Girl Sent Away

by Lynne Griffin

  “Efficient and responsible, that James. Don’t know what I’d do without him.” Mrs. Purcell put her hand out to stop Ava from heading up the path. “Before you go, I need to tell you. Your dad called me from his airplane.” She said airplane the same way she said work, which told Ava she might not have been best friends with both of her parents.

  “It’s his friend Nan’s.”

  Suddenly protective of her dad, Ava didn’t want Mrs. Purcell getting the wrong impression about him taking off.

  “Right, well, here’s the thing,” she said. “He wants me to be sure you make an appointment with my friend.”

  “I told him I would.”

  “Now, see—did you know my friend’s a head doctor?”

  “I figured.”

  “I don’t need to tell you, your father’s an expert at telling other folks what to do. I’m not about to make you call her, and I told him so. Unless that’s what you want to do.”

  Ava lifted one foot to brush dirt from the top of her new flats. “I think I want to go. Once anyway.”

  “Enough said. I only wanted to be sure. I’ll call her for you while you’re gone with James, if you like.”

  Dusting off the other shoe, Ava nodded. “I’d appreciate that.”

  “I know we don’t know each other well. At all really,” she said. “But whatever you need, don’t you hesitate to ask. I’m happy to talk about your mother anytime you want. I miss her something awful.”

  “Thanks again for letting me crash here, Mrs. Purcell. I don’t mind spending time alone at Herrick House, just not at night.”

  “Call me Biddie, everyone does. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. James says you’re real nice to be around. Speaking of James, be a good friend to him. Boy’s been through a lotta heartache.” Looking up through the trees at her cottage, she paused. “Well, haven’t we all.”

  Trudging up toward Biddie’s, though the hill was hardly steep, Ava got a flash of hiking the Ledges. It felt good to get to the top and see James holding two sandwiches wrapped in plastic, waving her over to his truck. She was happy to jump into the passenger seat, ready to head to James’s studio, a.k.a. her backyard boathouse. It wasn’t that Ava wanted to get away from Biddie. She liked her, she did. She knew a lot about Ava’s parents, about her and Poppy too.

  But spending time with Biddie was like skimming SparkNotes, when Ava was pretty sure she was ready to read her story on her own. At least maybe a little at a time.

  THIRTY-ONE

  It didn’t take long for Ava to pack a few more of her things and grab her guitar. The warm sun and calm air invited her to wait for James on the hill outside the boathouse. He could take as long as he wanted to put the finishing touches on the sculpture they were about to deliver. Ava would never rush an artist.

  At first, lying on that grass, she tried to call up memories of Poppy, but nothing solid came to her. Probably just as well. When something started off good for her, it didn’t always end that way.

  Halfway between awake and asleep, Ava let herself think about James.

  He’s holding my hand. It’s not heat or pressure I feel, more like he’s a string keeping me from floating away, from getting too high, too far off the ground. We’re walking toward the dock, and this time I’m not afraid to go near water. He bends down to take off my shoes, one and then the other, placing them away from the waves that lick the shore, ripple, ripple, kiss. I sit down on the dock and stick my feet into the sea like a brave person; it chills me all the way up to my knees. James sits next to me and places his hand on top of mine. I slip my hand out from under his and place it lightly on top. He does the same, and then I do it again, careful, so as not to get splinters; it’s a silly game we play. He laughs, but there’s no sound. We haven’t done that yet, laugh together; I don’t know which notes he sings. When he turns to me, I ask him where his scars came from. Using one finger, I trace the one through his eyebrow, then keep going, down his nose, through the faint line above his lips. “Ava,” he says. “We can go now.”

  James shook Ava awake. When her eyes flew open, she searched his face. Could he tell she’d been dreaming of him, wishing he would kiss her?

  “Sorry it took so long,” he said. “One of the pieces needed welding. It was tough loading it onto the truck. You still up for going?”

  Ava got up off the lawn and reached for her guitar case. “Yeah, no, I want to come. I can help you get it out of the truck.”

