Casey
They walked into the house to find Nicole sitting in the front room waiting for them. She hopped up like a jack-in-the-box as soon as the door opened. “Where were you?” she asked, a note of betrayal in her voice.
Casey answered calmly. “We went for a walk.” What she wanted to say was, None of your damn business. But that would only stir up the old sibling rivalry. Casey was older now, a college student, above such trivial things. Even if she was still angry at Nicole for what she had said about Violet’s mother; Nicole was supposed to be Violet’s best friend. Talk about insensitive. About as insensitive as Micah Berg—the asshole—comparing his situation to Violet’s. Violet had done nothing wrong. But Micah had done plenty. Why was it that lately all Casey did was run across asshole guys who didn’t accept responsibility for their actions?
Violet said, “There’s a bunch of reporters in front of my house, so we hid in Micah Berg’s yard. And he found us there. It was so embarrassing.” Casey looked over at Violet, wondering why she was being nice to Nicole after what she had said. She needed to help this girl out, teach her the ways of the world before it trounced her good.
“Micah Berg? Really?” Nicole said.
Violet nodded, biting back a smile.
Nicole looked from Casey to Violet, and Casey could see her sister’s wheels turning. “You’re still obsessed with him?” She delivered the line with the practiced cut of a samurai. She looked to Casey, her eyes flashing with pleasure as if she expected her big sister’s praise for being unnecessarily mean to her best friend.
“I was never obsessed with him,” Violet said, but her voice was shaking as she said it.
Nicole rolled her eyes dramatically. “You’re practically his stalker. Or did you stop stalking him after he killed someone?”
“Nicole Eileen Strickland!” Casey yelled. “What the hell has gotten into you? Violet is our guest.” She knew she sounded just like their mother, but she couldn’t help herself. She clenched her hands into fists to keep from going after her sister, slapping and scratching and pulling hair like she would’ve done a few years ago.
On cue, their mother came into the room, drying her hands on a dish towel and looking perplexed. “Girls!” she said. “What is going on in here? You haven’t been around each other in weeks. How can you already be fighting?”
“Mom,” Casey said, “Nicole was just so rude to Violet. You would’ve been appalled.”
Nicole turned to their mother and crossed her arms in front of herself as she tossed her hair dramatically. It occurred to Casey that her sister had turned pretty while she was away at school. She had also turned into a prima donna.
Choking back tears, Nicole said, “I know you said to be nice to her because of everything she has going on but I just . . . I can’t, Mommy. I’m sorry.” She began to cry in earnest, then ran from the room, leaving Casey to wonder which her Nicole was referring to and also puzzling over her sister referring to their mother as Mommy.
She glanced over at Violet, who looked completely shell-shocked. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “My sister is apparently crazy now.”
Their mother hurried to defend her younger child. “She’s just having a bit of a hard time with the . . . nature of what’s happening here. It’s a lot of change in one afternoon. I’ll go talk to her, and I’m sure we can smooth this over. Plus, I’ve got something for you, Violet. Something from your mom.”
“My mom?” Violet asked, and the tone of hope in her voice hurt Casey’s heart.
“A note,” Bess said. “Her attorney dropped it by. I’ll go get it.” She turned to leave the room, but Violet’s voice stopped her.
“Mrs. Strickland, I appreciate the place to stay, but I think it might be best if I called my stepmom to come get me.”
Casey waited for her mother to put her foot down, to tell her, Nonsense, you can’t leave. We’ll fix this. Instead she watched as her mother’s shoulders dropped in the defeated stance of one who had given up without a fight. “If that’s what you think is best,” she said, and then scurried out of the room like the mouse that she was.
“You don’t have to go,” Casey said, and she could hear the desperation in her voice, the need to fix what had just occurred right in front of her.
Violet turned to look at her. “Of course I do.” Their eyes met, and Casey was struck with the sudden awareness that Violet was the wisest person there.
