Come Back

by Claire Fontaine

  “Mom, come here,” I hiss, trying to get her off to the side.

  “One second, honey. Oh, here, Elliot, I remember how much you liked Pearberry.”

  By now my face is crimson, but she’s in her own world, having a ball feeling like the Jewish Santa.

  “Mom, do you have any idea what you just did?” I whisper the minute we’re out the door.

  She looks at me, puzzled.

  “You just lubricated half the boy’s facility.”

  “I what?”

  “Why do think they’re so excited? Cameron banned lotion from the boy’s facility months ago because the staff was getting sick of finding cum rags.”

  “Finding WHAT?” She stops in her tracks.

  “The socks that they you-know-what into. They like those lotions because they smell like a girl, so when they…you know…it reminds them.”

  I omit the incident that broke the camel’s back, a boy throwing a “used” sock in the face of another. And it’s not just the boys. We had one girl confront another because her bottom bunk would shake so much she couldn’t get to sleep.

  She stares at me a minute, her mouth agape.

  “Boys wanting a girl’s beauty item didn’t seem weird?” I ask.

  She starts laughing so hard she actually plunks down in the snow. For being so smart, some of the things she does amaze me.

  Paul and I hike with Mia on the cliffs overlooking the Clark Fork River. Copper deposits make the wide river a surprising jade color. Mia climbs up the rocky trail ahead of us chattering about the girls in her cabin.

  Paul catches up to her and they look out over miles of river and mountains, pointing things out to each other. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine they’re not biologically related. She’s got a gentle, more observant side like his. I watch her lean her head against him and say a little thank you prayer for Paul. There has never been anything “step” about his fathering.

  Later on, Mia and Paul toss a football while Chaffin shows me around the school. He and Cameron look like twin surfers, but their personalities differ. Cameron’s sensitive, easier on the kids, “a real pushover,” Chaffin says affectionately.

  “They go to Cameron when they want to be ‘special cased.’ I’m the rule enforcer.”

  “I figured as much. Otherwise, Mia wouldn’t butt heads with you so much.”

  He walks me down the main road past the staff trailer to a path leading into the woods. The path drops down toward a huge barn-type building.

  “Mia makes things a lot harder than she needs to. She does the same thing with people. She’s mistrusting, so she makes people into rocks she has to push up a hill. And I’m the rock she can’t push. It’s one of the biggest differences I see between you two. If you each had to get a piano in a building, you’d sit down and plan, figure out a way to do it without damaging it. She’d ignore your advice and smash it into pieces to get it in there as quickly as possible.”

  “Yeah, but one of us would have music and the other would have firewood.”

  “Mia would make it look like that’s what she wanted, or she’d say her way was more exciting. She’ll bang her head against a wall before she’ll listen to anyone tell her where the door is.”

  Chaffin opens the door to the big building and a chorus of disapproval greets us from a darkened, stinky room.

  “Sorry!” he calls inside before shutting the door. “I forgot it was Level 3 activity today. They’re watching The Wizard of Oz, they love that movie. It’s a perfect metaphor for what the kids go through in here.”

  “Oh, hey, is this where Duane does the kids’ seminars? He said it stunk.”

  “Hah! Yeah, it gets intense. We have to replace the carpet all the time. You’ve gotta come staff some kids’ seminars, gives you a whole new perspective on your kid.”

  He starts us back up the trail to the cabins.

  “Mia hates to admit it,” I tell him, “but she has a lot of respect for you. Not many people stand up to her.”

  He laughs and shakes his head. “A lot of these kids think I’m the devil, just because I’m willing to stand up to them. For most of them, this program is the first time they’ve been held accountable for anything. So many parents today are afraid of their own kids. They don’t want to be seen as uncool, or, get this, like their own parents. But if you take a look at where kids are at today, our own parents did a much better job! Our society doesn’t even teach them that right or wrong is a black-and-white thing anymore, today everything’s ‘relative.’ We’re afraid to let kids feel pain or disappointment—they don’t even allow scorekeeping at my son’s school! But life has hurt, it has pain, there are winners and losers, rich and poor.”

