Chapter 4 - The Woman in the Yellow Scarf
Sienna slept for eleven hours.
When she woke, she did not know where she was.
The hotel curtains were beige. The ceiling had a small water stain near the smoke detector. Her hand throbbed inside its splint.
Then she remembered.
Everything returned in pieces.
The broken door.
The ambulance.
Phoebe’s envelope.
She sat on the edge of the bed until the room stopped feeling unfamiliar.
A note rested beside the water pitcher.
Dana had left a number for overnight support and a reminder about her appointment. Mara had sent a message confirming that no one would meet with her father on her behalf without discussing it first.
Cillian had written only four words.
You don’t owe updates.
She stared at that message longest.
At noon, Mara arrived carrying a folder and two sandwiches.
“I wasn’t sure whether you’d eaten.”
“I forgot people had to.”
“That tends to happen.”
They sat beside the window.
Mara explained that Sienna’s father had been arrested in connection with the reported assault. Other financial questions were being examined separately. No one could promise what charges would follow or when.
Sienna listened.
The lack of certainty frightened her.
It also sounded more trustworthy than the confidence she had grown up hearing.
“What about my mother?”
“The letter is being reviewed. I have a copy you’re permitted to see.”
Sienna placed her sandwich down.
The pages were handwritten.
Her mother’s name, Eleanor, appeared at the bottom.
For years, Sienna had seen it engraved on a cemetery stone.
Here it looked alive.
Eleanor had written about financial records she did not understand, unexplained signatures, and Edmund’s increasing anger when she asked questions. She described plans to consult an attorney and take Sienna to her sister in Maine.
There was no prediction of violence.
No dramatic warning.
Just a woman trying to organize a way out.
Near the end, one sentence made Sienna stop.
If he tells you I am confused, please ask me questions when he is not in the room.
She pressed her good hand over the page.
Mara waited.
“My father said she was unstable.”
“The letter suggests she was worried she wouldn’t be believed.”
“Was the accident really an accident?”
“We don’t know.”
Sienna closed her eyes.
She wanted an answer large enough to hold her anger.
Instead, there was a question.
Mara let it remain one.
That afternoon, Sienna called her mother’s sister.
She had not spoken to Aunt Lydia in nine years.
Edmund had told her Lydia wanted nothing to do with the Ashworth family.
The phone rang four times.
“Hello?”
“Aunt Lydia?”
Silence.
Then a sharp intake of breath.
“Sienna?”
Her voice broke on the second syllable.
They spoke for almost an hour.
Lydia had sent letters.
Birthday cards.
An invitation to visit.
Sienna had received none of them.
When Lydia tried calling, Edmund said Sienna was struggling and contact would upset her. Later, Margaux told her that Sienna preferred distance.
“I should have pushed harder,” Lydia whispered.
Sienna stared at the hotel carpet.
“I thought you didn’t want me.”
“Oh, sweetheart. No.”
There were things an apology could not restore.
Nine birthdays.
Nine summers.
A childhood shaped around an absence that had never been necessary.
Still, when Lydia asked whether she could come, Sienna said yes.
The word hurt.
It also opened something.
That evening, Cillian brought dinner and left it with the front desk. He asked whether she wanted company.
She did.
He arrived without his security detail entering the room.
For a while, they ate in silence.
Then Sienna said, “Tell me something true about you.”
His expression grew careful.
“What do you want to know?”
“Something you don’t say at charity dinners.”
He set down his fork.
“My family made money through businesses that hurt people. Some were illegal. I inherited them, and for a long time I told myself that keeping them orderly made me different.”
“Did it?”
“No.”
She watched him.
He did not look away.
“Are you still doing it?”
“I’ve been separating legitimate companies from the rest. Lawyers, audits, negotiations. It’s slow, and some decisions should have happened sooner.”
“That sounds rehearsed.”
“It’s a subject I’ve had to explain.”
“Then tell me the unrehearsed part.”
He looked at the dark window.
“I’m afraid that if I give up enough power, I won’t know who I am.”
Sienna considered him for a long moment.
Then she said, “I think I understand that.”
He turned back.
She lifted her splinted hand.
“I don’t know who I am when nobody needs me to endure something.”
May you like
Neither offered the other an easy answer.
For the first time, that felt like the beginning of trust.
