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.”