Frankly speaking...

Why now?

2006-10-21T15:33:00.000-05:00

It's weird -- when it hits you, how it hits you, why it hits you.

I've been having panic attacks lately.

Why? Logan's been heroin-free for over a year. True, he's been behind bars for over a month, but for a minor offense and, well, frankly, we're all a bit relieved he's just getting the time over with.

So why the panic now? I dunno.

First time, it was in a funeral. Okay, I can respect that about myself. Second time, a simple meeting at work. Third time, dinner with friends. Right. Like, what's panic-inducing about that?

I just don't know, folks. My guess is that the constant worry just takes something out of you. It's like a long hypodermic needle comes along and pierces your spine, painful when it happens, sure, and extracts something, some marrow of sorts from you - some essential ability to keep that spine straight under duress.

But why? Is it because of the many times you took his early-man-stubbled face between your hands and told him goodbye, knowing full well you may never see this son again? The times you HAD to let him go....over and over and over again, powerless to stop the forces that drive him to self-destruction? The times you stood, watching, helpless, hoping against hope he would survive? Are those instances just so deeply nerve-wracking that, more than a year later, when all seems to be quiet and relatively well, you suddenly CANNOT sit still through a simple dinner with friends? Think you're going to scream and go running from the room during a simple work meeting?

I tell you, I DO NOT like this. Not one bit. But it looks as if I can control this as ineffectively as I could control my son's addiction. Translation: can't be done. Must be accepted, faced, and allowed to pass.

Think I'll ever get back to normal? I wish I knew.

##

Somewhere in Seattle

2006-08-30T23:07:00.000-05:00

She is breaking all the rules.

She is wearing a bright, fuschia-pink skirt paired with a deep red sweater, a color combination I would never in a million years assemble. The knit skirt falls softly over the two hard mounds that are her rear. There is a swagger to her walk, a tilt to the hips, that distinctly says, I have just been fucked. Most decidedly, most thoroughly, fucked. As she walks, jauntily, with her left hand she smokes and with her right, she holds her boyfriend’s hand. She is wearing Birkenstocks. Slightly duck-footed. Bare, white legs, no effort expended on tanning them. The back of her head turns as she looks up at her boyfriend. Another inhale on the cigarette. A laugh. More jaunt to the walk.

I want to be this girl.

Following behind, I suddenly do not want to return home. I want to keep walking, to miss my plane, to disappear seamlessly into the Seattle foot traffic. I do not care about my children, my loving husband, my job. I want to be a street person, no responsibilities, no worries.

There. That building. I can stop in there, tell them I’m a writer. What do they need? I can edit their brochures, remove unnecessary apostrophes, add commas where needed. Surely that would be enough to buy my dinner each night at the market? And then some. Enough to hand a dollar to every homeless person I meet each day. I will be the Seattle benefactor; from whence she comes is unknown, to where she goes, a mystery.

I understand. I understand the need to flee.

I turn instead into the same small Italian restaurant where I ate last night. Thomas, the young waiter with shining brown hair the length of my own, smiles at me. “She’s back!”

“I know,” I say. “I meant to come in for an Espresso this morning. I’m just a little late, is all.”

“I accused some lady this morning of being you,” he says. “I told her, ‘Hey, I waited on you last night!’ She was like, ‘You did not.’ It was totally embarrassing.”

“Well.” I flash a smile to this boy the age of my own sons. “I hope she was totally gorgeous.”

“She was. Are you sitting in the back again tonight?”

“Please.”

He guides me to the back room and I sit, the only one in the tiny enclosure. One wall is glass, beyond which is a room full of furnaces and people—a glass-blowing studio.

Last night there was a beginner class going on. Tonight must be the advanced group. The instructor stands to the side, hands folded, and merely watches. There is nothing more she can teach these people. They have possibly surpassed her in talent. I order a glass of Riesling and a dish not found on the menu, which Thomas seems delighted to make to my specifications.

As I watch the glass-blowing, I am entranced. The students tonight are all men—some hardened, looking like the type to sit astride a Harley, embittered by divorce and fleeing into the hard edge of the wind. Others are the age of my son Logan. I watch them dip their tubes into the molten glass and then expertly twirl the glowing orb against a steel plate, rock music pulsing in the background. There is something innately moving about this—the juxtaposition of huge steel furnaces, heavy blacksmith tools, rugged men, and the fragile, delicate shapes they so painstakingly create. They blow into the ends of the tubes, use heavy, tong-like clippers to stretch the soft glass. A horse emerges, its mane flying in imagined wind. A vase. A bowl. A mottled orange mushroom enclosed in a glass orb.

Thomas returns with my dinner, conveniently packed to go.

But I do not want to go. I want to stay here, here in Seattle with the men dressed in black shirts and cargo pants and Vans and who care about art. The boys who insert shapes into the hot glass rather than needles into their arms. One boy wears the exact shoes Logan asked for last year for Christmas. I ache for Logan. I want him to be here, to put his pain and his fear into the furnace and have it emerge a radiant mass waiting to be shaped into something beautiful.

Me too. I want to wear fuschia pink with red and not care about anything but this very moment. This here, this now. I want to smoke and be fucked and have a firm butt and walk duckfooted and white legged and Birkenstocked and not to worry.

Most of all, not to worry. I want to stay here, buried somewhere in Seattle, where it’s okay to break the rules.

##

More of the story

2006-08-04T18:34:00.000-05:00

Hmm...where to begin?

His dad went down last weekend and bailed him out, gave him $400 for hotel rooms, and came home. He stayed there, because really, how can he leave? We don't even know what state his probation is assigned to. What a mess. Meanwhile, last week when he got arrested, his probation officer was away on vacation, so was unreachable. This week her mother apparently died, so she's not in this week either. Logan tried calling her all week, to no avail. So his case is just...unsupervised, I guess you could say.

So here's his story. Keep in mind he was REQUIRED to be in the state on the 16th, and then given no place to stay and no instructions other than they were "working" on his case. So there he was, stuck in this state 800 miles miles from home with no friends, no place to stay, no relatives, no money—and not allowed to leave. By chance, he learned that an acquaintance from high school lived about 100 miles away, so he went to stay with him. Orin.

This is the phone call:

Him: Me and Orin, we came home a couple nights ago and the apartment was padlocked. The guy who rents it, Bill, I guess he hadn't paid his rent for like, months, so the landlord just locked the place up.

Bill was gone somewhere for a couple days, so me and Orin (WHY does he not know how to say "Orrin and I"?) went to stay with Orin's mom.

Me: That was nice of her.

Him: Yeah, she's pretty cool.

But all my STUFF was in the apartment. You know, my laptop, all my clothes, everything. (Which is precisely the same number of items I had packed into a box and Fed Exed to him a few days earlier since he went down there with nothing, thinking he'd be coming right back home the next day.) So then after a couple nights we were walking past there and Orin saw that a window was unlocked. So he decided to see if he could get in.

I didn't help him. I said I didn't want anything to do with it, so I stood in the yard and talked to this girl I like.

It was one of those old windows—you know the kind you push up to open?

Me: Yeah, I know those.

Him: And it just shattered when he was trying to push it up.

But I said I didn't want anything to do with it (you already told us that, kiddo) so I went and spent the night at that girl's house (parental groan while simultaneously thinking: thank god, an alibi).

So the next morning I went back there and went inside to go to sleep.

Me: You climbed in the window?

Him: No, they opened the door from the inside and let me in.

Me: Who did?

Him: Orin. So I went to sleep, and like 10 minutes later the cops came.

Me: But the cops said you were drunk and passed out when they got there.

Him: Not me. Orin. He had been drinking, and there were open containers around and stuff. He was kind of passed out.

Me: Then how did he let you in the front door?

Him: No, someone else did. Anyway, I didn't do anything wrong! And they're charging me with Burglary, which has like a 5-10 year prison sentence. But that's crazy! I didn't even take anything. Oh, and I broke my ankle.

Me: WHAT?

Him: Yeah, we were wrestling, me and Orin. They wouldn't take me in the jail until I went to the hospital. It's fractured, actually. I'm in a boot.

Me: You broke your ankle wrestling? That's hard to believe.

Him: (coldly) Well, that's what happened.

Me: Logan, I don't know what to say. This is all crazy. You've told me you hurt yourself "wrestling with friends" on a number of occasions. I don't know a lot of 21-year-olds who wrestle this much.

Him; Look, I've gotta go. Can I call you back?

Me: Logan, don't cut me off.

Him: Mom, I've gotta go! I'm driving a shift, and it's hard enough to drive a shift and talk on a cell phone, and I have a broken foot, too, and a cop just pulled up behind me. I'll call you later, okay?

* * *

Sigh. And such is life for me right now.

I haven't told him yet that one of his very best friends from when he was about 9 was killed last weekend in a hit-and-run. I went to the wake, and there, plastered on posters filled with pictures through the years of the boy, was my own scrawny little Logan, grinning and silly, arms around his pudgy buddy, a look of adoration on his face. That got me. Where they were then, innocent, silly, grinning, and where they are now: one in a casket and one teetering on the brink of prison. Gulp. When the boy's red-eyed parents asked how Logan was, I just...I just couldn't answer.

What I didn't say to the mom, as I held her tight and cried, was this: So many nights I have lain awake fearing this very thing—that I would be standing at the side of an open casket looking down at my beautiful boy inside—and I'm just. so. sorry. that it happened to you.

I went back and looked one more time at that picture. How does this happen, anyway? How do they get from there to here?

I wish I knew.

# #

Not the way I thought the day would turn out

2006-07-27T14:36:00.000-05:00

So. This morning, driving to work, I decided come here to post a good-bye message, thanking all of you for your support and telling you things had stabilized so that I no longer needed the outlet of the blog.

An hour later, I got a call. A terrible call.

