By January 1999 I was desperate. As I knew she would, Ashley had refused, and she spent the first semester of her sophomore year doing, literally, nothing. This was flat out against the law. She was falling behind in her credits, and how did Mike expect her to graduate on time?
But I had a best friend named Lynn who was not only my ally but also a teacher's aid. Lynn and her husband, Wesley, had moved up to central California several years before, and their youngest daughter, Ember, was one of Ashley's best friends. In November Lynn asked if Ashley could spend a couple of weeks with them, and while she was there she went to school with Ember. She seemed to thrive in the public school setting, and Lynn told me what I already knew- our daughter had to go to school, and home-schooling was no longer an option. I agreed that Ashley, who had had the opportunity to act out all semester and should have out of sheer boredom, was behaving herself and seemed to be growing up. Lynn told both me and Mike that she needed a second chance. So I stepped out on a huge limb when I approached Mike about putting Ashley in the public system for the 2nd semester of her sophomore year. This precipitated one of the worst fights Mike and I had ever had, but family and friends rallied around us to help convince him that he needed to relent.
Mike capitulated after a fashion, but he fought me every step of the way. I enrolled her in Covington, and Ashley promised to follow rules and do her best in school. No more getting over-involved with friends, no more saucy attitude, no more goofing off in class. But with Mike still treating her harshly and blatantly predicting failure, how could she do anything but fail?
Well, Ashley lied. Looking back, I really can't say I blame her. She was so desperate to get out of the house, she probably would've promised to sell her firstborn child for a chance to go to public high school. And once set free, she wanted to be like any other 15 year old girl. So even though Mike said no make-up, no jewelry, no nail polish and no tight clothes, Ashley was constantly getting caught going against the rules. She said she'd do good in class and promptly got 2 D's and an F on her first progress report. No amount of lecturing had any effect, and even I was getting frustrated with her bull-headedness.
It wasn't until two months of hell had passed that we found out what was really going on. Ashley was hanging around with a marginally bad crowd at school, and though she denies it, I think she’d begun to smoke marijuana before and after class. She was also indicating that she was in the process of becoming sexually active, and she wasn’t willing to follow the guidelines we’d set up. If her grades were bad, her attitude was worse, and she even began to lose me as an ally.
I discovered the marijuana and sex connection while going through Ashley's bedroom looking for some of my makeup which had disappeared. All these notes she had been passing in her classes were stored between her mattress and box springs, and as I read I was horrified. I had to share them with Mike- there was no way I could keep this big of a problem a secret from my husband, and we confronted Ashley that afternoon. She was furious, ranting and raving about privacy, crying hysterically and promising that she'd change. But an hour later we caught her talking to Herbie on the telephone- one of the questionable young men mentioned in the notes, and she was already on restriction from using the phone. That night, by stuffing her bed full of clothes to deceive us, Ashley ran away. We searched everywhere but couldn't find her.
The March 31st runaway destroyed what was left of my relationship with Ashley. We pulled out all the stops to find her and bring her home. I found her phone list and contacted people on it, but all denied knowing Ashley had run away. Some even said that they didn’t know who she was or why their names were on her list. And it didn't occur to us that someone would lie to us about our daughter. Wow, were we naive!
What we were up against was a group of devious teens whom she had befriended over the two months she'd been in school. Ashley enjoyed attention, and she liked drama. So she'd begun bending the truth with her friends about Mike and me and maximizing the trials of her home-life. Being the same age, her friends believed her whole-heartedly and joined her side, firmly believing we were abusive parents. It was a tough situation to be up against these kids, some with their parents' support, who kept Ashley at their home and lied to us through their teeth about her whereabouts.
We filed a report with the sheriff and let the school officials know she was a runaway. We tracked down leads and even spent all day on my birthday on a wild goose chase hunting Ashley through 3 neighborhoods. But it seemed she was smarter than we were. Ashley only phoned once, and she was cold and indifferent. We were so upset that she could do this without batting an eye and put her brothers and sisters through the worry over her disappearance.
Finally, we got a lucky break. It was two weeks after she'd run away, and Ashley tried to sneak on the Covington campus to meet friends for lunch. The vice-principal recognized her from the picture we'd circulated, and school officials called us. Mike drove down and picked her up, and was she furious with us! Ashley was belligerent and abusive, striking out at the kids when they came to greet her. We even brought in the juvenile detective from the sheriff’s dept. who had helped us search in the vain attempt to keep her home. But no, Ashley had had a taste of freedom, and she liked it. Nothing was going to keep her at home if she had anything to do with it.