Girl Sent Away
Page 25
“James, your work is stunning,” Nan said. Bending down, she touched the sculpture of the little girl lying on her back, pointing toward the sky.
“It’s Poppy playing the cloud game,” her dad said, rubbing his eyes, croaking out the words.
“Actually Ava did most of it,” James said.
“You were the one who taught me how to sketch my vision,” Ava said, lacing her fingers in his. “He helped me find all the objects I wanted to weld together. It was hard, but I think it turned out fine.”
She liked saying the same words James would use whenever he stepped back to admire his art. These pieces—the ones they stared at now—would be the only ones Ava would ever make. Found art belonged to James like writing music belonged to her.
Her father came to her then, and without a word, he pulled her close. He hugged her so hard Ava worried she would hurt the wound that ran like a zipper down his chest. “I love it,” he whispered. “So much.”
With his arm around her shoulders, she leaned into the weight of him, letting him love her and the garden. Ava couldn’t remember a time when she felt happier.
“It really captures her,” he said. “Only I don’t remember Poppy ever playing that game without you.”
“I almost added a sculpture of me, but I decided to take Arthur’s advice. Pay attention to where I am, not where I’ve been.” As soon as Ava said his name, she wished to take it back.
Nan got a sad look on her face every time someone mentioned Arthur.
“It’s a commemorative garden anyway. It’s for them,” she said.
Her dad motioned for Nan to come to him. “You’re right. We all have a lot more living to do. Together.”
Nan smiled, laying her head on Dad’s other shoulder. Ava didn’t know if her father was officially asking permission to include Nan in their family, but if he was, if he ever did, Ava’s answer would be yes.
“Speaking of together, Dad told me you’re leaving tomorrow.”
“For a few days,” Nan said. “Arthur’s doctor thinks we should try a new medication. I want to be around for that.”
Selfishly Ava was glad when Nan used basic words like doctor and medication when it came to talking about Arthur. She didn’t think she could take it if Nan dropped the words psychotic break and schizophrenia into every conversation.
“I wish I felt up to going with you,” Dad said. “You shouldn’t have to do this alone.”
“I could go,” Ava said.
Bending down to pull a lonely weed, her back to everyone, Ava could feel all eyes on her. Even the birds stopped singing.
“We could stay at the house in Wellesley,” she said. “You could be with Arthur at the hospital all you want. I’d bring my guitar to work on the song I’m writing for Mallory’s boy. I could cook at night when you get home.”
“That’s more than generous of you,” Nan said. “Why don’t we talk about it after dinner? Tonight, I’m cooking for you.”
Nan’s pretty face lit up. It was as if the offer to go with her was gift enough. She didn’t know Ava still felt like she owed Arthur. Not just because she’d probably made him worse by blaming him for things at Mount Hope. But because seeing him that day in the boathouse, a victim of the crazy thoughts dancing inside his head, gave her the courage to go after the rest of what haunted her. Like it or not, standing above the Reach that afternoon, Ava knew the water could trigger the rest of the story, but only if she was brave enough to disappear inside it. If it weren’t for Arthur, Ava didn’t know if she would have gone back to get the final pieces. To accept what really happened.
After Ava remembered everything clearly, she no longer blamed her father. In the end, he did choose them. All of them. It was partly Ava’s fault he’d stopped on that beach for those brief seconds. She was the reason he wasn’t closer to them when the wave hit. Every time Ava thought about it, she ended up telling herself it wouldn’t have mattered. Her dad would never have been able to save them all. Plus James was right. People do crazy things in bizarre circumstances. A little girl might ask her father to protect her poems. And he might actually do it.
It was easy enough to forgive him for handing her off to a stranger, asking the man to take her to a hospital. It had to be awful going back to search for her mother and sister.
The thing that hurt the most was thinking about her mother—of her choosing Poppy over her.
Last week, in the first counseling session she’d had with her dad, Ava had asked him why he thought Mom picked Poppy. Doing his best to control his sadness, he said he didn’t know. Surprisingly, it didn’t frustrate Ava—him saying so little—that he wouldn’t venture a guess. Actually, she respected him for it.
For whatever reason—if there were any reasons all—they would never know why her mother picked her sister, the brave and fearless one. And not the girl who’d only days before had finally learned to swim. Ava didn’t hate her for holding on to Poppy. She just didn’t know how to feel about being the one her mother let go.
Her father stroked her hair to bring Ava back to the place where real live people stood. People who went out of their way every day to make sure she knew they loved her. It was as if he could read her mind.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about what you asked me the other day,” he said. “I think I know why Mom let you go. It was because Rain knew I had you.”
They hugged again. “I’ll always have you,” he whispered.