He's going to jail, and maybe even to prison. He got caught breaking into an apartment where he had been staying, an apartment which was then locked, to get his own stuff. Technically, it's breaking and entering. Technically, it's a felony. Technically, it means his "diversions" status will be revoked and he will go to prison for the full sentence he would have served last summer if we had never gotten him out and gotten him into rehab and into the diversions program.

Technically, it's a crying shame he will go to prison for something so small—he had permission to live there, for chrissake—when he's done so well for so long—heroin-free for a full year now. Technically, there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

And technically, this absolutely Breaks. My. Heart.

##

New strain of killer heroin on the market

2006-06-15T08:26:00.001-05:00

Here's the link to a frightening story about a new additive being put into heroin. Isn't it odd that users don't feel, well, used by the drug-distributing system? Think about it: the labs can slip additives into their dope, alter their minds, kill off a few, decide the highs should last a little longer,or not, whatever...and the users don't even know they're being messed with. I know my son HATES being manipulated in any way by any one—and yet the drive to use is so strong that it overpowers that natural instinct not to be controlled.

Sad.

I can't decide whether to show my now-non-using son this or not. Why open a can of worms and make him think about the highs he used to get? And yet...could he see things in a different light yet? I don't know.

##

Sudden twists in the road

2006-06-03T21:36:00.000-05:00

So, life changed again a couple days ago.

The corporate contract I've been working on finally got signed. Logan was denied probation in Cali and is coming home. And Joe's girlfriend lost their baby.

All on the same day.

I went to bed that night with the strangest sense of deja vu. As if a year of my life just collapsed in a cloud of dust and disappeared right through the floor of time. Poof. No more baby. No more rehab. Son home again. And under whose roof? Are we going back to me worrying my head off about him? Giving him a hug when he gets home late at night, searching his eyes for signs of drug use? Or is that all behind us now? He's been sober 10 months now. Are we done?

And what of Joe? Does one just lose a baby and go one with life as usual? Sure, he's a kid himself, basically, and they aren't even a couple any more, but it's so weird that all he's done in the past five months to prepare himself for fatherhood is just gone now, and he's back to life as usual: kid on track for great future, check.

I feel like I'm clawing to find a way to position myself in the present: this is NOT a year ago. This is now. The past year happened. Logan grew. He changed. We are not going back to last year. This is now.

Well, I can always wake up and look at that signed contract. I didn't have that a year ago. So, yep! No deja vu here, folks. It's this year, and my boy is coming home. Sober.

And my other boy is sober too. Just with a whole different meaning.

##

Stale sandwiches

2006-04-18T20:21:00.000-05:00

He called today. Sounded upbeat.

"Mom, could you send me some food?"

"Food? You want me to mail you food from 3,000 miles away?"

"Yes, please. I'll be out of food in two days and I don't get paid until next week."

Food.

Gawd, it's hard to be hard. Hearted, that is. I'm bad at it.

##

Sympathy and other pains

2006-04-09T08:15:00.000-05:00

OMG, I just got up and I think I am better today. My voice no longer sounds like an 82-year-old woman in a nursing home with days left to live, I can walk from the bedroom to the kitchen without needing to rest, and NOTHING HURTS. Well, except my ribs from being in bed for so long, but my skin doesn't hurt, my head doesn't hurt, and by golly, I'm almost brave enough to try looking outside at the sunshine. Yippee! It's good to be alive.

I notice this morning, as I'm looking at how old-lady my skin looks from virtually no nourishment other than cough syrup for four days, that I have a small, round, tidy blood blister in the inner crook of my right elbow. Which must be left over from the last time I had blood drawn, which was last fall. Blame the lack of noticing until now on long sleeves for the winter, I guess. Either that or being too busy to notice my own skin. Ahem.

"Pretty ironic," I tell Hub. "Anyone who doesn't know me is going to think I'm a heroin addict."

"Tell them it's a sympathy mark," he replies.

Indeed. A pang of longing for my distant son washes over me. I touch the little black period in my elbow and suddenly I hope it doesn't go away.

##

Ireland pics

2006-04-07T12:10:00.000-05:00

We're back home -- got in Monday night, and I promptly got whacked Tuesday with a horrid case of flu/bronchitis. So I'm still down, and counting this among the worst sicknesses I've had in terms of feeling just utterly awful. So I'll keep this short.

Ireland was beautiful. We were mostly there to work, so only had bits and pieces of time to explore, but it was great when we did. A few of the many, many gorgeous vistas we ran across as we made our way from Dublin to Killarney:

(Sorry for the weird text formatting - I don't feel well enough to figure out why and fix it. Please excuse!)

Exactly the width of one small car. Tons of roads like this, even through the mountains.

The rugged coastline of soutwestern Ireland. I wasn't expecting this kind of stunning vistas.

Sheep, sheep, and more sheep. This was another time we got lost, and ended up in Glendalough, a gorgeous spot.

Every town looked like this: colorful, tiny, and steep. Totally enchanting, but a bit nervewracking to drive through.

See those gray lines down by the water? Rock walls. Everywhere, all over the island, making a stunning patchwork of pastures.

##

Castles in the sky

2006-03-31T05:43:00.000-06:00

Still in Ireland. Got lost one day and stumbled onto this. It was private property, best we could tell, so couldn't go in past the arched gate. My first castle. Yum.

Well, okay. So we took two steps past the arched gate. Then we ran.

##

Away till early April

2006-03-27T04:09:00.000-06:00

Just briefly -- am in Ireland on business for 10 days. Will post more later when time permits. Top o' the mornin', all!

Frankie

It's never black and white

2006-03-18T16:12:00.000-06:00

I talked to his counselor today. Yes, he kept his appt with her this week, surprise, surprise.

She thinks he's depressed. Thinks he needs to be on meds.

He says he doesn't want to, doesn't want to be on drugs of any kind any more, for any reason.

I think I'm surprised to hear that. That he doesn't want to be on drugs. Does that mean he's NOT using now?

She thinks he needs money for meds.

I think we're not sending him any more money for anything for a while.

She thinks he's been depressed for so long he may not even know what it feels like to NOT be depressed.

I think I can't get caught up in this again, can't rush in to rescue him, to get him the meds, to solve his problem.

She thinks he needs my help.

I think I'm confused. When do you help, and when do you say, "I've helped enough." I don't know.

##

Just wait

2006-03-16T07:24:00.000-06:00

A week later, in the middle of his little brother's soccer game, he finally calls. From his tone, you'd think nothing had happened.

"Hey, Mom, my cell phone isn't working. Can I have the last four of your social so the people at the store will look up the account for me?"

Not on your life, I won't give you the last four of my social. But he wants something from me, so he listens while I ask him what in god's name is going on, why did he lie to me like he did, why did he drop out of school, why did he convince his dad he needed a laptop for school when he wasn't even in school, and on and on and on.

He sounds more irritated than sorry, and it's not until I ask him if he likes knowing how much he hurt me that he finally sounds genuinely sorry.

I don't know how to talk to him, what to say. How do you convey to your kids that you love them while being honest about how furious you are about being lied to? How do you explain that you feel just a wee bit miffed that you busted your rear end to collect letters for the judge about how he's in school, how well he's doing -- only to find out it was all a lie? How do you talk in a normal tone when you want to scream with frustration over the whole thing, the whole mess, the whole years of worry and fear?

How do you fucking do that?

After I have exhausted my ability to say, "I love you, kiddo, I always will, but it's up to you to do the right thing and keep yourself out of jail," in as many ways as I know how to, he asks again for the last four of my social.

No, I tell him. Sorry, but that's what happens when you lie to your parents.

Are you fucking serious, he asks.

Yes, I'm fucking serious.

He recovers. Well, will you at least call the store yourself and see what's wrong?

This I can do, and tell him I will. We hang up awkwardly.

It's not until 10 minutes later when I am sitting alone on the bleachers, far from my other son's soccer game, on hold with the stupid cell phone company, that I have a waking-up moment. Why am I sitting here, phone pressed to my ear, missing my other son's game, missing talking to my friends, racking up minutes on my own cell phone? Why am I busting my rear end again for him, for this son who doesn't care enough about my feelings to call me back for an entire week after he heard me pleading with him for the truth about school? WHY?

Because this is what I have always done. I am programmed to do this, programmed to respond to his crisis, programmed to do whatever I can, whatever it takes.

Yeah. Well, enter deprogramming. I am tired of doing whatever it takes.

I stand up, snap the phone shut, and walk back to where I was sitting with my friends. Logan and all his various crisis can just wait. My other kid's soccer game cannot.

##

Fools in the end

2006-03-10T22:46:00.000-06:00

I finger the ring I bought last year, the day after I flew to California and put Logan in rehab. “Believe in love” is etched in its silver surface. The ring is scratched and worn now, having circled my finger every day for the past 15 months.

I wonder: what will I do with it now? Take it off my finger and slip it onto a thin necklace chain? No, I don’t think I want to wear it any more. Buy a little shelf, put it on the wall, encased in plastic? No, I’d still have to see it every day if I did that. Maybe a drawer is where it belongs. Shut away in the dark, maybe in a little velvet pouch; protected, but not visible, not constant.

Because how can I continue to wear it, and still find a way to detach? When your heart is broken, you simply don’t want to continue to believe. No. You just want to forget.

Believe in what? Believe in recovery? That hurts too much.

Fuck. I’m sitting on a goddamn airplane, pulling off a cheap silver ring and crying as West Virginia floats past underneath like an ocean floor under a glass-bottom boat.

“Fools in love” plays on my iPod. “Fools in love, are there any other kinds of lovers?” croons Inara George. “Fools in love; never knowing when they’ve lost the game.” Yes, the ring is definitely going in a drawer. “Fools in love, they think they’re heroes.” I just didn’t know the term applied to the love a parent has for her kid. “Fools in love, never knowing when they’ve lost the game.”

