Chapter Twenty

Doing the Research

This is what it is like to live in a sick house: hush wraps itself around the exterior like bunting. Daily life is boxed up in storage. You talk softly, and tiptoe across the day to avoid confrontation. TVs are on without sound, food hardens on unwashed dishes and sometimes you forget that you haven’t eaten a full meal in two days. You keep watch. You stand outside your granddaughter’s open bedroom door, checking. You pause halfway down the stairs, with your laundry basket, listening. At night, you let yourself doze on and off in bed, still listening. Your bedroom door remains open, providing a direct view of the bedroom across the hall.

Your son has told you to do the research. He will take Minnie to wherever it is you decide to send her. But in the meantime, he continues to work on his anger, keeping to himself and communicating with you only through texts he sends from his bedroom or while he’s on a walk. “Booked a show tonight. Keep me posted.”

For three days, you have managed to keep Minnie at home. You, or your son, accompany her outside only for her daily NA meeting. She is compliant. For now. You let her eat whatever she wants, and whenever she wants it, and you grant her unlimited access to her phone and laptop, even though you’ve been told it’s an absolute no no.

Anything to keep her quiet, calm, and at home until you come up with a plan.

In your bedroom, you whisper into your phone, sitting in your nightgown and crushing your last pair of reading glasses because you forgot that you left them in the scramble of sheets and unfolded laundry. For the third time in one day, you listen to a new, reassuring voice on the other end of the phone. You don’t divulge everything to the admissions director, just the broad strokes that led to this.

“And so,” you say, “the last place didn’t, um, work out the way we hoped … we’re wondering if you might be able… to help us… um…her… ”

You listen to the familiar script of one more admissions director while you half watch the crawl on cable news. Not that you ever shopped for a time share, but it occurs to you that admissions directors at therapeutic boarding schools might have trained with the sales people who peddle two weeks at a ski resort in Wyoming. It all sounds tempting, almost alluring. You jot down pages of notes about school philosophy, support staff credentials, success stories, and locally sourced meals from nearby farms.

And then you prepare for the final pitch: she will thrive here.

You take a breath and say: “We’ll get back to you.”

Don’t wait too long, they warn. Your granddaughter is at high risk for running away. Or harming herself.

You know that, in her bedroom, Minnie is simmering with plans of her own. Loud rings the bell inside your head as you lurch through time, hoping to get ahead of it.

You’ve hired a top notch educational consultant, approved by Lily. Somebody needs to vet these places before you take the plunge too quickly and find yourself paying for expensive real estate in the wrong woods.

Between calls, you take time to regroup and assess, not moving from your bed as you read through notes. At first, you dialed Nora, your concierge ed consultant, to discuss. She was good about taking your persistent calls. Now she has graciously, but firmly, suggested that you save your concerns for one check in at the end of every other day.

In the meantime, you go down the research rabbit hole. You turn to the web for a deep dive into negative reviews about a facility you’re considering. You wonder if it’s true that the state is about to shut the whole shebang down because of multiple violations that include physical and emotional and sometimes sexual abuse.

Surely, Nora must know the real story. But you have to wait to call her. Using whatever rickety internet skills you have, you join Facebook as an anonymous participant, landing in parents groups and private chat rooms, where stories are shared from the trenches.

“Hello….” You type into the ether. “My granddaughter is fifteen and we are still exploring options…any advice or insight about your child’s experiences at this place? Time is running out….”

Private messages appear::

“It was a disaster. Our daughter ran away three times because they kept taking away her food… We mortgaged our house to pay for nothing…”

“Our son met the worst of the worst there and they gave him ideas about working the system. He ended up taking us to court for sending him there…”

“Don’t plan on reimbursement from health insurance. You won’t see a dime…”

“Our nephew came home three months ago. We thought he was doing great. Now we can’t find him.”

And then you stumble into the online judges: Only a terrible person would send a child away.

Today, you realize that you will need to replace your reading glasses because your sight is skewed and one eye feels strained. You let your long distance gaze linger beyond the window, where there are slight signs of a changing season. The flowering pear trees in front of your house have wisps of white growth. You doubt there will be zinnias and marigolds in the garden this summer.

You’re running out of blood pressure medication. And what are you supposed to do about Minnie’s braces, which probably should have been removed six months ago? The thought of the orthodontist’s office, buzzy with teens, fills you with sadness. In that five o’clock slant of late winter sunlight, you have stirrings and wonder if one glass of red wine ever really hurt anyone.

“Grams?” There she stands, in the doorway of your bedroom, pale and forlorn. Her gray sweat pants and over sized black hoody hang loosely on her fragile frame. Your mind has wandered too far from today and you are instantly back to high alert.

“What do you need my darling girl?”

Without a word, she sighs, walks towards your bed, and lies down next to you, on her stomach. You make room for her, lightly stroking her back. Her shoulder blades feel like tiny wings and your throat clutches as you think of sending her so far away.

You are both silent for several minutes.

Suddenly, she rolls over onto her back and stares at you. Eyes are clear, but ringed with fatigue. “Tell me about Grandpa.”

You take a beat and wonder: what would Lawrence do? His tolerance had no limits when it came to you. Throughout your marriage, he called your repeated failures “misadventures.” As though you’d innocently skittered, into dead end streets of trouble. He always stood on the other side, watching, until enough was enough. And then he pulled you back. He did his finest work, rewriting the story again and again until it lost its heft and simply disappeared as yesterday’s gossip.

But two months before Lawrence dropped dead of a heart attack in the third floor bathroom, you discovered that he’d had enough of you. Well into his seventies, he was handling just a few clients, looking ahead to more golf time in Florida. He spent less time at home and you baited him relentlessly when he returned. You berated him for not having your best interest at heart while he coddled the no talents, the less beautiful, and that foolish looking toothy blonde with the big gums you’d just found out about.

He was making plans without you. Your acting days were behind you, and you thrashed around, drunkenly, in this same house looking for the fight.

This is not the story you will tell Minnie.

And you have never told Alexander.