  An older staff member walks past us with a glowering boy toward a tiny log cabin.

  “Is that the Hobbit?”

  “Yeah,” he pauses. “See, what kids don’t get till they’re here for a while is that consequences are not about making them wrong or making them suffer. I want them to learn something about themselves. When Mia got dropped the first time, I could have put her in the Hobbit—”

  “Are you kidding? It would have been a reward.”

  “Exactly! Being a loner is her comfort zone, she wouldn’t have learned anything. I made her look into someone’s eyes for thirty minutes every day for a week.”

  “Oooh, yeah, she told me she hated that.”

  “I know! Because it was about connection and love, which she avoids. But you know what? By the end of the week her whole expression changed, it was relaxed and glowing. It was more trusting. I’m sure it was a lot more like the face she had as a child.”

  I picture Mia’s little four-year-old face and feel like smiling and crying at once. He stops before we get to the playing courts where Mia and Paul are chasing each other around, laughing and pitching snowballs. Chaffin points at them.

  “See that? That joyful quality, that freedom? That’s what we’re all about. When kids are little, they believe in their own power so much that they get back on their feet no matter how many times they fall. They’re so sure of their own goodness that even in the face of things that are vulgar, disrespectful, or unfair, they’re pure and positive. Kids come here closed off and paralyzed with fear. But we can see through all that to that little kid, to the heart of who they are. I want them to remember what they knew about themselves when they were little.”

  “Hey, how about this one?” I ask.

  My parents took me shopping for some things I need and I just spotted a cute beanie.

  My mom raises her eyebrows. “It looks like something you would have bought before you came here.”

  “It is something I might have bought. It’s a beanie, Mom, millions of people buy them. I drank milk before the program, too; if I buy that, are you going to assume I also want to shoot heroin?”

  I’m overreacting and being bitchy. But, I hate how she reads into every little thing because she’s scared I haven’t changed.

  “I don’t respond well to sarcasm, Mia.”

  “Well, if you weren’t so paranoid, I wouldn’t be sarcastic.”

  “You’re being really disrespectful.”

  “Girls,” Paul cuts in. “I’m sure you can find one you both agree on.”

  “That’s not the fucking point—”

  “Mia, stop swearing—”

  A store clerk walks by, asking if we need help with anything. We all stop arguing long enough to smile sweetly and say no thanks. I wonder how much of this she gets, with Spring Creek families being their main livelihood.

  “I haven’t seen any other kids here with beanies. Why do you always have to be different?”

  “Why do you always have to see it that way?”

  “Why don’t we find something we both agree on.”

  “Because something we agree on means something you want.”

  Paul throws up his hands and walks out.

  “She always assumes it’s me trying to be different instead of maybe considering the novel idea
that I just want to keep my ears warm!”

  Mike leans back in his chair, amused at the three clueless people before him.

  “So, what I just heard is that Mia’s concerned her mom’s never going to get over the past, Claire’s wanting Mia to be more understanding of why she’s having a hard time trusting her, and Paul just wants everyone to get along.”

  Yeah, that about sums it up.

  “First of all, I think we both overreacted because we’re leaving today and we’re all on edge. Second, I’m upset because of all the hats in the store, you chose one that’s the epitome of street grunge.”

  “It’s a fucking hat, Mom. Do you even have to control what I put on my head?”

  “Look, I don’t think it signals heroin on the horizon. It’s a visual reminder for me, Mia, can’t you get that? And what you wear is a statement about who you are, it attracts certain people and repels others. And I asked you to stop swearing, it’s trashy.”

  “Mia, can you see why Mom would be upset?” Paul says gently.

  “Oh, I think she can see,” I interrupt, irritated.

  “Sounds like you’re telling me that Mia’s as controlling as you are,” Mike says.

  Bing, Ms. Fontaine, another flashbulb moment.

