About Aaron’s Parents
Violet Whitmore was twenty-six when she met Eli Reed.
By then, she had already disappointed her family, dropped out of university, and proven to everyone who thought her decision was foolish that she had no intention of going back to her old life.
She wanted to sing.
Not for the money, not for the beautiful dresses, and not even for the chance to see her face on the cover of a magazine someday. Although, of course, she wouldn’t have minded the fame.
Violet loved music itself. She loved the stage, the glow of the spotlights, and that moment before the first note, when the conversations in the room gradually faded into silence. She had an extraordinary voice. The kind that made people stop mid-conversation and turn to look.
In 1996, she sang at a bar in Dumpfield. Not some luxurious establishment, but a small place where locals, truckers, passing travelers, and people who didn’t want to go home gathered in the evenings.
Violet liked that crowd. She liked that, on stage, she could be anyone she wanted. She could sing about a love she had never experienced, broken hearts no one had ever seen, and cities she had never visited.
She was graceful, beautiful, and a little unpredictable. There was something about her that reminded you of someone who was constantly hearing music no one else could hear. And she had absolutely no intention of letting anyone else decide how she should live her life.
And then, one day, Eli walked into the bar.
He was thirty.
He hadn’t planned to stay in Dumpfield for long. He had his own business to take care of, his own routes, and a familiar life that left little room for lengthy stops.
Eli knew how to talk to people. He could make a stranger laugh, keep his cool in uncomfortable situations, and had that particular kind of confidence that comes from being used to handling problems on your own. He wasn’t the kind of man who believed in fate.
Until that evening.
He simply walked in, ordered a drink, and turned toward a voice. Violet was singing Chris Isaak’s
Wicked Game when he saw her for the first time.
The moment he laid eyes on her, Eli stopped in his tracks, forgetting what he had intended to do next.
Violet sang without paying him any attention. She didn’t try to catch his eye or deliberately smile in his direction. But time passed, one song followed another, and when her performance ended, Eli approached the stage.
“Do you always look at people like that when they sing?” Violet asked, lowering her microphone.
“Only when they sing well.”
“And how often do you find yourself looking at someone like that?”
“Never. Not until tonight.”
She laughed.
In that moment, Eli realized he wanted to hear that laugh again. And Violet realized she liked this man. Not because he was handsome. Although that certainly helped.
He wasn’t trying to impress her. And he didn’t seem particularly afraid of the possibility that she might not choose him.
For Violet, who was used to men falling in love with the image of a singer on stage, that was a refreshing change.
Their conversation stretched on.
Then they had a drink together.
Then Eli offered to walk her home after her performance.
And then it turned out that he was planning to leave Dumpfield in a few days.
Violet simply laughed.
“So, what are you going to do with all that time?”
“Haven’t decided yet.”
“Then you have time to think about it.”
***
Every evening, Eli came to the bar to listen to Violet sing.
Sometimes he sat at the counter. Sometimes he took a table in the corner. Sometimes she spotted him before her performance even began and gave him the slightest smile.
He started recognizing her original songs.
One evening, he even requested
Wicked Game, the song he’d heard her sing on his first night.
Violet, of course, pretended she hadn’t been planning to sing it. And then she sang that very song.
After her performances, they began spending more and more time together. They talked about music, the open road, and the places they’d been. Eli told her about his adventures, while Violet told him about leaving university and why she’d never regretted it for a single moment.
He never tried to convince her she’d made a mistake.
She never tried to convince him to stay.
They felt good together precisely because neither of them had to pretend to be someone else. They didn’t need to spend ages figuring out whether they liked each other. They were bold and took the initiative. They could laugh in the middle of a kiss, argue over the most ridiculous things, and tease each other simply because they loved seeing how the other would react.
Eli was his usual cheeky self, but never so overconfident that he became a caricature. Violet was sensual and free-spirited, but never helpless in the face of his charm.
Violet chose Eli just as consciously as Eli chose her.
And that matters.
One evening, she went to him herself after her performance, kissed him, and said,
“You do understand that I’m not going to entertain you every night, right?”
“Of course.”
“And I’m not going to change my life for a man who’s leaving tomorrow?”
“Obviously.”
“Then why are you smiling?”
“Because you’re already kissing me, and I’m still trying to figure out what I did to deserve this kind of happiness.”
She raised an eyebrow, then kissed him again.
***
A few more days passed.
On their last evening together, Eli told Violet he was leaving in the morning. The words didn’t come easily. They’d spent several weeks together, and now they had to decide what came next.