Norah
Dear Violet,
I’m waiting to be arraigned and then I will know more about how soon I can come home. I asked for this piece of paper and a pen so I could write to you, to let you know I’m OK and to tell you not to worry. (Even though I know you will anyway.) I am thinking of you constantly, thinking of all I need to tell you, and worried about how confused and scared you must be.
There is an explanation for all of this, and I’m sure you’ll want to hear it. I’ve asked Mr. Sheridan not to tell you too much, as I want you to hear everything from me. I’m sorry for all of this. I thought I could keep you from it, but I failed. I will come home to you as soon as I can. But in the meantime, be good for the Stricklands; they were so kind to take you in. And know you’re in my heart every, every minute.
I love you,
Mom
Polly
She was in the middle of the animal rescue banquet, manning the station she was assigned, ladling steaming sauce over undercooked pasta while trying not to splatter it on the clothing of the attendees, when her phone sounded from her purse, tucked just underneath the table over which she was standing. She resisted the urge to put down the ladle and fish out the phone. She knew it would bug her till she found out who it was that had called. Across the room she spotted Calvin making his rounds, glad-handing the men and charming the women, talking them out of their money just as sure as he had gotten hers out of her. At least tonight his efforts were going toward a good cause.
It was a full fifteen minutes until there was a lull in the hungry crowd and she could look to see who had called. But all she saw was an unfamiliar number. Probably a sales call, she thought. Nothing she needed to worry about. But then she saw the notification that whoever called had left a message. She wondered if it was someone from the bank, responding to her concerned inquiry about Calvin that afternoon. Dwight, her personal banker (as he called himself), was out, but the girl who took the call promised he’d get back to her as soon as he possibly could.
Maybe the unfamiliar number, she thought, was Dwight’s. She pressed the right buttons to play the voicemail.
The male voice on the recording was vaguely familiar, a voice from the past, as they say. But not Dwight’s. “Hi, Polly,” the caller said. “Not sure you remember me since we haven’t seen each other in probably, what, fourteen years? Anyway, a long time ago, I was your son-in-law.”
Here, he cleared his throat. Polly’s heart began to pound. Allen? she thought. Why would he be calling her?
“Anyway, I realize you’re not in touch with Norah much more than I am, so you probably haven’t heard that she was, well, uh . . . she was arrested this morning. You can, uh, well, you probably should just google it to learn more about why. Anyway, I might need some, um, help with Violet while Norah’s away. You see, I travel and I—”
The recording cut off, leaving Polly to stand there holding the phone in disbelief, scanning the room for a familiar face, someone she could beg to take over her station so she could call her ex-son-in-law—that loser—back. Sometimes the extent of her estrangement from her daughter and granddaughter hit Polly with full impact, and this was one of those times. She worried about what was happening to poor Violet if Norah had been arrested.
She recalled the sight of Norah walking back and forth in that ugly striped terry-cloth robe of Allen’s, her hair in matted hunks, her eyes bleary, holding a mewling newborn Violet to her chest and lamenting her choice to become a mother. “I’m not going to be any better at this than you were,” she’d said. Polly regretted not doing
whatever she could to stay in Violet’s life, even if it meant going against Norah’s wishes. It wasn’t that child’s fault that things were so broken between her and Norah. She should’ve fought harder to know her granddaughter.
Calvin appeared at her arm. “You look upset, darlin’,” he said, laying on that country-boy drawl that some found charming but she knew was fake. The truth was, Calvin had been born and raised in Pennsylvania and ended up in the South by way of Fort Bragg just before he was discharged. He’d been pretending to be Southern ever since, forgetting he wasn’t and hoping everyone else did, too. Calvin was a chameleon—he changed according to whatever his habitat required. She had learned this in the three years since she had married him.
Sometimes, in quiet moments, Polly debated which of her five husbands was the biggest mistake she’d made. It was always a close call as to whom, but lately it had been Calvin because he had lied to her (though they’d all done that in one way or another) and stolen from her. And because he was the one she was currently saddled with. If she wasn’t careful, he was going to make off with every bit of her nest egg, as she called it, the proceeds of the only good investment she’d ever made. Thankfully her financial decisions had been better than her marital ones.
