Ashley returned from school in a foul mood. Mike called soon after. He was doing okay but said it appeared as if he was going to be in Mesa Vista at least until the end of the weekend, and he needed clothing and grooming supplies. It was tough down there because he was in ICU with all the loony people that had been picked up off the streets by County Mental Health, and some of them were prone to violence. He’d been participating in different forms of therapy, and his psychiatrist at the facility said that maybe he could be moved to a different unit by the end of the day. Mike said he was lonely. That figured- he was cut off from the entire family. He asked if we could come visit, and I said that Margret had forbidden him to see the kids until further notice. He began to cry and said he needed to see Ashley, and while I tried to be patient, my blood began to boil. Even with all the trouble he’d brought on the family over her, she was still the person he cared about the most. I repeated that he wasn’t allowed to and reminded him that we could lose the kids if I gave into his wishes. His voice became peevish. It wasn’t fair, he said, to be punished this way. He had some things he needed to say to her, and he wanted a visit. I just shook my head in sadness and anger. It was like listening to a cranky child. Mike said his time was up because the phone calls were to be kept short. He had to go, but he’d call me back later. I took the number of the unit payphone and as I hung up I heard a weird click come from the receiver. I didn’t think anything of it until I passed Ashley’s room on the way to the kitchen and heard her say, "Bye, Dad. I love you”. Stunned, I threw open her door and stared at her. As I stepped in she gave me a triumphant smile, offering a simple "Dad wanted to talk to me" as explanation for her disobedience. “Are you aware that you are putting you and your siblings at risk by talking to him on the phone when Margret said he’s not allowed to speak to you?” I asked. “Do you realize she could put all of you in foster care?” She tossed her head and said, as if she hadn’t heard, "Dad wants me to visit him." "You can’t," I said flatly. “No visits, no conversations. Don’t let me catch you talking to him again until Margret says you can.” Ashley glared at me and I left the room, heading for the washer. She followed me out and seemed to be challenging me when she said there was something I needed to know about Mike. “What?” I asked impatiently. She looked down at her hands. “He’s smoking. He started while we were in the hotel.” I was speechless and furious. How could he be smoking when for as long as I could remember all I’d heard was how allergic he was to cigarette smoke! And then I recalled all the times he’d sat right next to Ash in that small office, a cigarette blazing from her lips and the smoke curling around her. Second-hand smoke! Ashley was responsible for getting him hooked and, and not only was I angry with her, but I despised Mike for his weakness. Like I hadn’t warned him! If this wasn’t enough of a mess, my father called me that afternoon. He’d been having some medical problems recently and had it checked out by his doctor. The results were back, and he had prostate cancer. I just sat there, closing my eyes in pain, and asked how bad it was. My dad said he was probably mid-stage and needed some aggressive treatment, but if he followed the doctor’s orders he should be okay. That is not as good as it sounds because Dad is notorious for living his life his way and not listening to his doctor. As soon as he hung up, there was Mike back on the phone. Somehow he’d already heard about my father, and he was sorry he couldn’t be at home to comfort me. He said he’d telephoned Margret to ask about the children visiting and also left a message for her supervisor to complain about her lack of professionalism. In turn, I told him that I didn’t appreciate him going behind my back and speaking to Ashley when it could get all of us in trouble. All he could say was that he missed her and just wanted to say, “hi”. Another telephone call came in as I was hanging up, and it was Marilyn, checking in for me. She asked how I was doing, and I said I was tired and losing patience with Ashley. I didn’t tell her about her talking to Mike, but I hinted that she was going to be difficult to control without him here, and Marilyn commiserated. She asked if I’d had another chance to talk to my daughter since Tuesday, and I replied that she was hostile and wanted to be left alone. Puzzled, she asked what happened to our newfound friendship, and I said I had no idea. Had she, Marilyn asked, had any opportunity to spend time alone with her father since then, and I said yes. Tuesday night, almost all day Wednesday and the day before until they returned home. She speculated that, knowing he was losing control over Ash, he had probably said something to her about me to make her angry on purpose. I agreed, but there’s nothing I can do if she wants to act like that. It was almost 4:30 by this time, and I had nothing planned for dinner. I gave the kids a quick snack to ward off hunger and threw some clothes into a load of laundry and another load in the dryer. Half an hour later the doorbell rang, and it was a pizza delivery service. Bless Marilyn, she had called in a pizza order for us upon discovering how bad my day had gone. It was a wonderful gesture of friendship and concern, and it made my awful day a little brighter. What I didn’t know was that my troubles were just beginning.

Mike had to hang up and called back a half hour later. How, he wanted to know, did CPS happen to become interested in us? “I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. “Maybe Ashley running around yelling rape last night, or she said something to some therapist.” Personally, I was wondering about Marilyn because she seemed to have a handle on what was going on here, and it was very possible that after the runaway she didn’t trust our daughter to open up to me. Mike said the motorhome was in the church parking lot and was worried about leaving it there. I asked what I should do, and he suggested that I take Cal, his step-father, over to the church and have him drive it home. I could follow and help park it in our driveway, and he was sure his mom would be happy to babysit the kids while we were gone. I assured him that I loved him, and he said the staff wanted to process him, and he’d talk to me the next day. I called Cal and Luanne, and despite their anger at me, they drove over to help with babysitting and bringing back our big rig. Cal and I drove silently over to the church, and I used my keys to get in. Cal wasn’t used to such a big vehicle and scraped the bumper in our driveway, but it wasn’t a big deal. Getting it home was the thing. In the meantime, Luanne got our dinner cleaned up and put the kids to bed. Even Ashley went without sassing. I lay in bed that night just reeling. My life had an unreal quality about it, and I was so afraid of our future. CPS had the right to keep Mike out of the house forever if they deemed him guilty of molest. But even as weird as he’d become, I couldn’t see him hurting our daughter. Maybe his methods were misguided, but to sexually abuse her was beyond thinking. And despite what he thought of me, I knew I’d done the right thing in opening the letter and reading it. Maybe he didn’t appreciate me, but I felt I’d saved h is life. Thankfully, Ashley got up the next morning and went to school without any trouble. The other children were one day away from going off track for a month, out of school until the after Thanksgiving, and I grimaced at the perfect timing. Just what I needed- all of the children home when I’d be working with social workers and therapists helping Mike. But that’s my life for you. Perfect. I walked around as if I was in a trance, picking up here, dusting there, doing a load of laundry or two. I heard from Margret who knew that Mike was in Vista View, and she warned me that he was to have no contact with any of the children until she gave permission. I was beginning to thoroughly dislike her, and I certainly hated the intrusion into our family’s lives. Mike telephoned me at 11, asking mostly about Ashley. I said she was okay and was at Oakside, and he breathed a sigh of relief. I asked about his night, and he said he’d hardly slept he was so terrified. His room-mate was convinced he was Jesus Christ and had to smite sin wherever he found it. But he’d already been moved off the ICU and put into a semi-private room, and he felt a lot calmer. He said he was allowed 15 minute telephone calls several times a day and would be calling regularly. Again I assured him I loved him and said the family missed him. He started to cry and hung up. Kerri called me to set up a counseling session for that afternoon. She arrived at 3 pm and, gazing at me and smiling, commented that I certainly appeared to be holding it together. The kids looked as if they were doing okay, all considering. The house was clean. Yeah, despite everything we were getting through the crisis. We sat down in the living room and began comparing notes. Kerri said that as my calls began coming into the office on Tuesday, she pulled our family file and started re-reading her previous notes. Instead of taking them at face value, as she had when the information was first given to her, she now looked at the underlying themes. And what she saw disturbed her greatly. Mike, Kerri said, was a bully who used my insecurities against me. Ever since we began therapy, she’d observed in me a desire to please, and it was in pleasing people that I derived both my self-acceptance and my sense of failure. Mike knew this, and it became a powerful weapon in his hands to manipulate me. He had stripped me of my pride with constant and unwarranted shaming, and I had just endured it because my low self-esteem convinced me I didn’t deserve any better. She’d heard him make inflammatory comments to and about me, and at first she thought it was because he didn’t know how to hold a civilized discussion with me. But looking back, Kerri said that it was his purposeful way of disrespecting me that kept me off balance and questioning myself, wondering what it was that I was doing wrong to provoke him. The truth was that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. I was a gifted and intelligent woman, which might be frightening to Mike because I was able to keep my wits about me as he descended into childishness and despondency. The more pressure he put on me, the more I had withdrawn into a protective shell which served me well to keep what self-esteem I still had intact. I was behaving like a godly wife and mother, putting up with incredible stress from Mike and Ashley and handling it to the best of my abilities. Kerri told me that I was a lot stronger than I gave myself credit for. I would have to be a strong person to get through these past months; many people would have caved in under the pressure, but I was still on my feet and doing what was needed to take care of the family. I asked her how Mike could have abused Ashley? Especially with me not having a clue? Slowly Kerri explained that molest didn’t have to involve physically touching a victim. It was simply a matter of gaining the trust of him or her and using that trust to destroy the victim’s innocence. There were many forms involving something as simple as talking about adult sexuality with a minor up to actually having sex with a child. Anything that an adult did that was sensually stimulating, including sharing pornography or watching sex scenes in a movie, was abuse. And from what I’d learned from CPS and Marilyn, it appeared as if Mike was guilty of, if not actually molesting Ashley, to at least moving between thinking of it and acting on his fantasies. Kerri said that the patterns were all there. Mike spending so much time alone with Ashley to the point of excluding the rest of the family. Mike refusing to give Ashley consequences when she acted out. Mike trying to win her favor with unearned privileges. It was a term known as grooming, meaning that the perpetrator was preparing the victim for actual physical molest. Mike’s writing about having illicit desires, she supposed, was about Ashley and, in essence, turning himself almost into a boyfriend. Maybe he hadn’t acted on these wishes, but the fact that he had them made him a molesting parent.

