Joy followed Ginny down the path toward the stable, each carrying a suitcase. The snow crunched beneath her feet just like at home. Why did snow surprise her? She should have realized that some things would be the same everywhere. She looked at the mountains stretched as far as she could see. Even still, the snow looked different among the evergreen trees. Healthier, if that were possible.
She turned the corner and faced the entrance of the barn. Ginny hung back, letting Joy go ahead.
She approached slowly, set her suitcase down, and let her backpack slip to the ground.
The smells hit Joy’s senses like when she passed Abercrombie and Fitch at the mall. Except the barn smelled better. Hay. Saddle leather. Manure. Earth. Joy closed her eyes and drank it in.
The shuffling of horses’ feet begged for freedom. Joy listened for a moment. Giving them time to catch her scent. She heard a blow from a horse’s nose, signaling curiosity. Time to go in.
Joy slid the barn door aside and stepped in. She approached the first stall and reached out her hand. The gelding shied away then moved back in for a pat. “There. Good boy.” Joy rubbed the horse’s nose. Too bad she didn’t have a carrot or some sugar. She’d be a friend for life.
Where was Ginny? Joy glanced back at the entrance. Oh, there she was. Just hanging back letting Joy get acquainted with her new friends. Who needed BFFs when you had horses? Silas bumped against her leg. Oh, and of course, Silas. Joy smiled to herself. If only she could stay outside and mingle with the animals all day.
“Well, who are you, sweetie?” Joy reached out for the rust-colored mare. The sign on the stall said Buttercup. “Aren’t you an angel?” Joy patted and rubbed. “You’re such a pretty girl. I’m going to come back and bring you some carrots later.” She looked into Buttercup’s eyes.
The horse nuzzled Joy’s arm. Joy leaned in and pressed her lips to the space just behind Buttercup’s eye. “What do you think, girl? Am I going to make it here?”
“What is this place?” Joy looked over the outside of the small-scale, stone replica of the big house. “Or, I should say, what was it?”
“It used to be a small infirmary for the monastery. We’re reallocating it for our use.” Ginny gazed up the front. “It’s a brand-new renovation actually. You’re among the first group to have the opportunity to use it.”
Oh goody.
“Mark might have mentioned this, but we’re using this space for most newcomers. Just to give you a place to decompress and get a handle on life before being faced with everyone else’s problems and stories.”
“How long?” Seemed isolated to be set apart from the main happenings at Diamond Estates. Then again, maybe the alternative of being in a house with thirty teenage girls 24-7 was far worse.
“Probably only a couple of weeks, but there’s really no set amount of time. We’re working out the details of integration, but it’ll definitely be on a case-by-case basis.”
Did she always use such big words?
“Okay, come on in. Welcome home.” Ginny opened the exact same brand-new door Dad had recently installed at the lake house. That was weird. What were the odds? She stepped aside to let Joy go first.
Joy stepped into a tile entryway, her suitcase banging on the doorframe. Minuscule compared to the main house. She set her luggage down against the wall and glanced to her right where a bank of doors faced each other on both sides. Then to her left—where an open area was divided by mint-green curtains into cubicles.
“Okay, you can poke around here later. We’ve got bedrooms on that side.” She lifted her arm and pointed to the right. “The infirmary’s over there.” She swung her arm to the left. “Alicia and I run this place together. We’re both nurses, and we’re both counselors. So I live here half the week, and she does the other half.”
“What about your husband? Does Mark live here, too?” Joy let her backpack slip to the floor beside her suitcases.
“No. That’s part of the sacrifice we make as a family. We really can’t have a man sleeping here, so Mark stays down the mountain at our house alone on the nights I’m here. Alicia and Ben live just beyond the property. So Ben’s at home nearby when Alicia’s here. It works out fine.”
So weird. Who would want to do that? Joy couldn’t imagine caring about a job enough that she’d be willing to stay away from home several nights a week. Hmm. Maybe Mark and Ginny weren’t as happy a couple as she’d first thought.
“Here’s my office. Come on in and have a seat.” Ginny gestured through the doorway.
Joy stepped into a garden wonderland. Floral wallpaper and curtains. Huge flower arrangements all over the room. Chairs with delicate stripes to coordinate with the floral. Definitely a feminine haven.
But that smell. Joy fought the urge to plug her nose. What was that?
She searched for the source. The garbage can stood empty. No rotting food anywhere that she could see. Oh wait, the candles. Two rust-colored jar candles burned on the back wall, and two votives flickered in little glass jars on the corners of Ginny’s desk. She wanted that stench in there? Gross.
Ginny sat in the desk chair and pulled it close to the desk. “You okay? You look kind of sick.”
Joy waved her hand in front of her nose. “I’m just getting used to that scent of your candles. It’s really strong.”
Ginny laughed. “I know. It’s a sick obsession of mine. You’ll love it once you get used to this. This is one of my favorites. Pumpkin spice. I use it all winter.”
