She put the lid back on the final box and turned to Micah again. “There’s nothing in this box, either,” she said. “We should probably get going.”
He put the lid back on his box, too, and stretched. “Yeah.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t find anything,” she said.
He pressed his lips together. “I mean, part of me is relieved we didn’t, but part of me just wants to know. Knowing is better than not knowing. Ya know?”
She nodded, her eyes on the box that held the divorce papers—yet another secret her mother had kept from her, a secret that had helped Violet understand a little better what had driven Norah to do what she’d done. Violet took one last glance at the warped mirror, finding the reflection of the person Norah had done it for.
Polly
The house was so quiet she could hear the ice settling in her glass, could hear Barney dream-running on the floor nearby, could hear her phone not ringing. Which was almost as bad as ringing. It was the anticipation of what surely was coming that set her teeth on edge. She could feel Calvin circling like a shark, eyeing her life raft, waiting to strike. She didn’t like being left alone to think such things. She wished Violet were there to distract her, but Violet was off with that boy from across the street, the handsome one with the sad eyes.
She hadn’t anticipated being alone like this when she’d agreed to take care of Violet. She’d thought that her granddaughter would be with her, or at least around more. Not shut up in her room behind closed doors, sneaking out to meet a boy in the middle of the night, and then disappearing with him for a whole day to who knew where. Violet was secretive, and Polly didn’t feel she had the right to press, which made for a bad combo. She was in unfamiliar territory here, in more ways than one. This was not what she’d pictured when she had arrived at Norah’s house. She’d had something else in mind—something warmer, something that felt redemptive. She’d thought she’d stand in Norah’s house and feel her life coming full circle.
The sound of Violet’s key in the door was a relief. She jumped up to greet her, probably a little too eagerly. She saw Violet step back at the sight of her broad grin, wide eyes, and open mouth, ready to ask questions. Teenagers were like wild animals: sudden or energetic movements could scare them off. Better to move slowly and show very little emotion. She’d learned this when raising Norah, but she’d forgotten. She was like a beginner, learning all over again.
She took a step back and, in an easy tone, simply said, “Oh, you’re home.”
Violet put the bag she always carried—some cross-body backpack thing—down on the desk in the kitchen. “Yeah,” Violet said, then went to the refrigerator to get a bottle of water, downing it like she’d spent the day in the desert. With Violet’s eyes averted, Polly took the chance to study her. She looked pretty grubby, like perhaps she had indeed spent the day in the desert. She wanted so badly to ask where Violet had been, but she knew better than to do so. She hoped Violet would stay in her presence for just a few minutes, that she’d get the chance to talk to her granddaughter. She didn’t dare say the wrong thing and send her running.
“So, is that boy—what’s his name again—your boyfriend?” she ventured, sounding dumb on purpose.
Violet spit out her water in response, laughing. “Micah?” she asked as water dripped down her chin. “Hardly.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s that out of the question,” said Polly, then watched as Violet rolled her eyes and finished her water.
Polly looked at Violet, feeling simultaneously envious and sympathetic. So much lay ahead of her, things she couldn’t envision yet. Polly had been in Violet’s shoes once. Would she want to be in them again? So many times she wished she were young again, but to be young meant to not know what she knows now. It meant having to make those same mistakes again and live with the consequences. It meant looking in the mirror and seeing a beautiful young woman, yet not being smart enough to know it at the time. She wanted the young body, but she didn’t want the young mind that came with it.
“Did your mother ever tell you about the Beaucatchers?” she asked, blurting it out before she lost her gumption. She didn’t expect that Norah had ever told Violet about the family legacy. But she wanted her granddaughter to hear it because it was part of Violet, whether Norah liked it—or believed in it—or not. Polly believed. It had been the case for her grandmother, her mother, her aunt, herself. In truth, Norah’s current situation could be attributed to it. Not that she would ever admit that.
“What’s a Beaucatcher?” Violet asked. Polly could tell by her face that she was intrigued, though trying to pretend not to be. Teenagers are practiced at the art of nonchalance.
Polly smiled, because she was happy to be sharing this with her granddaughter, and because she wanted Violet to see the legacy as a good thing. Norah never had. In its own way, it had come between them. Norah had run from it as much as she had run from Polly. She did not want to admit that it was part of who she was. She’d rejected the legacy, and in doing so, the line of women who had carried it before her. She had called it silly and stupid and, ultimately, false. She had forbidden Polly to ever bring it up in her presence again. “I don’t believe in your backwoods fairy tales,” she’d pronounced. And as far as Norah was concerned, that had been that.
“It’s the legacy of all the women in our family,” Polly said to Violet. “We are Beaucatchers.”
Violet knit her eyebrows together in response. “And what does that mean?”
“Do you know what a beau is?”
Violet shook her head.
“It’s an old-fashioned word for a boyfriend.” She paused to make sure Violet absorbed what she said. “So, in our family at least, a Beaucatcher is a woman who literally catches beaus, or boyfriends. She doesn’t try—she doesn’t really even know she’s doing it. Men are just drawn to her, like magnets. They can’t help themselves. It’s been true of generation after generation of the women in our family. It was true of my great-grandmother, my grandmother, my mother, my aunts—her sisters—and me and your mother. And it’s true of you.”
