distracted Jubal's attention, because the way he had looked at her made it hard for her to remain calm. "Cool! Did you make them together?" he asked them, pulling up a chair and sitting down with them.

"Well, I just helped a little with Tali's," Isobel answered simply. She had just finished it.

Abi skillfully knotted the one she was making in purple, blue and green, and put a clasp on it and then handed it to Isobel. "And this one is for you," she declared happily.

"Oh, really?" Isobel said, touched. It might have occurred to her that Abi was making it for her, but the fact was that it had taken her by surprise. "I love it. Thank you!" She put it on her wrist and admired it. "It's beautiful. I'll keep it forever," she assured Abi.

The girl gladly accepted Isobel's hug of appreciation, and went off to hand over the other bracelets. Isobel watched her go, unable to control the sharp pain inside her this time.

It did not go unnoticed by Jubal. He had seen that shade of sadness in Isobel's eyes on several occasions over the weekend, but this one had been the most obvious.

"Are you all right?" Jubal asked softly.

She was silent as she continued to gaze at Abi, who was chatting with Sarah after handing her bracelet to her. She let out a long sigh. "Abi reminds me a lot of Laira," she finally answered.

Jubal mentally ran through everything he knew about Isobel, unable to remember anyone by that name; he felt seized by a certain ominous feeling.

"Who... is Laira?" he dared to ask, carefully.

"Laira... was my daughter," Isobel replied, still looking at Abi.

Jubal was simultaneously frozen and devastated. Rumors had reached him that Isobel was divorced, but nothing about a daughter.

"She was a couple of years younger than Abi is now," Isobel added serenely, as painful as it was, "but she was a lot alike. Not physically. Laira had black hair and eyes. But in that she was perceptive and brave and generous..."

It was evident to Jubal that the grief he saw in Isobel's face had lost the edge it must once have had, but it was still very deep. The echo of her grief reverberated within him. "I'm sorry," he said, terribly dismayed. After a few seconds he dared to ask, in a quiet voice: "What happened?"

"Meningitis, six years ago," Isobel said, still following Abi with her look as the girl handed their bracelets to Jess and Tali.

Jubal's heart dropped to his feet. Meningitis in children was a disease that gave no leeway. Either it was caught it in time or... Or not. No one to blame, no one to hold accountable.

"She was the light of my life and in a matter of days she went out," Isobel murmured.

For a second, Jubal felt so overwhelmed that he was on the verge of letting go and hugging her.

Isobel shook her head fatalistically, her gaze lost. "I plunged into my work looking for relief," she continued with surprising poise. "Josh found it in someone else. My marriage didn't hold up. Actually, it wasn't either one's fault. We were both so devastated that we couldn't comfort each other." As she said it, Isobel realized that the people she interacted with had either been grief-stricken witnesses to it all, or knew nothing. It was the first time she had told anyone. She had even barely talked about it with Ethan. During her relationship with him, Isobel had not been able to fully open up. When he left her, it only served to make Isobel build even higher walls.

"After the divorce, I guess I withdrew into myself, where nothing could reach me. I shut life out, so that it was something that only happened to others," she confessed. "Yesterday you asked me why I stopped doing things I liked... That was why," she explained, still serene.

But suddenly she felt embarrassed. Isobel couldn't pinpoint why she had felt compelled to vent to Jubal like that, after so long. Maybe somehow, she wanted him to know that she came with that burden, for better or worse. Although something told Isobel it also had to do with the fact that she felt -no, knew- she could fully place her trust in him.

Now, nevertheless, she wasn't sure if he had been ready to deal with so much drama all at once. She looked Jubal in the face at last since the conversation had started.

She couldn't have been more wrong. The enormous understanding and immense affection Isobel found in Jubal's face caught her off guard, and was an unexpected balm on her wounded heart.

With his own pained one, Jubal saw Isobel's eyes fill with tears. He sighed, wishing with all his might that it was in his power to palliate even a little the grief Isobel was suffering. He held back with enormous difficulty the now almost unmanageable impulse to take her in his arms.

At the very moment he could control it, Jubal understood that he really didn't want to repress it. Slowly, carefully, he reached over, wrapped his arms around her and drew her against his chest.

For an eternal instant, Isobel hesitated, but finally her previous doubts crumbled, stripped of their transcendence by deeper emotions. The very foundations of the wall that had protected her heart for so long -and at the same time held it prisoner- were tottering. Before it collapsed completely, Isobel relented. She snuggled against him, resting her head on his shoulder, suddenly longing for the comforting sensation of such contact that she had been denying herself for years.

The fading shadows of dusk inside the porch hid them from the gaze of others in a clement cloak of discretion.

Holding her, embracing her gently, Jubal turned his face and pressed his lips firmly to Isobel's forehead, conveying his comfort and affection as much as he could. Isobel felt a certain weight lift from her chest and that everlasting pain became a little more bearable. Fascinated that Jubal had been capable of such a thing, she raised her face.

The sky was turning a dark violet, but it wasn't just the evening light that brought a velvety look to Isobel's eyes. The sweetness they gave off left Jubal absolutely captivated.

~.~.~.~