Violet nodded, biting back a smile.
Nicole looked from Casey to Violet, and Casey could see her sister’s wheels turning. “You’re still obsessed with him?” She delivered the line with the practiced cut of a samurai. She looked to Casey, her eyes flashing with pleasure as if she expected her big sister’s praise for being unnecessarily mean to her best friend.
“I was never obsessed with him,” Violet said, but her voice was shaking as she said it.
Nicole rolled her eyes dramatically. “You’re practically his stalker. Or did you stop stalking him after he killed someone?”
“Nicole Eileen Strickland!” Casey yelled. “What the hell has gotten into you? Violet is our guest.” She knew she sounded just like their mother, but she couldn’t help herself. She clenched her hands into fists to keep from going after her sister, slapping and scratching and pulling hair like she would’ve done a few years ago.
On cue, their mother came into the room, drying her hands on a dish towel and looking perplexed. “Girls!” she said. “What is going on in here? You haven’t been around each other in weeks. How can you already be fighting?”
“Mom,” Casey said, “Nicole was just so rude to Violet. You would’ve been appalled.”
Nicole turned to their mother and crossed her arms in front of herself as she tossed her hair dramatically. It occurred to Casey that her sister had turned pretty while she was away at school. She had also turned into a prima donna.
Choking back tears, Nicole said, “I know you said to be nice to her because of everything she has going on but I just . . . I can’t, Mommy. I’m sorry.” She began to cry in earnest, then ran from the room, leaving Casey to wonder which her Nicole was referring to and also puzzling over her sister referring to their mother as Mommy.
She glanced over at Violet, who looked completely shell-shocked. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “My sister is apparently crazy now.”
Their mother hurried to defend her younger child. “She’s just having a bit of a hard time with the . . . nature of what’s happening here. It’s a lot of change in one afternoon. I’ll go talk to her, and I’m sure we can smooth this over. Plus, I’ve got something for you, Violet. Something from your mom.”
“My mom?” Violet asked, and the tone of hope in her voice hurt Casey’s heart.
“A note,” Bess said. “Her attorney dropped it by. I’ll go get it.” She turned to leave the room, but Violet’s voice stopped her.
“Mrs. Strickland, I appreciate the place to stay, but I think it might be best if I called my stepmom to come get me.”
Casey waited for her mother to put her foot down, to tell her, Nonsense, you can’t leave. We’ll fix this. Instead she watched as her mother’s shoulders dropped in the defeated stance of one who had given up without a fight. “If that’s what you think is best,” she said, and then scurried out of the room like the mouse that she was.
“You don’t have to go,” Casey said, and she could hear the desperation in her voice, the need to fix what had just occurred right in front of her.
Violet turned to look at her. “Of course I do.” Their eyes met, and Casey was struck with the sudden awareness that Violet was the wisest person there.
Norah
Dear Violet,
I’m waiting to be arraigned and then I will know more about how soon I can come home. I asked for this piece of paper and a pen so I could write to you, to let you know I’m OK and to tell you not to worry. (Even though I know you will anyway.) I am thinking of you constantly, thinking of all I need to tell you, and worried about how confused and scared you must be.
There is an explanation for all of this, and I’m sure you’ll want to hear it. I’ve asked Mr. Sheridan not to tell you too much, as I want you to hear everything from me. I’m sorry for all of this. I thought I could keep you from it, but I failed. I will come home to you as soon as I can. But in the meantime, be good for the Stricklands; they were so kind to take you in. And know you’re in my heart every, every minute.
I love you,
Mom
Polly
She was in the middle of the animal rescue banquet, manning the station she was assigned, ladling steaming sauce over undercooked pasta while trying not to splatter it on the clothing of the attendees, when her phone sounded from her purse, tucked just underneath the table over which she was standing. She resisted the urge to put down the ladle and fish out the phone. She knew it would bug her till she found out who it was that had called. Across the room she spotted Calvin making his rounds, glad-handing the men and charming the women, talking them out of their money just as sure as he had gotten hers out of her. At least tonight his efforts were going toward a good cause.
It was a full fifteen minutes until there was a lull in the hungry crowd and she could look to see who had called. But all she saw was an unfamiliar number. Probably a sales call, she thought. Nothing she needed to worry about. But then she saw the notification that whoever called had left a message. She wondered if it was someone from the bank, responding to her concerned inquiry about Calvin that afternoon. Dwight, her personal banker (as he called himself), was out, but the girl who took the call promised he’d get back to her as soon as he possibly could.
Maybe the unfamiliar number, she thought, was Dwight’s. She pressed the right buttons to play the voicemail.
The male voice on the recording was vaguely familiar, a voice from the past, as they say. But not Dwight’s. “Hi, Polly,” the
