Note to readers: First off, again, thank you all for the kind reviews and support. I always appreciate it! Second, I just wanted to warn everybody that this is not going to be a very kind chapter to Mrs. Garrett. I want to assure everyone that yes, I do know how wonderful Mrs. Garrett is and I do love her. However, I'm not going to lie. In the season one episode "Like Mother, Like Daughter" and in the season two episode "The Secret," Mrs. Garrett just irks the crap out of me! It's also equally irked me the way she shuts the girls down with the lame excuse, "Your parents only sent you away to Eastland to give you a good education!" whenever they expressed anger about it on the show. And this chapter deals with that head on, but again, I just wanted to assure everybody that I wasn't just trying to be mean to Mrs. Garrett or anything. I just wanted to deal with these issues with her because they've always made me so mad. This chapter also really deals with the issue of prejudice against young people, which is an issue that's extremely important to me and very close to my heart. Yes, as usual, things will get kind of intense, but hopefully, you'll all enjoy it. And as always, thanks for stopping by. :)

Chapter 8: Prejudice

Mrs. Garrett had really wanted to try to talk to Jo and get her to start opening up about everything when she came back from her little trip to the Bronx, but she could really sense how furious she was inside for some reason, and something in her gut told her that now was not the right time to try to talk to her, so she decided not to push it. Even though it was really important for Jo to start dealing with everything soon so that she would be psychologically fit to undergo the transplant procedure, Mrs. Garrett could sense it that something had happened while she'd been in the Bronx and that she needed a little more time to process it first. However, she did mention it more than once over the following week that she was there if and when Jo wanted to talk about it.

But Jo didn't seem to want to talk to anyone about anything, and Mrs. Garrett and the girls all noticed that she really seemed to have a chip on her shoulder these days. As Blair, Natalie, and Tootie observed one day when they were talking in their room, Jo was full of anger and was not on auto-pilot anymore.

"Jo's really been grumpy lately," Natalie commented to the girls one afternoon after classes were over for the day.

"Yeah. It's really hard to look forward to the Christmas holidays when you're living with the Grinch," Tootie complained.

"Come on, you two. Be fair. Jo has a right to be grumpy after everything she's gone through this year," Blair admonished them.

"I don't mean to be unfair to Jo," said Tootie. "I know she's been through a lot. It's just that here lately, whenever I'm around her, she's borderline hostile. It makes me feel like she hates me or something, and that's not fair. I didn't do anything to Jo."

"I don't mean to be unfair to Jo either, but Tootie does have a point," Natalie agreed. "She makes me feel the same way."

"You guys, she's not mad at either one of you, and she doesn't hate you. Jo's mad at her parents for all the pain and turmoil they've caused her. She's mad at her kidneys for not functioning anymore. She's mad at all the fatigue, weakness, headaches, and other symptoms she's experiencing all the time and she's mad at not being able to feel like herself anymore. She's mad at everything that's happened to her. She's not mad at us," Blair explained. Even though Blair Warner was a spoiled, snobbish little princess and a real idiot at times, she also had her moments where she could be surprisingly mature and insightful about things.

"Maybe you're right, Blair," Natalie mused.

"Of course I am," Blair said in her typical snobbish way.

"I know that Jo's been through a lot and I really do feel sorry for her," Tootie said. "It's just that she's simply not our Jo anymore, and it's been months. I mean, Jo may be really angry now, and she was always hard and tough, but she used to have a sensitive side and be really nice, too. When are things ever going to get back to normal around here?"

"Tootie, Jo's father was killed and her own mother tried to murder her. You don't get over something like that in just a few months. It's going to take more time than that," Blair told her. Like Natalie and Tootie, Blair, too, had naïvely expected Jo to be more like her normal self after they all returned from their summer vacation, but since then, she came to realize that it would probably be quite a while before Jo would be able to start acting like Jo again.

"Yeah, Blair, you're probably right," Natalie agreed. "But I hope Jo doesn't stay like this for too much longer. For one thing, I really miss the old Jo, and for another, I don't know how much more of this I can take. She's really been driving me crazy here lately."

"Well anyway, Natalie, what do you say we go over to Terry's dorm for a while? You know she just got that new Jermaine Jackson album that came out last week. Maybe she'll let us listen to it."

