Chapter 4 - Ridgehaven
Ridgehaven was not a secret prison.
Not an illegal wilderness camp.
Not a horror-movie institution.
It was a licensed private residential behavioral assessment program several hours away.
Children generally stayed between two and six weeks.
Most were older than Pippa.
The program accepted some younger children only after clinical review.
Its stated purpose was evaluation of severe behavioral dysregulation when outpatient treatment was insufficient.
There was nothing inherently criminal about the facility.
The problem was consent.
I was Pippa’s father.
Camilla was her stepmother.
Pippa’s biological mother, Jenna Norwood, had died three years earlier from ovarian cancer.
I had sole legal custody.
Camilla had no independent authority to place Pippa in residential treatment.
No court order.
No medical emergency.
No signed consent from me.
Yet an intake existed.
How?
Camilla had been communicating with the program as:
“parent.”
The forms listed:
Mother/guardian: Camilla Norwood.
Father: Beckett Norwood.
Status:
Father supportive but frequently unavailable for appointments due to work travel.
May you like
False.
I had never been consulted.