  “She is…isn’t she?” I say slowly as it sinks in. Talk about slow on the draw.

  “What, Mia controlling? Hell, yeah!” Mike says.

  “And I thought you did things because you couldn’t help it, because you were out of control. But you knew exactly how I’d react, and how everyone would react to me.”

  I look at Mia and she shrugs sheepishly in agreement. “But it wasn’t just that, Mom; it was also the only way I felt any power in our relationship.”

  “I don’t know about that, you seem to have had plenty.”

  “Mom, please, you could verbally demolish me. I felt powerless. Trying to get you to understand me, much less stop controlling me, would have been pointless.”

  “But I was controlling for good reasons, the things I wanted for you were normal things. The things you wanted were terrible things. You actually thought the way you wanted to live was a good thing.”

  “To me, what I wanted made perfect sense! You were the one who didn’t get it,” she says, frustrated. She thinks a moment. “Okay, look—you wanted me to be an apple, just like all the other apples. And it was good to be an apple. But, I knew I wasn’t an apple. I was an orange. It wasn’t an opinion, it was a just a fact—they’re apples, I’m an orange. What made no sense to me was that you kept trying to applify me, you were trying to do something that was so impossible it was almost funny.”

  “And Johnny Rotten was no doubt an orange,” I say dryly.

  “Yes! Do you know how excited I was to find out there were other oranges in the world, people who were as fucked up as I knew I was? It was like the answer to a prayer! All I had to do was find some oranges and go live with them. It’s fucked up, I know, but it’s how I felt. The drugs just gave me courage to act on it.”

  She pauses. “You know, Mom,” she says, shifting tone, “you were so hung up on the fact that I wasn’t ‘normal,’ well, you’re not exactly a Golden Delicious yourself.”

  Mike’s face says he’s been waiting for this.

  “Do you have any idea how hard you are to live with sometimes?”

  She’s really animated now, skinny arms waving, eyes flashing, brows going up and down. “You’re this insane mix of Morticia and Lucille Ball, half of your ideas are brilliant and half are featherbrained. In second grade I had to go to school reeking of garlic because you read some article about how good garlic pills were for you. During the lice scare, you put so much perfume on my hair, it gave the teacher headaches!”

  “You were one of the only kids who didn’t get lice.”

  “Mo-om, I just wanted you to be normal sometimes! Everybody else has cereal for breakfast, you have tomatoes with garlic and olives. And the boobs hanging in the hallway? You try explaining angry lesbian art to your friends when you’re ten years old!”

  “Mary is an acclaimed artist and everyone loves them. Would you prefer china plates from the Franklin Mint?” I turn to Mike. “They’re three clear, acrylic busts, you know the kind that display bras in Sears? One is filled with metal toy soldiers and an image of Queen Elizabeth; one with money, dice, and playing cards; and one with blue marbles and little fish. They’re provocative and powerful.”

  Mike looks at Paul, who rolls his eyes my way as if to say, see what I’ve been telling you, Claire, they’re weird. I roll my eyes back at him.

  “Look, Mom, I love you to death but sometimes the same things that make me admire you also make me want to shoot you! Can you understand that?”

  I can see Paul and Mike expecting me to react, to go on autopilot and “run my old number.” Not Mia. We’re looking into each other’s eyes and she doesn’t doubt me for a minute. She knows I hear her now.

  “Yes, I do, Mia. I know I have a strong personality and that I wasn’t always easy to talk to, and I’m hearing how frustrating it was for you. Maybe it still is.”

  She smiles at me and grabs my hand and leans against me and we’re the same Mommy and Mia we’ve always been. Before all this.

  “I promise I’ll be more conscious of it when you come home,” I say. “What would that look like to you?”

  “Listen more, don’t jump to conclusions. Let me make some mistakes.”

  “I promise. And you must be open to knowing that, given your track record, much will depend on what kind of mistakes you want to make.”

  “You know what I mean, Mom.”

  “Mia’s trying to be realistic about making normal teenage mistakes,” Mike says.