Margret and Dena left after questioning our daughter, and I just kind of wandered around, waiting for Mike to leave. Ashley was mad at me because I wouldn’t let her go out to see or talk to him. I said that for her to go against orders put the entire family at risk, and for once in her life, she obeyed. Mike returned from the grocery store with bags of stuff and loaded the motorhome. Then he went down to work in his office for about twenty minutes. I helped put food away in the camper fridge. Something about Mike’s attitude made me uneasy and afraid, and I quietly checked the cabinets and drawers as I worked. Upon finding a few small pocketknives tucked into cushions, I grabbed them up. I also wasn’t surprised to discover beer and wine stashed under the bed, and stealthily I removed half of it. He was depressed enough without adding to his woes. Mike was finally ready to leave, and I was anxious and on edge that something would happen. I half-expected him to snap and refuse to go, whereupon Margret would swoop back in to take off with the children. Mike sadly handed me a sealed envelope, reminding me that Ashley had therapy with Kerri in 45 minutes and asking me to take her. The letter was for Kerri- don’t forget it. He was shattered and despairing, seeing as how the little ones couldn’t even come out to say goodbye to him. I wanted to hug him, but his manner was so uninviting I just stood there waiting. And then he was gone. Ashley pounced on me as I walked through the door. How could I just let him leave like that? Didn't I love him? How could I allow her father to go off alone and friendless when his life was ruined? "You don’t understand," I said to her simply, waving off more complaints. "I have more people to worry about than Daddy". The kids were crying- they didn’t understand the significance of the allegations either, but they did know that CPS had kicked their father out of the house. And the phone started to ring. It was Kerri, and she was calling to say that she’d just arrived at church because of something going on at her children's school. She was an hour late with her last client and could we either postpone Ashley’s session for later on or wait until the next day? I said it was no problem and described what had happened that day. I relayed Mike’s enforced departure and Margret and Dena interrogating Ashley. Mike was so much more depressed than I'd ever seen him, even more than the previous morning at church. In fact, I told Kerri, he had left a letter addressed to her with me. "Open it, Julie", Kerri said. I peeled back the envelope and drew out a single sheet of paper, printed on both sides. What I saw made my eyes widen with fear and my hands begin to shake. It was the exact same letter I’d seen on Mike’s computer screen two days before about how he couldn’t trust me and felt as if everyone was against him. The part about having feelings he knew were wrong but couldn’t fight made much more sense now. However, the note ended differently than what I’d seen before. This paper closed with a series of goodbyes and apologies to friends and family members, and it was obviously a suicide note. I started to stammer and cry as I read aloud. Kerri ordered me to hang up at once and dial 9-1-1 while she worked from the church’s end to try to locate and stop Mike. Once again I found myself calling the sheriff as I told them of the proof in my hands that my husband was suicidal. I was told to expect a deputy immediately. I gave a description of the motorhome and was informed that a call would go out to intercept him. Within minutes a deputy was on my doorstep as I recounted a quick version of recent events. He asked for the suicide note, and I handed it over. Then he said that a report had been radioed in that my husband had gone to our church and was being questioned as we spoke. I was weak with relief. Mike called me on his cellphone about a half-hour later. He was headed for Vista View Hospital, a psychiatric facility, and he sounded tired and resigned to getting some rest. But he was also a partially angry. Why, he asked, had I opened the letter and called the police? I explained how Kerri had called, wanting to postpone the therapy, and I’d opened the letter under her orders, knowing we wouldn’t be seeing her. I was so glad I had because what I read showed just how desperate he had become. "No", Mike contradicted. "I phoned Kaiser as I pulled out of the driveway because I was so depressed. A mental health tech spoke to me and said I could get an appointment in Emergency Intervention." So he’d headed over to our church to speak with Gerrald or Hank, one of the pastors. In fact, he was on his way to a crisis shelter when the police arrived and insisted he go into 72-hour hold at Vista View. Mike went on to say that my curiosity had just created more problems since he never really planned to hurt himself. Feeling scolded, I begged to differ, but it was in silence. He really didn’t need me to make waves. So Mike was locked up in the ICU of the psychiatric hospital, and I was alone with six kids looking to me for guidance and comfort. And one of those kids was a 16 year old girl who had done nothing for the past six months but give me trouble and would rather be anywhere but home with me. How was I going to handle her and keep the rest of the family safe? And what would we do if Mike wasn't allowed to return after he was released from the hospital? Mike’s mother and step-father just exploded when they heard the news. Cal verbally blasted me for the way Mike had become so depressed, and Luanne mostly blamed Ashley for the stress he was under. I listened meekly, too stunned to argue, too tired to fight back. It wouldn't have mattered anyway.

When I awoke the next morning after a restless night, to no big surprise I still had no answers. Margret called me early. I told her I had no idea when Mike and Ashley would arrive, and she asked me to phone her when they did. She wanted to question Ashley herself before the girl heard anything from me. Margret reiterated that Mike was being kicked out of the house until further notice, and under no circumstances was he to even step foot inside. If he forced his way in, I had better be out the back door with the children and calling her to make arrangements for somewhere else to live. Otherwise, I was putting the family in jeopardy, and CPS would have no alternative but to take all the children away from me. Ashley called me at eleven to say they were on their way home. She sounded like the usual Ashley, snippy and confident, saying that Mike was alright. No, I couldn't speak with him. No, he didn’t know much about the current family crisis, and I didn’t enlighten her about the seriousness of the charges. They had gone to a softball board meeting the night before which ended very late, and with the chaos of the day before, Ashley had asked if they could stay in the hotel. She sounded as if she was protecting her father. I bit my tongue to keep from making any angry accusations. Sure enough, about thirty minutes later the car appeared on the road. Bags were packed for each child and standing at the breakfast room door in the event we had to make a getaway. The kids thought of it as a big adventure. I sure wish I could have shared their innocence. I met Mike and Ashley at the door. Luck was with me, and she entered first as I placed myself in his path. Child Protective Services, I told him gravely, had come out to see me the day before, apparently investigating the rape charges as well as allegations that he’d molested Ashley. I was under very strict instructions to not let him into the house or the children would be placed in foster homes. He could not stay here. Mike gave me a weird look, but his eyes stayed dark and unfocused. Sort of hurt and surprised, sort of resigned, he turned away. I suggested that he take the motorhome over to his parents’ house for a couple of days. Certainly this would blow over soon, I said, and I felt living there would satisfy CPS until we straightened the problem out. Ashley glared at me angrily to see her father forbidden entrance and ran to her room. I cautioned the children to stay in the house while I went out to speak to Mike. He was climbing in his car, and when I asked where he was going, he said he’d take the motorhome somewhere, but he needed groceries. He was going to the market. I was kind of sorry for him, he was acting so sad. But how sorry can you be for a man who had rebuffed warnings from family members about what Ashley was capable of? Everyone, including Lachae at CPS, had told us that she could get us in trouble, and look what was happening. As instructed, I called Margret to tell her that Ashley was home. She said she’d be out that very afternoon to speak with her and asked what Mike had decided to do. I said it was uncertain, but we had a motorhome he could use in the meantime. Margret cautioned that he had to be completely off our property and asked when she might have a chance to interview him? Feeling strangely defensive, I said that Mike would get in touch with her. I had the odd sense of a family unraveling as the afternoon progressed. I was worried about Mike, thinking that if he needed a reason to end his life, CPS had provided it. He might have been ignoring the kids and me all summer and fall, but he loved us. Leaving Ashley and me together, as hard as he worked in past months to keep us separated, must have worried him too, and to be truthful, I wasn’t thrilled myself about being in charge and keeping her under control. Mike was still at the grocery store when Margret and Dena came out to speak to Ashley. I admonished her to tell the truth, no matter who got hurt. Of course, I wasn’t allowed to be present, and while they talked I put stuff in the motorhome that I thought Mike would need- clothing, food from our pantry and his medicines. Margret asked to talk to me when she finished with Ashley. Her opinion was that Ashley, who had been quite hostile and retracted everything she’d ever said about the relationship, was shielding Mike. No, her father had never given her beer. Yes, he had pornography on his computer, but the only way she saw it was by snooping in his office when she shouldn’t have been. He did let her smoke but hadn’t asked her to dress provocatively to earn cigarettes, and he certainly hadn’t touched her inappropriately. And finally, he had not attempted to rape her two nights before. ****TTFN, Julie

I immediately phoned Kerri, and sobbing, told her what had happened. This just had an essence of unreality to it, and I was so frightened. She sighed and said she had sort of expected this. Mike’s actions had been spiraling down into an almost non-responsiveness, and at this point there was nothing in him that was anything parent-like. Not that she’d known, if the charges were true, that Mike was abusing Ashley, but not setting consequences for, and in fact rewarding, her misbehavior was a classic maneuver of sexual abusers. She was so sorry she’d failed to catch on beforehand, but Mike had managed to pull the wool over a lot of people’s eyes. She acknowledged it was very easy to look back on his behavior and see the patterns, not so easy to anticipate them. Marilyn called as I hung up. She was checking in with Ashley and me, anxious to learn how our day had gone. I sadly sketched a nuts and bolts rendition, and she asked a lot of questions about CPS. I almost felt as if this was not news to her, and a quick thought went through my mind that maybe Marilyn had something to do with the investigation. The children were full of questions which I didn’t have answers for, and when Ryan returned from school he was just as puzzled. Margret had visited him there, and he said he’d told her that the family arguments bothered him. He was angry with us over the embarrassment of being called out of class to talk to a caseworker. Like it was my fault that Mike and Ashley were acting so bizarrely. As far as he was concerned, his sister had the right idea in trying to get out of the family, and if he was in her place, he’d do the same. I don’t really know how I got through the rest of the day. I was worried about Mike and Ashley, and suspicions just swirled through my mind. What were they doing that would take all afternoon and evening? Had Ashley told Mike about the workers’ allegations, and were they hatching a plot to leave the area together? Or had it made Mike even more suicidal? His cellphone was turned off, and I had no idea of how to find them. How could all of this be happening to our family? Ashley called at nine p.m. She asked what was going on, and I minimized the social worker visit, hoping to allay fears. I simply reiterated that CPS had responded to her cry of rape the night before which shouldn’t be surprising. Blithely she informed me that she and Mike would be home the next day, but she refused to allow me to speak to my own husband. She also wouldn’t divulge whether she’d told him about the CPS intervention. Her tone of voice was cold, and it wasn’t a pleasant conversation. I left a message on Margret’s phone about the call. All sorts of visions and pieces of dialogue from the past couple of months flew through my mind, and even with Mike’s mental condition, it took a lot to even consider he might have molested Ashley. Molest meant touching and acting out sexually towards and child. He’d always been so moral and family-oriented. Straight-laced to the point of stodgy. The Mike I knew, the man I’d married would not do anything like this to his daughter. He just would not. So, besides having a child with a big mouth and a tendency to exaggerate, had this happened? Ashley liked being the center of attention, but making up stories about sexual abuse seemed a bit overboard. Was it possible that someone like Marilyn had taken a couple of fishy behaviors and woven them together into a subterfuge of abuse? Maybe it was just the evidence of a couple of weird photos and Ashley smoking, combined with accidentally seeing the models on his computer and wishing he’d treat her more like an adult and give her beer. Mike loved Ashley and would do anything for her. Certainly, not anything to her. But what if…? What if there was a kernel of truth in the allegations? Why would Margret and Dena have come out if there wasn’t? The Mike of today was not the man I’d married. He had become so secretive and over-possessive of Ashley. Shouting at me every time I tried to get involved in her life. Making me feel guilty for my curiosity and concern. Why was this? Was this just a father who had tricked himself into believing I was out to harm the child he loved and felt he needed to protect her from me? Or was something going on behind my back between Mike and Ashley that I didn’t know about? One thing I knew for sure, and it was that I was so angry at whatever he’d done to put us in this position. I hated it- I hated it all. I cried myself to sleep, if you could call it sleep.

