Instead she just said, “She seems fine. Considering.”
Bess nodded vigorously, agreeing, it seemed, with the word considering. “She’s been through so much.” She made a wretched face. “I felt so bad about what happened at my house.” She looked to Polly, as if expecting her to comment on whatever awfulness had transpired in her home. Polly stared back at her blankly.
“She didn’t tell you about it?” Bess prompted. Polly shook her head and shifted the heavy vase in her arms. Bess noticed and gestured toward the doorway. “Why don’t you go put that down? It’s heavy, I should know.”
Polly nodded and turned to carry the vase deeper into the house, thinking Bess would wait for her on the porch. Instead, behind her, she heard her footsteps following. With Bess behind her, she was safe to roll her eyes. Now she had company, and who knew when the woman would leave? She carried the vase on into the kitchen and set it down in the middle of the table. She stepped back to admire it. She always did like fresh flowers on a table.
“Must’ve cost you a pretty penny,” she said, gesturing at the arrangement.
Bess waved her arm dismissively. “Oh, it didn’t cost a thing. I collect vases from Goodwill, and the flowers are from my garden.”
“You grew these?” Polly took in the variety of flowers—zinnias and gardenias and asters and geraniums and, right in the center, a large sunflower. She couldn’t imagine having the kind of garden where all of these grew, this lovely, even into October. Her yard must be gorgeous. She glanced over at her guest. Lovely like she was. Polly wondered if Bess knew she was lovely, or had forgotten, as some women do.
“It’s the end of the season,” Bess said. “I was lucky to still have these to offer. When I can, I like to take them to people. Try to brighten their day.” She shrugged it off as if it were nothing.
Polly looked from the flowers to the woman. “It worked,” she said.
A smile bloomed on Bess’s face, then quickly died again. “I mainly wanted to apologize. For not keeping Violet like Norah intended. If I had, you wouldn’t have had to come here. You’d be off living your life, oblivious.”
Polly gave her a polite smile in response, not saying anything about the life she had left behind. How, while Allen’s phone call had entangled her in her daughter’s mess, it had also freed her, in a way. If not for this place to come to, she would still be back in Hickory, debating leaving thieving Calvin and wondering how to pull it off. But she could say none of this to a stranger. For a moment Polly wished she had a friend to confide in, though her trust of other women had dried up years ago when her best friend had run off with a man she’d believed would be her third husband. She’d not really let anyone in after that, deciding she was better off telling her troubles to a dog.
“It was no trouble,” she said. “I was happy to help.” This was as close to the truth as she could get.
Bess shook her head. “Well, I still feel like I failed Violet, and Norah.”
“You two are friends?” Polly asked. In school Norah had been popular, well liked, a circle of girls always around her, eager to do her bidding. The way Polly saw it, it wouldn’t have been a far jump for her to successfully run a ring of escorts.
“Well, we’re neighbors,” Bess said with a light tone, but her face looked sad. Polly could tell there was more to the story that Bess didn’t want to get into. And she respected that. “She knew she could call on me when she was in a bind,” Bess added. “And I would call her if I needed something.”
Polly could tell that Bess was the type of person who rarely, if ever, needed something. But she didn’t share her observation. She just said, “Well, that’s nice. Good neighbors are so valuable.”
“They certainly are,” Bess said. “Of course, I didn’t feel like I was much of a good neighbor in this case.” She pointed at the flowers. “I guess that’s why I brought these. An atonement of sorts.”
“A beautiful one at that.” Polly cocked her head at Bess. “But you know you don’t have to atone for anything, right?”
Bess’s eyes widened. She blinked. “Well, sure. Of course. I know. I was kind of making a joke. Being dramatic.”
“I just want you to know that Violet and I are fine.” She amended herself. “We’ll be fine.” Polly didn’t want this woman feeling responsible for them. She was just a neighbor, after all.
“I know you will. I know Violet’s in capable hands.” As if summoned, the sound of the front door opening and closing signaled Violet’s arrival from school.
