"I was waiting to hear from you about the next step."
"Never wait for us, just keep moving, and eventually we"ll catch up."
"All right, then; is there a psychiatrist you recommend? Someone "in the system"?"
"No idea. I"m new-I usually work in the Motor Vehicle Administration. Hold on, let me ask."
I am on hold for what seems like forever.
"I couldn"t find anyone who knew, so I looked in some files of approved families; here are some names of who they used."
I write them down, Google each, and call the one whose office is closest.
Cousin Jason phones to say he"s gotten an e-mail from George. "Does that seem weird? I thought he was in jail?"
I don"t say that I got him an iPad for his birthday.
"He "friended" me on Facebook and sent a message: "I always knew you were gay, sorry if I embarra.s.sed you at the family dinner." I wondered if maybe he was in a twelve-step program and making amends. I wouldn"t have taken it seriously, but he was so specific. I said thank you. Yesterday he wrote to say all my Facebook friends were so masculine and good-looking and he bet I was getting "it" a lot. I didn"t know what to say, so I didn"t answer. Today I got another one, asking if I knew anyone in the "holy land" with a bank account."
"What was the e-mail address?"
"," Jason says.
I write it down.
"I wonder if maybe he"s involved in a cult or some weird activity, or maybe his e-mail was hijacked. I had that happen, and all my friends got an e-mail saying I"d been robbed in London and they should wire me money-cost my buddies a couple of thousand bucks."
"I"ll look into it," I say. "And you, are you doing well?"
"I"m fine."
"And your mother?"
"As well as can be expected."
"Jason, would you want to have dinner sometime?"
"In the city?"
"Yes," I say, "that would be nice."
"It doesn"t have to be, like, a big long thing," he says.
"Of course not," I say.
"A quick bite somewhere," he says.
"A quick bite," I echo.
"I don"t mean to be rude, but is it something specific?" Jason asks. "I mean, is there an agenda or some specific something that you want to talk about?"
"No, really nothing at all," I say.
"Fine," he says, "we could do that sometime; not right now, but sometime."
"Okay," I say, "let me know what works."
I hang up, wondering, do I e-mail George, do I somehow contact AOL and find out if this is really George"s account? I"m not sure I want to be "in touch," so easily reachable. I continue to draw circles around the address until it looks like a Spirograph project. I pin it to the wall by the fridge just in case....
Sara Singer, the head of Ashley"s school, calls again. "I won"t beat around the bush," she says. "It is my feeling that it is no longer in Ashley"s best interests to remain here."
"You"re kicking her out?"
"We are protecting her."
"From what, your staff?"
"And the other students. It"s getting ugly. Ashley deserves a more accepting environment."
"Let"s not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Are you pathologizing a child struggling with the death of her mother, the collapse of her family, who was preyed upon by a teacher-a figure of authority, who should have been a comfort, a moral compa.s.s?"
"She"s been taken over by the gays and the bois."
"I didn"t realize that there were gangs at the school."
"Not gangs-but preferences. She"s been taken in by the gay students and the gender-confused. Frankly, I don"t think it"s the place for her. And it"s become a bit of a stir-sort of "who can feel sorrier for her," like that experiment where kids carry around an egg for a week and have to take care of it like they would a baby.... In this case, the various factions are warring over who should take care of Ashley, and as you can imagine, the faculty has had to adopt a hands-off policy."
"No pun intended," I mutter.
"It"s time to think about looking at different options. It would be nice if she left sooner rather than later-gave the other students a chance to begin to heal."
"When would you want her to leave school?"
"The sooner the better," she says. "I realize there"s not much left to the school year but the lid is about to blow. I am prepared to offer you a full refund of the tuition along with the deposit for next year, that"s a total of seventy-five thousand dollars, and we will give her a strong letter of recommendation and suggest an internship for the last part of the term. She can continue to explore her interest in soap opera. I"ve got someone who can set it up. Ashley mentioned wanting to work at ABC in New York, but my old college roommate runs a puppet theater in Scarsdale, called Higgledy Piggledy Pop: A Puppet Place. It"s a local community theater, and I think it would be a good placement. Ashley can write a final paper about her experience, combining her interest in theater, puppetry, and the narrative of the soap operas."
"Sounds ambitious for an eleven-year-old," I say. "What does Ashley think?"
"She"s in her room packing. The bois are helping her with the heavy stuff."
"Well, I don"t think seventy-five thousand is going to do it," I say.
"What do you mean, "do it"?"
"Considering the damage not only to her academic life, but to her emotional development, the violation of trust-"
"I can go to one fifty," she says, cutting me off.