“Come with me,” Eli whispered, gently kissing the spot just behind her ear.
He said it quietly. Not as a marriage proposal, not as a promise of a happy life together. Simply because he didn’t want to leave without her.
Violet froze, feeling her heart flutter wildly. She knew she wanted to say yes. She wanted to say yes so badly.
But she didn’t know where he was headed, what he would be doing a month from now, or whether he could offer her anything beyond a few weeks of happiness and a life spent constantly on the move.
She had only just begun to achieve what she’d always dreamed of. Her performances were finally paying off. She had regular listeners, new opportunities, and plans for the future. And she was genuinely afraid that one day she would wake up beside Eli and realize she’d lost herself.
“I can’t,” she answered just as quietly.
Eli nodded in silence. He didn’t make a scene or accuse her of choosing her career over him. He simply accepted her decision, even though it hurt.
“I understand…”
Violet desperately wanted him to argue with her. To tell her they would figure something out. To promise her that everything would work out.
But the truth was, Eli didn’t know if it would. He didn’t want to make promises he might not be able to keep.
And so they parted ways.
Not because they had stopped loving each other, but because they both believed the other deserved the freedom to choose their own life.
***
A few more weeks passed, and Violet discovered she was pregnant.
She was twenty-six.
She was building her career. She had no reliable partner by her side. She was estranged from her family because she had cut ties with them herself after leaving university.
She knew it would be difficult.
Very difficult.
But the child wasn’t a punishment for a brief romance.
Violet decided to keep the baby because she wanted this child. She hoped it would be a boy.
She continued performing throughout her pregnancy, and in the evenings, when she came home after her shows, she talked to the baby. Sometimes, she caught herself telling him about Eli.
About the way he laughed. About how he had once stayed to listen to her perform even though he’d been planning to leave. About how his father was a good man, even if he was someone she hadn’t been able to keep by her side.
Did she try to find him? She did. She really did. She knew his last name, but that wasn’t enough. Eli hadn’t left her an address or a phone number, and she had no idea where to look for a man who was constantly on the road. In the end, she had neither the connections nor the means to search the entire country for one person.
All she had left were a few sweet notes he used to slip to her during her performances. Each one ended with the same short signature:
Yours, Eli. Aaron never met his father. But that doesn’t mean Eli was never a part of his life, not even indirectly.
Violet told little Aaron stories about his father.
Not all the time, and not always in detail. Just sometimes, when he asked why he didn’t have a dad, she would tell him:
“You do have a dad. He’s just far away right now.”
She told him that his father loved the open road, knew how to make people laugh, and never turned down a good story.
Aaron grew up without knowing all the details. After all, the only thing Becky and Noah had ever managed to find out about Eli was his name.
Aaron inherited more than just his looks from his father. He also inherited some of his character traits: the ability to act in dangerous situations, the habit of relying on himself, and the willingness to protect the people he loved. From his mother, he inherited an emotional depth he didn’t always show to others.
Yes, Eli and Violet were his biological parents. They gave him life, and their love story would forever remain a part of his past. But when Aaron thought of a mother’s care, he pictured Aunt Becky’s smile and the dimples in her cheeks. And when he thought of a father, he remembered Uncle Noah’s strong hands, his voice, and the way he had always been there for him.
Because they were the ones who became his parents. Not by blood, but through the life they gave him. ❤️🩹
How Did Violet Die?
Everything about it was painfully ordinary.
The second half of the 1990s and the early 2000s were dark times for Dumpfield. The town was drowning in crime, lawlessness, and power struggles.
Aaron was three years old.
Violet was on her way home after performing at a bar. She’d stayed a little later than usual that evening. The show had gone particularly well, and her fans wouldn’t let her leave until she’d sung an encore.
It was nighttime. The asphalt was wet, and the streetlights were poor.
It all happened too fast. The last thing Violet saw was the bright red taillights of a car disappearing into the distance. Its driver hadn’t even tried to stop.
Who was behind the wheel? No one knows.
Perhaps the driver was drunk. Perhaps they were afraid of the consequences. Or perhaps they simply knew they would get away with it.
The police made a show of diligently investigating the case, but in a town where crime had become commonplace and witnesses preferred to stay out of trouble, the investigation gradually reached a dead end.
The driver was never found.
Violet’s death became one of the many crimes that remained unsolved in Dumpfield.
And that’s how things continued until 2005, when Michael King took over as mayor.
Gradually, chaos gave way to a system in which crime became more organized and power more centralized.
But that’s a whole other story. 🤍