  As James drove for twenty minutes, he didn’t say much. Neither did Ava. Feeling all self-conscious, and fearing he could get inside her head and know what she was thinking, she filled her mind with meaningless things. Ava read signs. Ellsworth. Frenchman Bay. Acadia National Park. Preoccupied, it took her a while to figure out what the thing was and where they were taking it.

  It wasn’t until James pulled off Route 3 and parked his truck on a busy side road that she realized. The wire figures parked on the vinyl car seat were a mother and her baby. James was bringing the likenesses of real people to the exact place where they’d died.

  Removing the sculpture from the truck was the easy part. James didn’t warn Ava that they were about to do something hard with their bodies and their hearts. He didn’t expect her to act weak or whine that it weighed a ton. So she didn’t. They worked together to secure the sculpture with metal bolts and locks into the ground. She didn’t lose it until he pulled the silver and gold painted sign from an ordinary plastic shopping bag and staked it in the dirt.

  Amelia & Liam.

  “It’s the most beautiful sculpture I’ve ever seen,” Ava said, letting her tears do their thing.

  “I think it turned out fine.”

  In the few days she’d known James—when he was quiet with her—Ava got the sense that he was shy. Seeing him leave his interpretation of this mother and her baby there, she understood. James saved his energy for times like this.

  “I started memorializing people after my cousin died,” he said. “I took a random bike, painted it white, sketched his favorite things on the handlebars, the seat, the frame. His bird. A few stamps. The names of his books. Then I left it near where he was killed. People called it ghost art. They started asking who’d done it.”

  James took a few steps away from the sculpture, up a mound of grass overlooking his piece and the road. When he sat, he wrapped his arms around his knees. It wasn’t until he patted the ground that Ava joined him there. The confidence that came from hard work, and the lullaby the cars sang, urged her to sit as close to James as she dared.

  “What happened to your cousin?”

  “Bobby visited Maine every summer, but he didn’t move here until his mom died. No one could find his dad. My mom said it was better for him and me if she and my dad took him in, instead of Biddie. My mom was the oldest, so she got her way.”

  While James talked about his cousin, Ava put it together. Biddie, Bobby’s mother, and his, were sisters.

  “Bobby was a cool kid, even though he liked different things. Before he came here he had this bird named after a rain forest. He taught Daintree to hold a book and repeat stuff he whispered, so it looked like the bird could read. Other kids thought Bobby was weird. He got teased a lot. I was in high school and he was at the middle school, so it was hard for me to protect him, you know?”

  James stacked twigs on top of rocks, pebbles on top of stones. Ava had so many questions, but he seemed to be partly there on that stretch of road overlooking his artwork, and partly somewhere else. She wouldn’t get in the way of a memory, especially one that didn’t belong to her.

  “The night before he died, Bobby came to my room to ask me to meet him after school out behind the cafeteria. He wanted me to scare those kids into leaving him alone. I believed him when he said the other kids were mean, that they treated him badly. But if I’d known how bad things were, I never would’ve stayed after class. I never would’ve been late.”

  “By the time I got to the middle school, Bobby wasn’t there. I l
ooked all over school grounds and then decided to drive the route he usually took to our house. Bobby rode his bike everywhere. Other kids knew it too.”

  “A few streets from where we lived, I saw two boys following him, banging into the back of his ten-speed with theirs. Bobby’s bike shook back and forth, but he kept his balance, he kept heading for home. I could see he was standing on the pedals, pushing the bike as fast as it would go. I beeped and beeped, but he wouldn’t turn around, just kept riding. When I got close enough, I stopped my truck and jumped out to yell at those kids. I told them to take off and leave him alone. They sped up and rode around Bobby. I shouted out to him, letting him know it was me. He panicked. Bobby turned his bike and rode straight into traffic.”

  “Everything flipped into slow motion. The way he rose off his bike, twisting in the air, rolling up onto the hood of that car. Over the roof. Onto the ground. The way his bike tried to follow. When I got to him, I pressed my shirt over the gash in his neck. It wouldn’t stop bleeding. And then it did. Even before the paramedics told me, I knew. Bobby died right there on the side of that road.”

