Honor reached out to take the talking stick from Pax like she’d run The Circle before, like she was operating from experience. But how could she be? According to Justice, she was new there too.
“Let’s start with you,” Honor said, passing the stick to Mallory.
That’s when Ava found out that her roommate had a baby. She didn’t believe most of the crazy things kids shared at The Circle, but Ava had seen the evidence that Mallory’s crackhead boyfriend cut the kid right out of her. As her bunkmate told the story, her tears were real; her need to work the program so she could get her boy back seemed legit.
Other kids straight-out lied. Ava could tell which ones told the counselors exactly what they wanted to hear. The better the performance, the more praise kids got. More praise, more points, more privileges.
As she rocked in her therapy chair in Honor’s cabin, Ava got up the nerve to ask her counselor about it. “You don’t think all the stories those kids told last night at The Circle are true, do you?”
“Some Seeds take responsibility for what landed them here. You don’t seem to want to.”
Part of Ava wanted to tell Honor about every shard of memory that haunted her during the day and the ones that jabbed her while she slept. Mosaic pieces of glass that didn’t exactly fit together. Honor was the only person Ava had met at Mount Hope who didn’t make her want to hurl when she spoke. But how was Ava supposed to talk to a stranger about something she couldn’t even tell her own father?
Careful, Ava told herself. Mallory had warned her to watch what she said around Honor. If taken for crazy, she might have to stay longer, or wind up someplace worse. She could feel Honor’s eyes on her. The pressure to own up was getting intense. So Ava caved and gave up the obvious—the thing she knew everyone wanted her to talk about.
“It kinda freaks me out sometimes, you know, thinking about my mother and sister.” Ava hated the quivering inside her chest at the mention of them. The hollow feeling in her gut that had the power to erase her. She kept her focus straight ahead on the mountain, the flowers. No part of Ava wanted to watch Honor’s reaction to her bringing them up.
After what felt like a long time, she looked over at her. The counselor wasn’t saying anything, just kept rifling through some folder. All Ava could hear was paper catching wind.
“What about them?” Honor closed the folder and wrapped her arms around her chest, barricading Ava from the papers with her name on them.
“They died. In Thailand.” Ava’s words came out harsher than she’d meant for them to. She pointed at her file. “It’s all there.”
“Forget this. Why don’t you tell me what happened?” Honor’s tone was encouraging, but her face remained stern.
“It’s all kind of cloudy.”
“How old were you?” Honor asked, opening the folder, writing down the things Ava said.
“Eight. My sister was seven. My dad had business in Phuket. We went with him on Christmas vacation.”
“That would’ve been, what, 2004?”
“Yeah. December. 2004.”
“You’re making this up on the spot,” Honor said, closing the folder again.
“What?”
“I read the papers, Ava. I watched the news. That part of Southeast Asia was decimated in a tsunami, and you want me to believe you were there on vacation?”
“We were. We were there when it happened.”
“So now who’s making up stories? Come on, I’m new to Mount Hope, but that doesn’t mean you can pull this one over on me.”
“Why would I make something like that up?”
“I don’t know. You just accused the other kids at The Circle of doing it. Look, I’m well aware you guys will do anything to get sympathy around here.”
Ava got up and started pacing the porch, trying to put it all together. With each stomp of her boots, she wondered how it was that Honor didn’t know about Mom and Poppy.
“I’m not lying.”
Honor put her hand out to stop Ava’s rocker from dancing.
“Okay, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt,” Honor said. “Convince me. Tell me what happened. Give me details.”
Ava stopped moving, as if quieting her feet would slow the thoughts racing through her brain. “My dad said at first it was perfect. We went to the beach like every other day. Then he said the wave came. We ran, I guess.”
Honor leaned forward. “I asked what you remember.”
Ava wanted to scream, nothing, okay? I don’t remember anything. Her head felt like it was about to explode. Was this some kind of a joke? There had to be something in that stupid folder. Up till now she’d thought Honor was different, but suddenly it was like she was trying to trick her.
