SIENNA
 
 
The day she gets out, it feels like the end.
It’s funny to think about endings now. Now that all there is to do is wait. Now that the real end is coming, all of the other endings feel like something else completely. All of the goodbyes, and leaving the people she loved. The people she loved leaving her. They felt like endings at the time. But the next day, she had gotten out of bed, and maybe there was a hollow pit where her stomach used to be, maybe she didn’t feel like eating or talking or seeing people for a while, but mostly, things stayed the same.
Sienna’s last day at the House is like that. From the second Valerie knocks on the door, business as usual and passing out morning meds, Sienna is already feeling dramatic. The two plastic cups Val holds out like presents, one half-full of lukewarm water and the other rattling with tiny pink pills—these are the last plastic cups. The congealed, microwave-flavored scrambled eggs Sienna shovels down with a plastic spork, alone in the empty House kitchen—these are the last scrambled eggs.
And when Val walks her out to the porch, and they sit with the sides of their knees pressed together on the slats of the rickety swing, listening to the kind of quiet Val taught her to notice, the kind of quiet that feels full and on purpose and like everything’s going to be okay—
This is the very last quiet.
She knows that there might be other endings, bigger endings, soon. The end of everything. The end of time. But it doesn’t matter. All that matters now is that things are changing again, just when she’d started to hope that they wouldn’t.
*   *   *
“You look fantastic.”
Sienna’s dad is a first-class professional liar.
Lawyer. Not liar. She always does that.
There’s a reason he’s the best at what he does, a reason his office is wallpapered in plaques and awards and framed photographs of thick-haired famous friends. He’s the best because he only lies when he wants something badly enough; and usually, what he wants is to be telling the truth.
The morning he arrives at Sutton House, he’s on debate-club fire. Proposition Number One involves convincing them both that, despite all evidence to the contrary, Sienna does not have “nursing-home hair.” Nursing-home hair: an institution-related phenomenon occurring when a person, usually a patient of some kind, spends much of the day sitting in the same corner of the same couch and/or can’t be bothered to shower. The resulting self-adhesive updo can be described in many ways. Fantastic is not one of them.
“They have mirrors here, Dad,” she reminds him, pulling open the heavy door of his old BMW—“old” in that it’s older than the new one he bought right after she was sent away. “Unless fantastic is legalese for homeless and lacking shampoo, I’d say you’re trying to make me feel better.”
Dad rushes around from the driver’s side to pry the beat-up duffel from her fingers. He tosses it with a flourish onto the backseat, as if ushering her luggage those last few airborne moments deserves applause or a cookie. He settles for a hug. “Thanks for coming to get me,” she says, breathing into the warm, reddish stubble at his neck. She says it like he had a choice.
Val waves from the porch. Dad looks offended that she doesn’t see them off, but Sienna knows how it is. Inside the House, Val’s on her team. She’s everything Sienna need "Apocalyptic stories are all the rage these days, but this one stands out. There are no zombies, no deadly diseases, nothing to fight, and no way to win. Coutts has written a memorable novel filled with hope, love, absolution, and courage in the face of almost certain death. It will inspire readers to consider their own mortality and the profound impact they have on those who love them." - School Library Journal