The Secret That Started It All
From Welcome to Keystone Novel 12: What’s Wrong With Me?: Chapter 3, Scene 3
Like Kaitlin, Dr. Meredith Amana was also beginning to become somewhat frustrated due to a lack of clues and answers as she sat behind the desk in her office at Recovery Oasis reviewing the list of notes that she had taken during her previous sessions with Cahuenga. “All right, Cahuenga,” she finally said as she set her clipboard down on her desk and looked up at the teenage girl who was sitting in an upholstered salmon-pink chair with a sour expression on her face and her arms defensively crossed over the plain dark pink acrylic long-sleeve turtleneck sweater that she was wearing with faded l.e.i jeans and old white platform sneakers. “Since talking about the present and the events that led to your father checking you into this facility clearly isn’t working for us, we’re going to try a different strategy this morning.”
Letting out an annoyed huff, Cahuenga rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “What?” she grumbled.
A determined expression crossing her face, Dr. Amana rose from her chair and smoothed her navy blue pencil skirt. “We’re going to talk about the past instead,” she announced. “I mean, the far distant past when drinking wasn’t a problem for you yet.”
A skeptical yet curious expression forming on her countenance, Cahuenga slowly allowed her gaze to travel back down to her counselor’s face. “Why?” she suspiciously asked as Dr. Amana began to walk over to her. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Reaching Cahuenga, Dr. Amana cleared her throat. “It matters,” she began as she carefully sat down in the chair that faced the young woman, “because that was a time in your life when you didn’t feel that you needed a bottle of wine or a flask of vodka to get through the day. In other words, you felt content and as if you could handle whatever challenges you were facing on your own.”
Rolling her eyes again, Cahuenga shook her head in disgust. “I was just a kid when I wasn’t drinking yet,” she informed the therapist. “So of course life wasn’t as hard as it is now.”
Folding her hands in her lap, Dr. Amana comprehendingly nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I understand that.”
“Good,” muttered Cahuenga as she looked away from the woman and began to focus on the Claude Monet landscape painting that was hanging above a white leather couch on the opposite side of the room.
After allowing a few minutes to pass and realizing that Cahuenga wasn’t going to voluntarily elaborate on the details of her childhood, Dr. Amana drew in a deep breath. “So,” she continued, “would you describe your childhood as happy?”
Turning back to the counselor, Cahuenga noncommittally shrugged. “I guess,” she replied.
Dr. Amana nodded again. “All right,” she said. After pausing for a moment, she asked, “So when would you say that things started to change?”
Again, Cahuenga shrugged. “I don’t know,” she replied, her loose hair, which she had styled into curls as a result of boredom the night before, falling forward slightly as she looked down and began to pick at one of her unpolished fingernails. “Probably when I was twelve.”
“Twelve,” Dr. Amana repeated. “That’s a very specific age.”
Cahuenga just shrugged again. “Yeah,” she muttered. “I guess.”
“So is that the age when you started drinking?” Dr. Amana gently asked.
Slowly looking back up at the counselor, Cahuenga studied her kind and sympathetic face for a moment. “Probably,” she finally replied.
Dr. Amana nodded. “All right,” she said as she sat back in her chair. “Well, let’s talk about that then. Obviously, there would have been a first time when you had a drink. So do you remember what happened? I mean, what motivated you to start drinking?”
As Dr. Amana sat patiently awaiting an answer to her probing question, Cahuenga opened her mouth to tell her that no, she did not remember. But before she could get the words out, she found her mind quickly tumbling straight back into the depths of that very painful memory anyway…
On a warm spring day in early May of her sixth-grade year, Cahuenga opened one of the tinted glass front doors of her mansion and stepped into the large cavernous foyer with an ecstatic smile on her face. I can’t wait to show Mother and Father this, she happily thought as she looked down at the reading test that she was holding in her hand. It’s the first time I’ve ever gotten an A on anything at school, and they’re going to be so happy about it.
Grinning to herself as she imagined the proud and overjoyed expressions that she was sure she would soon be seeing on her parents’ faces, Cahuenga shrugged off her light brown leather backpack and dropped it onto the foyer’s light gray stone floor. Then she turned and began to happily skip over to the partially open French doors of her father’s study, her long wavy hair, which was pulled back into a half ponytail with a gold metal barrette that was studded with white pearls, bouncing behind her and the white low-heeled sandals that she was wearing with a tan miniskirt, which had light pink crisscrosses printed on it, and a tan three-quarter-sleeve jacket, which had rolled-up cuffs, that was open over a light pink silk camisole top that had light pink feather trim at the scoopneck collar clicking against the floor as she went.
Upon reaching the study, Cahuenga placed her hand on one of the doors in preparation for shoving it open and bursting into the room in a cloud of excitement. But before she could do so, the conversation that her parents were having inside the room reached her ears and caused her to freeze in her tracks.
