Chapter 1
Julie McNeal turned her car off of the rural highway and onto a narrow county road. She was tired of driving and glad that according to her brochure they were now only two and a half miles from their destination. This would be the tenth care home that she and her daughter Audrey had looked into in the last two months. Julie began to wonder if her standards were unrealistically high and if she would ever find a place for her daughter.
Audrey was now thirty-one years old and had not spoken a word since she was three. The doctors had never been able to determine exactly what was wrong with Audrey. Julie's husband stayed with them for about one year after Audrey stopped talking, trying the whole time to convince Julie that something had to be done with Audrey or he would not stay. He kept insisting that Audrey would be better off somewhere else; that it was for her own good. Then one day he gave up trying to make Julie see it his way, and he left. Julie went to work as a dispatcher for a trucking company where her uncle worked and raised Audrey by herself from then on with plans of keeping Audrey at home forever. But now Julie recognized that she was getting older and Audrey was getting too big and too difficult for her to manage.
And so the family of two continued up the narrow country road. The road meandered through hills that were covered with tall, dry yellow grass that swayed in the wind, clumps of twisted red-barked manzanita bushes and large mature oak trees. The valleys were green from irrigation sprinklers and speckled with grazing cattle and horses. Julie was trying to keep optimistic and convince herself that this one might be different, but, as the road narrowed and became bumpier, she could not help but have her doubts. She started imagining a run-down farmhouse or even a mobile home in this area. Eventually the pavement ended altogether, and her hope for an ideal care home for Audrey became more remote. But Julie had heard good things about this place, and since they had come this far she decided she needed to check it out. And so she begrudgingly continued on the dirt road for about three hundred more yards, took a left and came upon the entrance to the ranch.
There was no mistaking the entrance. The road changed dramatically to a nicely paved two-lane road that wound its way up a small hill. And just to the right of the road where the pavement began was a large redwood sign with elegant curved letters carved into the wood. The letters were painted a gleaming white: "Welcome to Montel Mercedes Ranch."
Julie drove the car up the hill to what looked like a mountain resort hotel. It was an expansive redwood building with oversized windows. The grounds around the building were beautifully manicured with grass, small evergreen shrubs, and colorful flowers. An old-fashioned wagon in the middle of an entryway circle was filled with flowers and draped with colorful hanging plants.
A small man wearing a dark blue polo shirt and khaki shorts approached the car and opened the door for Julie.
"Welcome," he said. "May I park your car for you?"
"Thank you," Julie responded. The man's facial features and mannerisms made her think he probably had Down syndrome. Then she noticed a young Hispanic woman wearing the same type of dark blue polo shirt and khaki shorts who was watching everything from a booth near the entrance to the building. As Julie and Audrey walked toward the entrance, she smiled and said, "Welcome." She pointed towards a sign and then held out her hands as if waiting to receive something. The sign read: While on these premises we ask you to challenge the status quo. Please check your preconceived ideas and biases here. We will gladly return them to you upon your departure.
