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Violet was certain Lemony was avoiding being alone with her—as if he had a sixth sense that she wanted to ask him uncomfortable questions she did not want her siblings to hear. In fact, given the little she knew about the man, she was certain he possessed such a sixth sense. However, given his seeming unwillingness to abandon his niece, Violet knew it was only a matter of time before she caught the older man off guard.
It was quite late at night when she cornered him in the kitchen as he dropped a tea bag into an empty mug and turned on the kettle. She had observed that Lemony generally prepared loose leaf tea in a teapot, but Violet was uncertain if this change had any significance. Regardless, he was unlikely to find an excuse to leave the kitchen until the water boiled.
“What a coincidence, I was about to make myself some tea,” said Violet. Even though this was an entirely plausible statement, Violet was certain it sounded like a bald faced lie, and she was certain by the way Lemony’s eyebrows drew together, that he thought so too, but he took a second mug from the cabinet above the stove, placed it next to his own on the counter, and dropped in a second tea bag. Violet thought she caught him scanning the room for exits, but it might not mean anything—Lemony did that constantly. She sat down at the worn kitchen table.
“Thank you for finding us, Mr Snicket, and reuniting our family.”
“I couldn’t say no to Beatrice,” he responded without looking at her.
“Still,” Violet trailed off and they sat in silence for a long moment. Many years ago, she had wanted to ask Lemony why he had watched and documented from the sidelines, hadn’t helped her and her siblings when they had been left orphaned and homeless, but she was nearly twenty six now and the guardian of a child; she understood now that nothing, but especially trying to do right by a child, was ever as straightforward to an adult as it was to a young person.
“I know you were engaged to my mother,” Violet said. She had imagined she would broach this subject with some amount of tact, but that, clearly, would not be the reality of this exchange.
“Yes, I was. That was a long time ago,” Lemony looked at Violet, his seemed sad and tired—older than the forty five years (the same age her mother would have been) she knew him to be.
Violet fiddled with the ragged edge of one of the placemats. “Not as long ago as I would have thought.”
Lemony was also toying with the frayed stitching of the placemat in front of him. “Sometimes things happen quite suddenly.”
“A matter of weeks,” Violet paused. “And then I was born so soon after.”
“Violet, I have always believed that genetics are a negligible part of paternity. And somewhat selfishly, if I were to think of myself as a father figure—even in a limited capacity, I would have to admit I was a monstrous failure.”
That was, of course, what Violet had been getting at, but to hear Lemony—who was one of the most evasive people she had ever met—be so forthright threw her off kilter. She stared at him, confused and uncertain about what to say next until the kettle whistled.
Lemony stood, clicked off the burner, poured water over the tea bags, and returned to the table. He placed one mug on the placemat in front of Violet, although the wood of the table top was so scratched and damaged one would never be able to pick out one more ring of water. He held his own mug in his hands as he slouched in his chair. Violet was surprised he hadn’t taken the excuse to leave.
“You remind me so much of your father.”
Violet stared at the man sitting kitty-corner across the table. She leaned forward to look into his eyes, blue gray like the sea during a storm—the same blue gray eyes she saw when she looked at Beatrice, the same blue gray eyes that looked back at her from the mirror. He smiled, the skin around his eyes crinkling. This surprised her, Lemony did not smile easily.
“I mean it,” Lemony rocked his chair into its two back legs briefly, looking unexpectedly childish for a moment. “From the time we met until he was 20, your father wore his hair the same way you are now even though his hair always got in his face so he had to carry a hair ribbon. He was a brilliant inventor and he was so still and quiet when he was thinking through a puzzle, the same way you are, and he always scrunched up his nose, the exact same way you are right now, when he thought I was being deliberately obtuse.”
Violet nodded though she felt a bit uncertain.
“All of those things are a much more consequential part of who you are than the color of your eyes or the shape of your nose,” Lemony reached out to squeeze her hand before curling back into his chair. Violet looked at her hand for a long moment, surprised at how comforting the simple gesture had been.
“Mr Snicket—should I call you Mr Snicket?”
