Dash withdrew again despite the support Rick, Oliver, and I all lavished on him. He stopped seeing me, which was hard, as I had been seeing him regularly by then and talking nightly by phone. He told me Glen Eden “sucked” and was full of misfits — which in a way it was, and I understood. “Mom, one of them wears a helmet all day and bashes his head on the wall,” he told me. Dash missed his old friends. He sold bags of dope at Lord Byng about once a month for pocket money, and probably to try and connect with them. He didn’t have much else.
He blamed everything on Glen Eden, but he was reaching. Dash was hard to be around and his social behaviour was immature and inappropriate. He came on to girls at parties by flicking condoms at them and saying, “Want to fuck?” It wasn’t just his parents and teachers who couldn’t handle Dash any more, his peers couldn’t either. He wasn’t invited to the parties thrown by his old friends, which upset Dash so much that one night he took a brick and smashed the window of a house after arriving at a party and not being allowed in. I continued to propose things that might engage him for even a few hours, but he couldn’t raise the energy for anything. No longer shutting me out, he didn’t resist me, he just couldn’t get himself there. I begged him to come to Europe with us for three weeks that July, but he simply seemed too exhausted to make the decision.
I had organized two lunches that year for Peter, Dash, and me in the spirit of relationship-building and cooperation, and amazingly Peter had come to both and even acted graciously and with some of his old charm. So when Dash turned sweet sixteen, in August 2000, I called Peter and asked him to come to dinner as a family, just the three of us, to celebrate. But Dash couldn’t decide where he wanted to go; he could hardly have a conversation about it, it taxed him so terribly to have to think. “Well, Dash. Where did you go on your other birthdays, with your dad?”
“One time we went to John Bishop’s.” It was one of Vancouver’s best restaurants.
“Then shall we go there, then? If you’ve liked it before? It’s a great restaurant.” But Dash demurred and went quiet. His half-hearted answer took my breath away.
“What about the Blue Parrot, Mom?”
The Blue Parrot was a little muffin-and-juice bar at Granville Island Market that Dash and I used to go to when he was four and five years old. After grocery shopping we unwound with croissants there, and during the intervention summer, I took him to the Blue Parrot one day because he remembered going with me as a little boy and asked to go again. “I know I had a favourite sandwich there, but I can’t remember what it was.”
“It was ham and cheese! You could hardly get your mouth around it but you were determined! You ate the whole thing.” We went back there again and again after that first time and he seemed to be delighted about it, but why did Dash suddenly want to go to a little muffin place for his birthday? I wondered, heartsick, if it was because we had gone there when he was a little boy?
The same thing had happened to his taste in clothes. Over the years Dash had always chosen lovely things for himself: good brands, hip gear, creative choices. He had a real sense of style and knew how to put clothes together. But now, when I asked him where he wanted to go shopping, he said, “Let’s just go to Mark’s Work Wearhouse, Mom.” Each withdrawal frightened me more. All I wanted to do was take him in my arms, tell him that he was wonderful, tell him I loved him, and that he was going to be okay. But I couldn’t, because Peter had built the walls so high around Dash that all I could ever do was stage-manage the peripherals: the schooling, the tutors, the birthday cakes, the bags of cookies and Valentines left on his doorstep, the encouragement. I wanted to tell him, “Dash, brown eyes to brown eyes, come on now, you’re going to be okay. Hold on tight, I’ll whisk you away.” But Dash couldn’t conceive of being whisked anywhere, let alone by me. It would have terrified him. He had been taught since preschool that I couldn’t be trusted, yet a school friend of his told me that Dash was “frightened of his father.” Dash had said, “I feel trapped in that house. I can’t get away from my dad.” A house full of lies. My child deteriorating before my eyes.