"Sure, Tootie. That's a great idea. And anyway, I'd much rather be listening to Jermaine over at Terry's than stick around here so that Jo can bite my head off again," said Natalie, and then she and Tootie left.

A couple of minutes later, while Blair sat on the side of her bed staring into her compact mirror, touching up her makeup, Jo came in and, as usual, slammed the door shut before stomping over to her own bed and sitting down on it.

Blair, Natalie, and Tootie had practically been walking on eggshells around Jo all week since her trip to the Bronx, but Blair had finally had enough and decided she was going to say something to her about it. Blair did understand why Jo was so mad at the world, but at the same time, she was worried about her, and on top of that, even though Natalie and Tootie really were too young to truly understand the kind of pain Jo was in, they were right. Despite the fact that Jo was going through a very great deal right now, it still wasn't fair for her to make all the people around her pay for it.

So without further ado, Blair just spat it out and got right to the point, ironically, just like Jo would do. She said, "Alright, Jo. I've had it. What's going on with you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't give me that. You've been a jerk all week long and we're all getting sick of it. I know something happened to you when you were back at your old apartment building because ever since then, you've been snapping everybody's heads off."

Mrs. Garrett came walking down the hall in that moment, carrying a stack of fresh towels and washcloths in her arms to put in the bathroom. Under normal circumstances, Mrs. Garrett would never just stand around and eavesdrop on private conversations, of course, but she, too, was very worried about Jo, and when she overheard that Blair was trying to get her to open up about it, she couldn't help but want to stick around and listen to what Jo said in response.

"Well excuse me if I'm not Miss Congeniality, Blair. Why don't you try getting poisoned by your own mother, abandoned by your own father for the second time around, kidney damage, and getting put on dialysis, and then see how pleasant and polite you feel like acting towards everybody?!"

"I'm sorry, Jo. I didn't mean it that way. I can't imagine what you must be going through."

"That's right! You can't!" Jo snapped.

"We're worried, okay?!" Blair snapped back. "You're our friend, Jo. More than our friend. You're family to us. To me. And I know you. I know the real reason you've been such a jerk this week is because you're in a lot of pain, possibly even more pain than you were already in before you went to the Bronx. I know that something happened there. What?"

"I don't want to talk about it!" Jo snapped again.

"Well sometimes in life, what we want and what we need are two different things, Jo. You need to talk about this, whether you want to or not."

"You wouldn't understand!"

"Try me. I know I can't understand everything you're going through, Jo, but I might be able to understand some of it."

Jo let out an impatient sigh and said, "You're not going to quit until I start talking, are you?"

"No, I'm not," Blair responded.

"Alright, alright, already. If it'll get you off my back, I'll talk."

"Good," Blair said, and then she sat down next to Jo on the side of her bed. "So tell me, just what exactly happened when you were back in the Bronx?"

"The little old landlady there, Mrs. Peterson, said a bunch of really lousy things to me that only made me feel worse than I was already feeling."

"What did she say to you?"

"She made a bunch of crappy excuses for Rose! That's what she did! She got on my case to forgive her. 'She is your mother, after all,'" Jo repeated Mrs. Peterson's words in a mocking tone of voice. "As if donating an egg at the moment of my conception automatically makes the hell she's put me through okay or something; as if, because she's my mother – in a manner of speaking, anyway – that makes her attempting to take my life no big deal! She said, 'Oh, it wasn't really Rose who did that to you. It was the depression she was going through; it just took over. She was so depressed because she had to give up all her dreams when Charlie came along and you were born.' So in other words, her trying to kill me was actually my fault for being born!"

"She actually said that to you?" Blair asked, flabbergasted that anyone would be that insensitive, or that stupid. And so was Mrs. Garrett.

"In so many words, yes."

"That's unbelievable," Blair said quietly, shocked at what she just heard.

"You know, I realized something after I had that conversation with Mrs. Peterson, though. I realized that there are actually all kinds of prejudice in this world. There's racial prejudice, and there's also prejudice against kids. When Mrs. Peterson took that kind of an attitude with me and actually made excuses for what Rose did to me, what she was really saying was that because I was the kid and Rose was the egg donor at the moment of my conception, my soul and my life didn't have as much value as hers did, and therefore, that meant that it was no big deal for Rose to try to murder me. In essence, what she was basically saying was that Rose had more worth, more value as a human being than I did because she donated some DNA to me sixteen years ago; that being a kid made me some kind of second-class citizen."

