Talking with Sage

 

I think that of all my children, Sage has been affected the most by all the changes that have happened recently – Sety and AJ’s sentence, Satis moving to Egypt, our own move to Hidden Springs, and her own birthday and adolescence.  And now, my latest pregnancy is yet another shock to her system.  She’s really had a tough time, and I have to admit, I don’t know how to deal with it.

I didn’t realize the depth and breadth of Sage’s problems until I read her letter and especially, until we were in Dr. McGaw’s office.  We were standing there, wearing clothes picked out for us by the show’s staff, screaming at each other with cameras in our faces, and yet, we didn’t even know what we were screaming.  I suppose I could’ve been upset that she’d had the temerity to drag us onto a national TV show to air out our private family problems.  But that wasn’t it, either. 

And poor Sage just looked at me and asked, “Mom, why are you yelling?”

And I had to just stop.  And walk away. 

She couldn’t even get angry with me.  All she could do was sob. 

She’d been crying the whole time she was in Dr. McGaw’s office.  I thought she’d bawl her eyeballs out.  That’s Sage, though, so sweet and sensitive. So unlike me.  The only things she and I have in common are blond hair and our last name. 

So there we were, sitting in counseling as Sage continued to launch grenades at Andy and me – mostly me. 

“You missed my ballet recital,” Sage had shouted with tears flowing down her cheeks, “you missed everything!  All because you were working.  I would have given my life for you to be at the recital.  Dad was there, Sety and Satis were there, even Grandma and Grandpa were there.  You weren’t.”

“I’m sure you were beautiful, baby,” I told her. 

I kept seeing my own arguments with my mother in flashback.  We were so different, we couldn’t see eye to eye – and I was now dealing with the same thing with Sage. 

Sometimes I think, my mother would have loved to have had Sage for a daughter.  I still think I was such a disappointment to her, a tomboy interested in history, archeology, and paranormal activity instead of music. 

“Why don’t you keep a journal?” I suggested to her one day we were in the dining room.  I also suggested she get involved in some activities at school so she could meet new people.

Which she listened to for the most part.  She joined the Art Club and the Newspaper Club, which will both improve her writing and painting skills.  She has that artistic side she got from my side of the family and she went to the theater and took guitar classes. 

 

Her heart, though, appears to be with animals and nature.  She has that outdoorsy streak from my husband.  She is (mostly) a vegetarian and has really taken to Bitsy and Traveller, the Hanoverian show horse we got her for her birthday. 

"What's the square root of two?" Sage mumbled under her breath while doing what appeared to be her algebra homework.
I was concentrating on my latest piece on the Hidden Springs mystery when I murmured, "not now, I'm in the middle of writing this article for the Paranormal Review."

"Ninety-nine over seventy," I whispered.

"Come here, Sage-blossom."
I denoted my oldest biological daughter by her full given name.  It’s actually Sage-blossom Margaret, but nobody calls her that.

"Sage-blossom, you know that we're having another baby, right?"
She sighed.
"Everyone is going to have to take on even more responsibility to help out. When your brother comes home, he's going to have to take on more responsibility too. When Sety and Satis return they're going to have to take on more responsibility. Fact is things are going to have to change around here -- and it starts with me."
I thought she was finished but she wasn't. "I haven't been the mother I could have been or I probably should have been because I've been working, but now that I've reached the top of ghost hunter career that's going to change."
"From now on I'm going to be spending more time with you guys. It may not seem like I love you, but I do. I love you guys more than life itself. When I got sick with that virus in the middle of my quest for Pangu's Axe I had to make a choice -- continue with my search for the weapon, which would have immensely helped my career, and, by the way, would have greatly impaired or even eliminated my ability to have more children -- or go back home and have you, and get the medical treatment I needed. Sage-blossom, it was a no brainer. It was a decision I'd make again and again."
I put my head down on the table and broke down in tears. I felt Sage’s arm around me.

Family Matters

 

My daughters, Sage and Sierra, had a major fight one evening.  I’m not sure what it was about, but their shouts were heard through the house. 

“Sierra!  Calm down!” Sage pleaded as Sierra threw her old ballet slippers across the room like a projectile. 

Sierra flung herself on the bed and folded her arms.  “Shut up, Little Miss Perfect.”

They get along swimmingly most of the time, even though both are tanned, blond and blue-eyed they are so very different.  I’m not sure who Sage is most like, but she’s certainly not like me.  And in my book that’s a good thing.  Sierra most assuredly resembles the way I was as a girl, which frightens me.  In fact, I think she may be even more tomboyish.

She even engaged our new butler, Max, to a game of catch with her football.  Max obliged. 

The next day, while the kids were at school, I took in a day of pampering at the Silver Zephyr spa, and oh my god, it was AMAZING.  They have these special chairs that you prop your feet up on and they play music and massage you and make you pretty much forget about everything. 