“Violet?” Polly called.
“I’m home,” Violet said, followed by the sound of her feet clomping up the steps. So much for a proper greeting. So much for Violet’s arrival signaling to Bess it would be a good time to leave.
When the sound of the footsteps faded, Bess kept talking, this time in a lowered voice. “Are you hearing anything about when Norah might get out? I mean, do you know how long you’ll have to stay here?”
This was a good question, one without an answer. Polly shook her head. “Norah is refusing to cooperate with their investigation. They want her to turn over her client list, possibly testify against some of the, um, gentlemen. If she keeps refusing, they’re saying she’ll have to do time.”
Bess leaned forward, her eyes wide. “And you’ll stay here if that happens?”
Polly shrugged. “Not sure. I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. Right now I’m just taking it one day at a time.” She sounded like she was in Alcoholics Anonymous. But alcohol was not her addiction; men who turned out to be worthless were.
Bess nodded her agreement, but then a concerned look filled her face. “And you’re not worried or afraid being here?”
Polly cocked her head. “Afraid?” For a moment she thought that Bess was referring to Calvin. But how could she possibly know about him? Calvin was Polly’s secret, one she would carry alone.
Bess gave her a stalwart smile. “Oh, don’t listen to me. I’m a worrywart.”
“No,” Polly pressed. “What made you ask that? I’d like to know.” If there was some danger—something she needed to protect Violet from—she wanted to know. As if Calvin wasn’t enough.
“Oh, I was just thinking about that body they found.” She hitched her thumb behind them, referring to where, Polly couldn’t have guessed. “In a lake down the road. Everyone’s talking about it, speculating. I mean the two things being so close together and all, and the timing. People like to talk, you know. Make connections where probably there aren’t any.”
Polly made herself say, “Uh-huh,” in her most blasé tone, when inside her wheels were turning. A body? In a lake? Near here? She’d read that a man had gone missing around here—and now she wondered if that was him that they’d found. “Have they said who it is yet?” she asked.
When Bess answered no, her voice quavered and she looked stricken.
“Are you worried?” Polly asked her.
“N-no,” Bess said.
Polly raised her eyebrows to indicate that she knew Bess was thinking something she wasn’t saying.
“I mean there’s this homeless man I’ve been . . . helping, and I haven’t seen him around in a while. So, I’ve been concerned. You know, that it could be him.” Bess gave her a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “That’s all.” She said it as if that really was all. But Polly knew a bullshitter when she met one. The fact that Bess wasn’t telling her something made her all the more interesting, all the more relatable.
“Yes,” Polly said. “I can see how that would be concerning.”
“Well,” Bess said, “I guess I better be going. Gotta see about dinner.”
Polly nodded and smiled. “Yes, I better do the same.” This time the smile was genuine; the thought of making a meal for her granddaughter, a comfort. She enjoyed seeing about Violet’s dinner each evening, making meals she once had made for Norah, deciding how much the child was like her mother based on her reactions. She considered it a little experiment, one more way to
learn more about her granddaughter. Tonight she was making Slap Your Mama pork chops, a recipe she’d gleaned long ago from a coworker. Norah had always loved those. Norah could say whatever she wanted about Polly’s mothering skills, but she’d always eaten well.
Bess turned to go, then turned back. “Would you like for me to let you know if I hear anything? You know, about the body?”
“Well, sure,” Polly said. It would be nice to gain any information Bess could share. Polly had the feeling she was the hub of the gossip wheel, always the first to know. Polly had known many like her through the years. Usually she steered clear of them, but something about Bess’s demeanor told her that there was more to Bess than met the eye. It wasn’t what she said; it was what she worked to withhold. Polly guessed that most of the people who knew Bess took her at face value. And that that was a mistake. She guessed that if you bothered to dig deeper, you’d find not just one secret, but a whole cache of them. It made Polly like Bess Strickland.
