Perhaps a mixture of all those things.
In any case, here it sat, in front of her, the layout the same, though the girl she’d been, the one who’d grown up here, felt different in every way. Even though she was sitting in her car, staring out the window, she had a strange sense of imbalance as she looked down the rows toward the lot where she’d once lived, as though the world had shifted subtly beneath her.
Why were you pulled here? She’d found herself driving in this direction after meeting with her new boss and partner, without even really deciding to do so, almost as if by muscle memory alone.
The heart is a muscle too. Yes, and maybe that was the one she’d been using. She’d been raised in this trailer park. She’d left for school every morning from here, until the day she’d graduated high school. She’d had some of her happiest moments in this place and some of her worst.
She’d fallen in love here. Her chest squeezed as she turned her head to the right, gazing down the row where his trailer sat. Of course, it wasn’t his anymore. Or his mother Mirabelle’s. Someone else lived there now, she was sure. He had made it big. And though it had turned out she didn’t know as much about him as she’d once believed, she knew in her heart of hearts that the first thing he would have done with the money he earned was to buy his mother a home. A real home, not housing made of plastic walls that swayed in any moderately strong wind.
At the thought of Mirabelle, she felt a pinching sensation under her breastbone and unconsciously brought her hand up to massage away the pain. She missed her. Still. She’d been the only real mother Sienna had ever known, her own an alcohol-drenched shell of a woman who had been generally unaware of Sienna’s existence. The woman who had passed on her green eyes and her golden-blonde hair to Sienna and—thankfully—not much else had died five years before. When Sienna had learned the news, she’d felt little more than a passing sadness that might accompany the knowledge that any wasted life had ended.
She’d sent her father a check to help with the cremation costs and made a donation in her mother’s name to a local charity that helped drug and alcohol addicts find recovery. It was enough closure for her. And while her father had very promptly cashed the check, she hadn’t spoken to him since.
She’d left this mobile home park eleven years before without saying goodbye to either of her parents. The ache in her heart had only been for Mirabelle. At the time, that particular ache had been drowned out by a greater one, though, and it was only in the aftermath that she had realized her grief had layers.
She stared, unseeing, in the direction of what had once been her home. Her mind cast back.
Mirabelle pulled the door of the trailer open, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Sienna? What’s wrong, sweet girl?”
Sienna let out a quiet sob, allowing Mirabelle to usher her into the trailer, where she led her to the plaid sofa and sat her down. Mirabelle took a seat next to her, turning so they were knee to knee, and took Sienna’s hands in hers, squeezing gently. Lemons and lilies met her nose, and the scent served as comfort before Mirabelle had even uttered a word. She took a deep, shaky breath. “I got invited to Amybeth Horton’s birthday party, and my dad said he’d bring home some money so I could buy her a present, but he didn’t, and now I can’t go.” Truth be told, her father hadn’t necessarily forgotten. He’d likely never intended to at all or even thought twice about her request after she’d made it. He’d come home drunk that afternoon, and she hadn’t “reminded” him, as it was best to steer clear entirely when he’d been drinking. He was mean in general, and liquor only enhanced that attribute. Sienna’s face screwed up, the disappointment of having looked so forward to something, having been included, and then being let down—again—by her parents bringing all her misery to the surface. She couldn’t go without a gift, though. That would be humiliating. The other girls Amybeth hung around weren’t rich by any stretch, but they had more than Sienna’s family. In every conceivable way.
Sienna wished she weren’t so hyperaware of that, but she was fourteen, no kid anymore, and it was just her personality. She noticed everything. She always had. Not like Gavin, who was perpetually happy go lucky and didn’t seem to care what anyone thought. He was observant, too, when he wanted to be, but his observations didn’t seem to constantly hurt him in some way or another the way hers did.
Gavin wasn’t currently at home. She knew that, and it was the only reason she’d come. She didn’t want him to see her cry, but she’d needed a mother. She’d needed Mirabelle.