  Ava could see James’s story as he told it. What happened to Bobby—and James—was shocking and sad, so hard to believe. Ava laced her hand in his.

  “When I was little, my mom told me about the time she met Robert McCloskey. He told her he thought in pictures. That only after he’d sketched his drawings would he fill in the words to the story. I think some things are like that. Other times there aren’t any words to fill in.”

  “That’s why I do this,” James said, his eyes focused on his sculpture. “I can’t change what happens. But I can make people remember.”

  “The bike on the wall in the boathouse. It’s your cousin’s.”

  James turned to Ava and nodded. He let her see his tears, making no apologies for parking his sadness right there between them.

  “Crazy, huh, hanging it there, using it as my inspiration?”

  “You’re asking me if I think you’re crazy?”

  And then, there it was, his laugh. The rhythm and cadence exactly as she would’ve written the melody, if Ava was the artist, and James was the song.

  THIRTY-TWO

  With Nan’s papers finally in order, Toby gunned their rental, driving in the direction of Mount Hope. After spending thirty-six hours traipsing from lawyer meetings to courthouse to judge’s chambers—after pleading with her brother to finally sign custody papers—Toby felt as though he’d known Nan much longer.

  “I can’t believe all that’s happened since we met,” he said. “Never thought I’d say this but I can’t wait to get back to Maine.”

  “I’m so glad Ava’s doing better.”

  Toby leaned into Nan, bumping against her shoulders. “She might only be good because I’m not there.”

  “That’s not true. You said she’s more relaxed with you. Look how much she’s helped us. It gives me hope for Arthur. I’m counting on the experts being right about kids and resilience. But I gotta say, after this mess, it won’t be easy to trust any of those fools again.”

  “Don’t say that,” he said. “Ava’s first appointment is this afternoon. I’m feeling guilty enough for not being there.”

  “I’m not saying this to make myself feel better that you’re here with me, but Ava told you she wanted to do this on her own.” Nan swung her body sideways, her knees brushing Toby’s leg.

  “I know,” he said. “She told me three times. But I want to meet the counselor myself this time—even if she is Biddie’s friend. I’m not going to be so trusting this time.”

  “I can’t thank you enough for helping me,” Nan said.

  “I told you, this doesn’t begin to cover what I’ve got to do to make amends.”

  Toby let Nan think he meant atoning for sending Ava away when what he was really thinking about was his family. He realized then that it would never, ever be easy to talk about Lorraine and Poppy with anyone, even Nan.

  “Do you ever get a gut feeling that you need to see Ava right this second or you’ll die?” Nan asked.

  Toby had felt it, that sinking feeling.

  “I’ve had a connection like that with Arthur since he was a baby,” Nan said. “I can pretty much fly out of any airport, so I moved every time my brother and Arthur’s mother did. I had a feeling from the start that someday he would need me. Really need me.”

  “Ava was always cautious. Anxious around dogs and strangers. And God, the water. But never in a million years did I guess things would turn out like this. Clueless dad.”

  “I don’t see you that way at all. People like Paxton Worth go after vulnerable people. Parents at their wit’s end with their kids. You saw my brother. There’s a father who couldn’t care less. It was like he didn’t want anything to do with Arthur until I wanted to care for him. He acts like his child is some kind of possession.”

  “I keep going back over it, wondering what part of me thought relinquishing my daughter to that place was a good idea. I can’t believe I got sucked into all their promises. Their ‘success’ stories.”

  “It’s like Stockholm syndrome. The parents and kids need to find some meaning in their terrible experiences, so they rave about it.”

  “Well, when I get home I’m going to make sure Ava believes me. I didn’t know what I was getting us into.” As Toby spoke, the guilt wormed its ugly way in again. All he wanted to do was get this thing done. Get Arthur out and have Nan fly him back to Maine. Driving toward the overlook where he knew there’d be a signal, he’d have to settle for his daily phone call to Ava.