She grabbed a piece of paper from Norah’s desk, scribbled down her number, and handed it over to Bess, who waved the paper. “I’ll be sure to call,” Bess promised, and tucked the paper in the pocket of her jeans.
“Thank you,” Polly said. “Call anytime.” And as she said it, she realized she meant it. It would be nice to get a call from someone else besides her personal banker and her angry, thieving husband. “And thanks for the flowers,” she called after Bess as she headed for the door.
Bess turned back for the second time. “Don’t mention it,” she said. And then she was gone.
Violet
At lunch that day, she hadn’t eaten alone—a nice change. A new girl had come up and asked, “Is this seat taken?” When Violet said no, she’d sat down. The girl chatted about herself. It was her third day at school. She’d moved from Cleveland, Ohio, and was super nervous about making friends. She hadn’t asked why Violet didn’t appear to have any, for which Violet was grateful. Violet filled her in on things about the school, told her some tales and legends, all the while keeping an eye on Micah across the cafeteria. Though he still sat near the people he once called friends, he didn’t interact with them, and they didn’t interact with him. He kept his head down, focused on his tray full of food and his phone, though Violet doubted it was because anyone was texting him.
She chatted with the new girl through lunch, and, for a moment, it had felt like perfectly normal people having a perfectly normal lunch. Then the girl leaned forward, putting her elbows on the table, which was not proper etiquette, but a high school cafeteria was not the place to point that out. She hadn’t whispered, because it was too loud in there for that, but she’d ducked her head before she spoke, as if someone might read her lips from across the room.
“I actually sat here on purpose,” the girl said, her tone confessional.
Violet nodded, intrigued as to why anyone would want to sit by her. Ever since she and Nicole had stopped hanging out, she’d found a few acquaintances—she wouldn’t call them friends—to eat and chat with, but they avoided her after the news had broken. Now she sat in the back corner of the cafeteria, scarfing down her lunch as fast as she could so she could go to class early and get a head start on homework. Her grades had never been better.
The new girl continued, “I wanted you to know that my mom died, kind of recently actually, and I thought maybe we’d have something in common. Since we both lost our moms.”
Violet looked at the girl, blinking as she tried to process what she’d said. Lost her mom? She hadn’t lost her mother; she knew exactly where she was. Sure, she wasn’t physically with her right now, but she’d be back soon. Wouldn’t she? Violet looked around the cafeteria. Did everyone here know something she didn’t?
She’d scoured news articles to find out all she could—the things the adults wouldn’t tell her—and she’d seen nothing that said that Norah’s fate was determined as of yet. Based on what Violet had read, if her mother would just give up that stupid client list, she’d already be home. She hoped her mother could explain why she wouldn’t just do the one thing that would reunite them. Violet hoped that when Norah did explain it, it would somehow make sense, so Violet could forgive her for what she’d put her through.
She thought of last night and Micah’s request. She’d told him she’d help him. But she hadn’t considered that finding the client list might help her, too. Maybe her mom wasn’t willing to give up the information, but an anonymous informant could. And then the police would have no choice but to let Norah Ramsey go, because they would have what they wanted. Violet envisioned the headline just above a photo of Norah reuniting with her daughter after being released. Violet could make this happen.
She glanced over at Micah again, watched him as he looked down at his phone, surrounded by a cafeteria full of people but utterly alone. What if they found his dad’s name on her mom’s client list? Would she have to betray Micah to free her mom? She didn’t want to think about that, about what could come. She would pretend to help Micah, and she would decide later what to do if the time came. It might not come at all, she consoled herself.
She turned back to the girl and started gathering up her things. “If you’ll excuse me, I see someone I need to talk to. It’s kind of urgent.” She pointed in Micah’s direction and stood up.
“Sure,” the girl said. A worried look crossed her face. “I’ll see you here tomorrow?”
