Page 16 of Since She's Been Gone

She looks up, trying to place me.

“I’m Beatrice Bennett. I was a patient here twenty-six years ago.”

“Oh, yes … I remember you,” she says.

“You do?” I ask.

She nods her head. “Hard to forget. You hated the horses. Most girls love ’em—a break from having to eat. What brings you back?”

“I have a question for you. My mom worked here years before I was admitted. I’m wondering if you knew her.”

“What’s her name?”

“It was Irene Bennett,” I say. “She passed away.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Joan says, her voice softening. “I remember her.”

“Really?” I say.

She nods. “She also hated horses.”

I smile, thinking about Mom and me sharing this in common. I never spoke with Joan about Mom when I was here—I almost always avoided the barn.

“Do you, by any chance, know if she used her contacts to get me in here?” I ask.

“I’ve never had anything to do with admissions,” Joan says.

“Do you know who might know?”

“We’ve probably had about half a dozen admission directors and hundreds of interns since she worked here. And nobody keeps track of interns after they leave.”

Like that, I watch my only lead vanish.

“Okay,” I say, defeated. “It was nice seeing you again.”

“Likewise,” she says.

I walk away feeling deflated when she calls back out to me. “Did your mom end up with the guy from New York?”

“What?” I say, turning back around again.

“Is that your dad?” Joan asks.

“My dad was a native Angeleno,” I say.

“Guess you got lucky,” she says. “That other guy sounded like a real piece of work.”

Who’s Joan talking about? When Mom was working here, she and Dad were an item.

“You probably have him confused with someone else,” I say.

“Nope,” she says emphatically. “Your mom talked about himallthe time. He drove around in a VW with a surfboard on top like he was born on the beach, but he had the thickest New York accent I’d ever heard. Your mom said he wanted to be a director.”

CHAPTER9

January 1998

WHENIWASfirst admitted to Better Horizons, I was placed with a roommate, Emily, who was all of sixteen and on her seventh stint at the treatment center.

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