School had started by the time Ashley received the large blue envelope in the mail. She found it on the kitchen table, beside the snack her mother always fixed for her. Crunching on a celery stick, she tore open the envelope and spread the large book, smaller book, brochure, and letter out on the table in front of her.
Her eyes were immediately drawn to the small book called The Recreation Center At Lyceum. She looked at the pictures of a swimming pool with high and low diving boards, short and long slides, and people of all ages having fun, and the Ashley Riddle grin began to creep onto her face for the first time in weeks. She turned the page and found pictures of outdoor jogging and fitness trails, with all kinds of obstacle course equipment along them, just like at her school, only more and better.
The next page revealed a huge circular dance floor with seats all around it and ballet dancers performing. Smaller pictures on the same page showed the same polished wood floor, one with roller skaters, the other with tumbling mats and gymnasts. Ashley’s pulse quickened.
When she turned the page once more, she stopped and gazed in wonder.
In the large gym before her, she could see all of the women’s gymnastics apparatus, and the rings, high bar, pummel horse, and parallel bars that men used. Off to one side she could see weight lifting equipment, trampolines, and climbing ropes. In the center of it all was the large tumbling floor. And she saw with happiness that many of the people in this wonderful gym were
young, her age and even younger.
After staring at the fantastic gym for a long time, she decided she should read the letter that came with the books before she got her hopes too high.
August 28th
Dear Ashley,
Thank you for calling about Lyceum. My name is Heather, and I understand you are a champion gymnast and are interested in membership.
I thought you’d like to see and read more about the Recreation Center, so I sent you a book that tells all about it.
Among our members, we have about ten who are pretty serious gymnasts, and another twenty-five or thirty who do it less seriously. One of our girls placed third in the Oregon State Championships last year. She and one other are currently training at the elite level to prepare for the National Championships.
But in order to become a member of Lyceum, you must have some uncommon qualities. These are explained in detail in the enclosed book. You and your parents should read all of the things I sent you. It has to be okay with your parents for you to become a member of Lyceum. After reading everything, if you think Lyceum is for you, write back and ask me any questions you or your parents have.
Sincerely,
Sister Heather
For the next few hours, Ashley munched on carrot sticks and looked at the scenes in the books and the brochure. She read the text whenever it seemed to apply to her interests, and she peered at pictures of cozy Residence Hall rooms, at good food being served in the Dining Hall, and at interesting classrooms for kids of different ages. Her eyes grew big when she came to pictures of young people helping to care for gardens, sweep walkways, or wash dishes.
But often she went back to the book about the Recreation Center and looked longingly at the spacious gym. By reading, she learned that they would sometimes set up the gymnastics apparatus on the big circular dance floor for
an exhibition or to host a gymnastics meet.
A sense of happiness began to return to Ashley’s heart. The boulder in her path had just started to move, and she had every intention of seeing it completely rolled away and smashed to pieces. That evening after dinner, Ashley again asked her father if he had time to look at some new papers.
“Well, Ashley, let’s not get our hopes up again until we know if we can afford it or not. Have you figured out the cost of this new place yet?”
“Nothing,” she said with a smirk.
“Nothing?” he said, looking at her disbelievingly.
“Except... train fare to get there and back,” she said, fidgeting with excitement.
He was silent for a moment. “Well, I guess I’d better look at it. Can’t complain about the cost, at least.”
She ran to her room and quickly returned with the books and letter.
“Well... it will take your mom and I quite a while to get through all this.”
“That’s okay,” she said, not really telling the truth, knowing it would be some of the most difficult hours of her life. “It took me a long time too. I’ll go do my homework. Thanks, Dad!”
Ashley did her homework very slowly that evening, as her thoughts kept drifting back to the well-equipped gym and the other images she could see in her mind clearly whenever she closed her eyes. About every half hour she went to the kitchen for a glass of water, walking slowly past the living room to try to get some idea of what her parents were thinking. She could tell they were reading it all thoroughly, as she heard them talking about things she didn’t even know herself.
“Once she’s a member, she’d even get all her train or plane fares paid for,”
her father noticed.
“It says here that each person is free to practice their own religion, and they’ve got a Catholic chapel she can use any time she wants, and a priest says Mass once a week,” her mother said.
Her parents finally went to bed about midnight, and when Ashley got up in the middle of the night to use the toilet, she peeked into the living room and
could see the books still spread out on the coffee table. She realized that it might take them several days to decide. With a sigh, she returned to bed, wondering how she would survive the wait.
Julie was the only person, other than her parents, whom Ashley chose to tell about Lyceum. She imagined showing up at the National Championships, with all the Rapid City coaches and gymnasts wondering how she did it. To accomplish that fantasy, she knew that none of her gymnast friends should know about her find. And, she admitted to herself, there weren’t many of them who deserved to know.