When we got back, Andy was, “I’ll let you go back to Sunset Valley –“

I piped up.  “If what?”

“If you make top of ghost hunter career and I make starter.”

I shook my head.  Leave it up to Andy to give us conditions. 

Since I’ve been on maternity leave, I’ve picked up the brush again.  Of course, these days I so lack inspiration, anything can come out of it.  Even blotches.

Dr. McGaw said we actually needed to work on being a family.  I took his advice.  So, once a week we decided we were going to have dinner down at the local bistro.  It was great.  There were the five of us (minus Sety and Satis) all eating our meals, chatting, and just being a family.  I didn’t feel like going, because, being blown up like a balloon doesn’t make you feel very good.

So, anyway, one thing that keeps us from going out reared its ugly head while at dinner – the paparazzi.  One guy with the reddest hair I’d ever seen flashed his camera at us while we were sitting down.  Ugh. 

Counseling part 3

 

We were back at the office the next day. 

“You’re worried about your sister too.”

“Absolutely,” Sage said through muffled tears. 

“You saw your brothers go off to boot camp and you don’t want to see her go too.”

“No.”

“Sage,” said Dr. McGaw, “let’s forget about your mother and your sister for a second.  Tell me about you.  What do you like to do?”

“Well,” Sage replied, “I, uh, I like to paint sometimes.  And ride horses.  I, uh, took ballet classes when I was little –“

“That’s a start.  You think maybe once you get settled into school that you can start making some friends outside of your family?”

“Um, I’m still fairly shy around people I don’t know well.”

“Well,” Dr. McGaw smiled, “you’re talking to me pretty good.”

Television cameras began to roll as Andy and I took our seats.  We watched as our dear 14-year-old daughter, Sage Margaret, walked out of the therapist’s office.  It looked as though she had been crying. 

While Imsety and AJ put us in front of a judge and jury, Sage has dragged us to a friggin’ therapist.  What the heck is wrong with us?  Are we bad parents?

“I just got done talking to y’all’s daughter,” began Dr. McGaw with a Southern twang.  “I gotta tell ya, huh, y’all two make some gorgeous kids.  Sage has got a lot goin’ for her.  She’s beautiful, she’s very bright, and she’s, I think, incredibly perceptive. But listen to me when I tell ya, that young lady in there is in real pain.  She ain’t fakin’ it.  I know when somebody is puttin’ on to get attention, and she ain’t doin’ it.  She’s hurtin'.  She’s really hurtin.’”

Before Andy and I could get a word out, he continued to talk.  “A lot of parents want to bring the child to the therapy altar and say, ‘Fix him’ or ‘Fix her’ and be done with it.  But I tell you, as I tell my other parents, when kids are born they are a blank slate.  You start writing on them as soon as they are born.  And what you have written on that child is causing her enormous pain.  I can’t fix her without fixin’ the two of you.  And I gotta tell ya, the two of you need more fixin’ than she does.”

I leapt to my feet.  “I didn’t do anything wrong!” I shouted.  “I went to work –“

“Savannah, what I was saying in the office and a lot of people fall into this trap, you’ve been in this ivory tower of academia for so long, you’ve failed to see what was happening with your own children.  You’ve got two kids, right – one you adopted and your biological son – at Fort Starch military academy, boot camp, right now, ordered there by a judge because of bad behavior.”

I nodded my head.

“Your other adopted daughter defied you and high-tailed it to Egypt.”

I nodded my head again.  “I really didn’t want her to go.  It’s still much too dangerous there.  And I don’t have the energy to go and get her because I’ve got so much going on over here –“

“Your youngest one, the little girl, is already skipping school and having disciplinary problems.”

I nodded again.

“And you’ve got this one here, she’s the one that writes the letter, basically begging you, Savannah, to quit grousing and be her mother.  I read that whole three page letter.  She’s not angry with you, far from it.  I tell you, based on what I know about the situation, if I were your daughter, I’d feel like she is, like you’re only giving her a part of yourself.  Yet you drag her to therapy, and she might be in the best shape out of all of ‘em,”

I sighed. 

“And you’re pregnant again.”

I took a deep blowing breath.

“And you don’t think this is a problem?”

I spoke up.  “Oh I absolutely know it’s a problem.  That’s why I’m here.”

“Will you agree, then, Savannah – and Andrew – that the two of you have made mistakes in parenting these children?”

“Absolutely.”

“Will you agree, Savannah, that you have basically abdicated your parental responsibilities to your husband?”

I took a deep breath.  “It’s painful for me to admit, but yes, in a way, I have.”

“Why?  Why did you do that?”

It took Andrew and me awhile to come up with a response.