“Dear, are you sure that now’s the right time to let Cahuenga’s nanny go?” Georgia, who was standing beside Sylvester’s desk dressed in black pumps, a black barrette that held her chin-length hair in a low half ponytail, and a pine green knee-length wrap dress that had ruched elbow-length sleeves, a deep crossover V-neck collar, and red and cerulean-blue flowers that had black leaves printed on it, asked.
Behind his desk, Sylvester, who was pouring himself a glass of brandy, firmly nodded. “Of course it is,” he assured his wife. “I mean, the girl’s only a few months away from turning thirteen now. So as a teenager, she really doesn’t need a baby-sitter anymore, does she?”
“I suppose not,” Georgia agreed as she looked down at her hands and began to uncertainly wring them. Shaking her head after a moment, she continued with, “It’s just that…well, Cahuenga’s still so childish, Sylvester.” She shook her head again. “Not like Lucifer and Sapphire who were already working toward their futures at her age.”
“Yes,” Sylvester agreed with a sigh as he set his bottle of brandy down on his desk and reached up to straighten the slate-blue vest, which had gold buttons and gray trim, that he was wearing open over a white short-sleeve dress shirt and brown dress pants that matched his brown dress shoes. “She’s certainly proven that she’s not going to amount to much in the future.”
Looking back up at her husband, Georgia gave him a worried look. “Do you think part of that is my fault?” she asked as her husband took a long sip of his drink. “You know, since I thought I couldn’t get pregnant anymore when she was conceived. And because of that, I didn’t give up drinking until three months into that pregnancy. Instead, I had wine at dinner practically every night for the entire fall that we were on that trip we took right after my fortieth birthday.” She shook her head. “And I didn’t stop until after I got home, went to the doctor because I had been feeling off for a while, and found out that I actually was carrying another child.”
Taking his glass from his lips, Sylvester set it down on his desk, turned, and walked over to Georgia. “Dear,” he said as he placed his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “We’ve been over this before. It’s not your fault that you didn’t realize you were pregnant with Cahuenga until three months into the pregnancy.” He shrugged. “I mean, why would you have any reason to think that you were? As you know, you and I never planned on having another child after Sapphire. We wanted one boy and one girl, and that was it.”
Georgia nodded. “Yes,” she remembered. “That was what we agreed on.” Shaking her head, she continued with, “And when we were starting our family, the doctors told me that I should make sure to have my children before age thirty-five because, considering the genetics in my family, it was highly unlikely that I would be able to conceive after that.”
Giving her a reassuring smile, Sylvester reached up and placed a comforting hand on her right cheek. “Exactly,” he agreed. “So stop worrying, dear, all right? Because as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter what Cahuenga does or doesn’t do in the future. Lucifer and Sapphire were always the ones who were meant to carry the legacy of this family, and both of them are now on track to do exactly that.”
Quietly nodding, Georgia leaned in and rested her head on her husband’s shoulder. “I suppose you’re right,” she agreed. “And I suppose you’re right about the nanny too. So when are you going to tell her that she’s no longer needed?”
“As soon as I have her severance paperwork in order,” replied Sylvester as he and Georgia pulled apart. “So do you want to write out the card thanking her for her services being that you’re much better at that sort of thing than I am?”
Georgia nodded. “Of course, dear,” she agreed. “I’ll start working on that right now.”
As both of her parents lapsed into silence and turned to start walking back over to her father’s desk, out in the foyer, Cahuenga slowly turned away from the study’s doors with a completely stunned expression on her face. “So-so Mother and Father,” she muttered to herself. “They never wanted me? And on top of that, they think I’m too dumb to ever do anything important?”
As her eyes began to burn with tears, Cahuenga’s gaze slowly drifted down to the reading test that she still held in her hand. The reading test that had her first real A scrawled across the top in red ink. A real A that, according to her father, didn’t matter at all despite all of the effort that she had put into earning it.
As the A began to blur before her eyes, Cahuenga angrily crumpled up the test paper and threw it aside. Then she buried her face in her hands, turned, and went racing up the stairs to her bedroom so that she could sob her broken heart out in private.
Back in the present where she had just spent the last several minutes watching Cahuenga’s face go from stubborn and angry to haunted and horrified, Dr. Amana tilted her head to the side and gave the teenage girl a curious look. “Cahuenga?” she finally asked. “Can you share what you remembered just now? Because it’s clear from the expression on your face that the circumstances that led to you drinking for the first time were quite painful. And the first step in the healing process when it comes to overcoming an addiction is acknowledging the events, feelings, and other variables that triggered it in the first place.”
But instead of finally spilling out the details of the pent-up memory that she had never shared with anyone except her closest friends, Cahuenga only shook her head. “No,” she replied as she finally fully emerged from her shock. “I can’t. I just can’t.” And with that, she jumped up from her chair and went racing out of Dr. Amana’s office the same way that she had rushed away when she had learned the truth regarding her parents’ feelings toward her for the very first time.
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