In 1999 the aging Harmon Center for Girls was closed. Dr. William Woodall, the Minister for Youth and Community Services, opened a new youth center called The Indiana Rehabilitation Center for girls. Most of them referred to it as “IRC,” and the girls called it the “Idiot’s Reform Center.” The facility had four classrooms staffed by teachers from the Harmon County School District. The girls were to have the opportunity to earn a GED or high school diploma. Marianne enrolled in school shortly after her transfer.
They had taken her to a nice place, with long hallways and rooms for two girls in one room. They called it the “cottage.” Maybe they knew she was upset and they were going to try and make her better. A lot of the staff looked like doctors but they were very nice. They were kind to her, not mean. The new facility provided intensive mental health treatment. Each girl was to be evaluated and monitored by a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist. Marianne was assigned to Dr. Woodall himself. Most of the girls called him Woody and her roommate Nikki said she would like to give him a “Woody!”
Dr. Woodall was tall, though not outstandingly so. He was fair, though not remarkably fair. He wore light-colored jackets with leather patches on the elbows, and brown leather shoes. His face was embarrassingly square. He wore dark rimmed glasses the he placed on top of his head from time to time. He was the type of man that you could sit right across from in a restaurant or office and scarcely even notice. He had a peculiar habit of picking bits of lint, or maybe hair from a dog or cat, from his clothing slowly and patiently. Much like Shelby had done with cracker crumbs on her high chair when she was a baby. Marianne liked the way his fingers picked at the little pieces of lint. His fingers were long and slim and he wore a gold ring on his pinky finger. It had been his mothers, he said. He had never married.
He had gone to school through scholarships and received his degree in Educational Psychology at the age of forty. Educational Psychologist’s study and treat the learning, behavioral and emotional problems of children and young people. They assess young people's progress and academic and emotional needs.
A reporter from a newspaper came to write a story about the girls in the maximum security cottage at the Indiana Rehabilitation Center. The girls scrubbed the cottage from top to bottom before she came. It was always kept clean, but they scrubbed it even cleaner. Mrs. Lewis, a beloved matron, brought roses from her garden to sit on the tables in the day room and dining room.
It’s a state institution for the most serious female offenders in Indiana’s juvenile justice system. Girls who come here will spend two to three years in the facility, depending upon their progress. If they do poorly, or violate the terms of their release, they may have to serve more time.
Movies are shown on weekends but only as a privilege earned with good behavior. Good behavior means learning and obeying all the rules and guidelines. No cursing allowed. There are clean-up chores every day.
Life here is nothing like that of a typical teenage girl. Forget tight jeans and shiny fingernail polish. They wear shapeless denim prison-style shirts and pants, no makeup, hair plain or pulled back and flip-flops. The girls are not typical either. They are 18 to 21-year-old’s who have committed serious violent crimes like armed robbery, car-jacking, aggravated assault and even murder.
Only family can visit. No friends or boyfriends are allowed.
Their room is a two-bed concrete block cell, adorned with colorful bedspreads, a small rug beside their bed and there are curtains on the barred windows. They are allowed pictures of their families. They can keep books and art supplies in their rooms.
Wake-up call is 6:00 a.m., breakfast at 7:00 and school at 8:00 am. School lasts five hours and there is up to two hours of reading time each weekday with a book report required.
It’s a good facility as far as these places go. Girls receive therapy and treatment and guidance for leading a new and different life on the outside. The institution is proud of the work it is doing here and proud that they are able to maintain a personal touch.
That is what she wrote.
The next day, Mrs. Lewis brought them the article to read. They read it aloud to one another, then laughed over it. They thumb tacked the article on the wall in the day room where they could see it when they sat on the couch.
Dr. Woodall put on his glasses and wrote in tiny cramped letters in her folder. “I will have only thirty minutes a week to work with you Marianne. That’s not much time. You will also have group therapy each day to talk about your problems.” He swiveled around in his chair to face her. “It will be up to you what you make of it.”
He cleared his throat. Marianne wondered if he smoked. Rex always smoked and Marianne hated the pungent aroma of the second hand smoke as it swirled around her head. He even smoked in the bathroom. It seemed that even air freshener couldn’t kill that awful odor. He was always clearing his throat and spitting. She looked for the tell-tale signs of nicotine on Dr. Woodall’s fingers. Finding none, she decided that he was not a smoker.
“How long has it been since your mother has come to visit, Marianne?”
“She has only been to see me twice in the last few years.”
“Do you know why she doesn’t come?”
“Because I killed my sister.”
“Very good, Marianne. Do you remember killing her?”
“I don’t remember killing her. I just remember Mama finding us.”
“Often times, painful memories are blacked out. I will try and help you recover those memories.” He wrote in his folder and turned to her again. “Before one can start building walls, the old walls have to be completely torn down. You will have to admit the reality of that morning. Normal people admit reality. All that will keep you here is your own stubbornness in continuing to live in denial.”
Was she living in denial? Had she hit Shelby on the head with that claw hammer? Maybe. Shelby had hit her lots of times and she didn’t hit her back nearly as much. Whenever Shelby was caught in a fib, she always screamed that Marianne had made her do it. She had screamed back that she hated her, that she was going to kill her. Marianne hated Shelby sometimes, but did she hate her enough to kill her? How hard did you have to hit to kill someone? Shelby was five.
“Maybe your mother doesn’t come to visit because she feels guilty. When a child is seriously disturbed, the parents must ask themselves what they have done wrong.”
She thought about Shelby a lot. Sometimes she woke in the night and thought about Shelby lying on the floor, her blond hair turning red. Shelby’s hair was supposed to be blond, not red. She cried at the memory and felt as if she would never stop sobbing. It was like reliving all the terror and fear of that day years ago. She thought about it all the time. She had time. Lots of time.
Bill asked her a lot of questions. He believed in finding out where core beliefs came from and they talked a lot about her early childhood.
She told about Josh but not about Rex.
Don’t ever tell anyone about what happened here, Marianne. It’s a secret. Just between you and I. She never did.
Bill often sat with his eyes half closed when they talked. He said he closed his eyes because they were tired. He had some trouble sleeping. It was an occupational hazard. Marianne knew what that meant. He didn’t sleep well because he worried about his patients. When he did open them from time to time, Marianne got a glimpse of a light inside, something alive, loving. She thought it was God. There was, he had said, a little bit of God inside of everyone.
“In me too?”
“Of course, in you too.”
“Marianne, to tap into the source of God’s love, you must begin within,” he said. He brushed at some invisible pieces of lint on his jacket.
She hoped so. She went to chapel on Sunday mornings and heard about God’s forgiveness. She didn’t really feel it but she hoped God could forgive someone who had murdered her own sister.
She had never experienced anything so powerful. Of course, now she was a mess, because her world had changed. It was the first time she ever felt like something positive was going to come from the experience. For the first time in her life, it was about getting her sane and moving forward from those frozen times all those years ago.