Look, I suggested to the social workers. I could show them the house, especially Ashley’s bedroom and Mike’s office. I could let them see for themselves what I meant. Margret eagerly agreed to come with me while Dena said she wanted to speak to the children herself. Setting out to prove we were following the law, I led Margret to the bedroom Ashley slept in and demonstrated how the alarm worked. See? It was an alarm, not a door lock. The bars on the window were maybe a little extreme, but what were we supposed to do? She had friends who had helped her escape in the past, and if not for the bars, we were encouraging her to sneak out whenever she wished. Margret asked to see Mike’s office, and I took her downstairs. This was where things could get dicey, and I said I had found some pictures of half-naked actresses just the other day, but Ashley told me herself that her father hadn’t shown her any porn. The CPS worker asked what I meant by “half-naked”, and when I described the images of the well-known women, she said it wasn’t porn and no big deal. I unlocked the office door, and we stepped inside. To my un-surprise, the figure on the screen-saver was totally different than the one I’d seen of Ashley wreathed in cigarette smoke. The picture now on the monitor was a photo of Mike and Ashley sitting side by side, and there was nothing lurid about it. Also as expected, Mike had passworded the computer so I couldn’t log on, and no, I didn’t know the password. Margret asked me about my relationship with Mike, and I said it was strained. We had different parenting styles, and we argued, mostly over the way to handle Ashley. While I'd always been a little lenient with her to compensate for Mike's harshness, he had done a complete turn-around. Currently, he was treating her with less consequences than I thought best. Margret nodded and made notes, mentioning how Ashley had also complained about the way we fought in front of her. "No surprise to me," I responded. And I explained how every time Mike and I tried to discuss anything in private, Ashley was right there, listening in, convinced we were talking about her. It didn’t make any difference where we went in the house, she followed us everywhere and listened at doors. There was never an opportunity to have a private conversation. The ringing phone interrupted our talk, and Ashley was on the phone again. She said that she and Dad weren’t coming home right away. It seemed that Mike had something to do that would take most of the day, and she felt she needed to be with Dad for now. Maybe they’d get a hotel or something, but neither of them felt up to answering any questions. And she hung up. I felt sort of numb. Margret asked what was wrong, and I relayed the conversation. She got this shocked look on her face and responded how inappropriate it was for a grown man and a teenaged girl to share a motel room. I said I was more worried than anything else. Wondering aloud, I said that maybe it was possible that they might panic and run off. Or with Mike’s frame of mind, who could tell what he’d do next? Margret replied that, in her opinion, the sheriff’s department needed to be immediately contacted to be on the lookout for Mike’s car, and she whipped out her cellphone to make the call. The social workers then left, asking me to let them know immediately if I heard from my husband or daughter. Margret said that Mike was not allowed back in the house. As far as CPS was concerned, he had molested Ashley and was a danger to the family.

Margret asked me if I was aware that Ashley had told several people that her father was molesting her? I stared open-mouthed and gasped. She continued, saying that Ashley had gone to several acquaintances and related that he made her beg for cigarettes. In exchange for a smoke, he ordered her to come down to his office dressed in skimpy pajamas or without her bra. Margret continued, saying that if Mike allowed her to smoke this was a crime in itself because she was underage. Mike supposedly also had compromising photos of Ashley on his computer and had taken her on a business trip where he’d given her beer. Our daughter claimed that he routinely showed her porn he had downloaded from the internet, and she didn’t like how Mike touched her, such as patting her on the butt when she was on her bed. She had gone along with this stuff to please him and because she was afraid he’d hurt himself if she refused. Oh, and we locked her in her bedroom and put bars on her window. I could only shake my head for a few moments, speechless. No way was this stuff true! No way! The man I knew and married would not have subjected Ashley to this. He was too conservative. But why would Margret and Dena be here if there wasn’t some kernel of truth in the allegations? The Mike of today was not the man I’d married. He had become so secretive and over-possessive of Ashley. Was this why? Was something going on behind my back? What was happening between Mike and Ashley that I didn’t know about? Okay, there were some patterns that concerned me. First, there was the porn on the computer, but had he really shown any to Ashley? According to what she'd said to me, no. She'd told me that she was using the computer in his office and happened to find the nudie pictures on her own. The photos of her smoking, while tasteless, were not exactly inappropriate, and I’d seen nothing that suggested she took off her clothes for him. Maybe he had "patted her butt" but getting her to wake up in the morning was difficult, and just as surely, he’d also shaken her shoulder or jiggled her arm. As for the beer, Mike was so straight-laced that giving Ashley alcohol was beyond comprehension. How many times he’d berated her for drinking I couldn’t even remember. Margret and Dena were looking at me expectantly. What was I supposed to say? That Ashley had lied, or at the very least, exaggerated? And yet, that seemed to be the most likely answer. I didn’t know her intentions, but she had everything to gain by making stuff up, including the possibility of staying in the area. For years she’d chafed under our parenting as if she expected to live a freer life elsewhere. She’d always been one for drama, and by establishing a CPS report, she was getting it in spades. Add to this, her victim mentality, and it started to make a lot of sense. With the social workers listening in, I went back and began a more-detailed account of Ashley’s upbringing. I mentioned her birthmother, Ruby, and how it was well-known that the children were being neglected. Many in our church thought Ashley had been prenatally exposed to drugs, and CPS was a constant in the lives of all Ruby’s children. Sometimes her mother wanted to go out at night and party, leaving her in the apartment to cry out her needs and frustrations alone in the dark. How Ashley was not the "little doll on the shelf" her birthmom expected her to be, but a living child with curiosity and a temper who didn’t always do what Mommy wanted. We had brought this beautiful, fearful child into our household and lavished love on her, and she had grown up to be bright and talented, although troubled. I described Ashley as a teenager, and how she had been in and out of misfortune since 8th grade. Making people feel sorry for her was a long-standing pattern, and in the end her past had caught up with her. Sending her to Covington High School six months before was the icing on the cake, and her repeated run aways were now forcing us, as Ashley’s parents, to secure an out-of-state school for her. We were doing the best we knew how working in a system of miles of red tape, and sometimes things went wrong. We weren’t perfect parents and never claimed to be. If any parts of the allegations were true, they must be exaggerated. Ashley had been angling for emancipation for months. She refused to accept that she had drug and emotional problems, and she was always blaming somebody else for her actions. She saw herself as a victim, and in her way of thinking, she had the worst home life in the world, despite the fact that Mike had bent over backwards to try to get to know her and love her for herself. Despite me trying to keep tabs on her and the rest of the family. Ashley expected to be allowed to do whatever she pleased whenever she wanted, and she just didn’t have the maturity to accept rules and limitations. We had taken her to see Heidi, who had encouraged us to allow Ashley to smoke, citing it as the least of our problems, but we stopped the therapy when Heidi’s discipline became too harsh. That therapist was the one who suggested putting an alarm, not a lock, on Ashley’s door, and because of her propensity for sneaking out at night, Mike had taken to sleeping in the hall until Ashley was asleep. As parents of a minor, I said, we would be held legally responsible for anything Ashley did in or outside of our house. We couldn’t just allow her to run free, and keeping a tight rein on her was the only way to make sure she stayed home at night.

