It was the most intense time between my mother and me. Yet, I would remember imperfectly.

By the time we returned to Black Rock Street my mother appeared tired. I hadn’t realized that she’d been crying. Her waxy-pale face was damp with tears which she wiped away with a tissue. She’d had a change of heart. She was sorry now, I understood. Cautioning me not to tell anyone what she’d told me—“They wouldn’t understand, they would think badly of me. And your father—he would be disgusted with me.”

I wanted to protest No. We love you, Mom. But the words would not come.

“Promise! Promise you won’t tell anyone, Violet. Not even Katie. Just—no one.”

Quickly I promised yes. My hand on the door handle of the car, desperate to escape.

The Secret II

AND ANOTHER SECRET PASSED BETWEEN LULA KERRIGAN and her daughter Violet Rue.

Watching TV in the wake of the Hadrian Johnson death, which was forbidden—if Mom knew about it.

Watching local TV news and seeing Hadrian Johnson’s mother and older brother interviewed. Faces stricken with grief. Dark-skinned faces, and eyes exactly like ours. Hearing words of grief that were our words, we might someday utter. There was Mrs. Johnson clutching a tissue against her eyes, as Mom might have done. A middle-aged woman stooped in pain, shaking her head in bewilderment. Why? Why would anyone want to hurt Hadrian, who was so kind to everyone? Who loved so many people?

I began crying too. I was often crying these days. Tears brimmed close against the surface of my eyes, the slightest provocation made them spill over. He is really gone. A boy is really dead. They killed him. It is real. A taste like copper pennies in my mouth, that made me gag.

My mother strode into the room and switched off the TV. She was angry, disbelieving—“I told you, no TV. Didn’t I tell you!” She would have slapped me except I shrank away in time.

Continuing fiercely: “Don’t you know, for God’s sake—they’re just doing that for TV. To get attention, to make people feel sorry for them. So that, if they sue . . .”

My mother’s voice trailed off as if, for the first time, she heard what she was saying.

I tried to protest: What if one of us had been killed? Beaten to death with a baseball bat? Wouldn’t she feel sorry? Wouldn’t she cry?

“Baseball bat? What—baseball bat?”

Mom blinked at me, confused. It came to me in a rush—no one knew about Jerr’s baseball bat. The murder weapon had never been found.

Mom said, stammering, “That—that would never happen to you. Not to one of us. No . . .”