In her father’s arms, Ava realized how much she had missed letting him take care of her.
“So is anyone hungry?” Nan asked, wiping her tears with her sleeve.
Dad made a face, sticking his tongue out like Poppy used to. “Lobster without butter? I hardly see the point.”
“Be quiet,” Nan said. “You’ll love it. I made a lemon dipping sauce. And if you don’t complain all through dinner, I might let you have a sliver of Biddie’s peace offering. She dropped off a blueberry buckle.”
“Peace offering? Are you sure the woman isn’t trying to kill me?”
James and Ava exchanged a look, stifling their laughter as Dad and Nan turned back toward Herrick House. When they’d made it onto the path, James ran behind the tree that shaded part of the garden. Out he came with the squirming brown paper bag they’d stolen from the fridge. It was now or never.
James held it away from his body as Ava took his hand and they ran to the dock. Before the planned release, they looked over their shoulders and stood on their toes to make sure Dad and Nan were out of view. Though they would figure out soon enough where dinner had gone.
Two of the lobsters practically leapt out of the bag in a one, two splash. The other two with their claws tangled, remained trapped. When James let go of the lobsters, bag and all, Ava shrieked. And for a second she had a flash.
Click, a picture of the ocean floor, dark and frightening.
Then James laughed, C-sharp then B, and the image floated away on the air. He slid his arm around her. “Wonder what’s for dinner now,” he said.
“Let’s go find out.”
Walking up from the dock, they paused at the garden they had made together.
“Oh, no. The sign,” Ava said.
James bent down and pulled a work of art from an ordinary plastic shopping bag. The piece of wood had scalloped edges painted white, with turquoise flowers and blazing orange letters. It read: blue poppy garden.
James staked it right in front, facing Ava so she could get the whole picture. The memorial was nothing like she’d imagined. It was brighter and more beautiful than any marker, any ghost art, she had ever seen. Her mother and her sister would have loved it.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Every year thousands of distraught parents place their trust in residential, emotional-growth boarding, and/or wilderness schools and programs aimed at modifying the behavior of hard to reach, troubled teens. With little to no government oversight and regulation, the billion-dollar-a-year industry capitalizes on parental distress and dwindling lo
cal resources for adolescent psychiatric care, basing their segregated intervention on a philosophy of tough love or shock incarceration techniques to coerce adolescents into submission. Most programs of this nature do not require the consent of the teen sent away. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Community Alliance for the Ethical Treatment of Youth (CAFETY) have position statements cautioning parents about fear-based programs like the one depicted in this novel, claiming that positive outcomes are exaggerated and that there is strong evidence that such treatment makes behavioral as well as underlying mental health issues in teens worse.
If you or someone you know is considering private residential treatment for a troubled teen, please reach out to your health care professional or school counselor for advice and support.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am deeply grateful to the following champions of this novel:
Katrin Schumann—for her generous feedback and unending encouragement.
Julie Basque—for her honest critique and enduring friendship.
Kimberly Witherspoon—for her responsive, insightful counsel.
Michelle Toth and Andrew Goldstein—for their astute editorial guidance and commitment to my work.
Grub Street Writers—especially Eve Bridburg and Chris Castellani—for reminding me that a career is so much more meaningful in the context of community.
Maia Szalavitz—for her tireless efforts to bring issues related to the ethical treatment of teens into our public discourse and for sharing with me authentic details about wilderness behavioral camps. Her book, Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids, is an invaluable resource.
Julie Wang—for sharing her love of resilient wildflowers with me and for letting me tour the original Blue Poppy Garden in Maine.
Ann Hood—for believing in the power of this story even in its earliest draft form.
And to my family—my husband Tom; my daughter Caitlin and her husband Matt; and my son Stephen—for their unwavering faith in me and my mission. The four of you mean everything to me.
LYNNE GRIFFIN is the author of the novels Life Without Summer (St. Martin’s Press, 2009) and Sea Escape (Simon & Schuster, 2010). In partnership with GrubStreet Writers in Boston, she facilitates the strategic writer program, Launch Lab. Lynne is also the author of the nonfiction parenting guide, Negotiation Generation (Penguin, 2007). She teaches family studies at the graduate level at Wheelock College and is the Social-Emotional Learning Specialist for an independent school in Boston. As a companion to the novel, Girl Sent Away, Lynne has written, Let’s Talk About It: Adolescent Mental Health (A Companion Guide to Girl Sent Away for Parents and Teachers). To learn more about Lynne’s work visit www.LynneGriffin.com or follow her on Twitter @Lynne_Griffin.
To invite Lynne to speak at your school, organization, or agency, email PR@LynneGriffin.com.
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