As if the morning’s events weren’t enough, there was a knock on the front door as I hung up the telephone. Oh great, now what! The callers were two women, unknown to me. One of them introduced herself as Margret Abrams and said she was from Child Protective Services- could they come in? The younger woman said she was Dena Colso, as I opened the door for them, and added that they were responding to a hotline report of child abuse against Ashley. I was surprised, but I shouldn’t have been. We were batting a thousand here, and in the back of my mind it occurred to me that a report would’ve been filed with CPS the night before. Even though she took back her story, a child reporting an attempted rape by her father is what CPS is all about, right up their alley. Margret proceeded to fly directly into the breakfast nook where the children were sitting around the table eating what passed for lunch. She was loud and gregarious, asking names, and began making their acquaintance. Dena, the other social worker, asked to speak with me alone in the living room. Grudgingly I agreed. We were just about to start when the conversation was interrupted by the ringing phone. The call was from Mike’s cellphone, and Ashley was on the line. “Is it safe to come home?” she asked in a withering voice. Oh no, I thought. Ashley acting hostile could only mean one thing- the treaty we’d established the night before was off. Were we back to the cold war already? I told her I hadn't been outside, but I assumed that the deputies were gone. Something in my voice gave away the situation. "What's going on, Mom?" My brain hurt and stupidly, I told Ashley about CPS showing up. “Why? she gulped in alarm. Why do you think, daughter? I wanted to ask in an acid voice. Because you don’t look at long-term consequences before you act or open your mouth, maybe? Because it’s easier to run to neighbors yelling rape than it is to tell me what’s going on and get help? Instead I was very calm and said that it appeared that the social workers were responding to her attempted assault report. I heard some mumbling that signaled a muted conversation between Ashley and Mike, and then she said she’d call me back. Getting back to the problem at hand, Dena proceeded to question me, and I explained Ashley’s runaway the previous April, her drug use and acting out behavior and the many hospitalizations at San Ramon and Charleston Hospitals. I told the worker about the effects her violence had had on the family and the way we were trying to deal with Ashley’s behavior. I described the visit by the previous social worker, Lachae, and how she’d been concerned that Ashley might try to pay Mike and me back by telling false tales of abuse. Dena said she’d seen the file. I ended my statement by talking about Mike’s reaction to Ashley having to leave in the near future, and how depressed he’d been acting. In the meantime, Margret had questioned the children and walked in, announcing that our family was in major crisis and the children were stressed out. Duh! She sat down with me as the other worker shared what I’d said, and Margret asked again about what had happened the night before. Okay, let’s explain this one more time. Ashley and I went to the Aftercare program, out to eat and talk and returned home around 10:30 to find Mike despondent. First Ashley tried to bring him out of his funk, and when I went down to try my luck, Ashley slipped out of the house. She’d gone to a neighbor’s home where she’d tried to convince the inhabitants that Mike had attempted to rape her. And as I’d explained to the deputy the night before, I saw no evidence of this- Ashley was fine, not disheveled or frenzied when she returned from Mike’s office. It was my opinion that she’d used this excuse to prey on the neighbor’s sympathies. It wasn't the first time she had exaggerated tales to gain sympathy. ****TTFN, Julie

When government moves, it sometimes moves in overkill. Not only did a police officer go to the church, but two deputies arrived on my doorstep 45 minutes after I called. They were responding to both my summons as well as information from the office speaking to the group at church. At this time, Mike was still at the church attempting to convince the law that he didn’t need to be locked up in the psych ward, and the men who arrived at the house came to take a report from me. I told them about the family situation- they had heard about some of it- and gave them reasons why I felt Mike might want to kill himself, the biggest being that Ashley was destined to be transferred out of state for treatment. The deputies said it appeared as if the situation was well in hand and bid goodbye to me, and I assumed they’d left. Unbeknownst to me, they parked their squad car at the end of our road to await Mike’s return. Mike called me on his cellphone soon after. He was understandably angry with me when he finally left the church. Ashley was with him in his car, he said, and we would make arrangements to get the van later. Why, he demanded to know, was Ashley driving anyway? I described our morning and her reaction to his whispered goodbye, and how Ash had become convinced that he meant to do himself harm. Mike replied that he had absolutely no plans to kill himself. Having the police show up at church had been humiliating, and had I called the law on him? I said yes but with hesitation, explaining how I’ve watched him become more and more depressed. His actions lately just haven’t made any sense. Mike said not to worry, he was on his way home. I could tell that my excuses didn't satisfy him at all. It felt as if I'd just hung up the telephone when there was another call from him. I answered, and he was screaming about being unable to trust me, demanding to know why two sheriff deputies were waiting at the end of the street. I explained how they’d been here earlier in response to my call, but I thought they’d left. True, I'd walked into the house before they actually left the driveway, but I had no reason to think they'd hang around. No, he shouted, the squad car was down the street from the house, and I could tell he thought I’d tricked him. He said that when he saw the deputies he’d driven past, and they pulled out behind him. Mike and Ashley were going to get something to eat, and when his car turned into a nearby fast food restaurant, they finally drove away. Now, he said icily, he’d be home later- he had some errands to run. Talk about my bad luck.

Ashley and I both slept until 8:00 the next morning, but we came awake in a hurry. Except for the children watching tv in the family room, it was strangely quiet. I’d almost forgotten about the night before until I heard Ashley shouting urgently about her father. Mike, as was his norm, had already left for work, but the girl was in a panic. "Where’s Dad?” She jumped out of bed. "Probably at work." I was puzzled by her anxiety. “No, no he’s not”. She began to cry, and I looked at her curiously. While it’s true that she, more than anyone else in the family, knew Mike and her closeness to him made her more aware of his moods, I didn’t believe she could also read his mind. Ashley remembered being awakened by her father very early in the morning when he’d come into the bedroom. He said he was going to work, but he also told her goodbye, and the way he had said it made her think the goodbye was final. She was convinced he was planning to kill himself, and she ordered me to find the key to Mike’s office. I did as I was told, hoping that Ashley was just over-reacting and giving into a bit of drama. But I caught on to her fear and sense of import when I trudged down to the office. Every single hiding place Ashley described as being where Mike had hidden his knives was empty. I searched the entire room without locating them and reported back that the weapons were missing. Ashley came unglued and told me we had to find Mike immediately. I phoned my husband on his cellphone, but he had turned it off, and the voice-mail picked up after one ring. Next I tried Cal and Luanne, but his mother didn’t know Mike’s whereabouts. Cal, his step-father, hadn’t gone into work that morning. Ashley and I both tried to think, and triumphantly I recalled Mike mentioning that he planned on replacing lights at the church. Maybe somebody there knew where he was. I called Kerri Martin, figuring if anyone could help us, she could. But her answering machine clicked on, usually meaning she was either in session with a client or not at church at all. I tried other church staff, and nobody was answering their phones. This caused Ashley to panic all the more. There was no sense in driving around, I told her. Mike could be anywhere, and my only alternative was to keep phoning the church. It didn't help that Ashley was yelling in the background how we had to "do something". I was trying to do something, but it wasn’t enough to suit her. Shortly before noon I finally reached Kerri. She had been in a staff meeting all morning, as had everyone at church except for a secretary. No, Kerri hadn’t seen Mike at the church. I began quickly sketching in the details of the past 24 hours: Ashley’s runaway and how she felt Mike might be suicidal, when the kids came running into the house all talking at once. Ashley had my car keys; she was in the van and pulling out of the driveway. I dropped the receiver to rush outside- all she left was a trail of dust as the van traveled up the dirt road. The children said she was going to church to find their father. In a panic myself, I got back on the phone and explained what Ashley had done. Kerri told me to hang up immediately and call the sheriff, both for my depressed husband and to be on the lookout for Ashley. Just as I was about to phone, Mike called, answering the message I’d left for him. He said that yes, he was at church, but down in a meeting room on the other side from the offices, and nobody knew he was there except Jean. I asked how he was feeling, and he responded that he was depressed. I asked about the knives, and he became irritated that I even knew about them. He denied having any plans at use them. I then informed him that Ashley was on her way to church, convinced he was going to kill himself. Mike tried to stay calm. He told me he was fine, and he did his best to persuade me that I had nothing to fear. Mike explained that he was going to get in his car and start heading towards home, keeping an eye out for Ashley, hoping her driving skills would keep her and others around her safe. But the phone conversation left me feeling unsettled. I doubted he was telling the truth; still, I didn’t want to call the sheriff if he was. But the more I thought about it, the more worried I became. What if he did have suicide plans? His tone of voice had been so despondent, and knowing he had potential weapons he could use made me positive he needed some kind of intervention. So with misgivings, I did as Kerri directed and called the sheriff. The deputy took the information about Ashley, Mike and the vehicles; then he put me on hold. When he came back on the phone he told me a police officer was on his way to the church to check out the situation. I sat back to wait, feeling as if this whole thing had taken on a life of its own. As I would find out later, Kerri had stepped into immediate action. She phoned the police and rallied our pastors, Hank and Gerrald, to help with the crisis. They converged on Mike at the exact same moment that Ashley had pulled, astonishingly safe and sound, into the parking lot with my van. They were all talking to Mike when the police officer responded and talked to the assembled group. He spoke with Mike, both alone and with Ashley, and to my chagrin, let him leave. I guess on second thought I shouldn’t be surprised. Mike can talk his way out of almost anything. ****TTFN, Julie

We sat around waiting as the time grew later, making small talk and wondering where Ashley had gone. I was exhausted and so overwhelmed by everything I’d learned the past 36 hours. Thirty-six hours! Had the time only crawled by since Mike and I had been sitting in our living room with Kerri talking about the camping trip and Mike’s behavior. It didn’t seem as if it had only been yesterday that I first saw the pictures on his office computer, or even a few hours earlier that Ashley and I were eating tacos and discussing our relationship. I was sincerely hoping she’d go to Marilyn. Mike finally wandered off to sleep in Ashley’s room, and it was almost one before I went to bed. I couldn’t have been asleep for more than a few moments when the ringing telephone woke me up. It was Marilyn, and Ashley was with her. Marilyn said that Ashley had phoned her from the 7-11 store two miles from our home about an hour earlier asking to be picked up. When the mentor arrived, Ashley was loopy- high on drugs, and it was obvious that she’d met up with a dealer before phoning her. Instead of coming home, she’d insisted on going to Marilyn’s house. And she gave her version of the events of the day. Ashley spoke enthusiastically about my taking her to Aftercare and out to eat and the way we were starting to connect. She said that she felt I had stood up well to the information she’d given me, but she didn’t want to overload me with too much too fast. She was less positive about her interaction later with Mike- she’d told him that she had "confided" in the Aftercare worker, and she really needed his attention and understanding to tell him that his behavior frightened and disturbed her. But Mike refused to acknowledge her fears, and when she came back upstairs and encountered me, she panicked. That was the reason for her running. No, Mike had definitely not tried to rape her. She’d just used it as an excuse to try to borrow a phone. Marilyn asked if Mike was up. No, I replied, slightly surprised that his sensitive hearing hadn’t picked up the ringing of the phone. Good, Marilyn answered. Ashley did not want to have to make explanations tonight- she’d been through a lot. In the meantime, Marilyn felt that the girl needed to explain her actions to the woman deputy she’d spoken to earlier. She said she’d be bringing Ashley home shortly and would call me from her cellphone when they got close to the house. I was in a quandary of worry. Awakening Mike wasn’t the problem, although I knew there would be hell to pay in the morning when he discovered her back and that I’d let him sleep. It was something in Marilyn’s voice that made me think there was stuff she wasn’t telling me, and it was something I needed to urgently know. Ashley speaking to the deputy also made me nervous in light of Marilyn’s revelations about Mike. But then I figured I was being silly. Ashley should be the one to explain to the deputy that she’d lied and why. It was no big deal, right? An hour later I was getting antsy when Marilyn phoned to say she’d be in our driveway in less than five minutes. I met them outside in the dark, first Ashley and Marilyn in the car, followed by the lady deputy who had been at our home earlier. I assured all of them that Mike was sound asleep, and the other woman asked if Ashley would be safe when he discovered she was home. Puzzled, I answered, of course. She said that the evidence showed a troubled young lady who had been impulsive, but her testimony now indicated that her father had done nothing to her in the office that night. Ashley was released to me. And the deputy left. Ashley looked a wreck. Her face was dirty, her pants torn, and she described hopping over fences from one backyard to another. She agreed she had been stupid to run, even more dumb to get drugs from an old school friend who lived near the 7-11 before calling Marilyn. She was so tired that I didn’t have the heart to scold her. I sneaked her inside, deciding that having her sleep in my bed was better than the couch or, God forbid, waking up Mike so she could sleep in her room. We made minimal noise, and she dropped off to sleep very quickly. I was only vaguely aware of Mike coming into the room early the next morning and of his muted surprise to see Ashley sleeping in the bed. ****TTFN, Julie

