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Hope.
EPILOGUE
Lenna
January
Three months later
They meet at the same café Rhiannon chose for her recruiting mission. There is a certain symmetry to it, but it’s also the first café that comes to Lenna’s mind when Rhiannon suggests they finally hang out again.
Lenna climbs out of the car and rolls back her shoulders. It still feels a little strange not having the baby strapped to her 24/7. Her gait is still a little off, too, from the injuries she sustained while in the cave. But most of all, her stomach teems with nerves. She feels like she might be sick.
And yet she steadies herself. Shoots off a text.I’m going in.
A response comes back.You’ve got this.
She breathes out, then pushes through the door. It’s such déjà vu seeing Rhiannon at the same table as last time—though now, she and Teddy wait together, and Lenna comes without Jacob. It’s better she’s come alone, though—there’s some truth to what Rhiannon said about babies sensing tension, and Jacob really does dobest when things around him are calm. She feels a pinch of dread—she hadn’t wagered on Teddy coming, though at least the little boy is wearing headphones and intently staring at an iPad. He’ll be distracted, hopefully.
“Hey, Len,” Rhiannon says, spreading out her arms, just as before.
“Hey,” Lenna says back, stepping into the hug, but only for a moment. When they move apart, Rhiannon smiles warmly. Lenna thinks she smiles, too. But her heart is banging.
“Sit,” Rhiannon says.
Lenna gives a little wave to Teddy, but he is lost in his screen.
“How’s it going?” Lenna points at Teddy. She’s glad to see that Teddy is still in Rhiannon’s custody, though she heard Rhiannon had to explain to the state of Oregon what had happened. It’s been touch-and-go what the state wants to do about the adoption process.
Rhiannon looks down at the table. “My lawyer is great. We should have stuff sorted soon. There’s a lot of paperwork to file. A lot of things to prove.”
“Andyourmom? Did you ever—”
Rhiannon shook her head. “Never found her. Not even after all of us in the news.” Then she lifts her gaze to Lenna. “I feel awful about what I told you about her. It was so…misleading. Awful. I’m a piece of shit.”
Don’t,Lenna thinks. Feelings well up in her throat. So many feelings.
Since leaving Halcyon, Lenna has stayed in the suburbs outside the city, trying to only see what is in front of her. After everything went down, the members of Halcyon made a pact not to tell the authorities about the reasons Coral had come after Lenna, Sarah, and Rhiannon, instead reporting the young woman as tragically unstable, and the violence she inflicted on the women as a productof a troubled, delusional mind. It protected all three of them that way, and it also protected the community from even more bad press. After all, Marjorie had let this happen under her nose.
Not to mention everythingelsethat would come out—including the gossip about Marjorie’s sons, but also Carina’s post about the place, as much of it was true. Everyone had noticed that Naomi and Melissa hated each other but were also codependent, and then something came out that even the residents didn’t know—they’d both gone in for IVF at the same time, and they’d put their eggs into a shared pool. Melissa’s children might actually be Naomi’s, except Melissa was the one who successfully carried to term. Once the babies were born, Melissa was treating them like they reallywerehers. Which, maybe they were after all. The twins were identical. There was no way to know.
And Matilda had been questioning her medical history for a while, but it took reading Carina’s post to push her over the edge. As it turned out, the girl had had lots of mysterious symptoms before coming to Halcyon, but no doctor could make heads or tails of what might be causing any of it—or provide any diagnosis. Was coming here a miracle…or did her mother justwantit to be a miracle? Matilda finally confronted Amy, and Amy confessed, sort of, that perhaps she had norealillness—but still, the world was toxic and scary, with danger at every turn, and she was only doing what she thought was best.
Whispers surfaced about Ann, too. Apparently, she was a ketamine dealer, having swiped it from her veterinary practice, where she specialized in the care of large animals. It was unclear how Marjorie scooped her up or prevented her from going to jail, but this was why Ann felt indebted to her—and had given Marjorie her life savings.
Well, all of them had done that, Lenna supposed—and they’d never get that money back. When they forced Marjorie to paythem their share from the Halcyon bank account, Marjorie revealed that the account was nearly empty. As it turned out, Marjorie had spent all of it not on property upkeep or even the IVF fund, but on paying off her own past debts, which she’d amassed before and after starting the community, and which were astronomical. Gia had an inkling this was going on; it was why Marjorie put up with Gia’s snide attitude and general lack of participation.
The day after the explosion, Marjorie opened the gates and let everyone who wanted to leave go. She tried a last-ditch effort of saying that she had a new philosophy for the place, that she was going to slash the fees, that she would work onherself,but Lenna had no interest in staying. Still dazed and exhausted, Lenna immediately flew back home. She hadn’t even downloaded what had happened with Rhiannon or Sarah, not really. She just wanted to get the hell out of there. Daniel picked her up. He’d heard nothing about the explosion—no one pressed charges, Coral was the only one who’d perished, and Lenna’s injuries were fairly minor. It was just a blip in the desert—and maybe Lenna could have kept it that way. All of it. A proud part of her would rather he knew nothing of the ordeal she’d gone through.
But something had changed in her. This was no way to start a marriage or parenthood. She needed to tell Daniel.Everything.She needed to tell him the hold Rhiannon had on her, the lies Gillian told her, but also that she’d bought into those lies, that these two women had pulled at her arms like she was a rag doll, manipulating her one way and then another. But she wasn’t a victim. She had reported Rhiannon out of spite, and she’d cost Rhiannon her job. She had believed Gillian’s lies, even though she probably knew, deep down, that some of them might not have been completely true. It felt so petty, in hindsight. She dreaded admitting how she’d behaved. She also had to wonder how things would have turned out if Rhiannon hadn’t been fired.
Daniel needed to know who she was as well as the headspace she’d been in when they’d gotten together—a headspace, if she was perfectly honest, that had extended through their marriage.Allof it was built on a shaky foundation he wasn’t completely aware of, and that wasn’t fair. The funny part, though? Just being at Halcyon, just going through the danger she’d gone through, Lenna realized how much she wanted to be with Daniel after all. She didn’t realize how much she loved him, despite the fact that she’d clung to him at first more out of necessity and desperation than love. The love had developed slowly, almost without her knowing.
This was how she ended her confession, this realization of how important he was to her. Lenna worried what Daniel would make of her secrets. There was a very good chance he’d want a divorce. One thing helped, anyway—at least she knew, for certain, she wasn’t a murderer. Daniel couldn’t take Jacob away from her. It was something she still was scared to truly believe—she’d been carrying around the secret for so long that it kind of felt…partof her. She realized, too, that unlike how she’d run to Gillian after Rhiannon left, and then how she’d run to Daniel after Gillian died, she would have no one to run to if Daniel chose to end things. She’d never stood on her own, but suddenly, she was pretty sure she could.
It empowered her, knowing this. Her mother would be proud, too. Independence, finally. It gave her the courage to tell Daniel everything she needed to say. She didn’t want him to leave her, but even if he walked away, she knew she could go on.
Now, she clears her throat and dares to look at Rhiannon across the table. Her old friend looks so repentant. She has no idea about the grenade in Lenna’s hands. Lenna presses her fingernails into her palm five times, but when she looks around the café, for the life of her, she doesn’t see anything yellow. But that’s okay,surprisingly. Since Halcyon, despite the trauma she went through, she finds she needs the coping mechanisms a little less. She presses through regardless. This will suck, but she can keep going.
