Chapter 65 Amelia Blue
Dr. Mackenzie stops abruptly at a narrow gap in the trees on either side of the driveway.
Carefully tucked between evergreen foliage, perfectly hidden year-round, is a small parking lot.
There are three black Range Rovers with tinted windows (one of them, I suppose, is the car that drove Edward and me here), but Dr. Mackenzie walks past them to open the door of a dark-green Suburu.
She helps me heft my duffel bag into the back seat alongside a child’s car seat.
I see a handful of Cheerios scattered on the floor.
Real Cheerios, I bet, not whatever organic alternative Dr. Mackenzie tried to feed me.
I sink into the passenger seat and close my eyes, running my fingers over the rough tan upholstery. It’s so cold that I can see my breath. Dr. Mackenzie puts the car in drive, pausing to type a combination into a keypad at the gate so that it swings open.
“How did Sonja get out?” I ask.
“Apparently she bribed her housekeeper to give her the combination,” Dr. Mackenzie explains. “They had some kind of arrangement.”
Got someone looking for me, if you know what I mean.
I close my eyes. Should I go to the police with what I know?
Andrew said that my word, his mother’s word, would be worthless.
Evelyn’s notes might be useful; Andrew said they were protected, but medical records can be subpoenaed.
There’s also the police report Sonja found, further proof of Georgia’s sobriety.
But all that proves is that she was sober for one night before she came to Rush’s Recovery and appeared sober during treatment. Like Andrew said, plenty of addicts fall off the wagon after rehab.
“You can stay on my couch tonight.” Dr. Mackenzie’s offer shakes me from my thoughts, and I blink my eyes open. “It’s not exactly professional, but technically you’re not my patient anymore.” She shifts her gaze from the road long enough to smile at me.
By the time my mother died, she hadn’t put out an album or had a successful tour in years.
She popped up on celebrity worst-dressed lists, was included in only the D-list nineties tribute events.
Nonetheless, her funeral was packed. Strangers I’d never met hugged me, murmuring about her magnetism like they assumed I’d recognized it, apologizing for my loss like they knew what I’d be missing without her.
I can’t imagine who would come to my funeral had Andrew hurt me the way he hurt her.
It occurs to me that Andrew wasn’t putting me in any more danger than I’ve been putting myself in for years, so startling I almost jump from my seat.
I could just as easily become another statistic, a victim of the second most deadly mental-health issue.
The streets are quiet, dusted with salt, the snowfall not much more than a flurry now.
Most of the houses we pass are closed up for winter, forgotten nine months of the year.
I try to imagine summertime, bright skies and long days, crowded streets and the smell of barbeque in the air, but I can’t see past the cold and dark.
As the car warms, the snow in my hair melts to water, dripping onto my shoulders, soaking through my sweater.
The car’s wipers move back and forth with a steady hum.
The first time I saw snow was from the window of Georgia’s hotel room at a tour stop in Michigan when I was eight.
I left the room, made my way downstairs, and built a snowman in the courtyard of the hotel.
I didn’t have a proper coat then, either.
One of the hotel’s employees brought me inside, soaked and shivering, and gave me watery hot chocolate from a machine meant to serve bad coffee to business travelers.
I closed my eyes when I sipped it, imagining my mother had made it, along with homemade whipped cream.
But when I opened my eyes, there was only the concerned stranger sitting across from me in the hotel lobby and the certainty that my mother was passed out somewhere in the rooms above us.
When I got back to LA, Naomi bought me a coat. I realize now that Georgia must’ve told her I needed one. Had she been watching me, after all?
Dr. Mackenzie pulls into a short driveway.
In the glow from her headlights, I see a white clapboard house.
There’s a red plastic sled in front of the garage door, small footprints in the snow, and a shovel leaning against the front porch.
Someone let the child who lives here stay up late for the snowfall, then shoveled the driveway so Dr. Mackenzie could pull in. The front porch light is on.
I wonder how long it’s been since Dr. Mackenzie came home. Surely, not since I arrived at the center. I imagine her texting someone earlier, explaining that she was finally coming home.
Dr. Mackenzie holds a hand to her lips as she leads the way inside. “My wife and son are sleeping,” she whispers. For the first time, I notice a slim gold ring on her left finger.
“What’s your son’s name?” I don’t think I’ve asked Dr. Mackenzie a question about her life before.
“Milo.”
“Is Mackenzie your first or last name?” I ask.
“My last name. My married name, more precisely. My first name’s Annisa,” she answers.
Dr. Mackenzie spreads a sheet and blanket over a beat-up brown couch in the center of the living room.
The house smells like burning wood and the remnants of whatever was made for dinner, hints of garlic and onion.
It doesn’t smell rotten or cloying, but inviting.
After my grandmother cooks, the kitchen smells like cleaning supplies.
Dr. Mackenzie brings out a first aid kit and rubs alcohol over the cuts from the shattered window on my fingers and wrist. It stings but I can see now that they’re just scratches, barely bleeding anymore.
“We’ll talk in the morning,” Dr. Mackenzie says. She doesn’t offer to stay up all night if I want to speak now, like she would at the center. Here, in her home, she’s no longer at my beck and call.
I lie on the couch, my mind racing. They killed my mother. They covered it up. They stole her song. I wait for the hunger to kick in, to lead me to the kitchen to binge on Annisa Mackenzie’s food.
Much to my surprise, my eyelids grow heavy, and I sink into a deep, dreamless sleep, my mother’s notebook still tucked into my waistband.