At home we found Mike sitting on the couch watching tv, and when we returned cheerful and laughing, it seemed to disconcert him. He arose, saying he had work to do in his office, and Ashley followed him shortly. As we had discussed while eating, leaving him alone was out of the question until the two of us could sit down with him and work out some solution. Ashley came running back upstairs thirty minutes later, quite agitated. She said Mike was just sitting in front of his computer, and it didn’t even seem to register to him that she was there. I offered to try to speak with him, but Ashley said it wouldn’t do any good, and when I insisted, she got angry. I tried to placate her by saying I had no intention of making the situation worse; all I wanted at that hour was to get him into bed, and we would deal with whatever fallout came of it in the morning. I walked downstairs, and Ashley had described Mike accurately- he was sitting morosely in front of his computer. A card came was displayed on the monitor, but Mike wasn’t playing- just staring straight ahead. He refused to come up to bed, despite my pleas, and after fifteen minutes I gave up. As I was preparing to leave, Ryan called on the business line. Ashley had run away again. That awoke Mike from his stupor, and we ran upstairs. We phoned the sheriff’s department to report the runaway and spoke to a deputy. Halfway through our report, she put us on hold for a few minutes, then came back on the line to say there were deputies in our neighborhood responding to a complaint of a neighbor. She asked for Ashley’s description and put us on hold again. Presently she returned; the neighbor had reported a teenage girl matching her age and looks knocking on his door asking to use the phone. This girl had told the neighbor that her father tried to rape her. Mike and I stared at each, aghast. Mike might be guilty of a whole host of imperfections and bad judgments, but there was no way he would rape his daughter. Besides, I had seen Ashley just moments before she ran off, and there was nothing to suggest in her appearance or demeanor any sort of attack. This, I felt sure, was classic Ashley- an attempt to use any means available to win her way into a stranger’s home so she could call friends to rescue her. As we waited for the deputies to arrive, Mike went outside on the driveway to meet them, and I phoned Marilyn to inform her of the runaway. She was instantly alert and started to ask me about my day with Ashley when the deputies arrived. Instead, she asked to speak to one of them, and I put a woman deputy on the phone, explaining that Ashley’s mentor was on the other end, and I halfway expected Ashley to try to make her way to Marilyn’s house. The other deputy took the runaway report, looking skeptically at Mike. Ashley’s history was getting very familiar to me and easy to explain. I told my part of the story- going to Aftercare, out to eat and returning home. No, I assured the man, there was no way Mike had tried to rape Ashley. I had seen her with my own eyes directly before she ran, hadn’t I? I’d know, wouldn’t I? The lady on the phone kept nodding and writing stuff down, and something in her attitude filled me with dread. I don’t know if I was having a premonition of things to come, but I definitely felt that there were things going on beneath the surface I wasn’t aware of. Given the tone of my Del Taco conversation with Ashley, I again thought of what she’d wanted to say to me at the end but didn’t. The deputy passed the phone back to me, and she and her partner left to look for Ashley. I finished my talk with Marilyn. She began by asking me about the day and what had transpired to cause Ashley to leave. I told her about going to Aftercare and our discussion at Del Taco. She listened carefully as I spoke of Ashley’s fears of over-attachment from Mike, the various behaviors she’d seen in him that made her wary and her fears for his safety. Extraordinarily, Marilyn explained she learned about most of these problems weeks ago. Ashley had come to her in tears, worried about the family situation and what she was calling her father’s obsession over her. Marilyn had explained to Ashley that I was the only person close enough in the family who could help her, and she had to overcome her mistrust of me in order to elicit my aid. My discovery that Mike was manipulating me and controlling the family’s emotional climate was only a first step along the path of reconciliation with Ashley, and standing alongside to protect her was the final goal. I discussed the runaway and rape charge, and again, Marilyn said she expected it. Yes, it was another attempt to look at herself as a victim and use it to the best of her advantage, but it was also much more than that. Having some experience with abuse in her own childhood and her sisters’ families, she was familiar with dysfunctional families. She was hesitant to classify Mike as sexually abusive, but she certainly felt his conduct bordered on it. Isolating Ashley, discussing her sexuality with her, agitating Ashley with intimate details about our marriage and refusing to accept the best for her (keeping her out of residential treatment and home with him) were all symptoms of an unhealthy relationship. And I had unknowingly played right into Mike’s hands by bowing out of my obligation for her. I couldn’t comprehend how this had happened in my own home, under my nose without my knowing. And the answer that came back to haunt me was that I had to share some blame because even now I didn’t want to believe.

Every Tuesday night for the past several months Mike had taken Ashley to Charleston Hospital for her Aftercare meeting. It was a teen and parent support group for adolescents who had been hospitalized for suicidal thoughts, drugs or violence. Maybe, I thought, since Mike had been after me for weeks to get involved with Ashley, I could go for a change and spend some time with her. Ashley came home from school, and I asked if I could take her to Aftercare. She looked at me quizically but didn’t argue and said it sounded like a good idea. She wanted to tell me some stuff and felt that it was better said away from the house. I presented wanting to take Ashley to Mike, and after a bit of surprise, he reluctantly agreed. He didn’t say much and moped around the house all afternoon, depressed. In fact, his behavior was exceptional in that he locked himself in his office and stayed there after Ashley’s return from school. He was profoundly depressed, and since he rebuffed all offers of help there was nothing I could do about it. I was apprehensive leaving for Charleston that evening, mostly because my daughter and I hadn’t been completely alone for months, and I wasn’t sure if she would behave. But getting away from the house together seemed to calm Ashley, and we settled into our familiar relationship of many months back. Once we were on the freeway she began to speak. Had I noticed anything weird going on with Dad, she asked. His depression was the most noticeable problem, I answered, and he was becoming despondent over her lack of progress. She nodded and said she had a lot to tell me- some of it might be difficult to hear, but it was important that I know. She also wanted to talk to a woman at the hospital who helped run the program and get some advice. We drove to the hospital, and I met Jay McClure, the teen therapy administrator, for the first time. Right away I liked him, and as the meeting progressed, I could see his zeal for reaching addicted teens. I found him easy to talk to and trust. Ashley joined me after pulling the other leader aside, and we listened to a very enjoyable meeting. She seemed to know so many of the other kids- I recognized names of teenagers Mike had described from his participation, and I introduced myself to some of their parents. After the meeting Ashley and I went out to eat at Del Taco. Our awkwardness disappeared as we began talking and seeing each other’s point of view in the past months’ troubles. Without Mike’s interference, conversation flowed freely. Ashley learned how, despite her recent behavior which confused and angered me, I really did love her, and it was my concern over her welfare which caused me to react as I did. I learned how Ashley had wanted to reconcile with me all summer, but at every turn Mike had talked her out of it. And as we sat face to face discussing this issue, we realized that all along he had been in the background separating us, playing both sides and thereby sewing seeds of mistrust. Ashley went on to illustrate her version of the downward spiral of the family. Yes, she realized that she had contributed to many of the problems and knew she was out of control. In her way of thinking, leaving home to go into treatment seemed like the best solution, maybe the only one. She understood Dad’s reluctance to let her go, but she also felt that he was too attached to her. It was as if his whole existence was wrapped up in her, and she felt stifled. Did I know, Ashley asked, that Dad had pictures of naked actresses and models (naming names) on his computer? I feigned innocence, and she was quick to point out that he hadn’t shown them to her, but she knew what was there. We talked about the freaky photos he’d taken, such as the one of her smoking which he used as a screen-saver, and she mentioned how "funny" it felt when he asked to photograph her. She told me that Mike had talked to her about our marriage and love-life, and I was shocked at the intimate details he had provided- stuff he had no business sharing with a teenage daughter. She asked me about the high school boyfriend Mike kept mentioning, and I told her the true story- I was no longer infatuated with him, and I had no idea why Mike was so hung up over an ex of mine that went back so many years. And was I aware, she questioned, that Mike kept three or four knives in various places in his office and had spoken to her about his wish to kill himself? This last was news. My mind was whirling. The time Ashley and Mike spent together down in his office, the attempt to insulate her from others, the smoking and unique treatment all were starting to make true sense. Mike was seriously ill, and intervention was immediately needed. His depression and desperation to make her well seemed to have warped his judgment, and it seemed that maybe he was going overboard in trying to make her well. It was almost as if he had become more of Ashley’s peer than her father, and I wondered where he would consider the right place to draw a line between appropriate and inappropriate conversation with a teenage daughter. I felt betrayed by his lack of understanding for both Ashley and me. Ashley seemed to want to share more but drew back. I felt a little overwhelmed, and maybe she figured I’d heard enough for one night. She was probably right. Neither of us wanted to go home, but after an hour and a half, it was time to leave. ****TTFN, Julie