I have lost. I do know that. Lost hope, if nothing else.

##

Update:

In the middle of the Cincinnatti airport, I check messages. There is just one. Logan. Logan, who hasn't returned his father's or my calls for three days. Logan, who lied WHILE SOBER about being in school for three months. Logan, who apparently stole the money his father sent for school, and who convinced his dad he needed a laptop to do his assignments.

It's one thing when they do these things while on drugs. It's quite another when they do them sober.

I pull the phone to my ear. "Hi Mom." Voice strong "Hey, I left my cell phone in a friend's car, so I just now got your messages." He's never without his cell phone for more than 2 minutes. "I've talked to my probation officer, and I don't need to report until Monday. So, everything's okay. So, well, call me when you get this message, okay?"

The phone snaps itself shut.

My head is a bowling ball that falls forward into my hands. For the first time, the first time—I do not believe him. He wouldn't leave his cell phone somewhere for three days. And he probably hasn't gone to probation. And I, and I...am not going to do a thing about it. Let probation hunt him down. That's their job.

A few huge sobs tear their way out. I'm sitting next to a packed Outback restaurant, but I don't care who sees or hears me. I have lost my son. And I'm not going after him. I will no longer be snowed. I will no longer let myself hurt like this. This is The End.

I stand up and make my way into the restaurant. My mascara is probably streaked. Who cares? These people, they have no idea. Let them think whatever they want. No one knows, until you've sunk to this level of pain, what it's like. Nothing, absolutely nothing in the entire world, matters compared to it. Someone could set off a bomb and I would calmly walk out amidst the shrieks and screams of the crowd. It's like I'm in a dream zone, surrounded by a bubble of loss. Who the hell cares about anything.

Except, in some unexplainable way, I care about everything. A beautiful woman sits across from me, eating alone on her way from somewhere to somewhere. She's immaculately dressed, and sitting as poised as an angel. She looks dressed and composed enough to be eating with the president. I get up and go stand next to her. She looks up at me.

"Pardon me, but I have to ask you where you got your beautiful suit?"

"Oh!" She smiles, warmth radiating straight from her to me. "Ann Taylor."

"No kidding! I shop the sister store, Ann Taylor Loft, all the time." I wag my finger. "I knew I liked it for a reason. It's just gorgeous."

"It's from last year, though."

"Oh, no."

"But on the back walls they usually have older fashions. You might still be able to find one."

We smile goodbye, the bond of sisterhood between us. And I love this woman, with her perfect posture and her willingness to talk to me when I probably have never lookoed less poised, mascara streaks under my eyes and a fragile cavern in my soul.

On the last leg home, my seatmate is Logan's age. My newborn need to connect with strangers takes over, and we talk for the entire flight. He's from L.A., from a rough neighborhood. He picked himself up and moved to the northern tip of Michigan to go to school. He's one of 30 minorities in a school of tens of thousands. He's studying film. Why Michigan, I ask. Because they're cheap and they give you a free laptop when you go to school there, he answers.

And I love this boy, too. I never ask him his name, but I love him. He is what Logan is not. He is fighting the odds, improving his situation. He got himself a laptop, too. The right way. And yet he's a kid, he makes mistakes. He tells me about getting arrested last Halloween, about times he's "pretty wasted."

And suddenly I feel like believing again. Not in Logan, no. But in humanity, in youth. In love. In hope.

When we arrive at the airport, I touch his arm goodbye. He won't know how he's helped me; I'll never see him again. I watch him walk away, backpack slung over his shoulder, body swaying in that kid-walk that young adults do. Logan walks exactly like that.

My husband is waiting for me at the bottom of the escalator, and I fall into his arms. "Did Logan get a hold of you?" he asks.

I telll him what Logan said, and he reacts with optimism. "That's great!"

No, sweetie, I explain, that's not great. We walk toward baggage claim as I tell him how I have stopped believing Logan. I don't for a minute think he's telling the truth.

Yes, says hub, but he might surprise you. In fact, you may have lots of nice surprises in store.

I stop in my tracks, knowing my hub well enough to know there is hidden meaning here. Over his shoulder I notice a tall teen leaning in the corner, holding a brochure in front of his face. The brochure shifts left, and an eye and half a smile peers out.

"Noah!" I rush to him, opening my arms. He folds into them. He, who can't stand to be seen with mama lately, hugs me back. Tightly. How does he know how much I needed this? How much I am absorbing him right now?

"How is it I get you here, kiddo? Aren't you supposed to be with dad tonight?" Just had a conversation with the dad, not more than 3 hours ago, about it.

"He wanted to come pick you up," says hub.

"You did?" It's so unusual that I almost can't stop asking why.

And he's engaged. We chatter the whole way home. I'm somehow hyped, maybe the natural opposite swing of the pendulum of despair. It feels so good to engage with this son, to see his smiles, hear his honesty, see glimpses of his young teen naivity followed by revelations of his developing maturity. This son, again, brings me hope.

It is apparently part of the deal that in order to be allowed to opick me up aty the airport, he must get a ride out to his dad's afterward. We drive through the dark, laughing and talking the whole way. At his dad's, he climbs out, no ceremony now, no hugs. "See ya." He walks off without looking back.

Less than a minute later, I am in tears again, here in the comfort of my husband's presence. "God, honey, it just hurts so much. I don't know how to explain it to you."

"You don't have to explain. I understand."

Suddenly I know how to explain. "Somewhere after this whole thing started, I knew I would write this story into a book. And I always knew the ending would be the sentencing. And it is. It is. But here's the thing."

I have to stop to let the sobs pass, as the realization hits me.

"I always thought the book would end on a note of hope."

He reaches for my hand.

"But it's not. It doesn't have a happy ending, honey."

He looks at me in the dark. "That other young man? The one we just dropped off at his dad's house? He's your happy ending."

I know, I know. But how does a parent let one kid go and beleive the other can somehow replace him?

A sudden need for Al-Anon washes over me, powerful and intense. Al-Anon, where they teach you to let go, to give up, to surrender. I guess I never did before, not completely.

I always resented Al-Anon, in some small way. But suddenly, as if I can see for the first time, I understand why they try so hard to teach you to let go. It's not for the addict's sake. It's because they know. They know this feeling I have right now, here in my husband's big red truck, my bags packed around me and black streaks on my cheeks. They know addicts lie. They know recovery isn't guaranteed. They know addicts will fucking break your heart, no matter how much you do for them, no matter how much you love them, no matter how much you hope, how much you believe.

They know this feeling because they've been there. And they tell you to give up because they are trying to save YOUR life. Not the addict's. They know there may be no saving the addict. Period. No matter what you do, how good you are, how muh you love your kid. They know believing in love doesn't work.

They know only the addict can do it for himself, and that is not in any fucking way controllable by you.

They know you must give up. Not to save the addict, but to save yourself, to save your other family members. To protect this precious husband sitting next to you holding your hand, this amazing young sprout of a kid you just dropped off, this wonderful oldest you have, somewhere out there on his own making his own life now.

You must let go.

And so you do. It breaks your heart, but you look out the window at the night sky and you pray that a power bigger than yourself can take care of your beloved middle son. Because you can't any more.

And you say goodbye. Goodbye, precious child of mine. Good bye.

And you bring your eyes back into the truck, where they belong now. And you determine to take care of this, this here and now, this you, this fools in love, this us.

This us.

##

Mixed Bag

2006-03-09T12:22:00.000-06:00

Well, good news and bad news.

Good news: The judge had mercy. The prosecutor didn't do much prosecuting. And the best-case scenario got handed to the boy. They let him fly back out to California, where he has one week to convince the probation officers there to take his case. If they do not, he must return to court next Monday and be sentenced to a year of probation in either that state our ours, where he grew up. The rules of probation will depend on which state he ends up in.

Bad news: Oh, geez, does there HAVE to be bad news? Can't we just stop right here and go on about our lives? Dust our hands together and say, Chapter over, happy ending, all's well that ends well? Please?

No? Shit. Well, then, here's the bad news. Looks now like the suspicions from last week are real. He is apparently not in school. Which means he stole the money his dad sent for school. Lied to us all. And must have some reason for having done this. Must be using SOMEthing. Not heroin -- I can tell that. But why oh why else would he do this?

I came unglued for a little while the other day when I first heard this may be the case. Totally, completely, fell apart at the seams. Called him. He swore it was untrue. I believed him.

But the next day his dad called with more evidence he was lying. By then, folks, I was just wrung out. Still am, truth be told. And for now, I'm just doing nothing about it. If what we fear is true, the probation officers will surely find it out, and he will surely go toddling back behind bars.

And me, I am toddling myself - between fury, fear, sorrow, and just plain giving up. You know? A person only has so much capacity to hang in there and believe. Mine might be shot to hell. It just might be.

##

The day

2006-03-06T08:00:00.000-06:00

Today is the day he gets sentenced. Pray God the judge sees how far he's come in 7 months and doesn't slap him back in jail.

Spent all morning yesterday with him, and it was great. Pupils were large. Cheeks round and full, not gaunt. Voice strong. Attitude good. Our suspicions and fears were unfounded after all.

Please, Ms. Judge. Please let him go back to school and recovery.

##

Spreading white arms

2006-03-04T08:19:00.000-06:00

I am driving from work to a work-related party I DO NOT want to attend but must. I'm the chair of the event and bigwigs from around the city are attending. I have just spent a lifetime of an afternoon learning Logan may be using again. I've talked to his counselor, who says that if he doesn't go to jail on Monday, if, IF he's somehow allowed to go back to Cali -- and we have no idea if he will be -- we need to set up a system with him where he's accountable to us about school, work, and counseling. As in, we get reports, and if he drops any of the three, his already-meager finances get cut off.

So we flubbed up again. We should have been doing this earlier. Great.

