A Secret Place

The Charleston family comes from very old money. They have dirtied their hands with destruction of lands and communities over the last hundred—or take a few decades. Jane wanted nothing to do with the family business, in fact she hated the way everyone made her dress, feel, and act. When she was young, she was not allowed to play with the other children her age unless her parents had business with theirs. Jane had a daily schedule that her parents held her to while growing up. Unable to establish connections with the people around her, and alone in a large house. It was filled with things much older and much more precious to her parents than herself. Of course, Jane was not allowed to touch many of the antiques or play in the house, so, Jane made her own home in her backyard; an escape from the empty house that seemed to be stuck in time.

The luxuries of the life that Jane had looked like a dream to normal people, but they were only peering into only a small part of her life. Whenever Jane didn’t have a scheduled lesson of some kind, she would slip away to her little hut she had built out of branches. As she got older she had more to learn and less time to slip away to her secret space. When Jane turned sixteen, she was not given a car or her license; she got the “privilege” of coming to corporate meetings and galas. After so many years of so little company, Jane had started to struggle with severe depression and anxiety. Her parents are not believers in the mental health awareness push that was coming up at the same time she was. They told her things like “shake it off,” “it’s in your head” (which to be fair yes it is, but it’s uncontrollable without aid), or her least favorite remark “stop being lazy.”

Jane was by no means, a lazy woman. As I’ve stated her parents kept her on a rigorous schedule filled with ballet lessons to keep her elegant and balanced, private education tutors; to keep her informed on the family business and for regular school lessons, after that she had the obligatory piano lessons that all rich kids parents apparently force them to take…. They continued to add more to the list every year she aged, until she was finally prepared to attend the Debutante ball in the Summer of her eighteenth year. Jane looks back on that day and can recall almost every detail of it. 

She had turned eighteen three weeks before the event was held at the Charleston family home in up-state New York. That day was hotter than usual, Jane remembers the feeling of being stuck in the corset her mother forced her into, and how she nearly fainted from starvation and dehydration. Her sanity was spread as thin as paper with a pair of scissors standing by. She planned on running away on her eighteenth birthday, somewhere secret and safe like what she had built for herself as a child. Jane wasn’t prepared for the amount of pressure that was on her shoulders that day as the “new face,” emerging in her father’s company. Alas, all eyes were on her at all times in preparation for the ball. She had no chance of escape yet, there were too many dress fittings, hair, nail, face, and message appointments on top of her father’s lessons that were added to the list. All to properly prepare and present her to everyone that her father worked with and more people she had never met, but would be forced to mingle with.

The ball was the day before Jane left her family home and business. She felt she owed her parents one last look and one last night with her, even though they weren’t there for her; they were there to do business. Jane had met a young man when she was living in the city. They met where Jane had been bartending, he was a regular, and she worked so many hours that they eventually became friends. It felt like this was the first time anyone had actually seen her. At the time she was working paycheck to paycheck at nineteen, that’s all she could do in order to stay hidden. Jane had some money, but since she refused contact with her parents, she was not living comfortably by any means in her Brooklyn apartment. It was basically a box with a heater and a bed. It wasn’t her secret space, but it was good enough for the time.

The young man she met was twenty-five when he met Jane. He was tall and lengthy, with brown curly hair that was never brushed, and beautiful green eyes that she would stare into for hours looking at the patches of blue inside. He was so kind to her, and they would spend hours on the phone talking, but Jane never revealed her true family name. She was worried he might want to meet her family or worse; her family might find her. Jane and the young man, Graham, ended up getting married after only a year together. Later, conceiving a child when Jane was only twenty. Graham had left her midway through the pregnancy to join the military—in order to support her and the child. He was reported KIA (Killed in Action) only three months after joining. Along with the delivery of this news, was the delivery of her child, and a death gratuity payment of $100,000 US dollars from the US Military. Jane, as I’ve said, suffered from severe anxiety and depression, and she was taking medications regularly to subdue the effects on her life. But this. This, was too much for her. Her only love’s death and her new love’s birth at the same time and nowhere to call home. 

Something in Jane snapped that day. She immediately left New York and, with the money given to her by the Military, she bought a cabin; her new secret and safe space. The cabin is located near Copper River, Tok, Alaska. The address does not even show up on Google Maps or Google Earth. Completely covered in snow fall and hidden by the tree line, the cabin had five acres of land that she owned around it. She made sure to stock the cabin and the cellar up with all she and her child would need. 

Jane had become so paranoid of her parents attempting to locate and use her child like they did her, that she never told them she had a child, a husband, or a home. To keep it this way, Jane had refused to own or use anything that was connected to the internet besides one laptop and a regular home phone. They kept all of your regular household amenities, but there was no TV and no over-the-top décor like her parents had kept. Attempting to atone for the abuse of the planet her family had caused for so many years: She hunted for food, she chopped wood for the central old fireplace for warmth, and she went to the river, and she would filter and boil the water to purify it.

Jane named her child Aina. The name is of Latin origin and the two meanings Jane derived from the name when she chose it were “Mirror,” and “The Only One.” Jane changed her own last name to “Graham,” and gave her child the same moniker. Aina Graham. Her beautiful baby girl. She chose the name when she realized how much she resembled her—to his eyes that Jane so adored. 