Dash’s schoolwork and attitude began to falter by June, and by September his behaviour had become unacceptable even at Glen Eden, a school whose entire student body had severe behavioural problems. Dash was “totally non-compliant.” Rick Brennan agreed early on that Dash’s problems were rooted in his home, and by the summer he saw that, because Dash was still living with his father, he had stopped moving forward. Both Oliver and Rick had seen Dash’s fundamental wonderfulness, his native intelligence, his sense of humour, his easy laughter. Oliver spent one-on-one time with Dash and didn’t think he was a hopeless case at all. They saw that, far from being a class clown, underneath the PAS Dash was a wry, intelligent boy with an innate sense of audience and a natural desire to perform. A friend of his from Lord Byng, Lisa, told me about the way Dash had serenaded her on her birthday every year. He would perform the Barry White song from an episode of The Simpsons — “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe.” Lisa went into hysterics each time, and Dash soaked it up, beaming with the pride and glorious vanity of the performer. His graffiti art was beautiful. And on a skateboard, flying down Mackenzie Avenue, Dash looked, to me, like a winged angel.
The next step was radical. Glen Eden couldn’t help Dash any more. He had turned sixteen on August 10 and had a Grade Nine education and no ability to function in the workplace. An immature, poorly socialized, undisciplined, semi-literate boy, Dash wouldn’t have been able to hold down even a dishwashing job, because he couldn’t stay on-task for longer than five minutes. He lashed out when challenged and was disrespectful toward authorities, just as he had been taught. How many employers would want a boy like that, even at minimum wage? What would losing his first job do to him? My choices were narrowing, and we had only a brief window. As Dash’s sole guardian, I could make decisions for him only until he was eighteen years old. I had two years to implement something I could compel him to complete. After that he was on his own.
Peter still thought a bit of tutoring would be enough for Dash, and Rick Brennan agreed that Peter was so far in denial he would never help his son. Dash needed a therapeutic environment, out of his father’s home, out of his father’s city, far away from that stagnant influence. Both Oliver and Rick believed that Dash would be okay if he were away. It was in him to do the work. They believed he could commit. Rick said Dash’s improvement “has not happened, it will not happen, in his current home environment.”
The moment of decision had come, and the school Dash needed was in Northern California. It was an $80,000-a-year, two-year residential program for children like Dash. Cascade’s program, said Rick Brennan, was the “right and only choice for Dash now.” I visited the school, in Redding, California, and its rustic tranquillity blew me away. It looked like a small American college campus, sweet and homey. Set on 250 acres, adjacent to Lassen Volcanic National Park, the setting was extraordinary and the school had a loving, warm feeling. Since it took only 160 or so students at a time, the teacher-to-student ratio was one to six, and therapeutic counselling, both in a group and on an individual basis, was part of the daily routine for all of the children. I met the teachers and the headmaster, checked out the dorms, and had lunch with some of the children who were in the two-year program. Another boy was there from Vancouver. Everyone dressed casually and talked openly. None of them appeared to attend under sufferance, although I supposed some of them did. Most of them had been through really tough times in their lives, and I felt that Dash would be able to relate to that and fit in here. I noticed that on most of the beds were faded stuffed toys and, as touched as I was at seeing sixteen-year-olds who still had these reminders of long-ago childhoods, part of me felt saddened that somehow their childhoods had been traumatized and interrupted and they were here, in part, to reclaim them. The sprawling campus had many extracurricular activities in the arts and athletic areas, as well as a solid but flexible academic program. Although the staff often dres
sed like the students, in casual pants, golf shirts, hiking boots, and sneakers, they were experienced professionals. There was a full-time nurse and psychologist, and the students and faculty would gather in the evenings around a big stone fireplace in the main lodge.
It would be a hard adjustment for Dash, but at least he would be in a safe place. Eventually he would have to work through a lot of what had happened to him and, in such a positive, encouraging environment, with peers who may have suffered similarly, I felt he had a chance. A school for the non-compliant and defiant, Cascade had a built-in tolerance for children like Dash. He wouldn’t be expelled no matter what. He would find boundaries, but he wouldn’t be allowed to fall off. Flying home from California, I thought about my boys, and the education Dave and I had long ago committed to providing for them — private school, stimulating extracurricular activities, the best of everything — and how for Dash that had been for so long just a dream. Dash wouldn’t be a Rhodes Scholar, he was headed for the streets, but Cascade could scoop him up and nestle him to its breast. The world-class education he would get along the way was a bonus.
