Last Summer Read Free Page B

morning, her absolutely favorite activity, Jane should have known that something more than hostile hormones was going on. She should have known.
    It was only back in May—just last month!—when Rosie’s best friend Meg told Mackenzie Egan and her awful cohorts about Rosie’s youthful trouble with bed-wetting that Jane had finally seen the truth. And then she had learned about the bullying her daughter had endured, and about the harm Rosie had been inflicting on her body. The traces of those angry wounds broke Jane’s heart. They were a vivid and ugly reminder of her failure as a mother to protect her child. Even if the scars on Rosie’s arm completely healed someday, they would never be forgotten.
    Just like the memory of that fateful morning when Rosie refused to get out of bed to go to school. It was entirely out of the norm. Jane had asked her if she felt sick and Rosie just shook her head and said nothing. When after fifteen minutes Rosie still hadn’t budged, Jane had actually raised her voice, demanding that Rosie stop fooling around.
    And then, in a completely uncharacteristic action, Jane had yanked the covers off her daughter and been confronted with the brutal reality. Rosie’s skinny arms, hugged around her skinny body. And the left arm scored with nasty red scars from her elbow to her wrist. Jane stood there, hands clutching the sheet and lightweight comforter, her head filling with an awful buzz. She was sure she was going to be sick all over the bed. Rosie lay still, her eyes wide open but staring at nothing, almost as if she were dead. And then Jane had dropped the covers and run from the bedroom.
    Why had it taken so long for her to realize that something was terribly, terribly wrong, that her well-behaved, hardworking, always polite little girl was truly suffering? Why had it taken so long for her to realize that her only child was seriously ill and not playing an adolescent game?
    Memories of that morning still made Jane feel sick to her stomach, but she couldn’t chase the images away. In a way, she didn’t want to forget. She remembered now with vivid recall the frantic call she had made to Mike at his office. He had raced home and, after looking in on Rosie, had called the school to tell them that she wasn’t well and wouldn’t be coming in that day. And then Jane and Mike had painfully learned the truth, at first in bits and pieces and then, in a torrent of words, finishing with what Meg Giroux had done to their daughter. Rosie had sobbed for what seemed like hours and then she had finally fallen asleep, utterly exhausted.
    Over the following days there were meetings with the school’s principal and guidance counselor, an appointment with the Pattersons’ doctor to ascertain Rosie’s physical health, and then the family interview with Dr. Lowe, psychotherapist, at her office in her charming old house in Kittery. It had been the most trying week of Jane’s life.
    Jane took the broom from the tall, narrow closet where it lived alongside a mop, bucket, and cleaning supplies. She had swept the kitchen floor after breakfast, but there always seemed to be stray bits of food or dust to catch. As she swept, methodically, starting in one corner of the room and working with short, rhythmic strokes, she thought back to Mother’s Day. It had been a bittersweet occasion, coming hard upon the heels of Rosie’s breakdown. Mike had done his best to make the day enjoyable—he had made Jane’s favorite breakfast, eggs Benedict, and given her a lovely bouquet of flowers from her favorite local florist—but her heart had felt too bruised for celebration.
    Of course she was glad that her daughter hadn’t tried to kill herself, as so many bullied children did. Of course she was glad that Rosie genuinely seemed to want to get better. She went without protest to Dr. Lowe’s office once a week, and while school was still in session she had kept up with her homework. The school administration had been very