Violet smirked at her. “Doubtful,” she said. In her voice was the slightest warble. She couldn’t believe it could possibly be true of her. And wasn’t that what it was to be a woman, to feel that you were the exception to everyone else’s rule?
Polly understood this. She’d said as much to her own mother when her mother had shared the legacy with her. Polly had stood before her lovely mother, awkward and uncertain, slow to develop, late to understand what other girls seemed to inherently know. But like the tortoise and the hare, she’d eventually left those other girls behind and won the race. Though, of course, winning that particular race meant losing, too. Men were drawn to her—that was true. But that didn’t mean they were nice men, or honest men, or considerate men. With each man, she learned a little more, but there were hard, painful lessons along the way. That was the sour that went with the sweet, the yin that followed the yang, one step up and two steps back, as it were.
“You’ll come into your own,” her mother had said to her back then, a promise that kept coming true, even all these years later. Coming into your own, Polly had learned, was an ever-changing thing.
“You’ll see, Violet,” she said, making a promise like her mother had made her. Because one thing Polly knew: sometimes just the promise itself was enough. Sometimes the promise alone could keep you going. “There’s still so much good ahead of you, honey.”
There was bad, too. But she didn’t say that. There was no need. That part of the family legacy each woman had to discover for herself. Was the legacy a blessing or a curse? Polly didn’t know. Her beauty had been both. It would be the same for Violet, someday. Polly hoped she would still be in Violet’s life when that became true. She hoped this time together would, by some miracle, extend.
She wanted to reach out and hug her granddaughter, but she didn’t dare. It would scare the child. So she just said, “You have to believe me, because I’m
old and wise.”
Violet cocked her head and studied her for a moment. “You’re not that old,” she said.
Polly winked at her. “I’m not that wise, either.” They both laughed, and, for a moment, she felt OK about things. She felt capable, like maybe she was coming into her own yet again. And maybe her estranged daughter’s house was the place to do it.
“I need to ask you something,” Violet said, and alarm bells went off inside Polly, disturbing the peace that had, for the briefest moment, settled in her heart.
“Sure,” Polly said. She tried for her kindest, warmest voice, but she could hear the shakiness under the word.
“Can we go see my mom?”
Go see Norah? It was a normal thing for a child to ask. In fact, now that she thought about it, she wondered why Violet hadn’t asked before. Children want their mothers. When she’d considered coming to watch Violet, she’d assumed she wouldn’t see Norah. If Norah was released, she’d leave before Norah walked in the door. The two wouldn’t cross paths, the way she’d figured it. But if she took Violet to see her mother, then Polly would have to see her daughter. There’d be no escaping it.
“I need to ask her about something,” Violet continued. “It’s important. It’s . . . for a friend.”
Polly could guess which friend it was. She wondered again what Violet had been doing all day. But she didn’t dare ask. Violet would tell her if she felt comfortable, and until then, Polly wouldn’t pry. She would be gentle, proceed with caution, let the girl warm to her. She wouldn’t do what she’d done with Norah: expect that love was a natural byproduct of blood. Love, she’d learned too late, came only by decision, when it was earned. Love that was demanded was not love at all.
But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to call that Bess person and ask her what she knew about this boy Violet had been spending time with. Just as soon as possible.
“I’ll see if that can be arranged,” she said. “I’ll call Jim Sheridan right now. Not sure what they’ll allow, but if anyone can make it happen, he can.”
Violet’s smile was but a flicker, there and gone like a shooting star, beautiful in its fleetingness. Polly found herself wanting to grasp it, to bring it back to her face. Another sign that Violet was a Beaucatcher. Men would feel that way about her for the rest of her life, would go to great lengths to put that smile back on that face. She saw her granddaughter’s future, and she felt both fear and excitement. She could not change it; she could not save her from it. But she could maybe teach her how to navigate it. She just had to stay in her life.
“Thank you,” Violet said.
“You are so welcome,” Polly said, and watched as that elusive, lovely smile returned, there and gone, once again.
Casey
She opened her eyes to unfamiliar surroundings. She blinked a few times, expecting her field of vision to clear and things to look familiar again. Instead she saw a brown-paneled wall, an old clock radio with the red LED display showing a time that couldn’t be right, a poster of the twin towers with a corner ripped off. For a moment she feared she had traveled back in time. She sat up to find herself naked, the back of a dark head on the pillow next to hers. Her mind raced to orient itself, to tell itself a story that was somehow acceptable even though her surroundings were not. She scanned the room, willing herself to figure out what had happened, relaxing a bit as it slowly came to her.
She’d gone to lunch with the cop, whose name was Todd. They’d had a nice time. He’d asked her to go back to his place to watch a movie. She’d gone along. He’d made them a cocktail, something with vodka in it. It had been strong. She remembered that. He’d made her another as soon as she’d finished the first. She’d drunk them too fast. He’d kissed her. She’d told herself not to freak out. She was fine. This was fine. This was life. This was men and women. It would always be this way. She had to get past what had happened with Russell Aldridge. Todd wasn’t Russell. He meant her no harm. He was a cop, for crying out loud.
