This Secret Thing, стр. 60
He crossed his arms and cocked his head. “So prove it. Let me see.”
She shook her head more forcefully. “I swear to you on my mother’s life that this has nothing to do with the list,” she said.
He blinked at the intensity of her words, then nodded, satisfied that she wasn’t keeping something from him, and stood up. He reached out his hand, offering to pull her up. She shifted the papers into the crook of her left arm and reached out. He pulled her up, and the weight of the papers pulled her forward, into him. For a moment their bodies touched and their hands stayed clasped. Neither of them blinked as they studied each other. The only sound she could hear was their breathing. Then she remembered what she’d looked like in that mirror and pulled away. She didn’t want him seeing her this close up when she looked and smelled like she did.
She put the papers back in the box and moved it over to reveal the one underneath it. She pulled the lid off to find a box of old record albums that had likely belonged to her father. They’d probably fought about them long ago, and her mother had hidden them from him just because she could. Good for you, Mom, Violet thought. For the first time in weeks, she felt proud of her mother.
“You go through this one,” she told Micah, pointing at the albums. “I doubt there’s anything in here, but we might as well look just so we know.”
He mock saluted her. “Yes, ma’am.”
She sneered at him and moved out of the way so he could lift the box and begin. The next box held travel brochures, lots of them. She riffled through them, taking note of the many destinations her mother had been interested in: Hawaii, London, Australia, China. How interesting that this box existed in the same stack with the legal papers. How sad that even as she’d been fighting to keep her house and support her daughter, she’d been dreaming of escaping to someplace far away.
Micah, done with the albums, closed the box and looked over her shoulder, dangerously close again. “Does your mom like to travel?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “We never really went anywhere.”
“Well, she must’ve wanted to. At some point.” He reached into the box and held up a handful of brochures. “I’m getting some ideas for future trips.” She let him look through the brochures while she hurried through the last box, full of old fan magazines from when her mother was a kid: Teen Beat and Tiger Beat. From the looks of things, her mother had had a pretty big crush on Tom Cruise back in the day.
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