Violet did not say that maybe it should be the end of them. That if his father had done something like that, maybe he wasn’t the man Micah thought he was. She did not say any of that, because she suspected that was the last thing Micah wanted to hear. All he wanted to hear right now was that Violet had some secret knowledge she’d never told anyone. So she spoke up.
“There is a storage unit,” she said, the words spilling out of her, even as she wondered if she should be saying what she was saying. She recalled the times her mother had taken her there to put something in or take something out. She knew some of her father’s things were there but hadn’t bothered to consider the rest of it, till now. “I don’t think anyone knows about it. I’ve not seen it mentioned in any of the reports I’ve read. I’m pretty sure they didn’t search it.”
He looked eager. “But maybe we could?”
“I don’t see why not,” she said, feeling slightly sick as she said it, hoping she was doing the right thing. Right or not, she’d said it now. There was no taking it back.
Polly
She sat in the front room, in a dining table chair she’d pulled over to the window, and watched for her granddaughter to come out of the house across the street. There’d been a moment when Violet had walked back to the house like she was going to come inside, and Polly had breathed a sigh of relief. Crisis avoided. But then the boy had run after her, had caught up to her and said something. Whatever it was had worked, and Violet walked back over to his house and went inside with him, leaving her to wait, to watch, and to wonder what exactly was going on with those two.
That afternoon in the yard, they’d seemed to barely know each other. Now they were chummy. It didn’t make sense. But, of course, they were teenagers. They didn’t always make sense. They ran hot. They ran cold. They were rarely lukewarm. Polly thought about the handsome boy across the street with his disarming grin and sculpted arms. She doubted Violet ran cold when she was around him.
She wondered if she should march across the street and demand that Violet come out of that house, make a scene if she had to, for Violet’s own good. She wondered if that boy was calculating enough to use what was happening with Norah as some sort of emotional bait for her poor, unsuspecting granddaughter. Polly got the sense that Violet wasn’t exactly experienced with boys. She wasn’t aware yet of what she had, of what awaited her. Polly had been the same way at that age.
Polly stared hard at the dark shape of the house across the street, debating what to do. This boy could lure Violet in and take advantage of her. And if that happened on her watch, Norah would never forgive her. Not that Norah had a position to judge anyone right now. But if Polly knew her daughter, Norah would still find a way. She tried to choose which of them to alienate: Violet now or Norah later. She thought about Norah at fifteen, with her anger and her rebellion and her quiet seething regard for Polly. She didn’t want Violet to feel that way about Polly. But she also didn’t want Violet to be taken advantage of, forever changed by some boy who didn’t know what he held in his hands. Polly stood up and went to the bedroom to put on a sweater and shoes. Better to cause a scene more properly attired.
She was slipping her feet into flip-flops when she heard the front door open and close. She tiptoed down the hall and around the corner just in time to see Violet’s skinny ankles disappearing up the stairs, returning to her room. Polly checked the lock on the front door, made sure the alarm code was reset, and went to her own room, climbing back into bed with relief. Barney, thankfully, stayed asleep on the bed and didn’t bark at Violet’s entry as he’d done on her exit, waking Polly to the fact that her granddaughter was up to something, that this sweet, innocent child had secrets and agendas of her own. She supposed that everyone did.
Bess
October 9
She saw the news at the garden center on a TV playing behind the register. It was not one of the big chain garden centers but a small family-owned place. She preferred it, always went there first, resorting to the larger, more impersonal places only when she had to. At this store, they took the time to know her, to remember her.
“Isn’t that near your house?” the clerk asked. He knew where she lived, knew all about her soil and where the sun rose and set on her property.
She watched the words scroll across the screen: “Body Found in Remote Lake.” The footage was of the water’s edge and the standard-issue shoes of officers walking back and forth. She thought of the home invasion that had occurred last year in a nearby neighborhood, the self-defense classes she took, not because she really thought the classes would make a difference, but because she needed to feel like she was doing something to fight back. She tasted the familiar metallic fear, told herself not to panic. But it was a body, a dead person discarded in a lake. Wasn’t that cause for panic? And the clerk was right: the lake was within walking distance of her house.
