In Violet's Wake. Robin Devereaux-Nelson

      

       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

       www.softskull.com

      Distributed by Publishers Group West

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      For Jimi

      Thanks for getting me. Mostly.

      Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Chapter 22

       Chapter 23

       Chapter 24

       Chapter 25

       Chapter 26

       Chapter 27

       Chapter 28

       Chapter 29

       Chapter 30

       Chapter 31

       Chapter 32

       Chapter 33

       Chapter 34

       Chapter 35

       Chapter 36

       Chapter 37

       Chapter 38

       Chapter 39

       Chapter 40

       Acknowledgments

chapter 1

      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