Lightning

After the deaths of the Eel and Nina Dockweiler, Laura attended half-hour sessions with Dr. Boone, a psychotherapist, when he visited McIlroy every Tuesday and Saturday. Boone was unable to understand that Laura could absorb the shock of Willy Sheener’s attack and Nina’s tragic death without psychological damage. He was puzzled by her articulate discussions of her feelings and the adult vocabulary with which she expressed her adjustment to events in Newport Beach. Having been motherless, having lost her father, having endured many crises and much terror—but most of all, having benefited from her father’s wondrous love—she was as resilient as a sponge, absorbing what life presented. However, though she could speak of Sheener with dispassion and of Nina with as much affection as sadness, the psychiatrist viewed her adjustment as merely apparent and not real.

“So you dream about Willy Sheener?” he asked as he sat beside her on the sofa in the small office reserved for him at McIlroy.

“I’ve only dreamed of him twice. Nightmares, of course. But all kids have nightmares.”

“You dream about Nina, too. Are those nightmares?”

“Oh, no! Those are lovely dreams.”

He looked surprised. “When you think of Nina, you feel sad?”

“Yes. But also … I remember the fun of shopping with her, trying on dresses and sweaters. I remember her smile and her laugh.”

“And guilt? Do you feel guilty about what happened to Nina?”

“No. Maybe Nina wouldn’t have died if I hadn’t moved in with them and drawn Sheener after me, but I can’t feel guilty about that. I tried hard to be a good foster daughter to them, and they were happy with me. What happened was that life dropped a big custard pie on us, and that’s not my fault; you can never see the custard pies coming. It’s not good slapstick if you see the pie coming.”

“Custard pie?” he asked, perplexed. “You see life as slapstick comedy? Like the Three Stooges?”

“Partly.”

“Life is just a joke then?”

“No. Life is serious and a joke at the same time.”

“But how can that be?”

“If you don’t know,” she said, “maybe I should be the one asking the questions here.”

She filled many pages of her current notebook with observations about Dr. Will Boone. Of her unknown guardian, however, she wrote nothing. She tried not to think of him, either. He had failed her. Laura had come to depend on him; his heroic efforts on her behalf had made her feel special, and feeling special had helped her cope since her father’s death. Now she felt foolish for ever looking beyond herself for survival. She still had the note he had left on her desk after her father’s funeral, but she no longer reread it. And day by day her guardian’s previous efforts on her behalf seemed more like fantasies akin to those of Santa Claus, which must be outgrown.

On Christmas afternoon they returned to their room with the gifts they received from charities and do-gooders. They wound up in a sing-along of holiday songs, and both Laura and the twins were amazed when Tammy joined in. She sang in a low, tentative voice.

Over the next couple of weeks she nearly ceased biting her nails altogether. She was only slightly more outgoing than usual, but she seemed calmer, more content with herself than she had ever been.

“When there’s no perv around to bother her,” Thelma said, “maybe she gradually starts to feel clean again.”

Friday, January 12, 1968, was Laura’s thirteenth birthday, but she did not celebrate it. She could find no joy in the occasion.

On Monday, she was transferred from McIlroy to Caswell Hall, a shelter for older children in Anaheim, five miles away.

Ruth and Thelma helped her carry her belongings downstairs to the front foyer. Laura had never imagined that she would so intensely regret leaving McIlroy.

“We’ll be coming in May,” Thelma assured her. “We turn thirteen on May second, and then we’re out of here. We’ll be together again.”

When the social worker from Caswell arrived, Laura was reluctant to go. But she went.

Caswell Hall was an old high school that had been converted to dormitories, recreational lounges, and offices for social workers. As a result the atmosphere was more institutional than at McIlroy. Caswell was also more dangerous than McIlroy because the kids were older and because many were borderline juvenile delinquents. Marijuana and pills were available, and fights among the boys— and even among the girls—were not infrequent. Cliques formed, as they had at McIlroy, but at Caswell some of the cliques were perilously close in structure and function to street gangs. Thievery was common.

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