I have managed to hold it together this afternoon -- after all, there's a party to attend. I have alternated between immense sorrow, anger, knowledge that he can't win this fight, hope that we're wrong in our suspicions, and surrender of the boy to God, whomever/whatever that may be. I am wrung out.

And here's the thing: it's uncontrollable. You can say all you friggin want to, but as a parent, these emotions happen. They just fucking do, no matter how much you've tried to separate yourself from the problem and let your kid take ownership of it. Your heart just falls -- it's this unreal feeling, like you've just been catapulted off some cliff by forces beyond your control. Sure, you thought you were safely at the top, well away from the edge, no danger in sight, and then WHAM. You're flying through the air and you didn't even see it coming.

See, the last three or four times I've talked to him, he's sounded weird. Off, somehow. Not strong. It worried me, but I said, Hey, as long as he's seeing the counselor once a week, not to worry, after all, that's a big statement and commitment on his part. He can't be using and also keeping those appts.

Then I find out today that he hasn't been seeing the counselor for 6 weeks now.

And my husband said, Yeah, but he's holding down a job and going to school. He couldn't do that and be using, so, see? He's okay.

Then I find out today he may not be going to school OR working.

So yeah. A rough afternoon. His father and I have both called him several times today, and he is not returning calls. He was supposed to fax the paperwork today that proves he's in school and work. He missed the deadline. Huh. Probably because he doesn't HAVE proof, because he ISN'T. So he missed the deadline, he may be using again, he may go to jail for 2 months, IF HE GETS ON THE PLANE TOMORROW AND SHOWS UP HERE AT ALL, who knows, maybe he'll bolt for Mexico, and I must go to this fucking party and smile and be hostess d'mostess.

The cell phone rings. It's him. My heart stops as I answer it. "Logan?"

Nothing. Silence.

Yeah, he used to do this when he was using. Call and be pissed about whatever, not talk for a little while when he called.

It rings again. "Logan?"

"Hi Mom." His voice is strong. I can tell instantly.

"Good god, Logan, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Why?" Clear voice.

"You didn't answer your phone all day, and you didn't fax the papers you were supposed to. What's up with that?"

"I forgot my phone at home today; I just picked it up and saw you called. But I got the papers from school, and I'm on my way to work right now to get my paycheck, so I'll bring that paystub."

I am not convinced, even though his voice sounds confident and strong, not like when he's using. As his dad said earlier, he could be faking the school papers.

"What does the school registation paper say on it?"

"It's not that good, actually. Just lists my classes and the number of credits for each. But it says I'm enrolled in the spring semester. WIll that be good enough for what the attorney wants?" Sounds legit. Doesn't sound like he made that up.

We talk for a little while and I believe him.

I believe him.

I hang up, feeling like I've just picked myself up from the bottom of that cliff I was thrown off of, battered and bruised but alive. I have to put on makeup before the party, so I pull off the main road onto a side street to find a place to park.

And lose my breath. There, before me on the side of the road, is this massive, gorgeous, astounding white sycamore tree. I've seen this tree before -- it's the only sycamore in the city that I know of -- but I haven't been in this area in a long time and it's never struck me like this before. Or maybe I've just never seen it in winter before, its white compounded by the white of the snowy landscape.

I don't know why, but there is something about this tree at this second that knocks me silly. It's just a tree, for chrissake, and yet it's not. It's a symbol -- its massive white arms reaching endlessly out, spreading wide to the sky, offering hope. Yes, hope. This one white tree, this spectacular specimen of life, this misplaced, straight-from-heaven miracle -- fills me with hope.

I creep my car along the curb up close to it, peering up at it from inside my little car. It sits on the edge of a park, and people walking past stare at me. Who the hell cares. My kid just went to the grave and back. Maybe. Maybe only in my mind. Maybe in actuality. I don't know. All I know is I feel like this fucking white tree is holy or something.

And suddenly I have the strength to go to the party, to face whatever I might find out when Logan gets home.

I have the strength.

##

I erased that file last fall

2006-03-03T15:23:00.000-06:00

And now I...CHRIST...now I CAN'T REMEMBER. Which is it: their pupils are pinpricks when they've been using? Or their pupils are saucers? GOD, I thought he was PAST this, and now I FORGOT THE SIGNS. What am I looking for tomorrow night when he gets in, pinpricks or saucers?

Oh god. I am so not good at this. I so DETEST this.

##

In line for the roller coaster again?

2006-03-03T14:58:00.000-06:00

You know? It's just. Never. Fucking. Ending.

It now appears that Logan may not be in school after all. And maybe not working. And maybe living off the money his dad gave him for college. (WHY did his dad give it to him instead of paying the school directly? WHY?)

And using.

I just found out he hasn't see the counselor for the past 6 weeks. And the school won't give us any information (privacy, you know), but no, they don't have anything that proves registration waiting to be picked up by a student, why do we ask? And the last few weeks when I've talked to him, I haven't heard any dogs barking in the background (he works [worked?] with dogs).

Which would mean he's lying again. Which probably means he's using again.

How many times can a mother's heart be broken? I dunno, folks. But it looks like maybe jail time again for the boy. And maybe that's just where he needs to be, if he's using again. But...jeezus. It's just...wow. You know?

##

Letter by letter

2006-03-02T18:16:00.000-06:00

Oooh. Things are tentatively looking better. We managed to get one letter of recommendation faxed to the attorney, the letter from the counselor that says how well Logan's doing. The attorney showed that to the prosecutor today, and the pros. said if he gets more supporting evidence by Monday, he won't push for the 90 days and he WILL let Logan go back to California for his probationary 5 years. Thank god. I don't know WHAT the boy would do if he was yanked out of his stable surroundings and support network and plopped in the middle of a state in which he knows NO ONE. Not one soul (except for he attorney, of course, and the arresting officers, but I doubt he'd be hanging out with them in their spare time).

A selfish part of this for me is that I want it to be OVER. I do not want another 2 months of jail time, another two months lying awake at night worrying about him. It's been 7 months since he was stopped. I am so ready to call this an episode and close the damn cover. Please, Ms. Judge, please.

##

New judge

2006-03-01T13:52:00.000-06:00

Just heard -- there's a new judge in the court where Logan will be sentenced on Monday. She's got a policy that anyone who gets drug court has to do mandatory 90 days jail time. Logan already did 28.

Which means that on Monday he may be yanked out of college, a steady job, and once a week counseling to sit in jail for two months. Nice plan, huh?

And I am having a hard time not falling apart about it. It's an emotional thing, hard to explain. The culmination of many many months of trying to help the kid recover.

##

Time to spill

2006-02-25T10:08:00.000-06:00

Okay, I guess it's time I told you about the OTHER big thing going on around here.

Joe. Big, strong, responsible Joe. Joe, who was tough, angry, difficult as a young kid, then once he hit about 13, turned suddenly easy as pie, and since then has given me a grand total of about 10 minutes worry in his entire teenagehood. Joe, with the good grades, the level head, the shiny-looking career in front of him, everything going for him.

Except.

Except he's actually just a tad shy. Which is probably what led him to stay with his girlfriend since 10th grade all these years. They're not a very good fit, and despite the fact that she was with us for dinner, for TV watching, for card games several times a week for years, no one other than she and Joe could understand why they stayed together. But they did.

Until last spring, when they finally broke up.

He moved a couple hours away for a training position, she got a good job and worked steadily. They were still civil, just not a couple.

And then she got cancer. Uterine.

And he supported her through it, came to see her every now and then, let her cry on his shoulder.

And then came last Christmas, when, apparently, they had a one-night fling.

And now she's pregnant. And yes, it's his. And yes, they have no idea how it happened because they used BC. And he is shocked and scared and concerned all at once. And happy, once they decided to keep it. And still not wanting to be part of a couple with her, yet excited about being a dad. And scared shitless, too.

Kindof like how I feel for him.

His whole life, changed. Just like that. His whole life, now tied to her, just like that. This child's life -- omg, I can't even go there. I know how hard it is to be a single parent, lord, do I know. And what are the chances that this baby will be healthy, given her medical troubles?

My dreams for my kid -- you know? Everything I couldn't do, I hoped he could. Everything I felt thwarted by, I hoped he'd circumvent. I wanted him to backpack in Europe. To see the Alps. To go to school, get a good job, not have to worry about money his whole life. Find someone he loved, passionately. Someone he got along with. To live an uncomplicated life, a smooth life. And he's so good. That's the thing -- he's so damn good. So loyal, so THERE for any of us when we need him. Yet entrenched in school, in his engineering projects, his hobbies, his friends.

Now, apparently, also entrenched co-parenting, in scheduling whose weekend it is, in arguments over child support. GOD. I didn't want this for him.

You hate to see your kids suffer. You hate it. Logan's had so much to cope with. Now Joe.

And I know, I know. It'll probably bring him great joy, and I know we can't control our kids' lives, and I know he's his own man and has his own life and yada yada yada.

But still. Fuck. You know?

##

Sorry, no novel

2006-02-25T08:12:00.000-06:00

Read about the latest Frey weirdness here. Not sure it's much of a surprise, though, really.

##

Happy birthday, kiddo

2006-02-23T06:32:00.000-06:00

So. It's Logan's 21st birthday today.

I feel like I shouild be waxing eloquent about the day he was born, and how much changes in 21 years, my hopes for him when he was tiny, how unfreakinglybelievably cute he was as a toddler, how other kids were always drawn to him at places like the beach or parks because he was always so busy, so intent on finding frogs or crabs or snakes or lizards, as the locale warranted...but really, I'm just sad. Sad because I can't be with him, sad because I don't want him to be alone on such a significant day but neither do I want him to go party, sad because the gift I bought him is actually a duplicate, it turns out, of something hs asshole father just bought him, so I didn't even get that right. Sad because I miss him.