"You're right, Jo. Mrs. Peterson's attitude towards you was despicable, and very prejudiced. If you hadn't been Rose Polniaczeck's daughter; if you had been an adult who wasn't related to her and she poisoned you, Mrs. Peterson probably would not have made a bunch of lame excuses for her then."

"Exactly. But why does Rose get a pass to try to kill me from all the people in this world like Mrs. Peterson? Why do all the Mrs. Petersons of the world make excuses for her? Because being a young person and being descended from her means, in their minds, anyway, that I as a human being have less value, so that makes an attempt on my life no big deal."

"You know, you're right. There are all kinds of prejudice in this world, including prejudice against young people. Now that I think about it, I believe that prejudice against young people is one of the most widely accepted and tolerated kinds of prejudice that there is."

"After my experience with Mrs. Peterson, I can't help but agree with you. Do you ever notice how if a kid disrespects a parent, the kid always gets an earful, but if a parent disrespects a kid, I'd say about fifty percent of the time in this world, it's overlooked?"

"Actually, Jo, I know exactly what you're talking about. Would you believe that I actually encountered that kind of an attitude from Mrs. Garrett once? Not to the same degree as Mrs. Peterson, of course, but still, it happened."

The moment Blair said that, Edna Garrett's blue eyes grew as wide as saucers. She was really shocked to hear Blair say something like that. When, when had she ever displayed an attitude of prejudice towards any of her girls because they were young? Again, she knew it was wrong to eavesdrop, but now, she really couldn't help but keep listening. She had to know what Blair meant by what she just said to Jo.

"Mrs. Garrett? Prejudice? Come on, Blair! Be serious!"

"I am being serious. It happened during the first year Mrs. Garrett started working at Eastland, the year before you came here. My mother came up for Parents' Night, and I overheard her planning a big romantic dinner with another one of the parents, Mr. Branch – whose wife just happened to be back home. I've seen enough of my mother in action over the years to be able to tell when she was getting ready to start up another one of her love affairs. Now don't get me wrong, Jo. I do love my mother, but I was so hurt that the one night that was supposed to be for spending time with me at Eastland, she spends it making plans to fool around with a married man instead. She couldn't even get her mind off men one night for my sake. And naturally, it really hurt me and made me angry that she would actually start an affair with a married man. I was so disappointed in her, even ashamed of her."

"I'll bet you were! I would've been hurt, angry, and ashamed of my mom too if I'd been in your shoes. Your mom was really rotten and selfish to pull a stunt like that, Blair. She didn't even care about the impact that would have on you! She didn't even care about how starting up an affair with another student's father would make all the other kids at Eastland talk about you."

"Exactly. And besides, what kind of an example is that to set for your teenage daughter, anyway?"

"A lousy one!"

"Exactly. Anyway, I walked right up to my mother that night and I told her to her face that I was ashamed of her."

"Good for you. What happened?"

"She hit me."

"She hit you?"

"Not very hard. It was just a little slap, but it was like rubbing salt into my wounds."

"It doesn't matter if it was 'just a little slap.' Blair, if you hit somebody, you hit somebody, and unless you do it in self-defense, it's wrong. It doesn't matter if it was your mother or not. As a matter of fact, the fact that it was your own mother makes it even worse in my book. It doesn't matter if you got mad and told her you were ashamed of her. She brought that on herself by fooling around with a married man. If parents want their daughter to be proud of them, they should conduct their lives in an honorable way, and there is nothing honorable about starting up an affair with a married man at your daughter's school, in front of your daughter's classmates. Monica Warner really treated you like dirt when she did that."

"I agree. And after she actually hit me, how do you think Mrs. Garrett reacted? Was she, at the very least, upset that Mom hit me? Did it bother her in the least little way that Mom was disrespecting me and hurting me like that, and setting me such a terrible example? No. I get understandably hurt and angry because my mom is starting up an affair with a married man, my mom hits me, and yet, it's not Mom who gets the lecture from Mrs. Garrett. No, I get lectured. I get lectured about how loving a person means you have to 'love the whole package, warts and all,' as Mrs. Garrett put it.