“I’m fine,” she said. Calvin wasn’t the only one who could lie in their relationship. But she only lied when she really had to, and this was one of those times. She’d never told him about Norah or Violet—no sense mentioning people he was never going to encounter, she’d figured at the time. She wasn’t going to tell him now, all these years later. And certainly not in the middle of the animal rescue fundraiser. “I’m just tired of standing up. I’ve got a blister on my little toe, and my arm is sore from dishing out all this pasta sauce. Do you think you could take over for just a minute? Maybe let me run to the restroom and freshen up a bit?”
She gave him her sweetest smile, the one that she used to think he loved. It wasn’t until after the “I do’s” that she had realized what he’d loved about her had nothing to do with her smile, the color of her eyes, or her calf muscles (things he told her back then) and everything to do with her money. Calvin aspired to a certain lifestyle, and Polly was his ticket to ride. He’d never said that, of course, but she’d figured it out pretty quick. She just wished she’d figured it out before he charmed her into marriage and his right to half of all her assets. Her biggest concern now was the money he didn’t know about.
That was another thing she pondered in her quiet moments: How can I get away from this one? The others, thankfully, had left before she ever had to run them off. Calvin, it was clear, had no intentions of going anywhere. As he turned his attention toward a woman there to say hello, she saw an opportunity. She thrust the ladle into his hand, whispered a syrupy “Thank you, honey,” and scurried away, still gripping the phone in her clenched fist. Polly stepped outside into the darkness and took big gulps of air as she waited for her heart rate to slow.
She glanced around to make sure she was alone before pulling up Google and entering her daughter’s name: Norah Ramsey. She’d kept Allen’s name so she and Violet would have the same. “I won’t be like you and marry someone else and take his name so my daughter always feels left out,” she’d said. Norah had always known how to hit her where it hurt, laying bare Polly’s mistakes and weaknesses in that undeniable way of hers. That was why when Norah wanted to stop speaking, Polly had agreed it was a good idea. She’d allowed the distance, telling herself Violet would never miss what she never knew.
Polly watched as the hits came back: Suburban Madam Arrested, said headline after headline. So this is what has become of my daughter, she thought. She scanned a few articles, enough to get the gist of what Norah had been charged with, before calling Allen back. The phone rang twice before he picked it up, the tension and anxiety in his voice apparent with the simple word, “Hello?”
How did you get my number? Polly wanted to ask him, but she didn’t. She wondered if perhaps he had kept tabs on her all these years just in case he needed parenting backup, a grandmother, like a fairy godmother, dropping in to rescue him from his plight. She pictured herself like Mary Poppins coming out of the clouds holding that umbrella, a beatific smile on her face as her feet met the ground, and she saw her granddaughter waiting there for her. She could be a hero now, she thought.
“What’s going on?” she asked Allen.
“Norah was arrested this morning. Did you look up the charges?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. How like Allen to be unable to utter them.
“Well. So. She’s in jail now.”
“Right,” Polly said, already losing patience with him. She’d liked Allen when Norah had introduced them. But Allen had changed, Norah had told her, when she was pregnant with Violet. “They all change,” she’d told her daughter. “That’s what happens.”
“And she sent Violet to stay with neighbors. Violet’s best friend, from what I understand. But I guess the girls had some sort of falling out, and now Violet is asking to come stay here, which I don’t understand, because she’s basically refused to see me lately. I’m, um, remarried and my wife and I have two children—babies, I mean. You know, toddlers. So it’s kind of, you know, not her scene with all the crying and toys everywhere . . .” He trailed off, as if waiting for Polly to fill in the blanks.
Unable to let him off the hook, Polly said, “From what I recall, it wasn’t really your scene, either.”