##

Execute that dream, as in, kill it

2006-02-21T07:17:00.000-06:00

Well, I lived through the meeting. Lotsnlots of corporate-speak, so I'm not sure I even know what they want, or if I can provide it. Oops, I mean, "deliver" it. Or if it's an "executable" within the scope of my "strategies."

Um, ya know? I'm a simple girl; I need it in simple language. And that's what I then produce: clear, simple, direct materials. Anyway, I do get the opportunity to pitch further to them, so that's good.

In other news, Logan turns 21 this week and I dreamed awful dreams about him last night. Clear, vivid dreams where he was with me, and where he at first resisted but then slipped off to join his old, old friends. When they came back I confronted all three of them: Did you get high? Noooooo, two of them said, but he admitted Yes. PROGRESS, I thought, he's admitting it -- and RELAPSE, oh no, all at once.

It was a dream packed with strong emotion, and I have a feeling it'll sit in my subconscious all day and fester. Yick.

##

Can you coerce the universe?

2006-02-19T07:20:00.000-06:00

The stuff of life this week:

1) Just booked tickets to Ireland for a business conference. Never been overseas before; tres, tres excited.

2) Logan turns 21 this week. Tres, tres nervous on his behalf and can't do a damn thing about it. I doubt he'd appreciate mama calling and telling him not to drink. I will anyway.

3) Got rejuvenated about the novel I'm working on (in addition to the real-life about Logan). Can't wait to get back into it. Can't yet, though, because...

4) Biggest lunch of my life is tomorrow. Well, probably the smallest, in terms of how much I'll eat, you know, but biggest in terms of potential. Meeting with the VP of Corporate Communications for a huge corporate in our area, to see if my biz qualifies for some major outsourcing work from them. I think we are one of only two being considered right now. Talk about tres, tres exciting. I'd be freaked out, but I can't afford to be.

So maybe it's time for a little GOOD news around here. Hmm? Universe, are you listening? I think we've had QUITE ENOUGH sadness in this house. Time for a round of joy.

##

Update

2006-02-12T11:56:00.000-06:00

And she just died, lying on the floor beside me, waiting for the vet to return our call.

You think you won't cry. After all, it's just a dog. Right.

##

Addendum to What's a "Saturday"?

2006-02-12T02:33:00.000-06:00

And then, and then.

You come home to find your dog — that's right, your funny little, silly little, loyal, lovable little dog of 15 years, the one you almost can't remember living without — is dying.

"Oh, SHIT," says your husband as you both arrive home at 11:15 at night, tired, so tired. You cleaned out all those old files at the office, almost three years worth, and damn, it was exhausting, but it feels so good to be done with it.

"What," you ask, noticing the pile of dog poop on the dining room rug. You worried about the dog being home alone for so long today, knew there'd be a mess to clean up when you got home.

"Well, maybe it's not, maybe it's throw-up," says your hub. "All over our nice white bedroom rug. It's from...hey, the dog doesn't look so good."

"THE DOG IS IN THE BEDROOM?" You sound incredulous, because, well, the dog knows not to go in the bedroom. Ten years in this house and she damn well knows better.

And then you see her. She's lying on the carpet near a green-black stain, the size of a dinner plate, all over your, well, yeah, all over your nice white rug. But the stain isn't what bothers you, not at that moment. It's the fact that the dog doesn't get up. She lifts her shaggy little head and wags her stump of a tail.

"This isn't her normal greeting," your hub says.

No shit. Usually she's running in circles and yelping with excitement because you, the absolute light of her life, have arrived home. And she does it more with you than with anyone else. The kids used to complain: She doesn't do that when I get home.

She tries to stand, and falls.

"Oh, shit," you say. The word of the night.

Your husband looks at you, sympathy in his eyes.

You shake your head. "It's always something," you say.

He nods, knowing the depth of what you mean, how you seem to be caught on this merry-go-round that's spinning circles from from one heartache to the next. "Yes, it's always something."

And after you've cleaned up the spread of doggie puke, along with its five other counterparts you discover when you step in them by accident on the darker colored rugs, SHIT, SHIT, SHIT, you sit beside her a little while, rubbing her soft head and knowing this will be hard, hard.

And you finally go to bed, and you wake up later in the night, hearing her soft doggie moans just outside your door, and you go to her and you smell death in the air. Same smell you remember from less than two months ago, when your kitty of 15 years died. You think of how old couples sometimes die within weeks of each other. The cat's death was slow, extracted. The dog's does not seem like it will be. She was fine this morning when you left for work. Now she's barely able to move.

You think suddenly of your Uncle Dave, who, when he died last year, climbed happily down the stairs to his rec room to take an afternoon nap. When your aunt went to check on him an hour later, she found her beloved husband gone, passed quietly to the other side in his sleep. Death does not always come with a warning.

You realize this, and you swell with a sudden onslaught of emotion. No, NO, you tell yourself firmly. Logan is fine. FINE. He just enrolled in college, remember? But it is the middle of the night and rationale is as absent as sleep. You stroke the dog's fur and tell yourself it is the DOG you are losing, not your son, the sweet little guy to whom you gave this ball of fluff back when he still liked to be read to and she was so tiny she could sit in the palm of your hand with ease. It's the DOG, it's not your son.

Yeah, but. They overdose so easily when they're in recovery. One time using, sometimes that's all it takes. How do you, all these thousands of miles away, know he won't slip up?

It's the DOG, it's not your son.

And this is how you keep yourself from crying as you sit on the floor at 2 am and stroke the soft white fur of the creature who's been so good to you all these years, so very, very good.

##

What's a "Saturday"?

2006-02-11T11:34:00.000-06:00

Here is your life lately. Tell me how you feel.

You run a small business. Very small. You look at your books one day and realize something has to be done. So you fire one of your employees. You only had two full-time, and a slim handful part-time. You've never fired anyone before. He's been with you for two years, day in, day out. You feel like utter crap doing it, but something has to be done, and besides, you weren't that thrilled with the job he was doing, anyway.

So now you have to do his job — and your own. But you're strong, so bring it on. Three weeks later you've put in 12-16 hour days every single day, and worked all three weekends. It's the fourth weekend now, and this morning you sleep till 9 am — MYGAWD — roll out of bed, throw your hair in a ponytail, and drive bleary-eyed to your office.

It's quiet in the building, and you sink gratefully into the absence of pressure. You slide room to room, adjusting pictures, straightening up, thinking how nice it would be if every day was this quiet. Maybe you like working weekends, after all. Maybe there's nothing better to do out there in the big, busy world. You used to rock climb. You used to bike. You used to take your kids on weekend trips, here, there, anywhere as long as you could be together.

Now one's with his dad for the weekend, one's in California in sober-living, and one's nearby, with sudden chaos in his life.

You pour some coffee, spike it heavily with Baileys, and settle in to the piles and piles of work on your desk. Payroll's Monday. Yesterday you realized, panicky, you didn't have enough to make payroll. Today — you check the mail — oh, miracle of miracles, there's a payment in for $1,900. You rearrange the bills, putting the most urgent — the ones with cancellation notices — on top. After payroll, you promise them, mumbling into the thick quiet of the room.

And how's the middle kiddo? You put down the bills, pick up your steaming coffee, and your mind wanders out West. He's enrolled in college, first time since last year when he dropped out, too doped up to make classes. Now it's English 100, Business 100, Ceramics.

You look at your cluttered office and you can't help it, you tear up a little bit, realizing it. Realizing that you made the right decision. If you had to lose one fight, the fight for your kid's return from heroin or the fight to run a successful small business, you picked the right one.

You pick the bills back up, hand shaky, and start writing out checks. You count your lucky stars. You'll make payroll tomorrow; safe for another week. Remember what you learned in Al Anon, you mutter to yourself.

One. Day. At. A. Time.

##

You never know

2006-02-08T21:06:00.000-06:00

I stare at my son as he tells me about it. This is Joe, the good one, Joe, the responsible one. Joe, who twice now in just over 12 months has had to tell me life-changing news.

I hug him and tell him it'll be okay, it really will.

He asks me not to tell anyone, not yet. So I won't.

[Not yet. I'm sorry.]

He leaves, telling me he'll call me later and tell me how it goes. I hug him, tight. You hate for your kids to suffer heartache, you know? Especially the big strong, wonderful ones. Well, okay, you hate it for all of them.

It's pouring snow out and I chicken out on driving home. My husband comes to get me and I climb into the safety of his big truck, where I immediately feel safe, protected, sheltered.

My son doesn't have any big truck to climb into.

Or does he? Maybe I'm his big truck. Maybe he just climbed in.

We reach home fine, going a heart-thudding 40 mph on the snow-crusted highway. We're barely in the door and Logan calls. After we chat, he asks if he can talk to Joe. Unusual.

Why don't you call him, I say. I'm sure he'd like to hear your voice.

The weaker one gives strength to the stronger one? You never know.

##

Chapter 1, since you asked

2006-02-02T21:40:00.000-06:00

Someone in one of the comments trails asked me about chapter one. Okay, sure. Here goes.

1

It’s the night after Christmas and I’m relishing an evening alone, music in the CD player and dear god, finally, peace on earth after all that Christmas prep, when my oldest calls, his voice strained. “Mom, we need to talk. I’m coming over. And I’m calling Dad and telling him to come, too.”

My heart flies to my throat, but I say, mom-like and practical, “Sure, hon. What’s up?”

“Just be there. Is Noah home?”

“He’s not. Is everything okay?”

His voice breaks. “No.”

I hang up, shaky. Joe’s 20, the picture of stability. His voice never breaks. Not about anything. I’m alone. My husband has taken 14-year-old Noah to a movie for the evening.