  “I despise that place with a white-hot passion, and trust me, if you repeat this, I’ll deny it,” Nan said. “But I did learn some things about myself.”

  “What, you wanna be more like me?”

  Nan laughed. “I’ll give you some of my aggressive if you give me some of your passive.”

  He pulled the car off the road at the exact place where he’d called Jill, and where Ava had winged her workbook into the water, disrobing in front of him, trying to leave Mount Hope at the water’s edge.

  “I want to tell you about Ava. Why she’s having so much trouble. About my wife and younger daughter,” Toby said. “Someday, okay?”

  “You can tell me now.” Nan leaned in. Shoulder to shoulder, without hesitation, she rested against him.

  “We’re about to spring your nephew. Let’s focus on you for now.” Toby pulled out his cell and hit speed dial. “There’ll be time enough for us to talk once we have Arthur back.”

  Ava picked up. “Hey Dad.” The lightness in her voice was a relief to him and still he was hit with the feeling Nan had just described. Toby wanted to go home.

  “We’re almost there,” he said. “The detective is going to meet us. Our plan is to head straight to OP. Where is it exactly? It doesn’t show up on the property map.”

  “It’s behind the main lodge. But it’ll be locked and guarded. Probably by Justice. I’d go find Honor first. She’s been trying to get him out since she got there. Plus she’ll have keys.”

  Ava sounded good. She was better, happy. He told her to go to her appointment with the counselor and not to worry. He’d be back before she knew it.

  He recapped Ava’s directions for Nan, while she scoured the Mount Hope map.

  “I wonder why Reilly won’t tell us what’s going down up there,” she said. “Why can’t he arrest them for treating kids the way they do?”

  “If Pax has the upper hand legally, or he’s good at hiding things, there isn’t much Reilly can do about it. It’s Ava’s word against Pax’s. Or if charges are coming, Reilly won’t jeopardize things by tipping everyone off, including us.”

  “If I hear someone say teenagers exaggerate one more time, you’ll have to restrain me.”

  “I’m guilty,” Toby said, raising his hands up in mock surrender. “I used to believe these kids push the envelope.”

  “No one deserves what those counselors are dishing out —” Nan went s
ilent when over the rush of the stream and their conversation sirens wailed. Toby started the car and shifted into first. “Something’s wrong. Let’s go.”

  At the entrance to Mount Hope, a half dozen or more police cars sat with lights flashing. At least two news crews were setting up cameras.

  “Why the hell didn’t Reilly warn us?” she asked.

  Nan and Toby rushed past two uniformed officers who stood by bumper-to-bumper police cars. Two sedans had their back doors open.

  The lobby was chaos. Groups of girls Ava’s age were crying hysterically—clinging to each other on sofas lined up against the walls. Two police officers were making their way through the lobby with boxes on carts. Brimming with files as evidence, the carts were none other than the ones that had delivered food to the parents during the weekend the director had had them under his thumb.

  “There he is,” Nan said. “Over there.”

  Toby turned, expecting to get his first glimpse of Arthur, but Nan was pointing to the detective. When Reilly shifted left, Toby was stunned to see him putting cuffs on Paxton Worth.

  “Come on,” Nan said. “He’ll know where Arthur is.”

  She pushed her way through the crowd of kids and police milling around the lobby. Toby did his best to keep up.

  As they approached Detective Reilly, he finished reading Pax his rights. Then he motioned for a policewoman to come to where he stood. Reilly slapped Pax on the back and told the officer, “Get him out of here.”

  “What’s going on?” Toby asked.

  “We’ve been investigating the place for some time, long before you contacted us. Had an officer undercover for well over a month.”

  Nan stepped in front of Pax before he could get far. She shouted over the commotion. “Where’s Arthur?”

  Her agitation made Toby’s heart race, and beads of sweat began dripping down one side of his face.

  Pax glared at Nan, a menacing look worse than the one he’d given the detective.