That Friday at school, Julie invited Ashley to eat dinner at her house, play computer games, and spend the night. Both of them were becoming aware that if Lyceum, or any other residential gym, worked out for Ashley, they wouldn’t be seeing much of each other. Also, Ashley thought that spending the night at Julie’s would give her parents the chance to make a final decision.
When Ashley arrived home from her friend’s house at about noon on Saturday, her mother was on the telephone, taking notes on a pad of paper.
Ashley listened while she set the table for lunch.
“... Yes... Thank you so much for looking into it for me... Yes, we’re here in the Rapid City Parish, in South Dakota... Right, that’s the place. You know of it? I’m so glad... uh huh... uh huh... I see... You do? Well, that’s good to hear... uh huh... And you’ve never had any problems?... uh huh... uh huh... He does? Well, if that isn’t a recommendation, I don’t know what is!... Yes, I agree completely... Yes, thank you very much. Good-bye!”
“Hi, Mom! Does it look good? For me going to Lyceum, I mean?”
“Your dad and I have been writing down some questions we feel you need to think about before you write back to them. We’ll share them with you after lunch.”
“Okay. Should I set out bowls?”
“Yes. We’re having tomato soup.”
“Yum! I love tomato soup!”
As soon as lunch was over and she had cleared the table and done the dishes, Ashley presented herself for questioning by sitting cross-legged on the
living room floor across the coffee table from her father’s big chair. He sat down, and his wife sat near him on the couch.
“Ashley, Honey, our biggest question is the one we would have to ask no matter where you found a residential program that would take you. Most kids don’t leave home until they’re sixteen or eighteen. You’re eleven...”
“Almost twelve,” Ashley interjected.
“Yes, almost twelve. Do you think you’re ready to live away from home most of the year?”
Ashley hadn’t anticipated that question. She and Julie had rehearsed many other questions, but not that one. She looked at the carpet for a while, biting her lip. Then she realized what she had to do.
“Dad, Mom, I want you to know what my biggest dream is. It’s been my biggest dream for years. It’s not to be the best gymnast in the world or anything like that. It’s to travel, all over the world, everywhere I can, and learn to speak lots of languages. Gymnastics helped me get to Sioux Falls, and it will take me to Miami, Florida, if I can get training. Maybe it will help me get to other places, too. And if Lyceum will take me, I’ll get to live in Oregon, and see all the things between here and there. But I love you guys, and I like Julie a lot, and it’ll be really hard to leave.”
Her parents of the last three years looked at each other, both realizing that they were experiencing one of the hardest moments in raising a child.
“Okay,” her father went on. “How do you feel about being assigned chores that you will have to do, and do well...”
The rest of the questions were easy, and Ashley answered them confidently. When her father had finished asking all the questions that he and his wife had written down, the two parents went on a walk together, leaving Ashley to clean her room.
They ambled down the block and around the corner before they began to speak.
“She’s not going to find the training she wants any other way, is she?” he said.
“Not that I can see,” his wife replied. “And I looked into a number of things I never even told her about.”
“Yeah, I made some calls too. There’s a sponsorship program in St. Louis, but it’s got a two year waiting list.”
They walked silently for awhile.
“I was praying this morning to know what to do,” she said. “Then the Portland archdiocese office returned my call. I don’t think I’ve ever had a prayer answered so clearly... except when you asked me to marry you.”
He looked at her with a loving smile on his face, and they wandered around another corner.
“I was still playing with stuffed animals and toy trains when I turned twelve,” he admitted.
“I was inseparable from my dolls,” she said with a reminiscent smile.
“And... Ashley isn’t our stock. I knew she was made of stern stuff the day we met her. We’ve been entrusted with something... greater than ourselves, haven’t we, Honey?”
“I never thought I’d know so well how Mother Mary must have felt...”
As Ashley poked around in her room while her parents were on their walk, half-heartedly tidying and organizing, she started wondering what she would be able to take with her, and what she would have to leave behind. She was thinking about the difficulty of taking her tumbling mat, her practice balance beam, and her bicycle when she heard the door open and recognized her mother’s voice. She dashed back to the living room and sat on the floor to await their decision.
“It’s okay with us if you apply,” was all her father said.
Ashley hopped up and practically jumped into their laps, hugging and kissing them. Even though both parents were harboring very mixed feelings about the idea of letting their daughter live in another state, her excitement was infectious, and they were soon laughing and smiling along with her.
September 13th
Dear Sister Heather,
Me and my parents have read and looked at all the stuff you sent. My parents thought about it for several days, and asked me lots of questions. I
thought about it a lot too.
I’d like to become a member of Lyceum as soon as I can. I think I’ll love it there, and I think I’m mature enough.
Please write back and tell me what else I have to do to join.
