Can We Heal Our Daughter? Part 2

I walked past bits of broken glass, rotting food and a pile of clothes to find an empty pack of birth control pills under Shawna's bed. I had reports from a youth leader at church that she was stealing from her friends. We knew she was stealing from us constantly and she made no apologies. I felt more pressure than ever to act on the plan my wife, Cindy, and I spoke about with our family psychologist: whisk her away to a girls' school in Mexico. I wanted to hold out hope she would change with our input at home, but my hope was fading.

The days were filled with picking her up from school and listening to her be-bop to rap music on the way home. If I turned down the radio, she would reach and turn it up. If I tried to change the station, she'd place her hand on the dial and tell me "no." Once home, she'd grab the phone and start talking and raising her voice like she was fighting street noise. She wore her jeans or sweatpants seductively low around her hips. Swearing was a part of her everyday speech.

In the mornings, we would wake her up for school and she would be bleary-eyed. We learned later she was climbing out of her windows each night to visit friends. And she was stealing - from us, our boys and her friends. We could say nothing to stop her. She had already been caught at a department store at the mall on her 15th birthday several months earlier. She sat in front of a judge with her court-appointed attorney who advised her she didn't have to answer questions from us. She was on probation, but she had an agreement with the probation officer who let her illegally leave the high school campus as long as she didn't get caught.

We had heard about a girls' school south of Rosarito in Baja, Mexico and we spoke to a few parents who felt they were losing their daughters until they sent them to the school. The parents gave positive reviews, so we decided to get her to the school but we had to act without telling her ahead of time. We needed a photo and a passport in order to get her there. So we told her we were getting her photo because she missed school pictures and we were getting a government document to release her from probation.

We had to drive from our home in Pasadena and make it to West Los Angeles by 6am to get her photo at a copy store. Then we had to wait three hours until the Federal Building opened. My brother-in-law, an affable coffee-drinker who enjoyed talking, was along for the ride. We expected her to eventually find out where we were headed and we needed him along for the ride in case of a severe blow-up.

We made our way out of West Los Angeles around 1pm and we headed along the freeways. During the next two hours, we drove from Westwood, south on the freeways, into northern San Diego County. I had kept the radio station playing while my brother-in-law and I chatted. Cindy sat in the back, alternately looking out her window and reading a book. Shawna stayed asleep on the bench seat in the middle. The stations out of LA turned fuzzy as we drove along Interstate 5 and into view of downtown San Diego.

"I wonder what stations San Diego has," I said as I fiddled with dial. Suddenly, Shawna popped up and asked "where are we?" No one answered and instantly she looked out the window and started screaming "where are we going?" She climbed into the back bench seat and saw her luggage and let out a roar. Rush hour traffic started clogging the freeway and I was in the far left lane. She was yelling and leaned back and flailed her feet against the windows.

Cindy, 5' 6" and 125 pounds, grabbed her to hold her down. My brother-in-law climbed to the back also. I noticed a police car to my right and I feared getting stopped for an investigation. We drove on with Shawna's high pitch shrieking filling my ears. We soon made it to the border with the signs welcoming us to Mexico. She screamed "hell, no" as I pulled to the right. I was directed to tell the men inside that we were taking her to a school and she needed an official document that cost me $20. Shawna's swearing and yelling was easily heard inside the office above the noise of cars crossing the border but neither of the men bothered to ask me any questions. They looked bored as they stamped the document and handed it back. It bothered me to think I could be a real kidnapper.

Strangely, she didn't try to fight us the remainder of the trip. As we drove out of Tijuana traffic and south of Rosarito an awkward silence fell over the car. I told Shawna that we loved her and she curtly responded with "shut the 'f___" up." We made our way to the school's gates, announced our arrival and pulled in. I felt tears welling up inside me as an administrator came to the car followed by four girls at the school. He asked Shawna to step out as he told her where she was. We walked to the brightly lit office which was decorated with pastels and new wooden furniture to sign a few papers.

Shawna was then escorted to the dorm where she was given a change of clothes. Shortly after, the wife of the man who oversaw the facility returned with her jewelry and gave it to us to take back. Emotionally exhausted, we started the drive north.

The school was the site of Shawna's 16th birthday and the staff started her on a track of writing to us two to three times per week and making regular phone calls home. Several months later, on a break from the school, she had packed her bags and tossed them in our van. She was coming home for a one-week stay before returning to finish her final three months. But she announced she wasn't going to return to the school. And we decided not to force her.

Shawna was mad at us for sending her away for a year, but during her talk with us we discovered one important observation: she never blamed us for adopting her. We knew this was common when adopted children were trying to assert their independence from their families. We believed she saw us, and her three adopted siblings, as family.