“Give me a minute, will you?” Ava asked. “I feel like you’re grilling me.”
“It’s my job. I’m a counselor.” Honor paused, like she needed to convince Ava that being a counselor was what she was doing there.
“My father and I don’t talk, okay? It’s not easy to bring it up. Or talk about what happened. If I try, he looks so pathetic, I end up changing the subject.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed you’re good at that. Five sessions and eleven workbook entries and you’re still refusing to own up to what landed you here.”
“Wait, you read our workbooks?” Ava tried to remember what she’d written since the beginning. Then it hit her. “Justice reads mine too?”
“We do what it takes to get inside your head. Speaking of workbooks —”
When she looked over at Honor, she could tell her counselor wasn’t having the same trouble recalling Ava’s confessions. “You have it all wrong,” she said.
“What? You didn’t do those things?”
“I didn’t do anything to deserve being sent here.”
The file was back open; Honor held up her notes. “Cutting school. Sneaking out of the house at night to go drinking. Standing in the path of a train.” She counted out Ava’s infractions on her fingers.
“Don’t forget,” Honor said. “I was there when you pretended to pass out to get out of hiking. And I know about the spell you faked in the kitchen. I’d call that a whole lot of something.”
“What do you mean that I faked?”
“It’s the oldest trick in the Mount Hope book. Pretending to need medical attention to get special favor. I won’t share which Seed wrote about it in his or her workbook, but the point is, you’re not cooperating with treatment.”
Ava controlled her breathing and turned from Honor. Staring at those mountains through the screen, the thin mesh could just as easily have been bars. She was beginning to understand why kids agreed to the counselors’ lies, letting go of their real stories.
To get out of this prison, she needed to move up levels.
“Okay, I drink. My father doesn’t care about me. He works too much. And he won’t admit he has a girlfriend.” Ava turned to face Honor. “I hate Jill. And sometimes, I hate my father too, okay?”
Honor steadied the rocker with one hand and motioned for her to sit down.
Ava took her seat, looking straight ahead. She didn’t tell Honor about the flashbacks of the last time she saw her mother, the nice bits that kept coming to her, all bright sky and sunshine. In those memories, her mother’s alive, walking along that stretch of paradise. Poppy’s there too, jumping around, being Poppy. Like her father’s oneliner goes—at first it was perfect.
“I’ve been keeping track,” Ava said, willing the tears to stay where they belonged, trying to push thoughts of her mother and sister back where she kept them. “I think I have enough points to get my red shirt. When can I call my dad?”
As mad as she was at him for sending her here, what Ava needed now was to talk to her father. To ask him straight out to explain things.
“Permission to cross threshold,” a boy’s voice called through the screen.
Startled, Ava slammed her elbows into the back of the rocker.
“Denied,” Honor said. “Benno, ste
p back. Ava and I aren’t finished here.”
SIX
Toby hit Send/Receive for the third time in five minutes. After he’d played phone tag all of yesterday with the director of Mount Hope, finally chasing the man down, Pax had promised that today was the day Toby could expect an e-mail update outlining how Ava was doing. Toby hit the tab again. Still nothing.
If a report didn’t come through by lunchtime, he’d call again. Policy or no policy, this time Toby would put his foot down.
He pulled at his collar, wishing he could undo his top button, wondering if the cleaners had shrunk this cotton dress shirt too. As he sat staring at the screen, an alert message sounded, with the wrong chime. This is ridiculous, he thought. It wasn’t an e-mail from the director. Instead a meeting reminder. Kiet would be here in fifteen minutes. Toby’s Thai project manager would surely be on time. The man was nothing if not a model of good manners.
Facing down the computer wouldn’t make the message about Ava come any faster. He hauled himself out of his office chair and moved toward the glass windows, his view of the State House and Boston Common mesmerizing even on a rainy day.