Sincerely,
Ashley Riddle
September 25th
Dear Ashley,
Your confidence and determination are very refreshing. We usually get dozens of questions before a person decides, but it’s also true that the answers to most of the questions we get are in the books, and so I compliment you and your parents on reading the printed material so thoroughly.
I have enclosed some more information about Lyceum for you and your parents to read, and some papers to fill out. The pink ones have to be done by your parents, and their signatures notarized.
We host evaluation weeks for prospective members twice a year, and the next one is December 10th through 18th. That may necessitate you missing some school, so you may want to get your work done early. As soon as I get the papers back, I’ll put you on the list for that week. Let us know how and when you’ll be arriving so we can arrange local transfers.
I trust you will do your very best in school and keep yourself in good shape at the gym until I see you!
Sincerely,
Sister Heather
It took Ashley several days to work up the courage to go back to the gym.
But the thought of disappointing Sister Heather and ruining her chances of getting into Lyceum was even more dreadful. It turned out that thinking about it was the only hard part, and the coaches and most of the gymnasts
were glad to see her. She could tell that the coaches felt badly about what had happened.
Ashley made no attempt to rekindle friendships with the gymnasts who had snubbed her earlier in the year. She had plenty of new friends, and important plans for the future.
Chapter 9: A Taste of Bitter Realities
Fall came early that year to the Pennsylvania countryside. By September, the days were rainy and gloomy, the wind was blowing, and the deciduous trees were losing their leaves.
The Buchanan country house, even though it could easily be described as an attractive and well maintained neo-colonial home in a pristine rural setting, on this particular fall day had taken on the somber mood of the girl silhouetted in one of the dormer windows, who surveyed the soggy pastures and corrals, the dripping horse barn, and the sad trees rapidly losing their foliage.
As she continued to sit in the cozy dormer nook, which was carpeted and almost crowded with pillows, Liberty sighed and picked up the novel she had been reading. The warmly furnished and decorated bedroom behind her was not overly large, but was definitely not lacking in any of the comforts and accessories of adolescence. But neither did much of it appear to get any use —
the computer keyboard was still in a plastic bag, the painting easel was empty, a large and intricate doll house kit remained unopened.
Something moving outside caught Liberty’s eye. She looked out to see a man walking up the otherwise empty gravel driveway, protecting a bundle under his raincoat.
Liberty immediately set down her book and hopped out of the dormer, padded across the room in stocking feet, down the carpeted stairs to the middle floor of the house, past her father’s bedroom, down more stairs to the
large living room that was a pleasant mixture of plush and rustic, and plopped her tall adolescent body onto the long, deeply padded couch, grabbing a magazine from the nearby coffee table almost before she had landed.
The front door opened and the tall man stepped in and began peeling his rain gear and trench coat. In the process he revealed a large bundle of mail that he had been protecting from the rain. His gray hair was neatly cut and groomed in a short and conservative style, and his clothes fit the dignity he brought to his caretaker position at the Buchanan country house.
“Well, well. We’ve got our first responses to my inquiries. They did take their time...” he said as he began to leaf through the mail.
“So...?” Liberty said from the couch with a tone of pouting sarcasm.
He sat on the matching chair across the coffee table from Liberty. “They are of no importance to you, I guess. As I understand it, you are welcome to live here until you are eighteen years old, if you prefer.”
“Dad wouldn’t let me just wither away with boredom here!” she snapped.
When the man said nothing, she added, “Would he?”
After looking at Liberty with raised eyebrows for a long moment, he said,
“Perhaps you’d like to take a look at these with me...?”
She sat up, tossed the magazine back on the table, and propped her chin in her hands as she stared at the pile of mail.
He opened the first letter and began to read. “‘Dear Mr. Neils. Your charge does not sound appropriate to our program. You may wish to look into the following reform schools...’”
“Shit!” Liberty said in a voice of despair, close to tears. “They’re all gonna be like that!”
“Now, you must have patience,” Mr. Neils said, opening another. “This could be one of the most important decisions of your life. Look at this. ‘Dear Mr. Neils. Liberty sounds like a very strong and energetic person.
Unfortunately our enrollment is full, with a waiting list that averages about two years.’”
“Two years!” she moaned, flopping back on the couch and starting to cry.
The caretaker walked around to the couch, sat beside her, and gathered her into his arms.
“Here, here, young one. We’ll work on this thing together until we find a
place that’s right for you...”
Between deep, heart-rending sobs, she gasped out, “...there’s no place in the world for me... I’m never going to be anything... it’s no use even trying... I hate this place...”
The older man just held her close, not knowing what to say, or maybe in his years having the wisdom to know when to say nothing. His eyes showed that he was fully aware of the depth of her pain.
Many minutes later, when she had finally relaxed and was sitting up wiping at her face with a piece of tissue, the caretaker began to speak softly.
