39. SIENNA
SIENNA
The gardens look the same.
The hedges along the front path are a little fuller, the roses along the east fence trained differently than I remember, but everything else is pretty much the same.
Same gravel. Same cedar benches worn smooth along the armrests.
The smell hits me before I've properly looked at anything, cut grass and rosemary and something underneath both of those that might just be memory.
I was sixteen when they brought me here and eighteen when I left. It only took Angela, my assigned therapist, two weeks to figure out I didn't have an addiction problem.
She wanted to inform the authorities responsible for my case. I begged her not to.
I was two weeks in and I already understood that this place was better than going home. So I told her the whole truth, everything, how long it had been going on and what it had looked like, and she let me stay.
I walk the front garden before I go inside. The gravel sounds the same under my shoes and my body knows where to turn at the first junction without any decision from me.
The residents I pass are doing what residents do here in the morning.
A man on the bench near the fountain, coffee balanced on his knee.
Two women in the herb beds along the east wall, working alongside each other without talking.
They look like people in the process of finding their way back to something solid.
I know that look.
They all seem to be thriving. The same way I thrived. And that's what motivates me. The paying it forward. To allow others who were not so lucky to have the same level of help that Greenhaven provides.
It was in these gardens that I figured out what I was actually good at.
Greenhaven has a program that helps people recover from their addictions through gardening activities.
There were several components involved, but the one I remembered the most is working on delayed gratification, providing a sense of empowerment that benefits at-risk adolescents during incarceration.
You put something in the ground and come back the next day and it looks the same.
You come back the day after that and it still looks the same.
The work is invisible for weeks. You keep doing the small things, watering, checking the soil, adjusting the light, and you trust the process even when you can't see the result.
I go through the gardens and enter the front offices. The receptionist at the front desk is someone I don't recognize.
"Hi. My name is Sienna Cross. I have a meeting with Angela."
The receptionist confirms and tells me how to go to Angela’s Office.
Once I’m there I knock on the already open door. Angela jumps up from behind her desk and comes to hug me.
“My God, I haven’t seen you in a while. How are you doing?”
That is a question I want to avoid so I say, “Look at you. Managing Director. Very impressive”
Angela makes a dismissive sound. “Sit, sit. Let’s talk. I’ve seen your email. Big projects!”
"Yes." I sit. I fold my hands on the desk surface because I need to do something with them. "I have a meeting with the lawyers tomorrow to sign the papers over. After that we have access to the property."
"Good, good." and she launches herself talking with great enthusiasm about the possibilities that having a property like Cross Manor will bring.
The truth is that I’m barely hearing her. As soon as I mentioned lawyers I immediately thought of Adrian.
He called insistently, those first days. When I didn’t answer he changed to text messages. Pleading me to give them a chance to explain.
As soon as I could see in their faces that what Paula was saying was true, I left the party.
I haven't spoken to any of them since.
With one exception.
I did answer when William called.
I was still in the car on the way home, the night dark outside the window, and when his name came up I answered because I had one specific question that I needed the answer to.
I recall the relief that I could hear in his voice because I answered his call.
"Why do you want Cross Manor so much?" I asked.
I could feel his hesitation in answering.
"I deserve the truth," I demanded.
And with the iciest voice I ever heard from him, "I want to bulldoze it to the ground. I want to level that house to dust."
And I just hung up. I couldn’t take it anymore.
Carter called the day after the party. I let it ring out. He hasn't tried again.
Being away from them has been excruciating. Like there is only half of me existing. Many times I wanted to call them. To demand explanations. Or, just to hear their voices.
But what explanation can there be for what they've done? How is it justifiable, even if they thought I was responsible for the accident?
Angela says "—and when you have access, just let me know." I look at her and I have no idea what she was saying but I nod and tell her I will.
The meeting is over.
I stand up and we say goodbye and I walk back down the east corridor toward the front entrance, and when I push the door open, Charlie is standing on the path outside.
She gives me a guilty wave. I haven’t answered her calls either. Maybe I shouldn’t avoid her. But I’m too hurt to care.
I walk up to her. "What are you doing here?"
She has the decency to look embarrassed. "Shared location. Remember?"
The silence that follows is awkward. We haven't spoken in two weeks, which for us is unusual, except that nothing about the last two weeks has been usual.
"Did you know? Back then?"
She shakes her head hard, immediate. "No idea. I swear."
Something releases in my chest. Small but real. I believe her.
"Can we go somewhere to talk?"
I think about it. Perhaps it is better if we do. "The reflection lake." I reply
"Really, that's a thing?"
I smile and just lead her through the gardens to what is actually a pond. I agree the name it’s a bit pretentious.
I sit on the grass and pull my knees up to my chest. Charlie sits beside me. The water is still and grey-green and quiet.
"William told me. What happened at the party. About what they did." She picks at a blade of grass near her knee. "I swear I didn't know anything."
"I believe you," I say.
She's quiet for a moment.
"I think the whole reason for this mess is that we've all been keeping secrets.
I never told William I was the one driving.
He didn't tell you what they did." She looks at the water.
"A clusterfuck of secrets." Then back to me.
"And you never told me why you took the blame that night.
After all, at that time we hadn't been friends for a while. "
I look at the water.
I don’t want to go back to that night. But I feel that I need to. I need to expurgate all that ugliness from my system once and for all.
I take a deep breath.
"My father used to beat me."
From the corner of my eye I see Charlie flinch. William must not have told her that.
“Sometimes it got pretty bad and I couldn’t leave the house for a while. To go to school. To go and meet with friends” And I can see her realize that that was the reason I cancelled so many times on her, until she got fed up and gave up on me completely.
“I’m so sorry, I had no idea,” she says.
I try to placate her guilt “It’s ok. You had no way to know.”
The water is very still. A slight movement near the reeds on the far side, barely visible. "My father started spreading the rumor that I was difficult. A wild one. That I would drink and do drugs. As a justification for why I kept missing school."
I close my eyes.
And then I'm back in that night.
The beating had been especially brutal. I remember the floor. The particular quality of the silence afterward. I remember lying there thinking that one of these days he would go too far. That he would kill me. That it had already gotten close.
"The night of the accident he beat me up pretty bad. To the point that I felt I had to leave the house. So I took one of the cars and just left. I had no plan. I just wanted to escape." I stop.
The damp grass is cold under my palm. "And it was fate that I found you there. When I saw your panic I thought I could take the blame. I had bruises. I had a reputation. My father was wealthy and influential enough that he could pay my way out of it."
Charlie finishes for me, quietly: "So you suggested that we pretend my boyfriend was driving your car and you were driving my car."
"Yes."
We sit in silence for a while. The truth settles around us. Heavy and definitive.
Then Charlie repeats, "A clusterfucker of secrets. You were committed for two years instead of getting the help you needed."
I look around.
The east wing. The path between the main building and the gardens. The beds along the south wall where I learned to read soil. The smell of rosemary crossing the morning air.
I did get the help I needed here.