She forced herself to smile at him as she took her bag of plant food in one arm and her new Monstera plant in the other. “That is near my neighborhood. But it’s not actually in it. Thank goodness!” she heard herself say brightly, as if it were some other person talking, a person who believed that as long as danger was a certain distance away, it could be kept at bay.
She put her purchases in the car and slunk behind the steering wheel, staring at the front of the garden center as she collected herself. She reached for her phone, her secret phone, and pressed Jason’s number into the keypad, hoping he would answer, hoping he was OK. She listened as it rang and rang, with no answer. She huffed and dropped the phone back into her purse. She sat quietly for a moment longer, then headed home, driving the longer way that would take her by the turnoff to the lake where the body was found, as if she might spot something from the road, something that would put her mind at ease.
She spun terrible scenarios about Jason as she drove: He had decided to do drugs again and, high, fell into the lake and drowned. He had been caught stealing out of someone’s shed, and the homeowner accidentally killed him, then put his body in the lake to hide what had happened. Her route home took her right by the rutted-out dirt road people took to get down to the lake, a place used mostly for fishing and by teenagers looking to hide from their parents, the kind of place you had to know about to access.
She tried to slow down, but a cop stationed on the road waved her on, his expression impassive. She continued on to her own neighborhood, turning into the entrance with a sense of fear. When she passed Norah’s house, she saw a woman standing in the driveway getting something out of a small car. Norah’s mother, it must be. She should go by, introduce herself, see if she could assist in some way. After what had happened with Violet and Nicole, it was the least she could do.
She pulled into her own driveway to find a familiar car parked there blocking her entrance to the garage. She put her car into park, turned off the engine, and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, Eli’s car was still there. She gripped the steering wheel tighter, then tighter still, barely suppressing the scream that lurked in her throat. This was the last thing she needed right now. She got out, slammed the car door a little too hard, then marched up the front walk, using her key to unlock the door.
She expected to find Casey and Eli sitting in the den, music playing, her legs resting on his lap like she used to do. But when she walked in, there was no one there. She almost called out, “Casey?” but something stopped her. Maybe they’d left in Casey’s car. She checked the garage, but Casey’s car was sitting in its usual spot. Maybe they’d gone on a walk. Casey had been taking lots of walks lately. And then she heard it, coming from upstairs, a giggle, then a lower voice. They had a “no boys in your room” policy, and Casey knew that. But maybe, since being away at college, she’d forgotten the rules or thought they’d changed. Bess marched up the stairs to remind her daughter just what the rules were.
She threw open the door and saw skin. So much skin. Male skin and female skin tangled up in one flesh-colored tableau. Bess saw Eli’s s
hort dark hair and Casey’s long blonde hair, and then Casey’s round O of a mouth as Casey realized that she and Eli weren’t alone. Bess heard her name being called, but not her real name, her other name, a name she used to think summed up her sole purpose on earth in just three letters. But lately, between Nicole’s bitchiness and demands and Casey’s moodiness and secrets, she wasn’t so sure she wanted that to be the case anymore. Regardless, she heard it echoing off the lavender walls of her daughter’s room, “Mom!”
She turned and ran back down the hall, trying to process what had just happened, struggling to make sense of it. Her daughter had invited her ex-boyfriend over and slept with him? For what? Nostalgia? Rebellion? Loneliness? Bess went to the Keurig, slammed a pod into the holder, then slammed it shut. Just please, she thought, don’t let it be for love.