Rick called Peter in and told him an appropriate school had been found for Dash. Although we faced a waiting list, Cascade’s director of admissions had felt Dash’s needs to be urgent enough to promise that a place would be found for him whenever we could get him there. What we didn’t tell Peter was what Cascade had told me: They wouldn’t take Dash as he was. Glen Eden hadn’t stabilized him, he wasn’t compliant. Most importantly, he hadn’t been psycho-educationally tested. All special schools require testing so that they know exactly what issues they are dealing with for each student, and Cascade was no different.
“Then what do we do to get him there?” I had asked. “I’ll do anything.”
“Take him to Ascent. It’s in Idaho. It’s a six-week therapeutic wilderness program. It will stabilize him and they will test him. That’ll meet our needs.”
I flew into the research. I trawled Ascent’s Web site, called them, spoke to their director and counsellors. I talked it over with Rick. Ascent was highly recommended. Between ten and twelve thousand children a year go through the wilderness-therapy programs that currently exist in the United States (of which Ascent is just one). Though there had been bad press generated by some badly run and unethical programs, independent studies, as well as parents of the children who have gone through the good programs, have lauded the results. Parents just like me get their children back. The six-week program — even at $20,000 US — was worth every penny to me. I couldn’t fork it over quickly enough. Ascent was the very beginning, a six-week preparatory program for children to then go on to other schools, like Cascade. It was an urgent-intervention program. I read a quote that said, “In many cases, we are literally reaching underwater and grabbing the hand of a drowning victim.” For Dash, Ascent was a lifeline between the dysfunction in Vancouver that was destroying him and Cascade, which would put him back together again. Dash needed a caring home and, instead of mine, I was giving him northern California.
But, Rick warned me: Dash had to complete Ascent and he had to continue on to Cascade. “If he drops out of Ascent,” Rick said, “it will be worse for Dash than if he had never gone. These programs don’t work in a vacuum, and it will be disastrous if it’s not followed by a long-term residential program.”
I had sole guardianship. I could register Dash without Peter, and I did. But that’s all. Even though I could have done everything, we had to tread carefully. This time we needed Peter and his influence over Dash. If Dash could be told that his dad agreed he should be in Cascade school, we all thought he would be able to commit to it. For once the loyalty inherent in the PAS relationship could be exploited to Dash’s advantage.
Peter was his old affable self and agreed to talk with Cascade. He had had a two-hour conversation with the head of admissions at Cascade, Sunny Weir, but Sunny had worried that he was dithering and uncommitted. He was neither for it nor against it and instead wanted to ask Dash. If Dash wanted to go, then he would support it. The back door as always would be opened by Peter, and Dash had looked, his whole life, for the back door that pleased his dad. With the two of them turning to each other for cues, it was a perilous situation, and we had to work nimbly around it. Rick Brennan told me soberly, “We have to do this right, because Peter is going to sabotage Dash, somehow.” I had watched for nearly twelve years as Peter pulled the rug out from under his son using the guise of “supporting his clear wishes.” Dash was sure to say, “Fuck that!” to the suggestion of two years at a residential school. What child wouldn’t, let alone one who had been programmed from the age of five to consider his dad his home. So I talked it over with Dave, Rick, and Bob Armstrong.
I phoned Allison Burnet, who expressed her concern that I would not be telling Peter until I was en route to Seattle with Dash.
“I have no choice, Allison. I wish Peter would cooperate for Dash’s sake, but I’ve finally got sole guardianship and I’m going to do what I know needs to be done. We all saw for years that Peter is incapable of making or even agreeing to any decisions that are in the best interests of his son. Peter is in total denial that there is anything wrong with Dash. Maybe he doesn’t want Dash to heal and become healthy because in the healing process Dash may blame his father. I don’t know if that’s Peter’s reason, but I do know that Rick and Bob and Dave agree with me that Peter will not think Dash needs Ascent, and I can’t take that chance. Time is running out — this could be Dash’s last opportunity, and I will move heaven and earth to see him take it.”