"Now she was right, of course. Loving a person does mean that you have to take the good with the bad and accept them for who they are. But deep down, it always really hurt me and made me angry that my mother did something to cause me so much pain, and Mrs. Garrett never said a word about it. By her saying nothing about the way my mother was hurting me inside, and by her saying nothing about my mother hitting me, she was sending me a silent message, Jo. And that message was that it was okay for Mom to set a bad example for me, cause me a lot of pain, and even hit me; that because I was a kid, it was no big deal for her to disrespect me like that. Maybe she was right about everything she said in her little lecture to me that night, but it was also wrong that I got treated like that by my mother and she never said anything to her."

"And why didn't she say anything to your mother? Simple. The Great Edna Garrett has prejudice in her heart against young people just like Mrs. Peterson does."

Obviously, hearing Blair and Jo saying such things about her was a real dagger to Mrs. Garrett's heart. Nine times out of ten, if the girls had a complaint against "The Great Edna Garrett," it would be the girls who were in the wrong and not Mrs. Garrett. However, this was actually that rare one time out of ten where that wasn't the case. After listening to everything Blair had just said to Jo, Mrs. Garrett had to admit it that she did have a very real point. Of course, Mrs. Garrett would never hurt one of her girls, not on purpose, anyway. She really had been trying to be helpful to Blair that night, but she hadn't considered the fact that because Blair was so deeply hurt, she really needed to vent her anger about what her mother was doing, and she also never considered the fact that Blair needed reassurance from her that it was not okay for her mother to treat her like that. Blair and Jo were absolutely right. Monica Warner had been dreadfully disrespectful to her daughter that night, and had basically gotten off scot-free, even after hitting her, while it had been Blair who had gotten the lecture. To say the least, that was terribly unfair, and the more Mrs. Garrett thought about it, the more she wondered if she in fact hadn't acted that way because of a teeny, tiny bit of prejudice lurking around in her heart against young people that she hadn't even realized was there before.

"I think every adult has a bit of prejudice in their hearts against young people," Blair continued. "I for one just hate it the way that society seems to take this attitude that if you're a teenager, you're just automatically bad or something. I mean, I know teens can get into a lot of trouble. I know we've certainly gotten into trouble ourselves, but we're not bad or automatically worthy of contempt just because we're teenagers. Not all teenagers are disrespectful, annoying people, but that is the attitude that society takes." Again, Blair was being surprisingly insightful. Even though the majority of the time she could act so stupid, Blair did have her intelligent moments.

"I also hate it how adults take the attitude that because we're kids, that just automatically means right off the bat that we're stupid and we don't know what we're talking about. Maybe we don't have as much experience as adults do, but that doesn't mean we're just automatic idiots, either. And it doesn't mean that our viewpoint on things should be automatically tossed aside and not taken seriously."

"I agree with you, Jo," Blair assured her.

And so do I, Mrs. Garrett thought to herself just outside.

"You know, Blair, now that I think about it, I actually came across that same kind of attitude in Mrs. Garrett that you did when she lectured you about your mother," Jo told her, which again, was really a double shock to Mrs. Garrett's system. Now, she was really, really beginning to get worried that having prejudice in her heart against young people was a true problem for her. "It was when I won that Best New Student Award last year," Jo continued. "Charlie wrote a letter to me from prison and it was opened by mistake, so Mrs. Garrett knew that he wasn't really in Miami like I'd told you guys. We got to talking about how he'd abandoned me when I was twelve, and you know what she said to me? She said, 'It sounds like your father made many mistakes.' She called abandoning me 'a mistake.' A mistake! Like putting down the wrong answer on a pop quiz in class or forgetting to put the raisins in the oatmeal at breakfast-time. Abandoning your child is not a mere 'mistake.' It's an act of evil. It's one of the most evil things a parent could possibly do to a child, and she just brushes it off as if it's no big deal, calling it 'a mistake'! Abandoning your child is in fact a silent form of abuse. It sends the most damaging, most abusive message possible to your child: I don't love you enough to be here. I grew up hearing that silent message from Charlie for years."