"Two fifty is where the conversation starts," I say.
"I"ll need to go to the board."
"Ashley is not leaving until there"s a certified check in hand," I say.
"Can I call you back?"
"Please," I say, and hang up, pleased with myself for pushing hard on Ashley"s behalf.
An hour later Sara Singer calls and says, "We"ll have the check by noon tomorrow-I"m keeping Ashley with me tonight."
"Hostage taking?"
"Safekeeping," she says. "And we"ll want you and Ashley to sign a non-disclose."
"I"ll sign," I say. "She can"t, she"s a minor."
Before I can close such a substantial financial arrangement I feel an obligation to check in with Hiram P. Moody. I explain the situation as best I can, going on to say that I feel comfortable with the settlement-that I think I did a good job.
"They"re just giving you a quarter of a million bucks?" he asks with a kind of joyous incredulity.
"Apparently," I say.
"On what condition?"
"I agreed to sign a non-disclose about the incident."
"I a.s.sume that means you won"t press charges."
"I don"t want to put the child through anything more."
"Do you know what really happened? I mean, if they were willing to go to two fifty, you can"t help but wonder if there"s something they"re not telling you-like, the woman had a venereal disease?"
"If there"s information they"re intentionally not disclosing, it would be a bigger problem, but my sense is, they"re embarra.s.sed and concerned about their reputation. When I get the check, I"ll forward it to you. Let me know what makes sense in terms of taxes, whether it should go into a trust, or what the best handling is."
"Of course," he says. "And forgive me. I didn"t mean to be offensive regarding venereal disease."
"No offense taken," I say, even though the comment seemed weird. I hang up and breathe.
When I pick Ashley up, both her arms are wrapped in gauze. "Dramatic effect?"
She shakes her head. "Pus," she says.
"Your idea to wrap it?"
"Hardly," she says.
Sara Singer hugs Ashley goodbye as though everything is as it should be. As they are hugging, Ms. Singer hands me a thin white envelope.
"What"s that?" Ashley asks.
"Information about your internship," Sara Singer says without missing a beat.
It occurs to me Ashley doesn"t know she"s been kicked out of school but simply thinks she"s won an award of some sort-the privilege of leaving early and getting to work at a puppet theater. A few friends run across the quad and tearfully hug her goodbye.
"E-mail me." "Text." "Keep a journal." "Collect ephemera for eBay."
"Ashley, it has to stop," I say, when the car is all loaded up, when we"re on our way home. "We have to get you back on track-lesbian love affairs, tribal warrior marks-it"s all a little out of control."
"It"s boarding school, what do you expect?"
"We should go see a doctor. Maybe you need to be taking some kind of medication?"
"I"m on an antibiotic."
"I mean something else: maybe the events of the last few months have just been too much to process without a little pharmaceutical support."
"I feel fine. I"ve been kind of freaked out since "the accident," which is what everyone calls it, since no one knows what to say. But apart from that, apart from how my life was going along perfectly normally and then my father killed my mother and Miss Renee got me all overexcited-and now I"ve got this oozing thing on my arm, and one on my hip that only you and the girls know about-apart from all that, I don"t feel sick or anything."
I swerve to avoid hitting an enormous groundhog lumbering across the road. "Of course," I say, "that"s my point. It"s a heck of a lot to deal with on your own, and there are medicines that can sometimes help us feel better. You have lots of potential, and medication might make life a little easier."
"Is this about being smart? Everyone has always said I was dumb."
"You"re not dumb. Who ever said you were dumb?"
"Dad," she says. And there"s a long silence. "I don"t want to be a drug attic," she says.
"I don"t want you to be a drug addict either," I say.
"Isn"t this how it starts? I"m only eleven," she says. "That"s still pretty young."
We"re quiet for a while.
"I do want to get my ears pierced," she says. "Mom said I could. Can I?"
"No."
"Please?"
"Maybe."
"This weekend?"
"We"ll see. I"m not sure I should be rewarding behavior like this."
She twists my arm for the next three days: Can I, can I, can I? And on the weekend, I take her to the gift shop at the mall; it"s a cross between what we used to call a head shop, selling rolling papers, bongs, and Jimi Hendrix T-shirts, and a Hallmark store, but with a section of erotic novelties. The girl who waits on us is pierced up and down, through the nose, eyebrow, lip, and tongue. It is hard to understand her when she talks: her speech sounds lumpy and a little slurred.
While we"re waiting for her to find the ear-piercing gun, I whisper to Ashley: "See what you have to look forward to if you do all that self-decorating? When you grow up you can get a job working in a mall."
Ashley looks at me as if to say, I don"t get it.