“If you like. You may also call me Snicket or Lemony, or something else entirely. Although if it’s too far out of left field I might not know to respond to it.” Lemony frowned slightly, “I would prefer that you not call me L. We’re not associates.”
“Lemony,” Violet said. It was a strange name to say aloud even though that was how she had been referring to the man sitting at the table with her in her internal monolog for weeks. “Sometimes, it feels like I didn’t know my parents at all. They had so many secrets, so many things they never told us.”
“I am all too familiar with that feeling. I knew your parents quite well; I would like to help if I can.”
“Really?”
“Yes, you may ask me anything you like. I can’t promise I will answer your questions—in fact, it is highly likely that I will not, but I can promise not to think any less of you for your curiosity and I can promise not to lie.”
Violet took a deep breath. There were so many things she wanted to know, like what had happened between Lemony and Beatrice, what had caused her mother and father to sail off to an island in the middle of nowhere, and little silly things like how he had known so many of the things her mother and father had told her as a child. All questions Lemony was unlikely to answer. Her thoughts spun until she realized that he was very likely to at least attempt to answer the question she most wanted an answer to. She wasn’t quite sure how to ask it, but she thought Lemony would understand, so she let the words tumble out in a mess.
“The things my siblings and I did when we went on the run, when we were trying to help Kit—it seemed like my parents tried so hard to hide VFD, and everything about their past, from us. The fires we lit, the people we betrayed and hurt, would they have been ashamed of us? Would they have wanted us to get in your taxi and run from VFD?”
“No,” Lemony’s voice was soft and caught in his throat. “Your parents have done, and I have as well, too many morally questionable things—they would have understood. This wasn’t what they wanted for you, but I am sure they would be proud to have raised children who were brave and resourceful enough to barter the location of the sugar bowl for their sister’s safety, and cared too much to run away even when they were in a bit over their heads. They would have understood.”
“Did they really kill Count Olaf’s parents?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why did you give Carmelita Spats the harpoon gun?”
“That’s not the same at all!” Violet had to struggle not to raise her voice; she did not want to disturb the other, presumably sleeping, inhabitants of the small house.
Lemony shook his head in away that reminded Violet of being a child. It was so similar to the shakes of the heads adults had given her and Klaus after their parents died, when they incorrectly assumed Violet and Klaus were too young to understand something, but there was too much sympathy and shame in the way Lemony couldn’t quite meet her eyes for it to mean that at all.
“What was in the sugar bowl?” Violet asked abruptly.
Lemony’s eyes snapped up to study her face before he sighed. Violet thought he wouldn’t say anything at all.
“Most sugar bowls simply contain sugar. There is a sugar bowl, concealed in what I hope is still a safe location, that I used to hide a document that I hoped would clear my name. Your parents once used a sugar bowl to hide the core of a particularly important apple, but a sugar bowl is, of course, a ridiculous long term storage vessel for something that would do the world a great deal more good growing into a fruit bearing tree in a mixture of soil and fertilizer. I know none of those things are the answer to the question you mean to ask, and that the question you really want an answer to is: what is in the sugar bowl your mother and I stole from Esme Squalor that caused our organization such a terrible amount of trouble? I will tell you that what was in the sugar bowl was never worth the lives, or even the property damage it cost, but, I am sorry Violet, I won’t answer that question. At least not yet.”
Violet was silent and perfectly still, puzzling over all of this not terribly helpful information, as Lemony finished his tea. “Thank you, at least, for not telling me it is too dangerous for me to know.”
“My track record is far from perfect, but I do make a sincere attempt to keep my word.” Lemony drummed his fingers against his empty mug and then stood to deposit both of their mugs in the sink. Violet stood as well and gave Lemony a quick, tight hug before she left the kitchen for her bedroom. A large part of her was pleased by how startled he looked. It was a long time before she heard the barely audible sounds of a man who had been trained since childhood to move silently through houses leave the kitchen, and several moments longer before she heard the now familiar staccato clack of typewriter keys. Only then did Violet drift off to sleep.