the sofa and held the envelope in my hands, waiting for the click of her heels to fade before I tore the flap open. My heart beat faster. I had recognized the handwriting on the envelope and felt the familiar sick feeling in my stomach.
How did he find me here?
Inside was a slip of ruled paper, the kind with frayed edges, torn carelessly from a spiral-bound notebook. “
Hello, Amanda.
”
I crumpled the page and leaned my head back against the sofa, remembering, as much as I desperately wanted to forget.
Fifteen Years Prior
“State your age for the record,” the officer said to me, emotionless. He sat at a gray steel desk, piled high with folders. A phone rang insistently, but he ignored it. “Miss Barton,” he said again. “Please do not waste my time. You can see I’m very busy here.”
I looked at my feet.
“I’ll ask you again, and if you don’t cooperate, it’s juvenile detention for you,” he barked. I recognized that familiar tone, just like my father’s. The anger that went zero to sixty in seconds, the transformation into a monster. When I was little, I didn’t know what brought it on, or how it happened. He would be normal one moment, and the next, he’d be tugging at his belt, chasing after me with that wild look in his eye. Mama said he was sick. Still, it didn’t give him permission to do what he did.
“You runaways never learn,” the officer said. “You think life’s more exciting on the streets, but then you mess up, and we have to institutionalize you.” He tapped his pen on the side of the steel desk. “Just in case you’re hard of hearing, I’ll give you one more chance to explain yourself, before you get juvenile detention—this time for sixty days. State your birth date for the record.”
I picked at my bleeding fingernails, gnawed down past the nail beds. Couldn’t he see that I
wanted
to be sent to juvie? I looked him straight in the eye and didn’t say a word.
He slammed his clipboard on the desk and stood up. “Stan! Book her!”
“Oh, there you are,” Rex said. “Sorry I took so long.”
“I’m in no rush,” I said a little defensively. “Anyway, who was on the phone?”
“Just my father’s business manager. I have to sign off on some architectural renderings for the house.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Hey, why don’t we go see the gardens? The sun’s out, finally, and I know the walk will cheer you up.”
“I’d love that,” I said, smiling again. “Let me grab my jacket.”
I tucked my cell phone and the camellia book into my backpack and followed Rex out onto the terrace that led to the garden pathway. The boxwood hedges that lined the walkway had been sorely neglected over the years, but I tried to imagine what they would have looked like in their prime—clipped into perfect submission, no doubt. Now, however, they appeared overgrown and ragged—bushy in some places, yellowed and anemic-looking in others. Poor things, like old ladies deprived of weekly visits to the hair salon. I longed to get my hands on a hedge trimmer and give them a haircut.
Yes, the property had become overgrown, but there was so much promise here. Good bones, as they said about houses. With a bit of pruning and replanting in places, the gardens could be grand again. My fingers practically itched to get started.
Rex and I followed the path past an ailing rose garden, but I stopped for a moment to pluck a sprig of ivy that threatened to suffocate an old tea rose. In theory, ivy is quaint, charming even. But I’d seen too many gardens destroyed by the vine, which has become an invasive weed in some parts of the world. It creeps in slowly and then quietly covers flower beds with its snakelike tendrils until all the life below has been snuffed out. I knelt down to plunge my fingers into the soil below the rose’s overgrown canes, which probably hadn’t been pruned in at least a decade, until I found the base of the ivy’s root. Stubborn and determined, it held on
How did he find me here?
Inside was a slip of ruled paper, the kind with frayed edges, torn carelessly from a spiral-bound notebook. “
Hello, Amanda.
”
I crumpled the page and leaned my head back against the sofa, remembering, as much as I desperately wanted to forget.
Fifteen Years Prior
“State your age for the record,” the officer said to me, emotionless. He sat at a gray steel desk, piled high with folders. A phone rang insistently, but he ignored it. “Miss Barton,” he said again. “Please do not waste my time. You can see I’m very busy here.”
I looked at my feet.
“I’ll ask you again, and if you don’t cooperate, it’s juvenile detention for you,” he barked. I recognized that familiar tone, just like my father’s. The anger that went zero to sixty in seconds, the transformation into a monster. When I was little, I didn’t know what brought it on, or how it happened. He would be normal one moment, and the next, he’d be tugging at his belt, chasing after me with that wild look in his eye. Mama said he was sick. Still, it didn’t give him permission to do what he did.
“You runaways never learn,” the officer said. “You think life’s more exciting on the streets, but then you mess up, and we have to institutionalize you.” He tapped his pen on the side of the steel desk. “Just in case you’re hard of hearing, I’ll give you one more chance to explain yourself, before you get juvenile detention—this time for sixty days. State your birth date for the record.”
I picked at my bleeding fingernails, gnawed down past the nail beds. Couldn’t he see that I
wanted
to be sent to juvie? I looked him straight in the eye and didn’t say a word.
He slammed his clipboard on the desk and stood up. “Stan! Book her!”
“Oh, there you are,” Rex said. “Sorry I took so long.”
“I’m in no rush,” I said a little defensively. “Anyway, who was on the phone?”
“Just my father’s business manager. I have to sign off on some architectural renderings for the house.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Hey, why don’t we go see the gardens? The sun’s out, finally, and I know the walk will cheer you up.”
“I’d love that,” I said, smiling again. “Let me grab my jacket.”
I tucked my cell phone and the camellia book into my backpack and followed Rex out onto the terrace that led to the garden pathway. The boxwood hedges that lined the walkway had been sorely neglected over the years, but I tried to imagine what they would have looked like in their prime—clipped into perfect submission, no doubt. Now, however, they appeared overgrown and ragged—bushy in some places, yellowed and anemic-looking in others. Poor things, like old ladies deprived of weekly visits to the hair salon. I longed to get my hands on a hedge trimmer and give them a haircut.
Yes, the property had become overgrown, but there was so much promise here. Good bones, as they said about houses. With a bit of pruning and replanting in places, the gardens could be grand again. My fingers practically itched to get started.
Rex and I followed the path past an ailing rose garden, but I stopped for a moment to pluck a sprig of ivy that threatened to suffocate an old tea rose. In theory, ivy is quaint, charming even. But I’d seen too many gardens destroyed by the vine, which has become an invasive weed in some parts of the world. It creeps in slowly and then quietly covers flower beds with its snakelike tendrils until all the life below has been snuffed out. I knelt down to plunge my fingers into the soil below the rose’s overgrown canes, which probably hadn’t been pruned in at least a decade, until I found the base of the ivy’s root. Stubborn and determined, it held on
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