Somewhere after a Minnie Riperton sermon with strawberries, eggs, and toast and here’s two dollars, grab whatever you want from Ms. Jane’s and hurry home — Violet walked in on her parents. There they were, on the couch. Breathing in and out and in and out and in and out in and in and out and in and out like the team that they had to be. To make it work. To make Violet a little better than they were. Long before she came to be, life was just them with Rick Grimes and Michonne, math equations, the outdoors and McDonald’s runs until: Violet for everlasting love, for Violet Evergarden, the anime, for V-squared appeared. That’s what her parents said of her origins, anyway.

As she watched them, wrapped in each other like a Venn diagram; as innocent and delightful as a warm buttery pretzel on a Saturday afternoon, the secondhand embarrassment weaved from her highlighter pink toenails to the ends of her brown curls. Her mom’s cheek nestled between her dad’s shoulder blades. His hand a Venus flytrap around her wrist, while her arm remained a loose addition to his front.

Seeing them like that: so at peace, so defenseless, so private was a deposit to Violet’s memory bank — to withdraw as she needed. Her embarrassment was swallowed by the sea and replaced. It was a seasoning that she couldn’t name, maybe pride? Pride that where she came from lay before her. Pride in knowing two people in love can look like school drop off, her dad cooking while her mom washes dishes, and napping together on couches in the late morning light. Her parents were the running start for Violet to define what love could be for her.