The first time Toby had brought Lorraine here, she’d acted like a girl, flitting from one side of the bank of windows in his office to the other, asking him to point out Boston landmarks. Lorraine had never been impressed with Toby’s money, and at first, that’s what he’d liked about her. She didn’t care about the restaurants he took her to, or the clothes he offered to buy, the gifts of jewelry. Lorraine’s enthusiasm was always tied to the beauty around her. No matter where she was—his office, the summer house in Maine—she’d take in details he’d never even noticed. Later, having captured it in her poetry, a certain play of light on leaves or the echo the wind made, she’d read to him by candlelight, from her leather-bound journal. Only then, in a cloud of her lavender perfume, would Toby realize that because of Lorraine, he was seeing things for the first time.
As if it were yesterday, Toby remembered a bright spring day when his family stood right here by this window; had to be ten years ago.
It was April vacation, and his wife had convinced him to beg off work for a few hours to take a family walk on the part of the Freedom Trail that snaked its way through Beacon Hill. Lorraine, Ava, and Poppy were prolonging their visit by stopping back at his office.
“It wasn’t a walk in the woods, but it was nice,” Lorraine said, aiming little Poppy in the direction of the leather sofa across from Toby’s desk. Of her own accord, Ava took her seat like the ideal second-grader that she was, as if just in from recess, while her little sister bounced up and down on her cushion. Toby walked up to his wife and from behind, wrapped his arms around her waist. The couple stood facing the wall of glass, taking in the panoramic view, his cheek next to hers. Still annoyed with him, Lorraine escaped his arms, and with a deft touch, slipped her journal from her canvas bag. Mumbling under her breath, she plopped down in the center of the sofa, one daughter on either side. Wisps of hair obscured her eyes as her pen began to leap across the page.
“Trees cut down. Form from memory. Silver stacks grow your lonely city.”
Poppy kept bouncing next to her mother. “Read it again, Mommy.”
“Shhhh,” Ava said, tapping her sister’s shoulder. “Let her get the words down first.”
Before Lorraine had fully captured her inspiration, Poppy was up, pushing with all her might one of Toby’s conference table chairs over to the windows, stopping only once to shake out her tired arms. “Show me where we trailed, Daddy.” She took a deep breath before scrambling up, her sneakers leaving an impression on the upholstery. Ten pudgy fingers pressed against the glass; she looked right and then left.
“We didn’t trail,” Ava said. “It’s called a trail.”
Ava had taken to correcting her sister, though Poppy tended to ignore the older girl’s pleas for accuracy. Toby watched Ava curl her long limbs under her in an attempt to get a better look into her mother’s poetry journal. She was nearly settled in when Lorraine tapped Ava’s knees, reminding her without words: no feet on the furniture.
“Poppy, please get down,” Lorraine said. “And take your hands off the glass. You’ll leave prints.”
“It’s okay. I can clean it later,” Toby said, moving closer to Poppy, getting ready to point out the route they’d walked. “Ava, check the top drawer of my desk. There might be a little something sweet in there for you and your sister.”
“No wonder they don’t listen to me when you’re around,” Lorraine said, closing her journal, slipping it back into her bag. She relaxed back against the sofa, wagging an accusatory finger at Toby. It was getting harder to know when his wife was seriously perturbed or merely being playful with him.
“Sorry,” he said. “The least I can do is let them have a little fun in Daddy’s office. I’m the one who fouled up our Maine plans.”
“Do you really think it’s a good idea to remind me?” Lorraine tucked her hair behind one ear, turning away from Toby, rejecting his contrite expression. “I’ve been thinking I might take the girls up to Herrick House for a couple nights anyway, toward the end of the week,” she said. “With your attention on the board meeting, you won’t even notice we’re missing.”
“Look, Daddy,” Ava said, pointing to her sister, who was standing up straight and tall, towering over her father from the perch overlooking Boston. “Poppy’s all grown up.”
“I’m bigger than Ava,” Poppy said.
“Maybe someday, honey,” Toby said, giving his little pixie a squeeze. He wondered how it was that Ava, a child so young, could recognize the perfect time to distract her bickering parents, for the time being staving off their recurring spat. “When you’re all grown up,” Toby said to Poppy, “you might be as tall as your sister.”