She kissed him back, throwing herself into it thanks to the alcohol and because she wanted to feel normal with a man she was attracted to. She wanted to enjoy it, so she told herself she did. One thing led to another, and she went with it. She was in control of this situation. She was making these choices. It felt good to be making the choices, to be in control. He told her she was the coolest girl he’d met in a long time. But she knew that wasn’t because she was actually cool. It was because she wasn’t stopping him like another girl would. She wanted to tell him she wasn’t a girl at all. She was a cyborg, devoid of normal human response and feeling. She was a shell of what used to be a girl. But of course she hadn’t said those things. She had kept silent and, when it was over, they had both passed out, curled on their sides, with their backs to each other.
He slept on as she crawled out of the bed and scrounged around on the floor for her clothes, tears leaking from her eyes as she did. She told herself the tears were because it was late and she was having trouble finding her clothes in the fading light of the setting sun. It was because her mom was going to question her when she got home, eyeing her with that knowing look she had, the one that seemed to see right into Casey’s very soul. Her tears were proof she still had a soul.
She gripped the doorknob, then froze at the loud squeak of its turn. Over her shoulder she saw him sit bolt upright in bed, blinking at her, feeling around on his nightstand. He kept his gun there, which she’d told him was hot, but which really scared her. He stopped fumbling around and jumped out of bed, naked, and moved toward her. Casey averted her eyes, turned back to the door, and opened it.
“Hey, hey,” he said. Casey suspected he’d already forgotten her name. “Where ya running off to?” He grabbed her shoulder to stop her from leaving.
“I have to go,” she said. She tried to shake his hand from her shoulder, but his grip tightened. She felt the fear come roaring back, once dormant, now wide awake. She felt the panic in her throat, the urgency to flee. She looked at him, into his dancing eyes. He was enjoying this, seemingly oblivious to her fear.
“Don’t go just yet,” he said, and gave her a lazy smile, one she suspected worked on girls like her. She was one of many. She’d held no illusions about that. She thought, painfully, of Eli, of how he’d feel if he knew about this.
“I need to get home. My mom’s expecting me.”
He laughed, and she could smell his sleep breath, dark and musty. His eyes went from warm and amused to hard and cold. She’d seen that happen before with Russell, but at the time she hadn’t known then what could happen next. Now she did.
“Your mommy’s expecting you?” He said it with a sneer in his voice. Rejection brought out the anger in him. She was finding that to be true of most men.
She took a step back, right into the door. It banged against the wall, the noise loud in the tiny apartment. She straightened her back, willing courage to replace the fear. She didn’t have to be afraid, she reassured herself. He was mad, but he wouldn’t hurt her. If he did and she reported it, he’d lose his job. She just needed to appeal to his rational side.
“Could you let me go, please?” she asked. She wished he’d put on some clothes. The room smelled of sex and sleep and adrenaline. The smell made her nauseous. She feared she would vomit right in his doorway, right on his bare feet. “Maybe we could see each other later?” She threw the hope out to distract him. “But right now I just need to get home.”
He stepped back. She stifled a relieved exhalation. He turned his back to her and walked over to the bed. She looked away when he bent over to retrieve his boxers from the floor. He talked as he put them on, but she kept her eyes averted. “I should’ve known better,” he said, “than to mess around with you.”
She heard the mattress springs squeak and looked up to see him half-clothed, sitting on his bed. Their eyes met, and his gaze narrowed like he was trying to figure something out. “You’re just a little girl,” he said. “A little girl playing grown-up games.”
&nb
sp; She shifted under his gaze, considered just turning and running, but something made her stand her ground.
“The problem with little girls who play grown-up games is that they end up getting hurt,” he continued. He lifted his eyebrows. “You should be more careful. So you don’t end up hurt.”
A wave of anger surged through her, hot and red. It burned through every vein and muscle and organ, searing all the fear away. The burning felt like its own kind of power. She wanted to jump on him, pound her fists into his chest, and scream in his face: What do you know about little girls who get hurt?
Instead she just said, “Too late.” Then she turned and walked calmly out of his apartment, leaving his front door wide open behind her.
Bess
October 12
Bess dialed Polly’s number and listened to it ring, thinking as she did that this was Norah’s mother she was calling. Sometimes the way life worked out didn’t seem possible. For a long time she’d assumed Norah’s mother was dead, because Norah had never mentioned her—even around the holidays or Mother’s Day. She never took an obligatory trip out of town to visit her or made a last-minute scramble for a gift with a coordinating lament about how hard mothers were to buy for. (Bess’s own mother was quite easy to buy for. She just sent her the most expensive bottle of gin for her martinis. As her mother said, “Well, I can always use it!” And use it, she did.)
But none of that from Norah. Bess had assumed she’d lost her mother tragically, and it was just too painful to talk about. Until one of their wine-soaked nights out when, out of the blue, Norah had spilled it about her mother, Polly, who was lost to her, but not due to death. Just to a roaring argument and a lifetime of resentment over her mother’s poor choices with men. The bottom line: Norah’s mother had never been without a man, whether that was best for Norah or not.
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