She listened to the spitting, hissing noise as the coffee filled her cup. She breathed in the smell, tried to think about that and not her daughter, upstairs right now, getting dressed with the boy she’d been having sex with in Bess’s own home while she was out running errands. Casey used to be so smart; there was no way college had turned her this dumb. She needed to press her daughter again to tell her what was really going on; she would have to demand the truth. She took her mug, dosed it with more sugar and cream than usual. She didn’t know if she was ready for whatever Casey had to tell her.
She took the mug and went and sat at the kitchen table. She looked at the chair Jason usually sat in, wondering if it was hypocritical of her to expect her daughter to confess her secrets when she had no intention of doing the same. Jason was this secret thing, her secret thing. And besides, it wasn’t hurting anything. She was helping him; that was all. Sure, she’d come to care about him, but it was inevitable to care about someone who depended on you the way he did, someone who listened to you the way he did, someone who allowed you to say anything you wanted for as long as you needed to talk.
She wanted to call him again, to make sure he was OK. But with Casey coming downstairs at any moment, she didn’t dare. Instead she took a sip of coffee, and she waited, listening to the little thumps and low murmured bits of conversation. She tried to imagine how Casey was going to get him out of the house. Almost any exit would involve Eli having to walk right by her. She could picture him walking quickly past her, head ducked, eyes downcast. The walk of shame, indeed.
She took another sip and thought of the day she’d told Casey she had to break up with Eli. She’d used reason and logic, appealing to her daughter’s rational side. It made sense, she’d said. She would be a day’s drive away at a university; he would still be home, working and attending community college. Their lives were going in two different directions. Why not go ahead and save themselves from the heartache and drama of maintaining a long-distance relationship? Why not give herself license to fully embrace college life without worrying about Eli back at home? It was a high school relationship, and they would no longer be in high school anymore. High school relationships, she had said, were not likely to last into adulthood.
“But you and Dad worked out,” Casey had countered. Exactly my point, Bess had thought but of course not said. She did not want her daughter to know that the main reason she was discouraging her high school relationship from lasting was because her own had. She was trying to save her from the same fate.
It had taken some lobbying, a lot of tears, a short spate of depression, and a good bit of arguing until, eventually, Casey had come around to her way of thinking. It had been, Bess firmly believed, for the best. That was the last thing she’d said to Casey when they left her on the steps of her dorm and drove the eight hours home: “It’s for the best, you’ll see.”
But, clearly, it had not been for the best. None of this—not Casey’s mysterious and unexplained reappearance, not her long walks and at times questionable sobriety, not her sneakily reuniting with Eli, and certainly not this latest situation—felt like “the best” that Bess had had in mind. Bess had wanted a clean slate for her daughter, a fresh start. Not a re-creation of Bess’s own life, reproduced like a photocopy. Casey deserved more. And wasn’t that noble? To want more for your child?
She heard footsteps on the stairs, Eli’s heavier clomping, Casey’s tiptoe step. She was surprised Casey was walking him out and not hiding in her room. Bess sat perfectly still, waiting for what would happen next. She expected Casey to take him out the front door and then scamper back upstairs. Would Bess go confront her after he was gone? She knew she should, but the impending conversation was a weight sitting on her chest. When she tried to form the words to say to her daughter, they remained shapeless and foreign inside her head, like speaking another language entirely. She wished Casey was at college where she belonged, away from here, doing whatever she pleased while Bess remained blissfully ignorant. That was the deal, but Casey had broken it.
She heard the footsteps coming closer and looked up to find Eli standing in the opening that led into the kitchen. Though it had been only a few months since she’d last seen him, he looked bigger, more filled out, more mature. As he opened his mouth to speak, his face looked as if an invisible someone were pointing an invisible gun at his head. But he spoke anyway. “I wanted to apologize,” he said. “For what happened. For being in your home like that. I disrespected you and I’m sorry.”
She circled the mug with both her hands and blinked at him. She admired his bravery. When he could’ve slunk away, he’d faced things head-on. She had a thought: Maybe he was a good guy. Maybe she’d done the wrong thing in encouraging Casey to break up with him. “Thank you for saying so,” she said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to speak to my daughter alone now.”