The intercom sounded. Toby bypassed accepting his secretary’s announcement by phone in favor of meeting Kiet at the door.
“Sawatdee-kah,” Toby said with a bow.
Kiet put his briefcase on the floor by his side and returned the traditional Thai greeting, then put his hand out to reciprocate the hello with an American handshake.
“Please sit.” Toby gestured for Kiet to enter the office and take a seat at the round table he used for private conferences, the site of their biannual meetings.
Kiet bowed before taking his seat. His business attire was impeccable: Tailored suit, perfectly knotted tie. Kiet’s cuff links flashed as he folded his hands, placing them on the table across from Toby.
“Good to see you again, Mr. Sedgwick.”
Toby engaged in the customary pleasantries, inquiring about Kiet’s flight, and of course asking after his wife and son, when all he really wanted to do was open the folders he had in front of him. To go over the projects Kiet was responsible for overseeing in Thailand, to move the meeting along.
“Your daughter, how is she?” Kiet asked.
Toby swallowed hard, using the pause to ponder what to say.
“She’s away at camp. A kind of outdoor adventure school. In fact, if you won’t consider me rude, I might suggest we take a break at some point. I’d like to check my e-mail in case there’s a message about her.”
“Mai pen rai—no problem. I appreciate your fatherly concern.”
An accomplished, well-connected man in his native country, Kiet spent the next two hours going over one project after another, along with the positive impact each was having on the continued rebuilding of Phuket and Khao Lak. As Toby’s trusted liaison in the region, Kiet recommended the extension of three projects—one pediatric hospital program and two infrastructure initiatives—funded entirely by grants from the Sedgwick Foundation.
Toby tuned in and out, doing his best to be polite, listening to Kiet while trying to curb his impulse to return to his desk every time a ping alerted him to a new message in his in-box. On the one and only break he did take, to see if the update from Mount Hope had indeed arrived, he wished he hadn’t. It wasn’t there, and its absence on
ly served to make Toby more anxious. He noticed the time stamp on the lower right side of his computer screen, trying to gauge when he’d be able call the director to demand a phone conversation with his daughter. Another hour with Kiet ought to do it as far as business was concerned. Toby could get a call in while his associate went back to his hotel to freshen up for the biannual dinner on the foundation.
Despite the coffee roll Toby had picked at during his project manager’s ongoing reporting, his stomach growled. He was getting weary of the social mechanics of the meeting, tired of trying to stay engaged when all he could think about was Ava.
Finally, Kiet closed the last project folder, placing it back into his briefcase. The time had come. Yet nothing else came out of the man’s satchel. Kiet’s soft speech became almost inaudible.
“I’m afraid, as was the case with our last several meetings, there is nothing new to report about Mrs. Sedgwick and your youngest daughter.”
Toby closed his eyes briefly, as if Kiet’s words were a blow, even though this was what he’d come to expect. Whenever Kiet had leads on a possible sighting, he would phone Toby. There hadn’t been an overseas call regarding his family in years.
When Toby opened his eyes, he found Kiet’s hands folded on top of the table. The man wouldn’t even place a working folder between them to give Toby false hope.
Opening the final file in his own stack, Toby pulled out two photos, one of Lorraine, the other of Poppy.
“I had new ones done,” Toby said. “It’s what they would look like now. I want you to have them.”
Kiet made no effort to reach across the table, to take the photos from his boss. “They are beautiful. But I don’t —”
“Please. For me. Take them.”
“I work for you, yes. But you are also friend, Mr. Sedgwick. In my country, the focus of life is to enjoy. We say it is suay—unlucky—to hold on to the past. I will take the photos only if you insist.”
There weren’t words to explain to Kiet what it felt like—not to know. So Toby neither persisted nor did he relinquish his request. He laid the age-progression pictures of his wife and daughter in the center of the table. And he waited.
Girl Sent Away Page 5