Again, Mrs. Garrett felt that invisible dagger in her heart as she was forced to really think about what Jo had said. Naturally, the last thing she'd meant to say to Jo was that her father's abandonment of her was no big deal, but again, the girls were right and did have a very real point. Mrs. Garrett was wrong, horribly wrong, to refer to Charlie Polniaczeck's abandonment of Jo as a mere "mistake." She really should have been more respectful and sensitive to the kind of emotional agony that had caused Jo. Jo was right. Abandoning your child was not just a "mistake" like putting down the wrong answer on a quiz in class. It was a purely evil thing to do, and it was a silent form of abuse, and Mrs. Garrett knew she should have been far more respectful of that.

As Mrs. Garrett thought about it in that moment, she also remembered what she had said to Charlie Polniaczeck as he'd been on his way out the door the night Jo was receiving the Best New Student Award. She had tried to convince him to stay, and had succeeded, but she'd also said to him, "I know you've been through a lot and Jo's giving you a rough time." Those words really rang inside Edna Garrett's head as she took time to truly analyze them, and to put it mildly, they now bit her in the rear. I know you've been through a lot and Jo's giving you a rough time. She'd practically made it sound as though Charlie deserved sympathy, and as though Jo was in the wrong for being hurt and angry. She was really sick at herself for her words now, both to Charlie and to Jo. It was not Charlie who'd been through a lot. It was Jo who had been through a lot! And again, as an adult, she had not been very respectful of that. She in fact had not been very respectful of Jo's feelings, or of Jo at all through that whole process because she'd been in such a rush to get them back together and have the nice, sweet little happy ending that she hadn't stopped to say what Jo had really needed to hear from her, which was, "Jo, what your father did to you was inexcusable and it was awful and it was wrong. And you never deserved that. He had no right to cause you so much pain." She'd practically behaved the same way when Blair's mother hurt her as well. Blair was the one who'd been done wrong by Monica, but it had not been Monica who'd gotten lectured. Blair had, and why? Because she was a young person. No wonder her girls felt she'd harbored prejudice in her heart against them because they were young. In some ways, she actually had!

"My parents have been sending me that message for years, too," Blair said to Jo. "They've been sending me that silent message ever since they shipped me off to Eastland when I was twelve. Well, really, since even long before that. Don't get me wrong. I do love it here, but it still really hurts that my mom and dad are always traveling all over the world and only spend a few weeks out of the entire year with me, if that. I do believe my parents love me; they just don't love me enough to be actively involved in my everyday life, which is painful."

Jo shook her head and told her, "Blair, if they don't love you enough to be actively involved in your everyday life, then they don't love you at all. I hate to break this to you, but Monica and David Warner love their careers and their money and their traveling and themselves a whole lot more than they will ever love you."

Blair locked her eyes with Jo and said, "Tell me something I don't already know."

The invisible dagger in Mrs. Garrett's heart was only thrust even deeper into her the moment she heard Blair say that. It had always been the elephant in the room that Mrs. Garrett had never really discussed with her girls the way she knew she should have. Whenever her girls expressed hurt and anger about being sent away to a boarding school by their parents, she'd always shut them down with the lame excuse that their parents just wanted to give them a good education. However, Edna Garrett was not a fool by any means and she knew perfectly well that that was just a load of bull; that their parents were perfectly capable of giving them a good education by sending them to a private school closer to home, and that they never had to send them all the way to Eastland, sacrificing their relationships with them in the process. She knew their parents could see them and interact with them every single day and still give them a quality education, if they really wanted to. And when it came to Jo, she honestly had believed in the beginning that Rose Polniaczeck had sent her to Eastland to get her away from all the gangs and danger in their neighborhood, although she knew differently now, of course. But regardless of the reason for sending the girls away from home, she knew that true parenting could not be done long-distance; that letters and phone calls didn't cut it by a longshot. She also knew that her girls had to feel hurt deep down at only being allowed to see their parents a few weeks out of the entire year – at best. But she'd shut them down with lame excuses anyway because it was just too painful for her to face the fact that her girls' parents simply didn't love them as much as she did, and she couldn't bear for her girls to have to face the awful truth that their own parents didn't love them enough to really be involved in their lives.