“You bet,” Violet said. She gave the girl her best, warmest smile, the one she’d used countless times to reassure her mother that nothing was wrong when really she’d failed a pop quiz or not been invited to a party or her best friend had inexplicably dropped her. Violet marveled that those things had ever seemed like problems. She made to leave, then remembered her manners. She turned back. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said. Then she walked quickly away, thinking as she did: But your loss isn’t mine.
Bess Strickland was in her house when Violet got home, back in the kitchen buttering up her grandmother. Violet heard her voice and grimaced. Polly called her name and she replied, then walked upstairs, letting them hear her loud footsteps, before she tiptoed back downstairs so she could listen in on whatever those two were talking about. Thinking she was safely tucked away in her room, they would talk freely, and she wanted to know what they were saying.
Mostly they talked about nothing. She could hear a wariness in her grandmother’s voice and an overeagerness in Bess’s. Bess, Violet could tell, wanted Polly to like her. She liked that Polly wasn’t falling under Bess’s spell so easily. When the conversation turned to Norah’s release, Violet’s ears pricked. Though it sounded like they didn’t know any more than she did. Actually, Violet knew more.
She knew about the storage unit her mom kept, had gone there with her several times over the years to stow things away or retrieve things. They’d had it since Norah and Violet’s father had split up. She knew there was a filing cabinet and some old computer supplies in there. It was the place their old junk went to die. She hadn’t considered that there was anything of importance in there, but that was back before she knew her mom had been hiding secrets. She had rented it in Violet’s name, something she’d said she did so her dad couldn’t find it. At the time, Violet had accepted the explanation at face value. But now everything her mom had done looked fishy.
Bess was now talking about a body. Violet tilted her head to try to hear better because the two of them had lowered their voices, perhaps out of reverence for the dead or perhaps because they really wanted to make sure she didn’t hear, which made her want to hear all the more. A dead body had been found in the lake down the road.
It seemed, from what she could make out from the conversation, that the cops had said it could somehow relate to her mother? Was that possible? She now realized her mom was capable of things she’d not considered, but her mother wasn’t capable of murder. Violet knew that, but she also knew that if there was a dead body possibly linked to her mother’s case, things had just gotten even more
serious. She needed to take action fast.
With the stealth of a cat burglar, she pivoted on her toes and tiptoed back upstairs to the safety of her room. She pulled her phone from her backpack and found the new contact she’d added in the wee hours of the morning. She held the phone and looked at Micah Berg’s name there among the others. For a moment she let herself appreciate the miracle that she now had his number, and he had hers. Once upon a time, she would not have believed this possible. Then she pressed the call button, because there were things more important at hand than a silly crush. There were possibly lives on the line, and one in particular Violet wanted to save.
Casey
After the utter humiliation of her mom walking in on her and Eli, she had to escape the house and her mother’s brooding silence. The discovery of the body in the lake was all anyone on social media was talking about, so she decided to go check it out. She cut through the woods, something she’d done more than once. One of her good friends in high school had lived near there, and they’d often walk to the lake to get out of earshot of their parents so they could talk freely. They’d walk laps around the lake, discussing boys and school gossip and anticipating a future that shimmered in front of them. Casey couldn’t have fathomed that her future would be anything but #blessed. She’d never considered she’d end up back home not even halfway through her first semester at school.
She exited the woods and made the short walk over to the lake just in time to see the stretcher bearing a black body bag pushed by several men up the hill to a cluster of emergency vehicles. Cops milled everywhere. Trying not to be too obvious, she stood at the edge of the small crowd that had gathered to watch the techs collecting evidence, the officials walking around looking concerned and important.
She eavesdropped as she watched, piecing together what had happened by the bits of conversation she overheard from her fellow nosy neighbors. The body had been inside the submerged car for a good while, though they didn’t know how long yet. The car had been discovered when, after the recent summer of drought, the lower lake level yielded its secret. A fisherman had spotted the top of the car just under the water. The officials would transport the car to some special cop garage and search for evidence. The death could’ve been an accident, but foul play hadn’t been ruled out. Anyone knew that foul play meant murder.
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