“Yeah,” Allen laughed as if she’d made a joke. “Well, my wife, Tish, that’s her name, wanted to be a mom and I, uh, well, I went along with it.”
Wasn’t that just like Allen, to go along with something he didn’t really want and hope it all worked out. She refrained from saying so out loud. “So what do you need from me, Allen?”
“Well, I mean, Violet’s fine to be here until they clear the house—I guess right now it’s being considered a crime scene or something—but I assume eventually she can go back there. Once that happens, I was just wondering if maybe you’d mind coming here and staying with her for . . . well . . . for as long as it takes?”
The thought occurred to Polly: What if Norah goes to jail for a long time? What kind of commitment is he asking for here? She wondered if Norah had any idea he was contacting her. She would hate this idea. Polly thought of the last time she had seen Violet. The child had been toddling around, gnawing on a graham cracker. Polly and Norah had been speculating over what Violet should call her: Gigi, Mimi, Grammy. They’d agreed she wasn’t a normal grandmother and would therefore not have a typical grandmother name. Certainly not Grandma or Granny. They’d laughed and it had felt—for a moment—normal.
Polly had been dressed to go out on a date, newly divorced from yet another of Norah’s stepfathers. Violet had grabbed the leg of her white pants, leaving a gummy brown handprint. Polly had shrieked in response and drew her leg—which Violet had been using to balance—back, accidentally knocking the baby to the floor. A fight had ensued. Both she and Norah had said things, ugly things, with raised voices. Things they meant but usually refrained from saying aloud. Norah had scooped Violet up, balanced her on her hip, and wiped away her tears. The two of them had looked at Polly accusingly, a unit, with her on the outside.
She’d left the house angry, yes, but assuming one day she’d go back. They’d make things right eventually. This was how they were. But one day had bled into the other, and here they were with so many years gone by. Her daughter was accused of running a prostitution ring, and her granddaughter was a complete stranger. They’d never come up with her grandmother name, because her granddaughter had never had cause to call on her. But she could change that now. She could take the scraps of their lives and try her best to make a quilt that would cover them all somehow.
Allen was rambling in her ear about how hard his life was and how much a disruption his own flesh and blood was going to be, when she interrupted him. “Find out when the house will be released. Tell them you need it back as soon as p
ossible so that the minor involved can continue her routine, go to school, all that. Lay it on thick, Allen. Sounds like you need her back in that house pretty bad.”
“So . . . you’ll do it?” The relief in his voice made her despise him all the more.
Polly sighed. She wondered what it was she’d seen in him when Norah had brought him to meet her that first time. Why had she considered him a prize? Maybe because he was brave enough to take on her daughter, when she herself had always been slightly afraid of her. Or maybe because he, like Calvin, had just known the right things to say to sway her. Whatever her impression was at the time, it had been the wrong one. Allen Ramsey was no prize. But Polly was betting her granddaughter was.
Violet
September 27
She hovered just outside the doorway, trying her best to listen to the discussion between her father and Tish. It was hard to hear over the gurgling baby Tish bounced and patted. The baby’s name was Sienna, and she was, as best Violet could tell, the only daughter her dad really needed. There just wasn’t room in his life for two of them. Sienna also had an older brother, the son her father had always wanted. His name was Allen Junior, but they called him A. J. Whenever he was around, her father got this big, wide smile. He called him “Son” a lot, like he still couldn’t believe he’d gotten one.
Sometimes her father would walk into a room and look startled, and maybe even a little afraid, to see Violet there, like she was an intruder who’d snuck in. That was exactly what she’d felt like these past three days—an intrusion, barging in on their happy home, uninvited and unwelcome. She’d made a mistake in coming here, and they all knew it. Which was why she was trying to hear what the two adults were saying to each other as they decided her fate. No other letters had come from her mother since the one short one Jim Sheridan had delivered. When he’d called to make sure she’d received it, he’d told her not to expect any more. He didn’t want her mother to write anything that could be used against her later. Though Violet wanted to hear from her mother more than anything, she didn’t want that.
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