It has to be about his year-younger brother, Logan. The two older boys live together in the city. They moved out so similarly, on two separate nights last summer. Just gathered bedding and pillows in their arms, the two of them almost identical in the way they left, grinning, dimpled, “Bye, Mom! Headed to my new house.” No ceremony, no family trip in a U-Haul. Just a grin and a wave and a gentle goodbye click of the front door.

Now it’s six months later, the New Year is looming, and we’ve been worried about Logan. He’s enrolled in junior college, yes, but is he going to classes? He seemed so strange the last few times he was over. In fact, our family Christmas dinner was torture. He was late, then drooped over his girlfriend all evening, syrupy, disgustingly. Seemed almost wired afterwards, while we sat around the living room and played games.

Is he doing pot again? Is that it?

The half-hour it takes Joe to get here is torture. I go online and surf the web for a little while, trying to distract myself.

After a while I leave the computer room and sit on the couch. The house is clean, save for the piles of gifts still un-put-away. Leather gloves, CDs, sweaters for Logan. Funny he didn’t take them with him. Joe took everything but the new lamp for his house. Noah has stacks of DVDs and X-Box games neatly stacked.

I put on some different, softer music, and try to breathe normally. Don’t give in to conjecture. Maybe Joe just wants to talk to us about changing his major or something. Right.

The door opens and he comes in. Even in the dim light, I can see his eyes are red. My calm dissolves as I stand up and hug him.

“Joe, what’s wrong?”

“Where’s Dad?”

“I don’t know. Didn’t you call him?”

“I couldn’t reach him, but I left him a message. He hasn’t called here?”

“No.”

He sighs, his 6-foot frame curled at the top like a wilted leaf. “Do you want to wait for him?”

Hell no, I want to know what’s going on. “Tell me what’s wrong, son. You’re kind of scaring me.”

He ushers me to the couch and sits down next to me. This is odd, awkward. I don’t know how to act. I smile nervously.

He sucks in a breath and says, “It’s Logan, Mom. He’s been shooting up heroin.”

He stops and looks at me, waits for my reaction. I have none. My brain registers that I’m supposed to react, so I say, “Oh, god,” and shut my eyes as if to keep out the news. But I feel nothing. Heroin? Heroin? What the—?

“I’ve known about it for about 6 months,” Joe continues, looking into my eyes as if he expects me to start screaming at him or shaking in hysteria. When I don’t, he says, “I’ve talked to him, over and over, told him he had to stop. He promised me he would.” Tears leak out his eyes. “But he hasn’t.” He rubs the tears. “I was moving a table upstairs at our house tonight, and I needed his help. But he couldn’t get off the couch. He just laid there, in a daze. Like he always does.” His voice breaks on “always,” and he sobs for a moment.

I gather him in my arms and he cries. I do too, but more because Joe is crying, my big, rock-solid 20-year-old, and it evokes a maternal sadness in me. The practical part of me is already whirring to life, already formulating a plan.

We’ll fix this. We will. We always do.

“The thing is, Mom, if he could stop, he probably would have. A couple weeks ago when I came home from class, Logan was home looking really scared. He said his friend Freddy almost died from a heroin overdose that afternoon—right on our couch in our house! So Logan and his other friend Tommy carried Freddy out of the house to try to drive him to the hospital. But I guess this cop came by right then and asked them what was going on, and the cop called an ambulance. Then he came in and searched our house, and didn’t find anything.”

The image of skinny Logan and tall Tommy, who I’ve known for years, carrying their overdosing friend out to the snowy curb fills me with horror.

Joe’s voice turns soft. “The thing is, you’d think that would’ve scared him enough to make him quit doing it.” He pauses. “I don’t think he can stop.” He turns his face toward mine. “Mom, we have to do something.”

I nod. “I know. Yes, of course we do. But what?” I search his eyes for an answer. “What are you supposed to do in a situation like this?”

He whispers, “I don’t know.”

Of course he doesn’t know. He came to me for help. I’m the mom. It’s up to me to figure out a plan. I stand up and pace. Oh dear Jesus, what do I do? Why did this have to happen when Reid isn’t home? Wise Reid, who would know what to do.

The phone rings, and I grab it. It’s my ex, James, sounding annoyed. “Yeah, Joe called and wants me to come over, but I’m busy. He said it’s something about Logan. What’s going on?”

“Just come over.” It comes out ragged.

Silence. “All right, I guess, if it’s really that important.”

“Yeah. It’s important.”

Joe goes into the bathroom and I pace, wondering how long we’ll have to wait for James to arrive. The problem is here, now. What do we do?

James arrives with a blast of icy air from outside. He comes in, warily. It’s not very often he’s invited in here. In fact, I’ve fought with him about not coming into my house as if it were his own. It might as well be my own, he sometimes says, for the amount I’ve paid you in child support.

He sits and looks from Joe to me. “What’s up.”

Joe tells him. “Logan’s been shooting heroin.”

James shakes his head, and I brace myself for how he’ll react. I don’t have to wait long. “I can’t believe this. Do you know what this means? This means he’s been lying to me. I told you I was missing money, remember that? He took that money!”

Joe sits up straighter. “Dad, that’s not what this is about.”

James ignores Joe. “He lied to me. He lied to me and took my money for drugs. I even asked him. I said to him, ‘What, are you using that money for pot or something?’ And he said ‘no.’ He lied to me!”

Time for me to be mom again. “James, of course he lied to you. That’s what drug addicts do.”

“But why?” His voice is a lament, and then suddenly it turns. “This makes me really angry.” His lips become a hard line. “That’s it. I’m cutting him off. He’s not getting anything else from me. What a rotten little liar.”

Joe’s voice has a low, steel edge. “Dad, we’re trying to find a way to help Logan. The money’s not what’s important.”

James looks surprised. “He’s not getting any more money from me.”

A dam of anger bursts inside me. “Joe, would you step outside for a moment so your father and I can talk in private?”

“No.”

It catches me off guard. Joe never says ‘no’ to me. Ever.

“Joe, I need to be alone with your father.”

“No.”

“Joe, please!”

He stands, wavering for an excruciating moment. He wants to be there. He doesn’t want to be treated like a kid. He’s in this with us. But he steps outside, hot anger evident in the slam of the door.

“James.” I feel years of fury under the surface. “Now you listen to me, and you listen well.” My face feels like it will explode. “Your son needs help. You, of all people, should know what it’s like to have an addiction. I swear, James if you treat him like he’s a loser, if you act like he’s a stupid idiot for this, so help me god, I will cut you out of this and not include you in anything that goes on here. I swear it.” The fool. Acting like it’s all about money when his kid’s life is on the line. I have never hated this man more.

He acquiesces. “No, I know. He probably needs our help. Okay. It just makes me mad, is all.”

Joe comes back inside, into the hot trail of my fury. He sits, angry, jilted. Treated like a kid. Shut out when the chips were down. Not allowed to jump into the fray. Have I always done this to him? Yes. Yes, I’ve protected him. I protected all of them. Never let on in front of the kids how bad it really is.

Is it me? Have I been wrong? Is that why my kid has turned to heroin?

After a while, James leaves, and Joe and I cry some more. Tomorrow, we decide. Tomorrow we’ll figure out what to do. Tomorrow we’ll act.

Right. What am I going to do? After Joe leaves, I call my sister and tell her, through sobs. It’s only now that I really break down, here with my sister on the phone, who is as shocked as I am. Oh my god, Frankie. Logan? Sweet little Logan? After a few minutes she says she has a friend who is an AODA counselor, an acronym for Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse. She hangs up to call the friend and ask for advice. A minute later, she calls back. “Mel said it’s important not to do anything until you’re prepared.”

“Prepared to do what?”

“I don’t know. She just said there are certain steps you need to take, and you shouldn’t confront him until those steps are taken.”

Steps? There are steps? There is a plan, a course of action? Oh thank god. If there is a plan, I can get through this. I feel the first rush of relief.

“Mel says you can call her in the morning and she’ll tell you what you need to do. Oh, Jeez, Frankie, I’m so sorry.”

It makes me cry, so we hang up, promising to talk again in the morning.

Reid still isn’t back from the movies with Noah.

That’s all it takes: the space of one movie, and your life is completely and utterly turned upside down. You thought your kid was just doing a little pot? Oh, it worried you, all right, you even took him to drug counselors once a week and made him undergo drug tests when you first found out he was doing it. Dragged the kid to the clinic after school for UAs. Endured his I-hate-you stares when you made him pee into a cup for the tests. But you couldn’t make him stop using, all those years ago, no matter what you did. All your efforts just made him better at hiding it. So you learned to live with the idea. A little pot, hey. You wish he wasn’t doing it, but you know plenty of fine, successful adults who do it and cope just fine. And all the highschoolers do it: you read how it’s more common than drinking. So you rationalize the weird behavior away. Pot. Psssh. You listen to him tell you that it’s not a gateway drug. You read his high school essays about how marijuana should be legalized. And you slowly, slowly, learn to live with the knowledge that your kid uses a little dope here and there.

Until someone smacks you upside the head with the news that it’s not a little dope anymore: it’s heroin and needles and syringes and drug dealers and kids who die.

And you go to bed, and you try to breathe, and you hide in your husband’s arms and you cry into the dark for your boy to live until morning, when you can do something: you can start a plan.

##

Another night, another flight

2006-01-28T20:49:00.000-06:00

It's not snowing out, it's raining. I'm working late, alone in my just-downsized office that smells of paint and newly displaced dust. Moving again, downsizing again.

Waiting for Logan to arrive from Cali again.

This time it's for the entering of the plea. I'd thought this would be the last thing: closure, at long last. Nope. Wrong-o. Yet one more after this; the sentencing. Don't know how long till that comes up.

I'm tired folks, bone tired. And now my stable Joe has crap going on, too. I just kinda feel like withdrawing: an island. That's what I want to be. Land, alone. Nothing but gently lapping waves and occasional seagulls bumping against me. Solitude: just me to take care of, no one else.

