For Rose it was all about the most beautiful old buildings, palaces, castles, cathedrals, ancient towns, and the museums filled with the paintings she’d read about and saw now with her own eyes. Above all else, Rose loved Rome, Florence, and Venice. But everywhere she turned, Rose was enchanted by new discoveries.
Uncle Lestan surprised her when they were in Amsterdam. He had a secret key to the Rijksmuseum because he was a patron and he took Rose through it in the evening hours so they could be alone and linger as long as they wanted before the great Rembrandt paintings.
He arranged after-hours showings like that for them in many cities. But Amsterdam had a place in Rose’s heart, because there, Uncle Lestan had been with her.
When Rose was fifteen, she got into trouble. She took the family car without permission. She didn’t have a driver’s license yet, and it was her plan to get the car back before either Aunt Julie or Aunt Marge woke up. She’d only wanted to drive for a few hours with her new friends, Betty and Charlotte, and none of them thought anything bad would happen. But they got into a fender bender on the highway, and Rose ended up in juvenile court.
Aunt Julie and Aunt Marge sent word to Uncle Lestan, but he was traveling and no one could find him. Rose was glad. She was so shamed, so miserable, so afraid that he would be disappointed in her.
The judge who heard the case shocked everyone. He let off Betty and Charlotte because they had not stolen the car, but he sentenced Rose to Amazing Grace Home for Girls for the period of one year due to her criminal behavior. He gave a dire warning to Rose that if she did not behave well at Amazing Grace, he would extend her stay till she was eighteen and possibly even longer. He said Rose had been in danger of becoming an addict with her antisocial behavior and possibly even a street person.
Aunt Marge and Aunt Julie were frantic, begging the judge not to do this. Again and again, they argued, as did the lawyers, that they were not pressing charges against Rose for stealing the car, that this had been a prank and nothing more, that the child’s uncle must be contacted.
It did no good. Rose was handcuffed and taken as a prisoner to the Amazing Grace Home for Girls somewhere in southern Florida.
All the way there, she sat quiet, numb with fear, while the men and women in the car talked of a “good Christian environment” where Rose would learn the Bible, and learn how to be “a good girl” and come back to her aunts “an obedient Christian child.”
The “home” exceeded Rose’s worst fears.
She was met by the minister Dr. Hays and his wife, Mrs. Hays, both of whom were well dressed and smiling and gracious.
But as soon as the police were gone and they were alone with Rose, they told her that she must admit all the bad things she’d done or Amazing Grace wasn’t going to be able to help her. “You know the things you’ve done with boys,” Mrs. Hays said. “You know what drugs you’ve used, the kind of music you’ve been listening to.”
Rose was frantic. She’d never done anything bad with boys, and her favorite music was classical. Sure she did listen to rock music but—. Mrs. Hays shook her head. Denying who and what she had done was bad, said Mrs. Hays. She did not want to see Rose again until Rose had had a change of attitude.
Rose was given ugly shapeless clothes to wear, and escorted everywhere around the grim sterile buildings by two older students who stood guard over her even when she had to use the bathroom. They would not give her a minute of privacy. They watched her when she performed the most delicate of bodily functions.
The food was unbearable, and lessons were reading and copying Bible verses. Rose was slapped for making eye contact with other girls, or with teachers, or for trying to “talk,” or for asking questions, and made to scrub the dining room on her hands and knees for failing to show a “good attitude.”
When Rose demanded to call home, to talk to her aunts about where she was, she was taken to “a time-out room,” a small closet with one high window, and there she was beaten with a leather belt by an older woman who told her that she had better show a change of attitude now, and that if she didn’t she’d never be allowed a phone call to her “family.”
“Do you want to be a bad girl?” asked the woman sorrowfully. “Don’t you understand what your parents are trying to do for you here? Your parents don’t want you now. You rebelled, you disappointed them.”
Rose lay on the floor of that room for two days, crying. There was a bucket and a pallet there and nothing else. The floor smelled of chemical cleaners and urine. Twice people came in with food for her. An older girl crouched down and whispered, “Just go along with it. You can’t win against these people. And please, eat. If you don’t eat, they’ll keep giving you the same plate over and over until you do eat the food, even if it’s rotting.”
Rose was furious. Where were Aunt Julie and Aunt Marge? Where was Uncle Lestan? What if Uncle Lestan knew what had happened and he was angry and disgusted with her? She couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe he’d turn his back on her like that, not without talking to her. But she was consumed with shame for what she’d done. And she was ashamed of herself now in the shapeless clothes, her body unwashed, her hair unwashed, her skin itching and feverish.
She felt feverish all over and her system had locked up. In the bathroom, before the watchful eyes of her guardians, she could not move her bowels. Her body ached and her head ached. In fact, she was feeling the worst pain she’d ever known in her stomach and in her head.
Rose was surely running a temperature by the time she was taken to the first group session. Without a shower or bath, she felt filthy.
They put a paper sign on her that said I AM A SLUT and told her to admit that she had used drugs, that she’d listened to satanic music, that she’d slept with boys.
Over and over Rose said that she had not slept with anyone, that she had not done drugs.
Again and again, other girls stood before her screaming at her: “Admit, admit.”
“Say it: ‘I am a slut.’ ”
“Say it: ‘I am an addict.’ ”
Rose refused. She started screaming. She’d never done drugs in her life. No one at the Willmont School did drugs. She’d never been with a boy except to kiss at a dance.
She found herself down on the floor with other girls sitting on her legs and her arms. She couldn’t stop screaming until her mouth filled with vomit. She almost choked on it. With all her soul, she struggled, screaming louder and louder, spitting vomit everywhere.