She was slipping her feet into flip-flops when she heard the front door open and close. She tiptoed down the hall and around the corner just in time to see Violet’s skinny ankles disappearing up the stairs, returning to her room. Polly checked the lock on the front door, made sure the alarm code was reset, and went to her own room, climbing back into bed with relief. Barney, thankfully, stayed asleep on the bed and didn’t bark at Violet’s entry as he’d done on her exit, waking Polly to the fact that her granddaughter was up to something, that this sweet, innocent child had secrets and agendas of her own. She supposed that everyone did.
Bess
October 9
She saw the news at the garden center on a TV playing behind the register. It was not one of the big chain garden centers but a small family-owned place. She preferred it, always went there first, resorting to the larger, more impersonal places only when she had to. At this store, they took the time to know her, to remember her.
“Isn’t that near your house?” the clerk asked. He knew where she lived, knew all about her soil and where the sun rose and set on her property.
She watched the words scroll across the screen: “Body Found in Remote Lake.” The footage was of the water’s edge and the standard-issue shoes of officers walking back and forth. She thought of the home invasion that had occurred last year in a nearby neighborhood, the self-defense classes she took, not because she really thought the classes would make a difference, but because she needed to feel like she was doing something to fight back. She tasted the familiar metallic fear, told herself not to panic. But it was a body, a dead person discarded in a lake. Wasn’t that cause for panic? And the clerk was right: the lake was within walking distance of her house.
She forced herself to smile at him as she took her bag of plant food in one arm and her new Monstera plant in the other. “That is near my neighborhood. But it’s not actually in it. Thank goodness!” she heard herself say brightly, as if it were some other person talking, a person who believed that as long as danger was a certain distance away, it could be kept at bay.
She put her purchases in the car and slunk behind the steering wheel, staring at the front of the garden center as she collected herself. She reached for her phone, her secret phone, and pressed Jason’s number into the keypad, hoping he would answer, hoping he was OK. She listened as it rang and rang, with no answer. She huffed and dropped the phone back into her purse. She sat quietly for a moment longer, then headed home, driving the longer way that would take her by the turnoff to the lake where the body was found, as if she might spot something from the road, something that would put her mind at ease.
She spun terrible scenarios about Jason as she drove: He had decided to do drugs again and, high, fell into the lake and drowned. He had been caught stealing out of someone’s shed, and the homeowner accidentally killed him, then put his body in the lake to hide what had happened. Her route home took her right by the rutted-out dirt road people took to get down to the lake, a place used mostly for fishing and by teenagers looking to hide from their parents, the kind of place you had to know about to access.
She tried to slow down, but a cop stationed on the road waved her on, his expression impassive. She continued on to her own neighborhood, turning into the entrance with a sense of fear. When she passed Norah’s house, she saw a woman standing in the driveway getting something out of a small car. Norah’s mother, it must be. She should go by, introduce herself, see if she could assist in some way. After what had happened with Violet and Nicole, it was the least she could do.
She pulled into her own driveway to find a familiar car parked there blocking her entrance to the garage. She put her car into park, turned off the engine, and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, Eli’s car was still there. She gripped the steering wheel tighter, then tighter still, barely suppressing the scream that lurked in her throat. This was the last thing she needed right now. She got out, slammed the car door a little too hard, then marched up the front walk, using her key to unlock the door.
She expected to find Casey and Eli sitting in the den, music playing, her legs resting on his lap like she used to do. But when she walked in, there was no one there. She almost called out, “Casey?” but something stopped her. Maybe they’d left in Casey’s car. She checked the garage, but Casey’s car was sitting in its usual spot. Maybe they’d gone on a walk. Casey had been taking lots of walks lately. And then she heard it, coming from upstairs, a giggle, then a lower voice. They had a “no boys in your room” policy, and Casey knew that. But maybe, since being away at college, she’d forgotten the rules or thought they’d changed. Bess marched up the stairs to remind her daughter just what the rules were.
She threw open the door and saw skin. So much skin. Male skin and female skin tangled up in one flesh-colored tableau. Bess saw Eli’s short dark hair and Casey’s long blonde hair, and then Casey’s round O of a mouth as Casey realized that she and Eli weren’t alone. Bess heard her name being called, but not her real name, her other name, a name she used to think summed up her sole purpose on earth in just three letters. But lately, between Nicole’s bitchiness and demands and Casey’s moodiness and secrets, she wasn’t so sure she wanted that to be the case anymore. Regardless, she heard it echoing off the lavender walls of her daughter’s room, “Mom!”
She turned and ran back down the hall, trying to process what had just happened, struggling to make sense of it. Her daughter had invited her ex-boyfriend over and slept with him? For what? Nostalgia? Rebellion? Loneliness? Bess went to the Keurig, slammed a pod into the holder, then slammed it shut. Just please, she thought, don’t let it be for love.
She listened to the spitting, hissing noise as the coffee filled her cup. She breathed in the smell, tried to think about that and not her daughter, upstairs right now, getting dressed with the boy she’d been having sex with in Bess’s own home while she was out running errands. Casey used to be so smart; there was no way college had turned her this dumb. She needed to press her daughter again to tell her what was really going on; she would have to demand the truth. She took her mug, dosed it with more sugar and cream than usual. She didn’t know if she was ready for whatever Casey had to tell her.
She took the mug and went and sat at the kitchen table. She looked at the chair Jason usually sat in, wondering if it was hypocritical of her to expect her daughter to confess her secrets when she had no intention of doing the same. Jason was this secret thing, her secret thing. And besides, it wasn’t hurting anything. She was helping him; that was all. Sure, she’d come to care about him, but it was inevitable to care about someone who depended on you the way he did, someone who listened to you the way he did, someone who allowed you to say anything you wanted for as long as you needed to talk.
She wanted to call him again, to make sure he was OK. But with Casey coming downstairs at any moment, she didn’t dare. Instead she took a sip of coffee, and she waited, listening to the little thumps and low murmured bits of conversation. She tried to imagine how Casey was going to get him out of the house. Almost any exit would involve Eli having to walk right by her. She could picture him walking quickly past her, head ducked, eyes downcast. The walk of shame, indeed.