Joy nodded. “It’s nice.” If she had a gas mask. “There’s something about it … I can’t put my finger on it.” She shrugged. “I’ll get over it.”
“Well, just let me know if it gets too strong. I’ll put it out.”
Hadn’t Joy already let her know? Wasn’t the look of disgust and the hand waving the air from her nostrils hint enough? Looked like Ginny had no intention of dousing the flames.
Whatever.
“So.” Ginny leaned forward and rested her elbows on her desk, her chin in her hands. “I’m really glad you’re here.”
Hah. That’s what she thought. “Thank you.” Joy shrugged. “Am I supposed to say I’m glad to be here?”
“No. If you said you were, I wouldn’t believe you. This place is hard work. There’s nothing easy about making a life change. Nothing at all easy about taking control and responsibility for yourself and your life … your choices, your future.” Ginny shook her head. “It’s huge, and I won’t pretend it’s going to be a piece of cake. It’s not.”
Joy never expected it to be. What was it about this woman that made Joy want to roll her eyes?
“Okay. Let’s jump right in. Why don’t you go back to the beginning and tell me what happened leading up to this point.”
Was she serious? Neither Mark nor Ben told her anything before Joy arrived? Why did these people insist on making Joy stay rooted in the past by rehashing it so often? She wanted nothing more than to just forget it. “Look, Ginny, can’t you just tell me what you know, and I’ll fill in the gaps rather than making me go over everything. We can build from there.”
Ginny sighed. “I understand that it’s tough to talk about, but it’s really important we go back to the beginning. You can just give me bullet points, if you’d prefer, of what happened to lead you to this point, the way you see it.”
Wait. “What do you mean by ‘the way I see it’? The way I see it is the way it happened. I mean, my boyfriend and my best friend were kissing in my family room on Halloween night, and my best friend went home soon after and committed suicide. I don’t think I’ve been embellishing those facts. That is what happened.”
“I know it is, sure. But what about the in-between? What went on? What triggered you to want to search, that led you down the road you’ve been walking?”
How was Joy supposed to know? Wasn’t that Ginny’s job to figure out? It was going to be a long day.
Ginny stared at Joy. Waiting … for what? What did Ginny want from Joy? She wanted answers. Well, join the club. So did Joy.
“What triggered me? I wanted answers. But I don’t have them.” Joy shrugged. Why was she so snarky with Ginny? What had Ginny ever done to her? “I don’t. All I know is when Melanie committed suicide, my friend Raven helped me reach out and contact her. That totally opened my eyes, and I began to question everything I ever knew. Nothing stayed the same because I had to look at it through a different lens. It was like everything I ever knew or believed, everything that was important to me, just totally blew up in my face.”
Ginny tapped a pen on her desk. “So you wanted answers. It’s okay. What next?”
“Melanie committed suicide and I called 911, and then I had to let her mom know. It was all on me, Ginny.”
“I’m really sorry about that. A seventeen-year-old girl shouldn’t ever have to face something like that. Ever.“
Yeah. But she had.
“So the funeral. How was it?”
“Awful. The second-worst experience of my life, next to discovering Melanie. And I’ll never forget that Melanie’s mom had spread candles all around the casket … ugh, pumpkin spice. I guess that smell has just stuck with me.” Oh, no wonder Ginny’s office was choking her.
Ginny’s eyes widened.
“Yeah, I didn’t put the pieces together until I started talking about the funeral, but that’s why that smell is hitting me so strongly. It’s bringing me back to those feelings. It’s making me feel the way I felt that day.”
“Yep. That’s what senses do. A song, a smell, a touch, they can all bring back memories and conjure up emotions and feelings.” She looked around her office. “Okay, so we need to get rid of the pumpkin spice. That’s clear, but let’s replace it with something else. What about vanilla?”
“Vanilla?”
“It has a soothing smell. Do you have any association with that scent?”
“No, not at all.”
“I’m going to start burning vanilla candles every single day. I want that scent to become a benchmark for you, a replacement memory. Every time you smell it, I want you to remember the journey you embarked on here. You can claim it so when it hits you, it triggers that feeling of hope. Okay?”
Joy smiled. “Okay. I like the sound of that. I think that’s cool.”
Ginny jumped up from her chair and picked up her bell-shaped candlesnuffer. She put out each candle, one by one. When the last one remained, she handed the snuffer to Joy. “Here, you extinguish this final flame.”
Joy reached forward and lowered the bell over the flickering candle flame until it went out. Afterward Joy thought she was probably driving Ginny crazy with her questions, but she couldn’t help it. She wanted answers. She just wanted to know.
“Whoops.” Ginny looked at her watch. “Our time is up for today. Ready to go meet the girls?”
Joy’s stomach clenched. Um … no? “Ready as I’ll ever be.”