He nodded and turned back to Casey, who stood just behind him looking mortified. “Call you later?”
Casey nodded just once, and he walked out, leaving the two of them alone. Bess had an image of him stepping out the front door, then breaking into a sprint to his car. She wouldn’t blame him. She wished she could sprint out of there, too.
Instead she turned to her daughter and opened her mouth to speak. She sat there for a moment, frozen, with her mouth agape, as she searched for the right words to say. But no words came out. “I . . . ,” she said. She closed her mouth.
“I’m sorry,” Casey said, filling the silence. “I shouldn’t have had him here.”
Bess opened her mouth again, but this time in shock. This time the words came tumbling off her tongue. “You think having him here is what you did wrong?”
“Of course that’s not all. It was just the first thing.” Bess watched two spots of color appear on Casey’s cheeks. She thought of when Casey was three and had gotten into her makeup. She’d put lipstick on her cheeks, thinking it was blush. It had looked similar to what Casey looked like now, the defined red circles in the same spots. Bess had been angry at her then, too. Back then it was just for ruining makeup, which could be replaced. Now it was for potentially ruining her life, which couldn’t.
“You’ve been seeing him since you’ve been home, haven’t you?”
“A few times is all. I ran into him getting pizzas. I didn’t plan it.” She said this like it mattered, like intent was the big issue.
“You planned today. He didn’t just happen by when I was gone.”
Casey reached over and picked up a candle off the counter, inspected it like it was the most interesting thing in the room. “I guess,” she said to the candle.
Bess stood up and carried her empty mug to the sink, ran the water to rinse it, thinking as she did of what to say next, where to take the stalled conversation. Should she just tell her never to do it again and let her go? Should she have the safe-sex talk with her again, just as a refresher? Or should she dig deeper, finally probe as to why her daughter was even in her kitchen now and not back at the University of Alabama, where she was supposed to be? Bess wished she had a guide for this type of thing, a script to go by. So much of parenting was ad-libbing, an improv act that wasn’t the slightest bit funny.
She shut off the water and loaded the mug into the dishwasher. “I need to know why you came home,” she said. She turned to look at Casey. “Is it because of Eli?”
Casey looked down at the floor. “No,” she said.
Bess waited Casey out, let the uncomfortable silence stretch out between them.
“Are you struggling in your classes?” she tried again. It was like being the first to blink in a staring contest.
“No,” Casey said again.
Bess felt her heart pick up speed. So it wasn’t because she missed the love of her life too much, and it wasn’t because she was having a hard time academically. Those were the two easy ones. She swallowed. “Did something happen?” she asked.
Casey’s eyes darted over to her, then away. Bess watched her look out the window, as if she’d suddenly taken an interest in birds. She knew her daughter was deciding what to say, weighing and measuring her words. Tread lightly, a voice inside her warned. Don’t push her.
Casey looked back at her, her eyes wide. “Can I talk about it when I’m ready?” she asked.
Bess exhaled, ashamed at the relief she felt. “As long as you promise that you will. If nothing else, we need to talk about your plans for school this semester. This can’t be good, you missing so many classes,” she said.
“I’ve been talking to the dean. I’m good on that end.”
Bess nodded, sensing that they’d just made progress and she shouldn’t push any further. Right now, she assured herself, she was right to relent. They both needed a reprieve. This wasn’t cowardice, it was striking a delicate balance with her daughter. “Just promise me we’ll talk soon.”
Casey gave her a small, sad smile. “I promise,” she said.
As soon as Casey disappeared up the stairs, Bess grabbed for her other phone, hidden in the deep recesses of her purse, down where the stray pennies and random pieces of gum hung out. She brought it to life and hoped for a missed call. There was none. She thought about dialing his number again but didn’t want to seem needy, or desperate, even though she was. She needed to know he was not the person they found in the lake; she needed to hear his voice.
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