“Well, Pam, I believe you when you say this is Dash’s last chance. Call Jamie and run it by him.”
“Thanks, Allison. Wish me luck!”
I hung up and looked at the phone. Taking a breath I dialled Jamie’s number and waited for it to ring — “No!” I said out loud, jamming my thumb on the phone’s End button. I would not talk to Jamie. I didn’t want to be warned. I didn’t want Jamie’s sage legal advice about the ramifications of not telling Peter what I was doing — because I didn’t want to be stopped. I refused to be stopped, and if I called Jamie, I was afraid I would give in and play by the rules the way I had all my life. I would call Jamie afterward, when Dash was safe in the Ascent program.
The anxiety made me ill. I couldn’t sleep. I had never lied to Dash — not ever — and I knew I was betraying him. But what overpowered my grief and panic was my fear that, if we didn’t do this, something terrible was going to happen. I was not Dash’s friend, I was his mother. I had an opportunity now to parent my child in a way that would give Dash back his life. Peter hadn’t. The court system certainly hadn’t. So I went over their heads. I empowered myself to be Dash’s mom.
Then, by coincidence, Dash told me he wanted to go shopping in Seattle. “They have better stores there,” he said. My heart raced. Seattle. The United States. Dash had asked me to take him there a couple of times over the previous months; the first time he had cancelled, and the second time I had commitments with my boys and couldn’t carve out the time. Dash’s request created an opportunity that I could capitalize on: Dash wanted to go over the border. When shopping day arrived, I was nervous and jittery, but on the drive over to Dash’s house, I found myself fantasizing. It was two years in the future. Dash was smiling, his brown eyes were flashing. He launched himself at me in the awkward bear hug of a strapping eighteen-year-old. He had just graduated from his two years at Cascade. He had learned again how to feel and how to love. He was healthy, happy, and anchored, and he was coming home for the summer before going off to university, or the job he wanted to get on a cruise ship, or the Army, wherever. Cascade had saved his life, and I tacked the picture up on the wall inside my head and kept it with me that day.
Dash was restless for most of the trip. He ripped his seat belt on and off, tipped his seat back and forward. He hung out the windows and leapt from the front seat to the back. I had seen worse from him, and at least our conversation was friendly. We sha
red a couple of laughs. We had been silent for a while, amiably watching the road go by, when Dash spoke up. “I was in a fight with my dad,” he said. I had presumed that they fought, but what shocked me was Dash’s volunteering of the information.
“What sort of a fight, Dash?”
“A big one. Look at this.” He pointed to a graze on his elbow; it looked like a rug burn. “I got that, and my jaw hurts from his left hook.”
“My God, Dash!”
“Is there a bruise on the back of my neck?”
I looked.
“Yes, there’s a bruise.”
“I held a kitchen knife to dad’s throat …”
“My God!” I was floored. I kept listening. What is the message here? Is this all a lie? Or is this his life? Dash was quiet for a second. “I shouldn’t have told you that,” he said.
“Well, now you have.”
“Yeah.”
“Was the argument about school, Dash?”
“Yeah.”
And then he stopped talking. He looked out the window. We had crossed the border before he spoke again. Later that night he would tell me the fight was just in fun, and weeks later he would recant the story entirely, saying that they were just wrestling — “Greco-Roman rules.” Dash said they had engaged in mock battles since he was little, but I didn’t believe him. I think the wrestling was one of Peter’s numerous methods of control, something that isn’t uncommon among alienating fathers — the employment of physical tactics with their children, often under the guise of “fun,” but always used to exert control and display physical power. I had never seen Dash with bruises before, but there had been long, long stretches in which I never saw him at all, so who is to know? Dash wrote in a later affidavit that he had made up the story of the fight to bug me, adding, with great satisfaction, that it did.
A Kidnapped Mind Page 26