Yeah, right. In my dreams.

Nope. I wake from the image, stand up, and pick up a paintbrush. I'm here, I'm now. And this office needs one more red wall before I go home, don't you think?

##

Who knows?

2006-01-28T20:41:00.000-06:00

Adriana said:

In my opinion, Thursday's show was a draw. They both looked bad. Oprah looked like a scorned shrew and Frey appeared a deer in the headlights. I also think the attacks are ultimately misplaced - the publishers should be the ones being crucified. Finally, last thought, I noticed today that Frey's book is still an "Oprah" book. I wonder how long before she finally pulls it?

I think I agree that the publishers should be the ones taking the blame. After all, they are the ones who advised him on how to classify the book. What's he, a pubbing expert? I don't think so.

Except. Except for his verbal professions that it was all truth, honest injun. And I didn't see him making those, just heard about it. But still. Hard to exonerate him from those claims.

Doncha bet he's lying in bed at night now going, Uh, what the hell just happened? Then again, maybe he's lying there reviewing his increased sales for the day. Hard to tell.

Update: Check out this interesting link by an agent about Frey's publisher's reaction.

##

My, my, that Frey

2006-01-27T23:02:00.000-06:00

No comments on my own situation yet, but here's what's happening with the now-thoroughly-spanked Frey. I missed the show, goddammitt, but from what I hear, he did not come across well. At all.

##

Holding pattern

2006-01-25T21:15:00.000-06:00

I have to apologize for being so un-bloggy lately. Something significant is going on over here...but I can't write about it. Not yet. And everything else seems trivial by comparison.

More to come, maybe in a few days.

##

A short walk from Starbucks

2006-01-20T07:04:00.000-06:00

I've been calling Logan every couple days lately. He always seems glad to hear from me, and always wants to talk. That is SUCH a massive change. The other night when I called he sounded rushed.

I can hear, in the background, one of his former counselors. Where are you that he is? I ask. By Starbucks, he says, near the Community Club. Oh, I say, Are you going to many AA meetings? I'm on my way into one right now, he says. And sure enough, I can hear the loud chatter of the group as he enters the building. God. Nobody is requring him to go to meetings, no one is logging his vistis. Yet he goes, carryout coffee in hand. Logan, babe, I say, good job. Good job.

Entering of the plea is a week from Monday; dear god, may he not go back to jail after all the progress he's been making.

##

A busy one

2006-01-17T21:41:00.001-06:00

Vat a veekend, folks, vat a veekend. Worked most of it, then opened the week by having to let one of my key employees go. Yikes; never had to do that before, and it sucks. For all of us.

Today I put in 12 hours, trying to do both his job and mine. I plan to hold down the fort for about a month before deciding whether I'll replace him or just trim the department. So I guess I have a few weeks of HAAAARD work in front of me. Best go to bed and rest up, I had.

Later!

##

More on Frey

2006-01-12T10:43:00.000-06:00

Another interesting article on the Frey developments, here. What else could Oprah have said, really, and maintained her dignity? Although I thought I heard an edge of irritation in her voice. Not that I'm an Oprah expert, far from it.

##

Frey

2006-01-11T14:22:00.000-06:00

So...who's been following the Frey mess, and what do you think? I asked Logan, fresh out of jail and rehab himself, and he'd never heard of the guy. I'm super-curious what Oprah -- and all of you -- have to say. Me, you know who I feel sorry for, don't you? Frey's mother.

##

Blue sky again

2006-01-10T08:15:00.000-06:00

You see that, folks? That is blue sky. Blue sky. We haven't seen that around here for almost three weeks. I feel like I should go outside and roll around in it or something, to quote my oldest kiddo.

Interesting moment last night, but first, the night before: Logan, home visiting from Cali, went out with some guy friends, out to a bar to play pool. There he found other friends playing poker. I'd said he had to be home by midnight, and he'd agreed. At 11:30 I woke up, sure something was wrong. You know the feeling. I called him to say, "You must be on your way home by now." He didn't pick up. Gave me a strange mixture of panic and anger. I sat down on the couch to wait, magazine in hand. Five minutes later, the phone rang and it was him.

"Did you call me, Mom?"

"Yes. Why didn't you pick up?" Envisioning him smoking weed or worse in a crowded room, oh shit, my mom called.

"Because I didn't hear the phone." Sounding innocent, background noise evident, so not in a house.

"You must be almost on your way home." Changing tacks.

"Yeah. We're leaving right now."

He got home half an hour later, me sitting on the couch with the same magazine. We talked, he told me who he'd seen. Nothing seemed wrong or out of place, not overtly. He played with the dog, we had some light banter about her. I hugged him goodnight, he smelled smoky but nothing else.

And yet I went to bed troubled, not sure if my troubledness was due to my own suspicion or to a gut instinct you get after a while with an addicted child. See, there was something...weird...it's hard to describe. Some over-the-top-ness to his banter. Just a tiny bit, just shades of what he used to do when he was high. Some not-letting-go in the conversation. A pursuing of a topic after it's dead, after you're tired of it and want to move on. A not-knowing-when-to-stop-ness.

But it was minor. So, so minor. Like on a cloudy day: are there shadows? Not really. He could've had a hit on a joint, or he could've just been jazzed from being out with friends. So I went to bed and scolded myself for being over the top myself, suspecting anything. My last thought before going to sleep was, "But on the other hand, if you feel it in your gut, it's probably right."

And I felt it in my gut.

Okay, so fast forward to the next night, last night.

He was with his brother during the afternoon, then his dad in the evening. He came home around 9 and went to see a friend, a girl we all really like a lot, who he hadn't seen in maybe a year, a girl he couldn't see while he was dating the now-pregnant former girlfriend. He was home by 10:30, when my hubby was asleep on the couch and I was just headed to bed. Well shit, you can't just go to sleep. So I rubbed my eyes and told hubby to go to bed without me. He did, but stayed awake playing solitaire and putzing in the bedroom. Logan was in on the computer, and seemed quiet, withdrawn. I went in to sit with him: "Whatcha doin?"

"How do I register for college?" He's online, the Cali college web site up, the registration page staring at him.

"You want to do it now?" Random, but great. We've been encouraging him to register for a couple months now.

He starts going through the form, filling it out slowly. I kneel on the floor beside him, watching him fill out the form and answering occasional questions. He's slow on the uptake, and I can't help but flash back to this one time when he was working for me, high as a kite but before I knew about the heroin use, and I can't help reliving how he acted that day. Slow, slow, studying every minutiae I explained. Makes me shiver in disgust and horror, remembering and wondering how I could've not known. God.

He looks up. "What's my zip code in Cali?"

I think. "Hmm. Wait, it's written in my notebook. I'll go get it."

I get up and walk into the living room, and suddenly I am hit with a smell. Stops me dead in my tracks. Like super-sweet tobacco. Pot? Words of my sister's come back to me: once you smell that smell, you never forget it. I grew up sheltered, never smelled it until my kids used it, and even then they masked it with incense. All I know is this smell wafting through my living room is somehow associated with pot, which inevitably has led Logan back to heroin.

I'm still standing dead still in the middle of the living room, and now I step carefully to the left, the right. Where is that smell coming from? I go slowly to the car to get the notebook, sniffing all the way. It's strongest near the computer room, where Logan is. Goddamn it. Goddamn it.

I go back in to the computer room and hand him the notebook. Now I don't smell it.

Shit, I tell myself. Frankie, give it up. Nothing is going on. It's your imagination. Yet...is there some slowness to Logan's ability to fill out the form? He skips questions, asks how to answer certain obvious ones, stumbles on "birthplace; city and state/country." He knows the town where he was born, duh, and fills it in quickly, but gets stuck on what else they want in that field. I stumble too, with whether the answers are only obvious to me, whether a non-high 20-year-old knows how to answer that. God. Is that my gut talking again? God, god, god. I HATE this, this suspicion, this fear he'll slip up, this responsibility that's suddenly mine whenever he's home in my house.

Eventually he finishes the form, and suddenly seems normal again. Not slow, not weird, not over the top or depressed. Just completely normal. He asks to use the laptop, which hubby is using, to check email since the one in the computer room has an old browser and can't read certain sites. I hesitate, but know hub won't mind, so go in to ask him if he's almost finished playing solitaire.

And am hit in the face with that smell again.

I stand in the middle of the bedroom. "Why does it smell like super-sweet tobacco in here?"

Hub looks up, brightly. "Oh. You mean like incense? I lit some incense matches I had, to see what they smelled like. You can smell that?" He sniffs. "My cold must be worse than I thought. I don't smell a thing."

He hands me the laptop and I give it to Logan, feeling foolish. Thank god I didn't say anything to him. He pokes his head around me, into the bedroom and toward hub. "Hey, thanks for letting me use this."

Which bowls me over agin. Okay, forget what I said. He's not high or anywhere close to it. When he's high, he's self-absorbed and never notices anything anyone does for him. You could slit open your wrists to give him blood and he'd walk away without thanking you.

No, he's not high. He's, apparently, just bad with online registration forms.

And I, apparently, am bad with the gut.

So I guess you could say this story has a happy ending. I climb into bed and hub pulls me close, rubs circles in that spot on my temple like he does. "Did you have a nice time with Logan this evening?"

I nod into his shoulder. "Yes, love. I did." I pause. "But do you mind if I throw away those incense matches?"

The rubbing on my temple stops. "Sure, that's fine. But why?"

"It's a long story."

##

Saved by the flu

2006-01-08T20:09:00.000-06:00

Jane asks:

"So how did Thursday night go?"

