Lizzy Enders's Relationship with Mrs. Lacey (Violate)

Lizzy Enders’s relationship with Violate Lacey grows from an act of rescue into a friendship shaped by grief, regular companionship, and reciprocal care. Their bond begins when Lizzy finds Violate alone at her son Robert’s grave; it deepens through visits that give each woman room to speak about loss and fear, and becomes a promise of advocacy when Violate worries that illness will leave her unable to protect her religious identity.

A meeting at Robert’s grave

Lizzy first encounters Violate on the ground before Robert’s leaning headstone, wrapped in a Navajo blanket. Violate has spent the night at the grave after falling asleep there, keeping the lantern she leaves beside it. She explains that Robert was her only child, and that she visits every day with flowers and sometimes food taken from the kitchen. The grave is not simply a place where Lizzy finds a missing convent resident: it reveals the grief and attachment organizing Violate’s life.

For Lizzy, the encounter resonates with her own bereavement. She has lost her mother, whose lonely grave lies beneath stones on the prairie, and Violate’s devotion to Robert makes that loss immediate again. Lizzy recognizes in the older woman a warmth and tenderness reminiscent of the mother she might have become had she lived. Her response combines practical concern for Violate’s safety with the emotional recognition of someone whose sorrow she can understand.

Violate initially refuses to return to the convent. She would rather stay beside Robert than face punishment for leaving without permission, and fears that the nuns will prevent her from visiting him. Lizzy persuades her to come back by promising that she will accompany her to the cemetery if allowed. She also admits that she herself has run away without permission and left Mass to do so. Their shared rule-breaking does not erase their differences, but gives Lizzy a way to offer companionship without dismissing what Violate stands to lose.

Companionship in the daily visits

The promise becomes a recurring practice: Lizzy goes with Violate to the cemetery, helping her make the journey and keeping her company at Robert’s grave. When Violate asks whether Lizzy will speak on her behalf and tell Mother Magdalena that she will come along every day, Lizzy agrees. The relationship thus takes shape through repeated presence, not merely sympathy expressed at their first meeting. Lizzy’s word gives Violate a reason to risk returning to the convent, while the visits make the promise tangible.

Their conversations allow for a frankness that crosses age and circumstance. On their way down from the ruined fort, Violate recalls coming to the place with her husband, losing her first husband during the war, and losing Robert after he ran away to become a drummer boy at sixteen. She also says that after her second husband died she became ill, and that people sometimes say her mind is not right. Rather than conceal her confusion, she speaks about it directly, even asking whether being entirely in one’s right mind is always desirable in a painful world. Lizzy responds with laughter and candor rather than correction. Their exchange makes room for Violate’s humor alongside her sorrow.

The friendship also includes ordinary pleasure. In town, Violate takes Lizzy through the crowded marketplace, where booths display corn, peppers, melons, chests, pottery, jewelry, and shawls. She buys Lizzy Indian moccasins and candy shaped like shelled corn. Lizzy protests, but Violate frames the gift as something a friend may give, and Lizzy accepts. The exchange makes their bond visible in a modest material form: Violate is not only someone Lizzy assists, but someone who offers affection and generosity in return.

Shared grief and reciprocal care

Lizzy’s companionship does not remove the pain that accompanies the cemetery visits. Each day she searches for Delvina, and the burial ground intensifies her longing for her mother and the thought of her isolated grave. She feels so depleted by this reminder of loss that she wants to howl like a wolf. The same place holds two different bereavements: Violate’s daily devotion to her son, and Lizzy’s renewed awareness of the mother she cannot visit. Their friendship lets the girls’ and women’s griefs coexist without making either one a substitute for the other.

Violate, in turn, sees Lizzy as someone with whom she can share a private burden. When a carpenter is found to build the chapel staircase, she thanks Lizzy and says that Robert will now rest in peace. Lizzy questions the idea that God would punish one person for another’s sins. Violate answers that Robert’s sin was caused by her and says she will explain the matter another time. The exchange discloses a guilt Lizzy cannot simply settle for her, but it shows Violate trusting her with the belief that links her son’s fate to her own actions.

That trust becomes more urgent as Violate feels her strength and memory failing. She tells Lizzy that she is weaker each day and can scarcely make the cemetery journey. Lizzy offers to come for her, but Violate’s deeper fear concerns what may happen if her mind fails completely: the nuns might baptize her as a Catholic before she dies. She identifies herself as Methodist and fears that, because she left Richmond without proof of baptism, the convent will not accept her word. Lizzy listens as Violate explains the threat in terms of both religious identity and institutional power over a person who may no longer be able to speak for herself.

Promises, advocacy, and lasting significance

Violate asks Lizzy to promise that she will not let the nuns baptize her Catholic. Lizzy does not pretend to have more power than she does; when she asks how she could stop them, Violate explains that she could not prevent a baptism, but could have it voided afterward. Lizzy recalls that Dolores had told Violate how this could be done, then agrees to act according to Violate’s wishes if the baptism occurs. Her promise gives practical form to their friendship: she accepts responsibility not for controlling the convent, but for trying to preserve Violate’s expressed choice.

Their confidence in one another also makes Violate a participant in Lizzy’s concerns. After Lizzy tells her that Sister Roberta wants updates on Delvina and hopes to bring her into the convent before the baby arrives, Violate immediately proposes asking Delvina that day. The woman Lizzy once had to persuade to return to safety now helps Lizzy approach another woman in danger. Their relationship is therefore reciprocal: Lizzy advocates for Violate, while Violate responds to Lizzy’s worries with urgency and judgment of her own.

At the end of the novel, Lizzy feels an unseen presence offering reassurance and wonders whether it is her mother or Violate. The moment does not identify the presence, but the possibility matters: Violate has become part of the intimate company of the dead and remembered that still sustains Lizzy. Their friendship joins care for the living to fidelity toward those who are gone. Its defining acts are small and repeated—a return journey, a cemetery visit, a gift, a promise—but together they give each woman a witness to grief and someone to turn toward when fear threatens to leave her alone.