The baby stopped fussing, and Violet leaned in to hear better. “I can’t keep taking her to school and picking her up,” Tish whined. “It’s throwing off our whole routine, Ally.” Violet bristled at her stepmother’s use of this endearment. Ally was a girl’s name, not something you called a grown man. “So unless you plan to start getting to work late and leaving early, we’re going to have to come up with some sort of arrangement,” Tish continued. Violet wished her dad would tell Tish she was being a bitch, that this was his daughter and this was the least he could do.
Instead her father used his soothing tone when he responded, the one he probably used to talk clients off ledges and negotiate deals for millions of dollars. “I spoke to that detective this morning, and he says it’ll be just a few days more. That’s all. Then they’ll release the house and she can go back.” But go back with whom? Violet wondered. She couldn’t stay in the house all alone. Could she?
The baby began to fuss again, and Violet used the noise distraction as an opportunity to take a quick peek around the door frame, just in time to see Tish thrust the crying infant into her father’s arms like a punishment for telling her what she didn’t want to hear. Violet ducked back out of sight. Between the protesting baby and her father pacing the den trying to calm it, Violet couldn’t hear what was said next. But she was pretty sure she’d heard him use the word grandmother. Which didn’t make sense considering her father’s mother had died before Violet was born, and her mother’s mother wasn’t around. Never had been.
Her mother had explained that there’d been a falling out long ago and that they were better off without that woman in their life. When Violet had been in elementary school, they used to have Grandparent Day, and all the grandparents would come to school and do fun things. Her mother let her miss school on that day, taking her to the movies or shopping or something so she didn’t have to see what she didn’t have. They would finish the day with brownie sundaes with lots of whipped cream and loads of hot fudge. Violet had always looked forward to Grandparent Day, but not for the same reason the other kids did.
Her stomach rumbled at the thought of a brownie sundae. There were no sweets in her father’s house, because Tish didn’t believe in sugar. She wanted to tell her mother that; she wanted to hear what her mother would say about someone who doesn’t believe in sugar, like God, or Santa Claus. She wanted to tell her mother lots of things. She wanted her mother, period.
Instead her stepmother came storming out of the den, startling Violet as she rounded the corner and caught Violet standing there. Tish opened her mouth to say something, then let out a shriek of frustration that rivaled her infant daughter’s and stormed off down the hall. Violet’s father came around the corner to see what had happened, watching his wife’s retreating back as he continued to bounce the unhappy baby. He looked bewildered and as unhappy as the infant, but Violet made no effort to say something consoling.
In his arms, the baby—her half sister—stopped fussing when she saw Violet, pressing her lips together and blowing air through them loudly, like a greeting. Violet reached up and the baby reached out. Her father’s new daughter didn’t know that his other daughter was not welcome there. Her father released the baby into her arms, and Violet held her close, inhaling Sienna’s baby scent, feeling her soft squishiness.
She’d tried to help Tish with the kids when she was there and not doing homework. She’d tried to make them glad to have her around, but they’d seemed not to notice, choosing instead to be aggravated. Tish visibly bristled whenever Violet entered a room. It was like she wanted to erase Violet’s existence entirely. Sometimes she wondered if Tish wanted an apology from her for living at all, for being the one part of her husband’s past that Tish could not take away.
“I’ve called your grandmother,” her father said. “She’s going to come and stay with you. It’ll make things easier. You’ll be close to your school again and . . .” His eyes trailed off in the direction his wife had gone. He looked back at Violet. “It’ll be better,” he added.
She could see the pain and exhaustion in his eyes. It was her fault he looked this way, her fault his happy family life was ruined. Violet resolved to do whatever she could to make him not look that way anymore. Tish couldn’t erase Violet’s existence, but Violet could—at least as far as this house was concerned.
She had just one question for her father, one thing she needed to clear up first. “Who’s my grandmother?”
Bess
After her self-defense class, she got trapped in a bathroom stall, listening to the chatter of the other ladies—mostly from her neighborhood or Nicole’s school—milling around, gossiping instead of going home or wherever. Sharon, Bess knew, was going to Weight Watchers; Laura was to meet with her therapist; Brenda had a dentist appointment. Everyone had a schedule to keep, but Norah’s arrest had thrown off all sense of normalcy.
Bess crouched in the stall, willing them to just leave already, her knees pulled to her chin, the last beads of sweat from the class snaking their way down her chest and back. She understood the irony of hiding after a self-defense class, shrinking back when she should be empowered. But the class taught her to defend herself from physical attackers. There was no defense against a group of women hungry for gossip.
Even as her muscles began to cramp and protest her unnatural position, the ladies lingered, wanting to talk, to dish, to discuss their theories about Norah and what had happened. They blamed, they judged, they condemned. They spoke about Norah like she was a piece of refuse, when once they’d all admired her. Norah had been, there was no doubt, the coolest woman in the neighborhood, aloof and successful and gorgeous, mysteriously content with her daughter and her home, never seeming to need a man. Of course, they snickered outside the stall where Bess hid, now they all knew why.
If the women discovered Bess, they’d corner her, ask questions, probe for what she knew. Though she knew more than most, Bess didn’t want to divulge anything. It wasn’t her place. She was uncomfortable talking about Norah, a woman who was once her best friend, a coveted position Bess sensed they all still envied even though the friendship had ended years ago.
This was the thing people did not tell you about when you got married and had kids: how important your female friends would become. You thought your friendships in grade school or college were important, but they paled in comparison to the friendships you would form with other mothers. No one told you how you would need them to talk to, to process with, to understand what your husband and kids could not. No one understood the release that would come from laughing till you cried with another person who knew you, understood you, accepted you. No one would tell you how hard that person would be to find.
For a long time, Norah had been that person. And then she wasn’t.
When the women’s voices faded, Bess uncurled herself and exited the stall, looking left to right first to make sure the coast was really clear. She walked across the tile and stopped in front of the mirror, studying her reflection as the scent of sweat and deodorant and perfume swirled around her head, vapor trails of the departed women. She took in the image that met her in the mirror and thought about what Norah had been accused of, the way that success they’d all envied had come to her. Bess inhaled deeply, exhaled deeply, and looked straight into her own eyes. She looked, and did not blink.