After overhearing that conversation, though, she came to the painful realization that she could not shut the girls down with lame excuses anymore. Blair and especially Jo were already painfully aware of how little their parents loved them, if they even loved them at all. (And in fact, it was now agonizingly obvious that Jo's didn't.) She knew now that whenever her girls felt the need to express their hurt and anger, she simply had to stop making excuses for their parents and listen to them and reassure them that their parents were wrong for hurting them.

"Yeah," Jo sighed. "I'm sorry, Blair. I really am. I understand how you feel."

"Thanks, Jo, but don't worry about me. It's okay. I'm used to it by now."

"I don't think I'll ever get used to what Rose and Charlie did to me. But you know, I did do a little something when I was in the Bronx to get a bit of my anger out of my system after that terrible conversation with Mrs. Peterson, and boy did it ever feel good!"

"What did you do?"

"I bought a can of spray paint and then I went to the cemetery and spray-painted the words 'Selfish Coward' on Charlie's grave."

"Oh, wow. How do you feel about doing that?"

"Perhaps I should feel guilty, desecrating someone's grave like that, but I don't. If anything, I feel good about what I did! That creep abandoned me while I was dying on that hospital bed in the ICU, and that is the act of a selfish coward. The only thing I did was tell the truth about what kind of man he was."

"It's certainly an epithet that makes a statement."

"If Charlie Polniaczeck wanted the epithet on his grave to say something nice and gooey and sweet like 'Beloved Father,' then he should have been a father, especially when I needed him the most."

"I agree."

"I've got to tell you, Blair, it felt so good to tell the truth for the whole world to see. Mrs. Peterson may have tried to make excuses for Rose, but I won't, and I won't make excuses for Charlie or hide the truth about what he did; about what they both did. Being a kid does not diminish my worth as a human being and it does not give them the right to treat me that way, even if they are my sperm donor and egg donor."

"Sperm donor and egg donor?"

"That's right. Charlie lost the title of 'Dad' when he left me in that ICU, and Rose lost the title of 'Mom' when she poisoned me. If a doctor murders his patients, he loses his title, doesn't he? Charlie murdered me inside when he left me at the point in my life where I needed him the most, and Rose may not have succeeded in murdering me, but she's just as guilty as Charlie is of murdering me on the inside, too. So they lose their titles."

Tears came to Mrs. Garrett's eyes in that moment. Even though it was wrong to desecrate someone's grave like that, not even someone as moral as Mrs. Garrett could blame Jo for what she did. And she also knew that Jo was absolutely right in what she said. Being young did not diminish her worth as a human being, even though society far too often seemed to scream otherwise, and being young certainly never gave anyone the right to do to her what the Polniaczecks did. And she knew perfectly well that just as parents got to dish out consequences to their children whenever their children did something wrong and got out of line, there should also be consequences for parents who wronged their children. And in Jo's case, Mrs. Garrett believed it was quite fitting for Mr. and Mrs. Polniaczeck to have their parental titles revoked in light of the hell they'd put Jo through. It just ripped her apart inside, knowing that Jo was still suffering so much.

Mrs. Garrett put the clean towels and washcloths in the bathroom then, and afterwards, she locked herself in her room and had a good cry.

The following afternoon once classes were over for the day, Mrs. Garrett had Jo and Blair meet with her in her room.

"Girls, I have something important that I need to say to both of you," she told them in a deep, serious voice and not her usual quivering one.

"What is it, Mrs. Garrett?" asked Blair.

"What's up, Mrs. G.? You're looking very serious," Jo commented.

"What I have to say to you girls is serious," she said to them in the same low tone of voice. "I was carrying some fresh towels to the bathroom yesterday, and on my way there, I got sidetracked. I…even though I knew it was wrong, I started overhearing your conversation yesterday, and rather than put the darned towels away and go back downstairs like I should have done, I listened in on your discussion." Jo and Blair turned and looked at each other in shock. They couldn't believe Mrs. Garrett of all people would do something like that. "I hope you girls can forgive me."

"We're dead," said Jo.

"No, you're not, Jo. You girls are not in any trouble. As a matter of fact, I think it's the other way around. This time, I think I'm actually the one in trouble with you, in a manner of speaking, anyway."