Marilyn called me after midnight to apologize for Ashley’s rushed sleep-over invitation and to ease my mind about her- she was sound asleep. They’d had a wonderful evening, going out for burgers after the Bible study, and Ashley had opened up to her in conversation. They’d talked about Oakside and therapy, how she felt as if she wasn’t making any strides towards living a sober life, and how maybe going away for treatment wasn’t such a bad idea. Marilyn was very excited because Ashley seemed so level-headed and insightful. I was also excited to have worked out Mike’s purpose, and I told Marilyn all about it. She practically screamed with joy into the phone, congratulating me and saying she had long known that Mike was pulling everyone’s strings. This was the reason she had exhorted me to close the gap between Ashley and myself. Marilyn claimed that even as far back as the first time Mike had presented himself and talked to her about becoming our daughter’s mentor, she felt there was something decidedly fishy in the way he talked about the family. As time went by, she became alarmed over the power Mike exercised over Ashley and me and the difference in his version of events vs. what was evidently the truth. She could tell I was a downtrodden, emotionally spent wife who was purposely kept out of equilibrium. Mike meant for me to take the blame in my failed relationship with Ashley; in fact, Mike had every reason in the world to keep us apart. Marilyn claimed that this was just the beginning. Ashley had some very important things to tell me, and she needed my love and support as never before. I had to stay close, opening myself up to listen to her and making time for her. Mike, once he found out that I’d broken through his plot, would stop at nothing to sow seeds of doubt in our minds. No matter what, I needed to be in Ashley’s corner. I asked Marilyn, if she knew what was going on, why she didn’t tell me earlier. She answered that I had to discover it for myself. If she’d told me, I never would’ve believed her. What wife honestly would believe her husband did not have her best interests at heart? She made me realize that Mike’s position in our family had become one of menace, not of fatherly or husbandly concern. As it was, my revelations were nearly unfathomable. Mike paced like a caged tiger on Tuesday morning as he waited for Marilyn to bring Ashley home. He would go out to our driveway and peer down the road, coming back into the house to comment on the lateness and check his watch. I was seeing Mike with new eyes, and wondering what his nervousness signified. It seemed strange to me, especially if you considered the fact that Ashley was staying with Marilyn whom he supposedly trusted. But in the nick of time, they were here, and Ashley practically jumped out of Marilyn’s car and right into the school van with barely a wave of her dad. Marilyn gave me a quick hug and told Mike she couldn’t stay to talk. As she would relate to me later, she planned Ashley’s return to coincide with departure to school so Mike wouldn’t have an opportunity to cross-examine either of them. I spent the morning pondering what I’d learned. I was still having problems comprehending how Mike had managed to keep me in the dark for so long, but the more I looked at various events over the summer, the more what I’d discovered made sense. I phoned Kerri and told her of my epiphany, and she revealed that our therapy the day before had been a big eye-opener for her too. Mike, she felt sure, was very manipulative and had even managed to fool her. I told her about Ashley spending the previous night with Marilyn, and how the other woman had noticed Mike’s game-playing before me. Kerri, too, urged me to set aside my differences with Ashley and work out a relationship with her. I told Kerri about the letter I found- the one in which he claimed nobody loved him except Ashley. There was actually a lot more to it than that. He claimed the "apathy" I felt towards him was a major cause of his depression. He went on to say how jealous I was about anything or anyone he loved, even citing an instance in which I’d had one of our dogs (who was elderly and suffering from poor health) put to sleep to get rid of it. The lack of intimacy between Mike and me had caused him to have weird fantasies that he knew were wrong, but he was helpless to stop them. And if he was going to have to live without sex, then I was going to have to learn to live without nurturing. It was a hateful and disturbing letter. Kerri said she wanted to read the copy I’d made for herself, but for now I was not to let Mike know I had it. Kerri said that the children and I were in danger. Mike was close to flipping out, and it wouldn’t take much for him to decide that life wasn’t worth living. If he was as angry at me as he sounded, then he would blame me for everything that was bad in his life, and I would become an enemy to be vanquished. And in many cases, the mentally ill parent wants to relieve the suffering of the children and murders them before taking his or her own life. That was what Kerri envisioned if something pushed Mike over the edge. She urged me to take the kids and go into a shelter immediately. I didn’t want to. Despite her warning, I felt that Mike wasn’t beyond reason, and I didn’t feel physically threatened. But Kerri made me promise that if there came a time where I sensed danger, I wouldn’t hesitate to gather up the children and just go. I agreed. ****TTFN, Julie

It was at this point that our therapy ended because Mike had to go to work and departed. Kerri also had a client coming into the office, and I walked her to her car. She had a thoughtful look on her face, and she asked if we could come in to see her mid-week for a second session. There were many things we needed to discuss, and she claimed she was rethinking some of our earlier counseling. After giving me a hug, Kerri told me to "hang in there". I was left feeling as if she wanted to say more and didn’t. Mike claimed to have "proof" of the mythical love letters, and I was at the point of almost believing he would stoop to writing them himself just to damage my reputation. The place to look was on Mike’s computer down in his basement office, so after Kerri’s departure, I headed there. Well, I didn’t find any letters, which I half expected, feeling sure within myself that he was making the charges up. At least he wasn’t manufacturing the love notes. But I did find some other things that greatly upset me. First of all there was a letter he’d written just that morning. It was a big mishmash about how he didn’t feel as if he was loved by anyone except Ashley. The second thing I found on the computer was even more shocking. Pornography! Downloaded images of nude women, some of them actresses or models in various stages of undress, all tasteless. There were amateur videos of people having sex, and even some photographs of lesbians having sex. It was very disgusting, and I really couldn’t believe my eyes. My ultra-conservative husband had collected these? Why and when? I was in a funk for the rest of the day. Mike came home from work, and I decided to confront him. Ashley was asleep, taking her usual after-school nap in her room, and Mike was working in his office. I barged in through the door, asking why he felt he had the need to look at naked women, and of course he howled in protest. I’d prove it, I proclaimed, edging around and trying to get to the computer. But Mike refused to let me by, his face filled with fury. He nearly knocked me down as he pushed me out the door. Mike dropped Ashley off at her Bible study at Marilyn’s. At 8:30 the leader called to ask permission to take Ashley out for a coke, and I said okay. Mike, who had refused to speak to me all evening, seemed concerned about this, but I didn’t see any harm in it. At 10, Marilyn called again to ask if Ashley could spend the night. They were back at her place, and she promised to have her home the next day in time to get to school. Mike looked distressed but gave his consent. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong; he wasn’t acting as if he thought she’d run away. But what was it? What a confusing evening I spent. Mike went to bed, and for the first time since arising I was able to relax. My brain skittered through the day’s events looking for answers. Mike’s behavior, so unusual for the past couple of months, had become positively bizarre. Everything was topsy turvy, and I was frightened. It was so many things. The way Mike constantly put me on the defensive and used my eagerness to please and desire for family peace against me. The way he needed for me to look bad for Kerri and constantly tried to act the part of the hero, even if it meant exaggerating or making stuff up about me. The hate in the letter I’d read about me and the porn, so out of character for my husband. What did it all mean? Was it all just a smoke-screen to throw me and everyone else off track? The part that confused me the most was Mike’s relationship with Ashley. Okay, he loved her and wanted what was best for her. What was best, unfortunately, was pulling her out of the family and sending her away for treatment. Mike refused to see this. So was he trying to protect Ashley from me by making up stories? Was he hoping that if he could stir up enough doubt she’d be allowed to stay home? In my head I went back to the argument over the Halloween tights. I remembered how Mike had sent Ashley to me for permission, and I told her I wanted to ask him first. I’d been all ready to grant consent when Mike talked me out of it, and then he’d told her that I was the one who said no. Hmmmmm. My brain worked furiously. Was it possible that Michael was playing Ashley and me against each other on purpose? Look at the evidence, I told myself. And what I saw was a pattern of one-upmanship and desperate attempts to be the favorite parent, always on her good side. Even if it meant destroying my relationship with my daughter, he had pushed himself into a position of being everything to her. Was Mike shifting the blame of a hundred decisions onto my head when, in all likelihood, either he had made the choice without my input or had chosen to deny her wishes when I would have granted them? Oh my God! Like an epiphany, the answer hit me. Mike was doing this on purpose! Event by event, remembering each crisis from the previous four months, I replayed the Mike-Ashley-me triangle in my mind. Suddenly it began to make sense. Mike was a jealous, paranoid, conniving man who had tricked himself into believing I was working against him. Worse, he’d made himself believe that I was Ashley’s enemy too. My mouth fell open as I finally grasped what my heart had been trying to tell me all along. I looked back and saw the evidence of his betrayal. And the truth was really awful, It was all so simple once I put the pieces together. Mike was behind all the anger and resentment Ashley was feeling towards me. How could she not feel angry? Though his original motives had been pure, his need to be the Do-it-all Daddy and keep her within reach had turned his love into an obsession. What he now sought was total control. And he managed it by keeping me at arm’s distance, catering to her every whim and turning the tables on me when she asked for a favor he wasn’t willing to grant. By keeping us angry he separated us and prevented us from working together to figure out what was going on. No wonder she seemed to mistrust me.