  “Normal we can deal with,” Paul says. “Normal is good.”

  I want to say that there’s nothing normal about Mia. Mia is extraordinary, she’s spectacular. She’s Queenie Princess Arosia.

  A bridge was crossed with our visit. Mia has come out of the woods and met us at the clearing. The mossy darkness is behind her but only just; it still beckons. It’s little things that tell me this. Mia and I both know that a beanie is never just a beanie. Just as a book was never just a book and red cheeks weren’t just red cheeks. I can feel this knowledge beneath our held hands and smiles and our great, great love.

  Tonight I dream I am in Berlin after the bombing. I am sitting at a dinner table with Mike, Paul, and Mia, surrounded by a neighborhood reduced to smoking rubble. Mia lays her head on the table. She looks sad and I’m afraid she wants to leave us. We lean in and try to encourage her, convince her of something.

  Two girls pick their way over the smoldering ruins toward us. They’re dressed in filthy tatters and have big metal rings in their noses. When Mia sees them, she sits up and smiles. The girls stop several yards away on a heap of bricks and wait for Mia without saying anything. Mia stands up and kisses me, then Paul.

  “I’m sorry, I love you both, but I live with them now.” She smiles sadly at us.

  Mike tries to stop her, but she hugs him and walks away with the girls. I wake up crying and tell Paul about the dream. It’s been over a year since we laid in bed at night crying over Mia. But, it feels the same, like no time passed at all.

  33.

  To be so completely immersed in a world of broken and healing teens and then come home to Los Angeles, where most teen culture is generated, is a disturbing jolt. It’s impossible not to see these teens as miners’ canaries. I pass billboards, watch movies, TV, I peruse the newsstand, and it feels like we’re all fiddling like Nero while our fifth-graders wear thong underwear and learn the difference between oral, anal, and vaginal sex before afternoon recess.

  Don’t designers get that “heroin chic” should be a contradiction in terms? That the drug-eyed postcoital teens in those “hip” seventies basement ads are irresistible to teens who live and die by how much they look and act like models? Doesn’t Matt Groening find it disingenuous to denounce censorship a few years after ap
ologizing to parents once he had his own kids? Why don’t we want to acknowledge that the biggest parent of all is the culture?

  Our generation has no problem with censorship when it suits them. We censor a man if he wants to comment on a coworker’s chest size. We deny him his right of free speech because we acknowledge the damage it does. But we won’t limit the “free speech” that surrounds our kids even though it damages them. Are we really too stupid, or too profit-minded, to see the connection between what they grow up seeing, hearing, and imitating and the fact that they can’t build schools like Spring Creek fast enough?

  I used to dread feeling like I didn’t belong. Before this happened, I would keep my opinions to myself at meetings or dinner parties for fear of being seen as uncool. What’s uncool to me now is the greed and arrogance of those who want to create, or defend, teen culture and deny its effects, who think they’ve come so very far from the era of children being seen as chattel.

  Children are still chattel to them—they’re just chattel with a disposable income. Not to mention perky breasts and bee-stung lips.

  Even my little corner of the world looks different to me now. I can see how unconscious I’ve been about what I’ve surrounded Mia with in her own home. She’s right, it is severe, there’s little color, and those breasts. They may be culturally relevant and provocative, but they’re also angry. Abuse of power, greed, male violence, and misogyny are important themes for artists, but perhaps not in Mia’s home right now.

  Even my refrigerator poetry magnets are a mirror for me. “I am a bitter goddess, Beneath my whispering petals, Lies a crushing tongue.” “I want languid red dreams, But my dreaming apparatus is rusty, And so, My dreams are pink.” They’re the depressed mother’s version of cheesy, angst-ridden teenage poetry.

  My home reflects a state of mind I’m not in anymore. I want the feeling of our home to be one of happiness. White walls become buttercup, pale olive, sunshine yellow. I hang Mia’s pastels, childhood photos of all of us. I want Mia to return to a home as transformed as we are.