"Wait a minute, Mrs. Garrett. Just how much of our conversation did you overhear yesterday?" Blair asked.

Mrs. Garrett took a deep breath and answered, "All of it."

"You're right, Jo! We are dead!"

"No, girls, you're not," Mrs. Garrett insisted. "Believe me, you're not. I'm not at all angry at either one of you. And believe it or not, even though I know I shouldn't have done it, in a way, I'm actually quite glad that I overheard that conversation. You girls made me aware of something going on inside my heart that I had no idea was there. You were both right. There have been times when I've displayed an unfair, prejudicial attitude towards you because you're young."

In that moment, she turned to face Blair, walked closer to her, and said, "Blair, I never meant to send you the message that it was okay or acceptable for your mother to hit you, and I certainly never meant to send you the message that it wasn't a big deal for her to hurt you inside the way that she did, just because you're young. You're absolutely right. It was wrong of her to plan a romantic evening with a married man, and it was especially wrong of her to not even consider what kind of consequences that would have for you. You could have had the whole school gossiping about you because of what your mother did, and on top of that, she was not setting a very good example for you the way a mother should. You were right to be so hurt and so angry, and I'm very sorry I didn't tell you that. I never meant to send you the message that it was okay for your mother to cause you so much pain like that just because you're young, and I'm so sorry I did."

Blair's face really softened when Mrs. Garrett told her that. She loved Mrs. Garrett very much. She had, in fact, been a million times the mother to her that Monica Warner ever was. Deep down, she had always been hurt by the way Mrs. Garrett had handled that whole situation with her mother a couple of years ago, but she'd been convinced she wouldn't understand, so she hadn't even tried to discuss it with her. It had just remained buried. But that was the beautiful thing about Mrs. Garrett. Whenever she realized that she'd been in the wrong about something, and especially whenever she came to the realization that she'd caused another person pain, she immediately took responsibility for it and admitted her mistake, unlike so many people in the world. And that was one of the many reasons why Blair and all the girls adored Mrs. Garrett the way they did.

Blair gave Mrs. Garrett a big hug then and said, "Thank you for telling me that, Mrs. Garrett. I know you never meant to hurt me." After a pause, she told Mrs. Garrett and Jo a moment later, "I think I'll go now. I get the feeling that you two need to talk alone."

"Thank you, Blair," said Mrs. Garrett, and then Blair walked out the door.

Jo folded her arms in that moment and said, "I guess I'm in for it for the spray paint."

Mrs. Garrett's eyes locked with hers, and then she shook her head and responded, "Not at all, Jo. I don't entirely agree with what you did. That's true. But I do understand why you did it, and frankly, I'm actually relieved."

"Relieved? I spray-paint the words 'Selfish Coward' on my father's grave and you're…relieved?"

"Yes. Jo, I've been very worried about you these past few months. You have been through so much, and you've just shut down inside, unable to start facing all the pain, and there's no way you can work through everything and move on with your life if you don't face it. You may not realize it, but when you spray-painted Mr. Polniaczeck's grave, you actually did something very important."

"What's that?"

"You began to face your pain and your anger, and you began to express it, and I'm very relieved that you did. Jo, when this entire disaster happened to you, you lost so much. In a way, you lost not just one but both parents, and the belief you'd clung to throughout your childhood that they loved you when in fact…well, I don't think either one of them were ever truly capable of loving."

"You can say that again," Jo said quietly.

"And that's a truly astounding loss for anyone to go through, but especially for someone your age. And on top of that, this whole thing has also taken a great toll on you physically. That's why I've been reluctant to try to get you to start talking about it before, but now, I think you're ready. You already made a start yesterday when you began opening up to Blair the way you did, and I want you to know how proud I am of you. It takes a great deal of courage to begin facing something this painful."

"Thank you."