The next day was Sunday, and we would be going home. I couldn’t wait. I’d spent half the night unable to sleep and in tears, watching my family crumble before my eyes. After breakfast I was cleaning up and trying to get packed, and the children wanted to go to the pool for one last swim. I was busy and asked Mike to take them, but he said he didn’t feel up to it. He was tired, and his stomach hurt. So I stopped my packing and cleaning to get everyone into swimsuits, and over to the pool we went. The kids splashed and played for an hour, and just as we were getting ready to go back to the campsite, here came Mike and Ashley in their swimsuits. I couldn’t believe me eyes! I bit back a very nasty retort as I gathered the little ones and headed back to the motorhome. Making a quick lunch and getting them back into clothes, I gathered all the laundry, kids’ gear, my stuff and dirty dishes and loaded it in the station wagon. The kids grumbled when I told them we were going home, but I’d had it. And we roared away leaving Mike and Ashley to take down, unplug, fold up and load. By the time Mike and Ashley arrived several hours later, I’d bought McDonalds for the kids’ dinner and finished my part of the cleaning up. All that was required of me in the motorhome was to remove the perishable food we hadn’t used, and it could wait a day. I didn’t speak to either of them all night. From my bedroom I could hear Mike and Ashley laughing and talking. Kerri came over to our house for our scheduled therapy the next morning. She began by asking about the movie situation, and since I’d already spoken to her by phone the Friday before, she mostly needed to hear Mike’s side of the story. But he didn’t remember it at all the way it happened. He claimed that, while Ashley had watched the Last Summer movies, he felt there had been no harm done and she deserved a little "encouragement" for what he felt was a better attitude and a willingness to try harder. Strange, but I saw neither. Then he went on to claim that when I phoned him three days earlier about Ashley missing school I had been hostile and aggressive in my approach. However, he did recall saying "butt out and shut up" to me. We moved on to the camping trip, and I explained about the stolen money, Mike’s lack of enthusiasm for correcting her and how he and Ashley had totally ignored us all weekend. Kerri shot him a perplexed look and asked why he hadn’t disciplined her. He replied that he’d spoken to her about stealing, and I brought up the fact that if anything had been said, the message that was conveyed to me was that I had no right whatsoever to demand respect or responsibility from either of them. Kerri concurred, patiently listing all the grievances that had been placed into discussion: a) Ashley finagled a way to watch movies that I’d clearly stated were forbidden in the house, b) she had missed school because Mike allowed her to stay up so late she was too tired to get up, c) she’d stolen money from me, and d) Mike had demonstrated that her feelings and wishes were more important than mine by refusing to let me take her to task for the missing money. Wouldn’t Mike, she asked, consider Ashley’s behavior outrageous? "No", he replied. "My wife’s behavior is outrageous!" The silence in our living room was total. Kerri looked at him curiously and asked how I was behaving outrageously. Mike began unloading about how much strain he was under. He claimed I’d antagonized and needled Ashley, making it impossible for her to behave the way I expected her to, and then I blamed Mike for her wrong choices. He didn’t love our daughter more than me, as I charged, he just felt she needed a defender against my unending, harsh criticism. He didn’t feel comfortable leaving me alone with Ashley, and with the lack of sleep he was receiving by dozing at her doorway every night he was worn out. Mike faulted me for the condition the family now found itself in- being told by everyone that Ashley leaving home was our only option. It was his opinion that if I had backed off early on and allowed him to work unimpeded, we would not be forced to send Ashley away. Between his constant worry over the way I used every opportunity to lash out at Ashley combined with financial pressure because he couldn’t work and support the family, he was thoroughly depressed. As if this wasn’t enough, Mike said emotionally, I had even used his emotional issues against him. He accused me of destroying our marriage and started to cry. Kerri turned to me, and you could have sucked me through the floor. Telling her a little about the night we’d argued, I said I had in no way meant to imply that his being depressed was his fault. Kerri, her primary concern that neither of us hurts the other intentionally, asked if what I said could have been misunderstood, and I said yes. But, I told her, I’d already apologized several times, and what else was I supposed to do besides say I was sorry? Mike agreed that I had apologized, but he made it sound as if he didn’t believe it. However, there were other things that worried him. Such as the proof he had that I’d been writing to the ex-boyfriend. Mike was talking about Jonathon, a man I'd met through our church youth group when I was 15 and he 17. While I'd had a major crush on him in high school, he was happily married to a very nice woman named Deborah, and they were perfectly matched as mates. I’d also grown up with her, and Deborah and I were probably better friends than I was with him. Besides, even though Jonathon and his wife only lived about 45 minutes from us, I'd had very infrequent contact with them over the years. But for the past several years Mike had been dropping innuendos about how much I wished I'd married Jonathon and his suspicions that I had been writing to him secretly. As far as I was concerned, that was the last straw. No. I was not now nor had I ever carried on some kind of secret affair with this man. He was married, as was I. This had absolutely nothing to do with any part of our lives, and I resented being put in the position of having to defend myself over these obviously false charges. The problem at hand was Ashley, and the reason for the problem was that Mike was unwilling to make her mind and, instead, put unbearable pressure on me. Facing the huge possibility of her leaving for a treatment center in the not-too-distant future, he was striking out at me because he didn’t want her to leave, while I recognized it as the last and only chance she had to get better.

An appropriate title for our visit to the mountains would be "The Beginning of the End". It was the last weekend that our family would be together as a family for nearly two years. The end of innocence and trusting someone I loved to do the right thing, not for some ulterior motive that served nobody except himself. And it was the beginning of a nightmare that hasn’t ended. We journeyed up to the campground together, Mike driving the rig and me in the station wagon. I was still smarting over the Last Summer debacle, but I was determined to remain calm. I wanted the trip to be fun, especially for the younger children. The mountains were getting chilly, and in November the pool would be drained until the following summer. And after the time change off Daylight Savings Time, camping gets a little tricky, what with kids in school, arriving at dusk and trying to level and set up the motorhome after dark. We set up the campsite, and Mike and Ashley promptly decided to take a walk down toward the camp store. I fixed dinner, and they were still gone. We waited another 15 minutes but the food was getting cold, so I served to the younger kids. When Ashley and Mike finally ambled up an hour later, Ashley was mad that she got the leavings from the meal, and Mike announced he wasn’t hungry. They were only in the site for about 20 minutes when Ashley said she needed to smoke, so off they went again. The kids and I played cards by the fire until bedtime. Ashley slept in way past breakfast the next morning. I planned pancakes, and I know she likes them, but the other kids had huge camping appetites. Besides, our motorhome rule is first come, first served, and sleeping until 10:30 is ridiculous. She finally awoke and, to her great sorrow, only two pancakes remained (although we had plenty of instant oatmeal and cocoa), so she was pissed. You would’ve thought she didn’t get any breakfast, the way she was carrying on. And when she complained to her dad, he probably would’ve forced me to make more but I’d run out of pancake ingredients. The kids were already dressed, and I was finishing dishes when they announced they wanted to go swimming. We spent almost two hours at the pool, without Mike and Ashley in attendance much to the kids’ dismay. Eric and Emily had perfected their jumping and paddling and wanted to show Daddy- well, too bad. Ashley and Mike were too busy spending time by themselves, and for all they paid attention to any of us, they might as well have been in a different campsite, a different campground, a different state. We had lunch at the pool, and the kids asked for icecream from the camp store. I went to get my purse off the bed, and my wallet was out of place. Five dollars was missing. Asking questions resulted in no admissions of guilt, until Mike noticed a telltale bulge in a jacket of Ashley’s hanging from the upper bunk and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She had stolen the money to buy smokes from the camp store. The pack was almost empty. As the kids resumed their activities, I zipped my lip and waited for some kind of scolding from Mike. Here was a perfect example of Ashley invading my privacy, taking my personal property, and nobody could say I drove her to it. She was also breaking Mike’s smoking rules which I didn’t even agree with, and with the mostly-empty pack as evidence, it seemed she was smoking far more than even Mike allowed. Surely this was reason enough for some kind of discipline. But no. Mike didn’t even say anything and started to walk away. I opened my mouth to protest, and he turned to me, snarling, "Shut up!" I clenched my fists at my side. This wasn’t right. Ashley was plainly at fault, and I was the one being chastised? Off to the side she stood, smirking in triumph, once more getting her way. How could Mike be so blind? She was so out of control, and as a matter of fact, so was he. How could I maintain my role as mother under this strain? There was no way of keeping the family together in a healthy relationship if he was going to overlook her faults and snap at me in anger every time I tried to discipline her because he wouldn’t. And on top of everything, he was leaving the care and responsibility of the others to me. The camping trip took a definite downhill turn from there. If Mike felt guilty for the disparity in the way he was treating Ashley vs. me or the way he idolized her and ignored the younger children, he didn’t show it. He went out of his way to keep us apart, buying her the barbeque dinner that night instead of eating with us, going on long walks and swimming with her at the pool while we played mini-golf. Ashley relished the extra attention, and I would catch her shooting glances at me that could only be called evil. And incessantly there was the smoking. He didn’t even take away the pack of cigarettes she bought. I couldn’t figure it out. My brain was in a fog, and I know Mike’s actions were trying to tell me something I didn’t want to listen to. There was a definite power play for her love, loyalty and affection, orchestrated by her dad that I was beginning to be aware of, but no man in his right mind would be so desperate to work both sides like he did. No healthy father would want to be so manipulated by his child that he let her run the show and lord it over the rest of the family. But the missing element was something I wouldn’t find out until later: Mike wasn’t healthy. ****TTFN, Julie

