“Your mommy’s expecting you?” He said it with a sneer in his voice. Rejection brought out the anger in him. She was finding that to be true of most men.
She took a step back, right into the door. It banged against the wall, the noise loud in the tiny apartment. She straightened her back, willing courage to replace the fear. She didn’t have to be afraid, she reassured herself. He was mad, but he wouldn’t hurt her. If he did and she reported it, he’d lose his job. She just needed to appeal to his rational side.
“Could you let me go, please?” she asked. She wished he’d put on some clothes. The room smelled of sex and sleep and adrenaline. The smell made her nauseous. She feared she would vomit right in his doorway, right on his bare feet. “Maybe we could see each other later?” She threw the hope out to distract him. “But right now I just need to get home.”
He stepped back. She stifled a relieved exhalation. He turned his back to her and walked over to the bed. She looked away when he bent over to retrieve his boxers from the floor. He talked as he put them on, but she kept her eyes averted. “I should’ve known better,” he said, “than to mess around with you.”
She heard the mattress springs squeak and looked up to see him half-clothed, sitting on his bed. Their eyes met, and his gaze narrowed like he was trying to figure something out. “You’re just a little girl,” he said. “A little girl playing grown-up games.”
She shifted under his gaze, considered just turning and running, but something made her stand her ground.
“The problem with little girls who play grown-up games is that they end up getting hurt,” he continued. He lifted his eyebrows. “You should be more careful. So you don’t end up hurt.”
A wave of anger surged through her, hot and red. It burned through every vein and muscle and organ, searing all the fear away. The burning felt like its own kind of power. She wanted to jump on him, pound her fists into his chest, and scream in his face: What do you know about little girls who get hurt?
Instead she just said, “Too late.” Then she turned and walked calmly out of his apartment, leaving his front door wide open behind her.
Bess
October 12
Bess dialed Polly’s number and listened to it ring, thinking as she did that this was Norah’s mother she was calling. Sometimes the way life worked out didn’t seem possible. For a long time she’d assumed Norah’s mother was dead, because Norah had never mentioned her—even around the holidays or Mother’s Day. She never took an obligatory trip out of town to visit her or made a last-minute scramble for a gift with a coordinating lament about how hard mothers were to buy for. (Bess’s own mother was quite easy to buy for. She just sent her the most expensive bottle of gin for her martinis. As her mother said, “Well, I can always use it!” And use it, she did.)
But none of that from Norah. Bess had assumed she’d lost her mother tragically, and it was just too painful to talk about. Until one of their wine-soaked nights out when, out of the blue, Norah had spilled it about her mother, Polly, who was lost to her, but not due to death. Just to a roaring argument and a lifetime of resentment over her mother’s poor choices with men. The bottom line: Norah’s mother had never been without a man, whether that was best for Norah or not.
Her dependence on them was, according to Norah, clinical. Polly had moved Norah in the middle of the school year for one husband, dragged her to church and made her get baptized for another. She’d changed careers, hair colors, and political parties in the name of whatever man she’d hitched herself to at the time. It made sense that Norah had grown up to see men as commodities to be traded, pawns to be moved around on her board, a means to an end. They were always, in her world, interchangeable. Accessories more than humans.
Polly’s voicemail came on, and Bess left a message, making her voice sound cheerful and upbeat. Bess didn’t hold the woman’s prior sins against her. Polly wasn’t her mother. And she was doing the right thing by offering to help in this hard time. It was the least she could do. “Hey, Polly,” she said. “I’ve made too much dinner and thought maybe I’d bring some over to you and Violet. Thought maybe that would be one less thing to worry about. Let me know if that sounds good!”
She put the phone down and peered out at the shed, willing Jason to step out of it now while she was home alone—Casey was off doing whatever with whomever, Nicole was at play practice (she hadn’t gotten the lead role in the fall musical and was hell on wheels to live with, so Bess preferred when she was gone these days), and Steve had a dinner with a client and wouldn’t be home till late. So she was home alone. Never mind that she’d put a whole chicken in the Crock-Pot that morning with carrots and potatoes and onions. The food smelled delicious, and there was no one there to eat it.
She wished Jason would show up. She’d feed him the meal she’d made, sit across the table and watch him eat, will herself not to give away how much she’d thought about that brief, chaste middle-of-the-night kiss. She’d all but convinced herself it had never happened. That she’d dreamed it just the same as she’d dreamed her daughters were in that body bag. She shuddered at the recollection, reached for the phone to text them both, just to make sure they were OK. As she grabbed her phone, it rang and she jumped. It was just Polly calling her back.
“Hi, Polly,” she said. “Guess you got my message.”
“Yes,” the older woman said. “Sorry I didn’t answer. I didn’t recognize the number, and I was afraid you were—”
“Afraid I was who?” Bess asked, curious.
“Oh, just afraid you were that damn detective. He keeps nosing around,” Polly said.
Bess heard the lie in her voice, but she said nothing. If she could talk to Norah, she would tell her that her mother was not with a man this time, nor had she mentioned one. Maybe, she’d say to Norah, your mom has changed.
“So you think you could use the meal?” she asked Polly.
“That would actually be a lifesaver. I’m about to head out to take Violet to visit her mother.” She paused, then added, “In the jail,” in case Bess was not clear on where Norah was.
“Wow, I’m surprised they’re allowing it. I thought she was on complete lockdown.”
“Yeah,” Polly said. “Technically she is. They’re acting like they’re doing this for Violet. Some good deed.” Polly sighed into the phone. “But to be honest, I think they’re allowing it because they want to listen in, see if Violet gets Norah to open up.”
Bess tried to imagine shy, reticent Violet entering a jail, facing her mother who’d lied to and betrayed her. Once, on one of their moms’ nights out, Bess had been complaining about her daughters. Nicole was morphing into a mouthy teen; Casey was demanding. The usual stuff. It had surprised her when Norah, who rarely said a negative word about Violet, joined in, admitting that her daughter was not what she’d expected. “I wanted a hell-raiser,” she’d said. “A ballbuster. Instead I got a shrinking Violet.” She’d laughed at her own joke, and Bess had felt sorry for Violet, a sweet child she’d always liked. Bess had a feeling Violet wouldn’t always be shrinking, and that Norah might not know what to do with her daughter when that day came.