Black and Blue Ivy

Providence Lane

Ellen maintained a friendly, positivity-building conversation during most of the ride. I was never good at banter, so I was relieved when she turned on the radio and hummed along to the soft R&B while I stared reflectively out the window at the new world I was about to enter.

Mansions of dark gray stones glared at me majestically from behind iron gates. The last of the autumn leaves clung to the towering oaks bowing over Providence Lane. Some people were impressed with wealth. Some nights when I was shivering in my bunk at St. Vincent's, the other girls would weave fantasies of how much money they would have someday, the clothes they would have, the "bling" that would glitter from their fingers and earlobes, the pop stars they would date, and the Hollywood mansions they would inhabit. These illusions, cobbled together from old People magazines left in the rec room, were as insubstantial as the poor diet forced upon us. Maybe when a girl is imprisoned, all she has left are her dreams.

I saw Morningstar's sad face reflected in the car window against a background of cool winter shades. When I realized it was my own face, I blinked until the image readjusted itself.

I am free, I reminded myself. Although while I eyed the tall stone walls bordering the landscaped lawns with tastefully glittering Christmas trees, I wondered if I were exchanging one prison for another.

Ellen's foot lifted off the accelerator while she checked the address from her phone. "Oh, wow."

"What?" I asked, shaken from my reverie.

"This is 2016 Providence Road."

Ellen's eyes widened as she pointed at an enormous wooden gate flanked by a high stone wall. She drove up to the front of the entrance and rolled down the driver's side window to press a button. I stared through the windshield at a camera placed discretely on the scrolled iron pediment.

I don't know why my heart fluttered at the sight of it, but it did.

The robotic eye of the camera flashed red, I heard a sharp metallic click, and then the gates slowly yawned open so we could drive inside.

I could tell Ellen was impressed because her mouth didn't close the entire time it took to traverse the smoothly paved drive cutting a straight line through a flat gray lawn. At the lane's end stood the house, three stories of solid gray stone topped with a gabled slate roof. On each end of the house, a tower stood sentinel. The windows reflected the coldness of the day. Besides patches of golden leaves clinging like orphans to the mother trees, the only bright spot in the gray landscape was a bright red barn just visible through a line of shrubbery. Three horses in an adjacent paddock jerked their heads to watch us pass.

"Wow, this place is big!" Ellen said, maybe forgetting I was there. She rounded the circular drive surrounding a dry fountain with a bald eagle perched at the center and stopped before the front door.

Just as Ellen was fumbling with her seatbelt, the front door opened, and a middle-aged woman stepped outside to greet us. If I was hoping for a friendly face, I was disappointed.

"I am Mrs. Roche." The woman offered Ellen a stiff handshake. Her face was as dour as the Reverend Mother's and just as lined. Her hair was the same gray color as her dress and cardigan sweater. I was about to open my door and greet my new "mother?" when Mrs. Roche opened the passenger door like it was her car. "You must be Ivy," she said.

As I watched her attempt at a smile wither on her face, I managed a quick, "Hello." I shivered in her glare's coldness and moved to retrieve the Target bag containing my meager possessions from the back seat.

"Don't bother with that now," Mrs. Roche snapped. "It's chilly out here. Come."

We followed her command and entered the house. As Ellen gaped at the foyer's decor, dark-paneled waistcoating beneath plastered walls covered with equestrian paintings in gilded frames, I glanced up the center staircase.