According to the story I heard later, Mike was composed in the car- that is until after they dropped Christina off at her house. Then all hell broke loose. The shoes she had claimed to need were quite a bit more expensive than the simple no-name brand in her possession, and it appeared as if the change had been spent on other things. Such as, Ash had purchased a bare, strappy top which was against Oakside’s dress code and in reality, too summery to wear in the getting-chilly weather. She also bought a purse, protesting that she “needed it” because her school backpack was too heavy. But wadded up in the bottom of the purse bag was a very short, tight black skirt with no receipt.

Mike was furious. Ashley objected that the receipt was lost, but she was stammering and blushing. He suspected that maybe she’d shoplifted it, and when he asked if this was true, Ash turned indignant and hostile- sure signs that she was lying. Mike was especially suspicious because it appeared as if she was trying to hand the skirt off to Christina and hide it from him as he walked up.

Well, Mike turned the car around, and back to the mall they went. She argued and begged the entire trip, but for once he stuck to his guns. The shoes and purse seemed okay, so he let her keep them. He exchanged the skimpy shirt for the purchase price, and off they trotted to the shop where Ash claimed she’d bought the skirt, Mike determined, our daughter sulky and pouting. The saleslady didn’t remember seeing Ashley in the store, and she said official policy prevented her from refunding money without a receipt. The skirt tag said $25. “That’s okay,” Mike said. “You can have the skirt back without a refund.” And turning on his heel, he walked out on the surprised woman, Ashley completely silenced by shock.

The silence didn’t last long. Once back in the car, Ashley blasted her father for being inconsiderate and mistrustful. Didn’t he realize he was throwing away almost $30 of her money? Didn’t he care that she was now broke with nothing to show for it? And didn’t she realize, he asked, that they had made a deal about what she could buy? Or had she forgotten that part of the bargain? This was the price she paid for disobedience. Oh, was our daughter furious!

When Ashley flew into the house at dinner time she was screaming her head off about how unfair we were. Why couldn’t we let her be like other girls her age? Pissed at the world, she just doesn’t get it that her actions have decidedly made her “not like the other girls”. I wasn’t in any mood to get into an argument with her, and Mike was trying to calm down from the afternoon. We decided to just let it go and try to ignore her, hoping she’d wear herself out.

But she wouldn’t calm down. Moving noisily around the house, she continued to throw out remarks about her appalling, prison-like existence. Only now, instead of being angry with Mike, she was mad at me. I was the one who was so strict about her clothes, and I was the one who had laid down the law on what she could and couldn’t wear. Her father was just following orders. She became very obnoxious after dinner, either glaring at me or telling the children that they didn’t have to listen to me when I assigned chores. Finally I told her to go to her room.

She went alright, after the tenth time I ordered her to leave, and I hoped we’d heard the last of the shopping trip. The next words I heard was Ash yelling at me through her walls. She was rapidly losing control of herself, and I quietly asked Mike to go in and try to calm her down. Like a man going to an execution, he went into her room. I prayed that she would be reasonable, and when I happened to pass by several minutes later, Ash was asking her father for cigarettes.

Our written contract allowed her to smoke three cigarettes a day at a time of her choosing. Unfortunately, she’d already smoked all three, and Mike was patiently trying to explain to her that she could get through this crisis without a nicotine fix if she put her mind to it. When Ashley realized that Mike wasn’t going to give in, she started to beg.

Then she progressed to crying and yelling, followed by screaming and cussing. As I’d feared, Ashley was heading into a full-on hissy fit, and when she gets like this, we aren’t safe.

If she followed true to form, her next step would be hitting and kicking, but I didn’t want to get involved. I knew Mike’s rule about letting him handle Ashley and how angry he’d be if I stepped in. I was hovering in the hall, undecided what to do, when Ryan walked by. “What are you doing, Mom?” he asked.

Well, once Ashley and Mike realized I was standing outside the door, that was it. Mike stuck his head out, an enraged expression on his face, and told me to go away. I asked if he needed help, and he said no, again ordering me from the area. Ashley couldn’t see me, but she could hear my voice, and she called me a bitch. As I walked away with as much dignity as I could muster, she continued to scream “bitch” at me loud and clear.

Mike must have figured out that reasoning with Ashley wasn’t working. He decided that the way to calm her down was to let her unload by herself, so he walked out of the room, shut her door and turned on her door alarm. Losing her audience just made her more angry, and she continued to scream and curse. We heard the muffled thud of stuff hitting her walls- she was throwing her belongings. I walked to her bedroom and warned her through the closed door that anything she broke would not be replaced, but it didn’t seem to have any effect. Mike grabbed me by the arm and pulled me away from her room. He scolded me for reacting to her anger, even though I had been matter-of-fact and non-accusatory. His getting angry did nothing to help the situation at all. It was like battling them both instead of us uniting to help her.