Aina did not have a normal childhood, like Jane. Aina was homeschooled only in topics of: English, mathematics, some specific history of the land around them and the indigenous peoples, survival skills, and maintenance of the cabin by Jane. Aina was allowed to use the computer they owned, but only for scholastic purposes. Jane refused to tell her daughter of the outside world beyond their tiny cabin and the land she owned around it. Aina grew up entirely alone, like her mother, but not⁠—they had each other. That was enough for Aina until she grew to be around twelve years old. That was when she got curious about everything. Jane knew she wouldn’t be able to hide the truth of the outside world forever, but she wasn’t ready for Aina to know about it yet. She wanted Aina to be able to be free, but inadvertently had kept her imprisoned in the world Jane created for them.

Aina grew up only knowing what she saw, read, and what her mother taught her. As curious children do, Aina eventually figured out her mother’s password to the computer⁠—Jane taught her a little to well it seemed. She finally had access to all the information her mother would not tell her. The world was literally at her fingertips. Aina was a very astute child and nimble as well, making it hard for even a mouse to notice her. So, she would slip out of her room every night after that and log into the computer to attempt to learn all she could about the computer itself and the world around her. It was tough to sneak around in the cabin though, the floorboards became old and creaky from negligence of upkeep on Jane’s part, but Aina was determined to learn more and more⁠—or at least as much as she could until her mother caught her.

Jane was completely blind to Aina’s actions, most of the time she spent either in the woods or in her room. She was still off her medications, but she began having a period of relief from her mental ailments due to the amount of time she had been disconnected from the world. Jane thought of the world as a beautiful mother that people had destroyed and will continue destroying. She had a festering anger for her family and the way they treated the planet for as long as she could remember, she wanted nothing to do with them or their business. This was her home and here she was free from the guilt she felt from her family.

With Jane’s recovery of her mind, she had decided to allow Aina unsupervised computer access. By that time Aina had turned fifteen and was still pretending to know only what her mother had taught her. Aina had been on social media websites like Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit through a pseudonym. She had been using her father’s last name: [Graham] Dougherty. Jane and Aina are both extremely bright and witty women, but they had both made their own fair share of slip-ups. This one was Aina’s worst though. By the time that Jane allowed Aina full access to the computer she had posted a picture with her mother in the background. 

Jane’s parents had not stopped looking for her since she had left. They knew that she had gotten married only through the paper, so all they had was Graham’s last name and him. By the time they had tried reaching out to Graham he was already overseas, and Jane had changed her last name to Graham instead of Dougherty after his death. They had lost her completely until Aina’s mistake of using her father’s last name for her profiles. They had followed the posts that Aina had made, but she had been careful not to post any information on herself, her mother, or where they lived. That is, until she posted the picture of her and her mother. She knew nothing of her grandparents and did not know she had any family other than her mother. The Charleston's were suspicious that this was Jane’s or her husband’s family account until they saw Jane in the background of the picture Aina had taken. 

Jane’s parents had the IP address traced by a private investigator in order to find out where their daughter was. They found Jane in less than a week after Aina posted that picture. They did not attempt to contact Jane first because they knew she would not respond and might move again. So, they reached out to Aina. Aina was dumbfounded that her mother would keep something like this from her⁠—she was her best friend. In a state of rage and confusion, instead of asking Jane about her family, she gave the coordinates of their cabin to her grandparents. 

Four days, three flights, and a seven-hour car ride later; Jane’s parents had arrived at the cabin. Aina let them in, Jane was down by the river, so she knew she wouldn’t be back for at least an hour. Aina showered her grandparents with questions about Jane, her father, them, and their family home. The Charleston's were generally very reserved people, mainly due to the industry they were in, but finding out they had a granddaughter and being able to see her had them crying like they had lost all of their money. They eventually were able to explain why Jane did not tell her about them, but they were promptly cut off by Jane scrambling into the cabin to see who was at their house with Aina. 

When Jane saw her parents she fell flat as the floorboards beneath their feet. Jane jolted awake just a minute later and looked up to see her parents faces staring at her, tears streaming down their faces like the river that she was just at. It had been seventeen years since they had seen Jane. Her mother reached for her face to look at her daughter, now a fully grown woman. Jane let her, she was in shock and stuck where she laid. Eventually, Jane started talking and yelling and crying all at once. Her parents sat on the couch stunned with Aina standing in the doorway waiting to run, just like her mother did. Jane finally asked them what they wanted from her, now keeping her daughter safely tucked behind her. Her parents told her they wanted Jane to come back to New York with them to get psychiatric help, and they wanted Aina to come live with them.

This was Jane’s worst fear and worst nightmare come to life. Instead of screaming at them to get out and never come back, Jane decided to tell her parents that she would not be seeking any help they had to offer, but it was Aina’s choice what she would like to do. Taken aback by the offer of a choice from her mother to live without her, she asked for a day to decide what she wanted to do. Unfortunately, the offer her mother gave her was not true. Jane took Aina in the middle of the night to a close friend’s house a couple of miles away. In the morning when Jane’s parents returned, Jane told them that Aina had said no to their offer and refused to see them. Knowing she had lied her parents took Jane from her home and brought her back to New York. They admitted her to a psychiatric hospital and paid the hospital to keep the situation quiet⁠—don’t want their daughter’s health to affect business.

Aina was never seen by her grandparents again. After she learned what they did to her mother, she knew that it would not be wise to contact them again. She understood finally, why her mother had hid her from them. The hatred that was contained within Jane for so long, was now contaminating Aina’s heart too. Aina swore to herself that she would get her mother back, but for now, Aina truly was “The Only One.”