“The last time I helped to guide a young person through this time of life was many years ago. But I knew the young person very well. He was my son. I remember him speaking some of the same words. I probably spoke them once myself. My son had much less to work with than you have. We were poor, and public school was his only opportunity for an education. He barely squeaked by with C’s and D’s. He was convinced for years that he could make something of his life with a basketball scholarship. Eventually he discovered that scholarships were fewer and farther between than he had thought.”
“What did he do, I mean when he felt like I do?” Liberty asked.
“He would go and sit under his favorite bridge, overlooking a junkyard as I remember. He would sit there for hours, tossing stones at things, and trying to understand how this world of ours works. He was never able to learn from anyone else, not from me, not from other people, not from books. He had to make all his own mistakes.”
“I learn plenty of things from books,” Liberty said, starting to gain some distance from her own immediate feelings.
“Yes, Miss Liberty, you have many times his endowment of gray matter.
For a long time I felt badly for him. At sixteen he decided he had nothing more to learn. At sixty, I’m still learning new things every day! After a long time I finally quit feeling guilty. He has made his choices, and I have made mine.”
“Then what did he do?”
“On the occasions he was employed, it was usually pumping gasoline. Of course he found himself a lady and soon had the added burden of three children. Today he is a mechanic, but for awhile the only work he was offered
was stamping out license plates, if you take my meaning. Since they caught up with him, half his income goes to support his children, who live with their mother. They rarely get to see their father.”
“Gosh...” She was silent for a long time, rolling around in her mind the differences between herself and the older man’s son. “That’s sure a lot to think about.”
“I hope it is of some use to you.”
“There was a bridge I used to sit under in Philly. Now sometimes I like to think in the barn. After you asked me to start feeding the horses so you could do your extra paperwork, I discovered I like the sounds the horses make and the smell of the hay. I think I’d like go out there now, if it’s okay with you.”
“That would be fine. I need to start dinner cooking and finish tuning the truck.”
Liberty slowly rose and walked to the front door. “Mr. Neils?”
“Yes?”
“Thanks.”
“Thank you for your willingness to listen to another’s experience.”
Liberty smiled weakly, slipped into a raincoat, and headed for the barn.
As she stepped inside and threw back the hood of her coat, she could hear the rain tapping softly on the roof, and the sound was comforting. The dim light and sweet smell of hay and molasses made Liberty feel safe. All three horses were inside, and they made soft snorting noises to acknowledge her arrival. One of them stretched its neck over the stall fence toward her.
“Hi, Mandy,” she said, reaching up to scratch the tall Morgan behind the ears. “I’ve got problems.” She wondered how to put her problems into words, but looking into one of the unfathomable black eyes of the large animal seemed to take the words right out of her mind, and left her with the feeling that her problems, whatever they were, were probably pretty small. “Life’s simple for you guys, isn’t it? No grades, no cops, no mail to open. Eat, sleep, run in the grass...”
Another horse leaned over the wall for attention. “Hi, Chelsea. Oh, I know what you guys are thinking! You think it’s goodie time. Okay.” She gave them a last pat on their necks, and scooped some molasses-covered grain out
of a barrel and sprinkled it over their alfalfa. “How’s that?”
All three horses were soon busy working the sweet grains out of their feed boxes. “Just like candy, isn’t it?” She sat down on a stool and propped her chin in her hands. “Guess I could be like Mr. Neils’ son. No brains, no money. Or like his wife — no brains, no money, and three kids. Yuk! No thank you. I’d rather eat grain and hay with you guys and run in the grass.
Dad would let me. He’d call a shrink, too.”
After sitting and considering the plight of the caretaker’s son for awhile, she shook it out of her mind and looked around. “This place is a pit!” She stood up, grabbed the broom, and started sweeping. One of the horses soon finished with the grain and stretched for more attention. “That’s it, I could go crazy, make my dad spend tons of money on shrinks, get committed to a mental hospital, and then life would be simple.”
Chelsea
snorted.
“Yeah, you’re right. Total cop out. No freedom, no challenges. And the shrinks would get all the money, instead of me.” The floor was now clean, so she began organizing the tack and tools hanging on the wall.
“I could run away. I’ve got about two grand in the bank. That would last me a month or two. Then I could be a prostitute or something.” Mandy had replaced Chelsea, and caught Liberty’s attention with a soft neighing sound.
“That’s true. Glad you mentioned it. I’d have a retro-virus in no time, with three to five years to live. Scrap that idea!”
During the following two hours, Liberty cleaned and tidied every corner of the small barn, sharing her thoughts and frustrations out loud with the horses as she did so. Her last effort was to restack some of the alfalfa bails that had toppled, which took every ounce of her strength, but she was determined to get them straight. In triumph, she climbed onto the bails and laid down, staring at the rafters over her head.
Without the distraction of the work she had been doing, the feelings of uselessness and despair soon started to return. She began to cry softly to herself, and as the light faded into evening, she fell into a fitful sleep.