She wondered if she should just announce that she was going back to the Stricklands. But of course, they didn’t want her any more than her father and Tish did. At least Nicole didn’t. And apparently Nicole, in Casey’s absence, had garnered the deciding vote as to what happened in their house. Violet tried not to think about the void in her life where Nicole had once been, how much harder this situation was without someone to talk to about it all. The two people she used to talk to—her mother and her best friend—had both, for reasons she couldn’t comprehend, left her.
She stood there, eavesdropping in her father’s hallway, and wished not only for her mother to come home, but to have a place where she belonged again. A place where she could walk right in and not feel like she needed to apologize for having done so. A place where she could call out, “I’m home!” and mean it. She’d had that just days ago, but already it felt like years. Tears pricked her eyes, and she swallowed hard against them.
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