On Wednesday afternoon, October 20, Mike and Ashley went out to buy groceries, as was their habit. Ashley came back grinning with glee, and I was soon to find out why. She was prattling on about having a special night with Daddy, and out of grocery bags spilled icecream and toppings for sundaes and chips and dip ingredients. But the most suspicious item was a Blockbuster Video bag. It contained two slasher movies I’d specifically warned both Ashley and Mike about letting her watch. I was furious. Again, not so much at the girl who wanted to see them. At my husband who was so weak he wouldn’t say "no". That evening Ashley made the family crazy with her pushing and hurrying. The video-watching hour couldn’t come soon enough for her, and if she’d had her way, I would’ve sent the other children to bed right after dinner. They set up a collective howl over the special treats Ashley taunted them with, and no words on my part to Mike to control her teasing behavior had any effect. He seemed just as anxious to get the household settled down so he could turn on the tv. Both of them made me want to throw up. Lucky me. They had rented I Know What You Did Last Summer 1 and 2, and how I hate this genre! I stayed out of the family room, but my computer is located adjacent, and I could hear even if I didn’t see. The intense freaky movie, the screams, bodies falling- I didn’t have to view them, I could see the movie plots in my mind. And every half hour or so, a child would come wandering out wanting a drink or a hug with the real intention of sneaking a glimpse of the forbidden shows. I went to bed a total wreck. It was a struggle getting her out of bed the next morning, and she was in a terrible mood. But off to school she reluctantly trotted while Mike confided in me that he didn’t like the movies much either. I just looked at him with disdain, wondering who, really, was in charge of the family. Him? Or Ashley? That night was a repeat of the evening before. We were going camping over the weekend, so the movies would be turned in on Friday, and she begged for another night’s watching beforehand. I was ready to pull my hair out- I could’ve used a hand in getting packed to go to the mountains, but Mike and Ashley were happily glued to the tv, munching on icecream sundaes. And Andrew woke up after midnight screaming; he’d accidentally seen one of the gorier parts of a movie before I realized he was out of bed, and he’d had a nightmare. Ashley did not get up for school on Friday. I didn’t notice she was still in bed until after the Oakside van had left, and I furiously phoned Mike down in his office. He claimed she had a headache when he tried to wake her up, and besides, with us leaving for our camping trip, she could help me pack the motorhome when she woke up. How is it, I wanted to know, that Ashley is allowed to watch movies I specifically requested not be brought into the house? Not only had she known this, but he also understood my instructions perfectly. Under his guidance, Ashley stayed up late two nights in a row so that she was unable to get up for school. Wouldn’t it seem reasonable, I asked, to tie perks such as rented videos into the way she behaved rather than just shower her with unearned favors? Mike cut me off angrily. Ashley was his responsibility, not mine. He and he alone determined what was right for her. If he felt she didn’t need to get up for school, so be it, and he would deal with the consequences later. But I was to butt out and shut up. Those were his exact words. Then he slammed the phone down and hung up on me. Appalled, I sat lost in thought after the conversation ended. What was going on here? What was wrong with Mike who couldn’t even see he was feeding right into Ashley’s emotional illness? In fact, it appeared as if he was just as ill, but whatever the case he was not coping well at all. I didn’t really know what to do except to immediately phone Kerri at home and tell her what had happened. She was as baffled as me.

Ashley cornered me as I walked back out to the kitchen after changing clothes and said I was to stay away from her and her friends. I glanced over at the multitude of teens, most watching rented movies in a distracted fashion. It was like, who's the parent here? But she didn't want me to chaperon, so Mike grudgingly agreed to pass back and forth through the family room from time to time. It was just like him to organize the party but then decide to leave the work up to me. All in all, it worked out. Nothing wrong really happened, but the kids got bored with the movies Ashley had rented. They wanted to play hide and seek in the dark in our eucalyptus grove, and someone ended up dunked in our spa. With a mixture of church kids and Ashley’s wild school friends, crowds didn’t seem to get along very well. Half of the kids went home early. And she was in such a bad mood afterwards that Christina almost didn’t spend the night. The next morning we must have found 50 cigarette butts on the driveway. What a party! At least I had a relatively peaceful evening, and as I sat back in our bedroom trying to keep the small children from intruding on their sister’s time, I had a chance to think about the whole situation. I remembered the last therapy session with Kerri and how I was letting Mike walk all over me. Maybe discovering this made me more open to other ways that I was being subtly influenced. What if something else was going on behind my back besides just snacks and money to be spent on keeping Ashley happy? The kids had been talking to us about the approach of Halloween and what each was going to wear. I thought Ashley was too old for trick or treating, but she was determined to dress up. I forget now exactly what she planned for a costume, only that it included fishnet stockings. She wanted to buy fishnets, and how she lobbied for them! First she asked Mike, and he must have said to ask me. So she came to me after school, and I said I’d have to talk to her dad and let her know. However, for once her request seemed sort of reasonable. If she wanted some stockings for dressing up, it wasn’t an issue for me. I approached Mike later that day, and I mentioned that the fishnets were okay with me. But Mike started protesting that if we bought them for her to wear on Halloween, she’d want to continue to wear them later. He equated fishnet stockings with dressing up like a hooker and felt it was a bad idea. Oh, and by the way, a boy from church named Perry had invited Ashley to homecoming at the high school, and Mike didn’t feel she should go because we couldn’t supervise her closely enough. Okay, whatever. I gave in. Ashley wanted an immediate answer about the stockings, and she approached Mike a few hours later. I was just walking into the kitchen a few yards from them, but Mike's back was to me, and I suppose my arrival went unnoticed. "No, Ashley", he told her. "Mom says no." I wheeled around, unable to believe my ears. Ashley looked across the room at me, her face pure hatred. "That is not true," I told her. "I have no problem with you getting fishnets, but Dad said..." And I went on to recount the entire conversation, including the part about homecoming. Ashley can be pretty smart when she chooses, and for some reason, she believed me. She turned to confront her father, and a loud argument ensued. But as I half-listened to them fight, I was baffled. Why would Mike deny this? I didn't know; it never even occurred to me that he might be doing it to cause trouble for me. Our couples therapy with Kerri that week was interesting, in that I told her what had happened with the stockings. But Mike remembered it differently, and the way he recounted the story made it sound like an innocent mistake. My brain wanted to disagree with his version, but "common sense" wouldn’t let me. I mean, why in the world would my husband do something like this intentionally? Just call me naive. That was sort of the way our last couple of sessions had gone. Kerri spoke to me or to Mike separately, but when she brought us back together, the components weren’t adding up. Everything Mike said about me sounded like negative whining, and I was constantly on the defensive. I hated looking like a horrible mother and, I was so confused. Mike seemed obsessed with Ashley and trying to make her well. I could tell he was fearful, but of what? Of me and healing my relationship with her? But why? Kerri talked to me at length that afternoon about how I felt towards Mike and Ash. I told her I resented being put in a position in which I was constantly having to defend my decisions without my husband backing me up. I felt that Mike let her get away with too many rewards without any consequences for bad behavior. The other children were jealous and unhappy because they didn't get treats or their father's time the way Ashley did, and they weren't misbehaving, thereby deserving much more than she. Kerri went on to ask me who made me the most upset, Mike or Ashley. I said it was Mike because, as my husband, it was his duty to back me up, and he should've known better. When questioned who I usually displayed my anger towards, I said it was our daughter. It suddenly occurred to me where Kerri was leading. Even though her misbehavior and sullen attitude bothered me, it wasn’t Ash I was really angry at. It was Michael. Ashley was a child, and whether she should’ve known better wasn’t important. What was crucial was separating how I felt about the deeds of the adult vs. the deeds of the daughter. My husband was the one who froze me out of the decision-making process, who negated my power within the family and elevated her to my position. It was my inability to stand up to him that caused me to rage against my daughter. An option I chose, but the only safe one available to me. I was re-acting to Ashley because I couldn't safely vent with the person responsible- my husband.

Ashley started hitting Mike up for a teen party. She didn’t really deserve one, but I was so beaten down with the constant stress, it was easier to give in. Besides, I knew it wouldn’t make any difference what I wanted anyway. Mike would cave, and she’d get her party. So I told him it was okay as long as the group was small and the kids were pre-approved by us. Ashley asked about an overnight, and we finally compromised on letting Christina stay over. She’s basically a good kid, and she didn’t approve of Ashley’s drug use at all. The party was about the only thing Mike and I could agree on. We argued constantly as tensions over Ashley mounted. To me, it was obvious that Oakside wasn’t working out for our daughter; there’s only so much a program can do if the participant refuses to cooperate. Marilyn and Kerri concurred with me, but Mike was fighting us tooth and nail. He had put so much of himself into "curing" her and making her want to succeed that he couldn’t realize when it’s time to call it quits. On the other hand, Ashley leaving home to go to an RTC could bring peace and healing to the rest of the family. She would be getting the help she needed in a safe environment, and we could concentrate on putting our marriage and family life back together. I remember being summoned to a counseling session by Bart at the dayschool about Ashley. He was becoming increasingly concerned over Ash’s nonchalance towards classwork and rules. There were two particular girls that she liked to hang out with, and they were real troublemakers. Ashley had joined them in leaving class in the middle of the hour and running through the halls. She’d received detention during lunch, but instead of following the program had doodled in her notebook. And then there was the boy she knew from San Ramon. Day treatment kids and in-house residents were not supposed to co-mingle, but Ashley found a way to talk to him or send him a note almost every day. Even Bart was close to throwing up his hands in resignation, saying he would be calling the school district to suggest transfer to an out-of-state program. As we walked away from the counselor’s office, Mike began calling everyone on the treatment team and polling them over what he should do. Marilyn, Kerri, Jack and her psychiatrist all weighed in with answers. I could hear a little, and every single person said that as parents, we had done all we could, and it was time to let the professionals take over. But in Mike I saw the desperation to keep her home. It was as if he was hunting for someone who would disagree with the status quo and agree with him that she deserved another chance. He just refused to accept defeat. But I was- I was more than willing to say enough is enough. Hadn't the family suffered enough? On the 15th Ashley had her party, attended by about 16 teenagers. I didn’t know most of them, but Mike "insisted" that they had been personally passed by him and were all nice kids. Some were from our church youth group, some were from Oakside, and one from softball- Christina. The party had started out small but took on a life of its own as Ashley got involved. She wanted a bakery cake and decorations, then decided that pizza wouldn’t be enough to eat. She and Mike made more than one store run buying fresh vegetables and dips and ten different kinds of chips. I was gone all day at a seminar, and when I returned the party was in full swing. Chips and dip sat on the counter, bowls of candy and nuts were everywhere, and Ashley had found a recipe for a special punch of exotic fruit juices and lemon soda. It tasted spiked to me, but what do I know? Ashley had been in her manic element with the food plans and house-cleaning, and Mike told me that was what was important. I figure this shindig cost us around $150. With Mike barely back to full-time work, it was something we couldn't afford. Ouch! ****TTFN, Julie