"It's true. And I also want to thank you for what you said yesterday. You made me realize something very important. You were right, Jo, about everything you said to Blair. I should have been far more respectful of your feelings than I was last year when the truth about Mr. Polniaczeck started coming out. I should not have called what he put you through at age twelve a 'mistake.' You were right. By abandoning you, he did something so much worse besides making a mere 'mistake' like putting down the wrong answer on a pop quiz. I do realize that it is an evil thing to do to abandon your child, and I never meant to make light of it, Jo. You were absolutely right when you said that abandonment is actually a silent form of abuse in that it sends the abandoned child the message, 'I don't love you enough to be here.' That is a very abusive message for a child to grow up with. I should have been far more respectful of the kind of immense pain that he caused you."

"Well, you were just being a fellow parent," Jo said with a real hint of sarcasm, and it wasn't exactly hard for Mrs. Garrett to miss the flash of anger in her eyes in that moment.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that it's the way the world works. Whenever there's a rift between a parent and a kid, ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, another parent will not side with the kid, but with the parent, regardless of how much pain the kid's been in for most of her life. Maybe that's one of the reasons why prejudice against young people is so widely tolerated and condoned in this world, because most of human society is run by parents, and parents almost never side with kids, even when the kid is right. Maybe that's why there's so many Mrs. Petersons out there in this world who think of kids as lesser lifeforms and second-class citizens."

Mrs. Garrett looked into Jo's eyes in that instant and told her, "I know I've made some mistakes, Jo. I've thought long and hard about the way I reacted, both with you and with Mr. Polniaczeck last year, and I realize it now that I did act as though what he put you through was no big deal, and I'm sorry, Jo. I can't even begin to tell you how sorry I am. I made a terrible mistake last year. I know that now. Now, I know that it would probably have been far better for you had you never gotten back together with Mr. Polniaczeck in the first place. But I want you to know what was going on in my heart, Jo.

"I realize it now that after something as damaging as abandonment, you cannot just throw an estranged parent and child back together again at the drop of a hat; that it takes time, years even; that the parent has to do a lot of work and that a lot of healing has to take place. I understand now what a profoundly deep wound that is, and like I said, I never meant to make light of it. It's just that it broke my heart so to see you without a father in your life, and I wanted to remedy that just as soon as possible. I wanted you two back together, and I just wanted the happy ending for you so much that I rushed things between you. I pushed you both too hard, too fast, into getting back together again and in doing so, I ended up being very disrespectful to you and sending you a hurtful message I never meant to send. Jo, I never believed that what Mr. Polniaczeck put you through was not a big deal, and again, I am so sorry I made you think that that was how I felt. It was also a huge mistake to try to throw you two back together again so quickly because I know it now that Mr. Polniaczeck didn't have the kind of character it took to be a worthy father to you; the kind of father you deserved.

"But anyway, I simply cannot stress this enough, Jo. I never tried to get you and your father back together so quickly because I didn't respect you or because I didn't care about the kind of pain he caused you, and I certainly never did it because I was trying to take his side over yours. Whenever there's a rift between two people, I usually prefer not to take sides, but I do realize the fact that there are times when it's necessary to take sides. Whenever there's physical or emotional abuse involved, that's one of those times. You were absolutely right when you said that abandonment is one of the worst forms of emotional abuse there is, and I understand it now that by trying to throw you back together with your father as quickly as I did, it really was almost as if I was trying to sweep what he did to you under the rug. There's no excuse for that. And I want you to know that once the adoption papers are signed this Christmas and I become your parent – even if in name only – I will never be against you, Jo. There are times when parents and children aren't always on the same side, and I realize that, but not all parents in the world are like Mr. and Mrs. Polniaczeck. There are a lot of good, loving parents out there who would give their lives for their children, and those parents are always on their children's side, Jo, even when they're at odds with each other. Even when their kids get angry at them or vice versa, the good parents, the real parents of the world, would still do anything to protect and look out for their kids. Sure, you and I will have times when we don't agree with each other and get aggravated and even a little mad at each other. That's life. But I want you to know, Jo, that no matter what, I am always on your side. I will never make excuses for the kind of hell the Polniaczecks have put you through, and I will never act as though it wasn't a big deal, just because you're young. I will never disrespect you because you're young, and I will definitely never try to tell you that what Mrs. Polniaczeck did to you was your fault. The way Mrs. Peterson treated you was utterly appalling, and I will never treat you like that."

"Mrs. G.," Jo said quietly, and then she gave her a big hug, all the while fighting off her tears.