This Secret Thing, стр. 62
“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