To which I reply (if you're talking about Logan going out): "There is a god." The party was canceled; the hostess didn't feel well. Whew. He went out anyway, to a girl's house he knows. Came home when he said he would -- half an hour early, in fact. He's just gone out again now, tonight, with different friends. We talked about the dangers of him screwing up before his plea is entered in two weeks. He seemed sincere when he said he'd be fine. His counselor called earlier tonight, and I asked her how she felt about him hanging with old friends. She said that he's proven himself trustworthy the last few times he's been out, so reward that. Okay, then, but boy, feels kind of scary and slippery.

##

And on, and on

2006-01-07T13:55:00.000-06:00

The stray sits on the floor, twitching his tail, reminding me that life goes on, good things replace bad ones, and even loss is survivable.

Logan comes home tonight for what would have been his pretrial but now will be a pre-shoulder-surgery doctor visit. He just called, wants to attend a party tonight right after getting in. I know the kids -- there will be drinking and pot, fairly certain of that, but hopefully nothing harder. Made him promise he'd only stay an hour. Sigh. He's almost 21 yet I must still dictate when and where he goes? Not sure what my role is, here. "Mother of heroin addict foolishly permits kid to attend party." Or, "Mother of heroin addict releases kid on his own recognizance." I dunno, I dunno! THIS KIND OF STUFF DRIVES ME BATTY.

##

Update: Pretrial news

2006-01-05T14:41:00.000-06:00

Just got the news: my son's been admitted to the diversionary program, the only one out of all the cases discussed by the attny/DA today. He will be a convicted felon on the drug charges for 5 years, after which, if he stays out of trouble, his record will be wiped clean. He skips the pretrial on Monday, but must fly across the country to appear for the plea on Jan 30. He may have another 30 days jail time at that time. He must pick a permanent residence by the 30th, and they might allow it to be in California, not sure. My ex told me all this, followed by how he can't be "expected" to pay for Logan to stay in CA for 5 years, so he should come home to the Midwest. Followed by a discussion about how much money has been spent on his medical care, followed by discussion about his painfully disfigured shoulder and whether he should have surgery, followed by followed by followed by.

My head is spinning. This is positive news overall, I think, but I'm sitting here stunned nonetheless. Maybe because all day I've been writing on assignment about the creepy/scary/heavy topic of teaching your kid to escape abduction, and I'm just feeling weirded out anyway. Maybe it's the "convicted felon" part, which I thought was part of the deal, that he wouldn't be one. Maybe it's the prospect of more jail time for him. I don't know. Maybe it's anger because Mr. Moneybags-Ex wants to put a limit on how much he'll spend for his kid.

* * *

Update:
Logan just called, upbeat. That was endearing, that he called me as soon as he heard the news. He sounds good, and he must've heard in my voice that I didn't, because he was trying to reassure me: "Don't worry, Mom. If I have to go back to jail I'll be okay." Then he says, all surprised, "Dad wants me to get surgery for my shoulder, now!" Which was my idea, me pestering his dad to get it done, but hey, if daddio gets credit, who am I to complain? The kid is worth the money and trouble: so, so fucking worth it.

##

How hard is it to pick up the goddamn telephone?

2006-01-05T10:26:00.000-06:00

Goddamn freaking attorney won't return our calls. What are the possible outcomes of this pretrial? Will it help to have family there? What are the odds my kid can fly back to his home/job in Cali on Tuesday? Will he possibly be prohibited from leaving the South immediately after the decision is made? Have to find a spot to live in a new state immediately? Would it help if he enrolls in college in Cali this week? Is the damn guy still our attorney? Did nuclear war occur in his state and that's why he won't return our calls?

Sheesh.

##

In the middle of the night

2006-01-03T12:34:00.000-06:00

I'm starting to have moments of panic about the trial, which occurs next Monday. Actually it's a pretrial, but apparently that's when everything happens and decisions are made. I laid in bed for a while last night, somewhat panicky and trying to stuff all my "other" worries back in some inner laundry basket. They tend to want to leap out at such moments, unbidden and unwanted, and force themselves into the worry scene: my god, the finances! My god, the youngest son! My god, the business! My god, my blood pressure! So the end effect is this massive, uncontrollable worry-scene where EVERYTHING looks black and awful and positively mind-boggling, to the point I'm not even worrying about my kid's trial anymore. I dunno, maybe it's self-defense of some sort, so I don't worry about the REAL, almost-here issue. I never like to wake my husband up at such times: why disturb him, too? So I lie there, staring at the ceiling and breathing shallow, panic-laced batches of night air.

What brought it on (I think), was that just before I went to bed, I reached a part in the book I'm reading where the main character goes to jail. The descriptions hit me, hard. He had a cavity-search? Oh my god, did Logan have that done? Will he have it done again if he goes back to jail? What about prison, which is so much worse, if he screws up drug court?

So I'm a little tired today. And worried.

##

Happy New One

2006-01-01T09:44:00.000-06:00

Happy 2006, everyone! May it be for you a year of peace, joy, and resolutions actually kept (at least a few). Me, I have a house full of sleeping teenage boys left over from last night's party, so it's off to make pancakes for me.

The oldest one

2005-12-29T12:54:00.000-06:00

I walk in the door from work -- it's late, 7:30 at night, and go right to check on the cat. The vet said to call him tomorrow if she's not better. She's not.

She's lying on her side, half-in and half-out of her bed, as if she fell over while trying to move and couldn't get back up. Her mouth is shut, eyes open, and she's breathing rapidly -- short, shallow breaths. I lean closer and see that the white fur on her legs is wet -- she's leaking some mucousy fluid from her nose.

"Oh, Kitty." I lean over her to stroke her forehead and she raises her head, snarling at me, no recognition in her glassy eyes.

I call my oldest, who picked out this kitty as his own when he was seven years old. "Joe, the cat's dying."

His voice cracks: "Okay, I'll come right home."

When he arrives, red-eyed, we place her on his lap and he sits on the laundry room floor with her, stroking her long fur. I give them some time alone, sure she'll be gone within an hour, maybe two.

We move around the house quietly, stilted. Joe's so broken up; it seems rude to talk, to cook, to eat. Eventually he moves to the couch, and my husband suggests we watch a movie to ease the silent grief. March of the Penguins: perfect. We all hustle into our chairs as if it's the most important thing we could be doing at that moment. And maybe it is.

We make small talk during the movie as the cat continues to lie on Joe's lap, motionless, and he continues to stroke her fur as he always does, always has. The movie is fascinating, as we've heard it is, and the hours slowly ease by.

When the movie ends and Joe stands to take the cat downstairs to his room, my heart breaks. The image will stay with me for some time: him, a big, strapping 20-some-year-old, standing there at the top of the stairs with his beloved cat in his arms. The cat is on a blanket in a shallow box, and he's holding her in front of him gingerly, as if she's on a tray. He's carrying her down to his room to die during the night. He's crying, and I hug him a long time before he goes downstairs with her. It seems so cruel: sending him to his room with her to die. But that's what he wants, and he's a big boy now.

Neither my husband nor I sleep much. When I do, I'm dreaming bad dreams. My youngest is kidnapped while he's at camp. They don't tell me about it for three weeks. I arrive, furious, and go to find him. I do, and it turns out to be a former friend of my husbands. We chase the guy, and my husband leaps from the car to beat him up. I flee with my youngest. That dream mercifully ends, but the next one is bloody, and the one after that full of gravesites. Every time I wake up, I wonder if she's died yet, if my son is lying in the dark stroking the fur of a dead pet.

Morning comes and she's still alive. We agree to take her to the vet to be euthanized.

It's an awful drive, and though I haven't cried yet over the kitty, I do now. Hard. Very hard. I'm almost sobbing in the vet's office, and Joe and I hold one another. It's over quickly, and we drive home with her, with the stench of death in the small car. He wants to bury her on our property.

I know pets get into our hearts and claim a small portion of them, and we don't realize until times like these how deeply entwined they are. But I also wonder how many of my tears and sobs -- Joe's, too -- are unrelated to the cat. How many of them are just leaking out of that vast well of sadness that sits just under the surface now? You can't cry over your addicted child, because hey, he's doing well now. You hope. But you can cry over the cat, and so you do: you sob, you feel the agony. And you wonder what the source of the agony really is.

Joe is out at our property right now, digging a deep hole in the frozen soil, handling his pain in a way that may ease it, attacking the frozen ground with a pick axe. The pain is so intense; you know it can't be just from a cat, wonderful as she was. You look into your kid's red-rimmed eyes, and he looks into yours, and you think about this day exactly one year ago, when your other son was in the hospital and you were making plans to take him, sick and huddled under a blanket, across the country to gawd only knows what future. At that time you also looked into this son's red eyes, and you felt the pain together then, too. And you love this oldest son, oh, how you love him as you prepare to bury his beloved cat.

##

The cat

2005-12-28T13:57:00.000-06:00

Looks like our beloved cat of 15 years may be dying. Just got back from the vet's (again), where he's now gently suggesting she may need to be put to sleep if she doesn't get better before the weekend.

Whew. A bit hard to take, you know?

##

Out of kilter

2005-12-26T20:42:00.000-06:00

Today, tonight, right about now, one year ago exactly. That was when my oldest came and sat on this very couch to tell me about his brother's heroin addiction. God almighty. One year.

This week, the week between Christmas and New Years, is always emotionally significant for me. My birthday falls in this week, so between the two holidays, my birthday, and the kids being home from school, it's always like a week removed from my real life. Some years I've taken this week to go on writing retreats. So in general this week is always very emotional for me, a time of change and a feeling of huge import.

Last year it was the week my world shattered.

This year I just feel displaced. Like soemthing is supposed to be happening...but what? To be honest I'd just about give my bottom dollar to be able to leave work and stay home and write. I'm also hungry, hungry for my son in Cali -- not for him, per se, but to be WITH him. I was in Cali with him last year at New Years, settling him into rehab and living on the razor-sharp edge of fear for his life. It just seems wrong, now, to be sitting here on this couch looking at a Chirstmas tree devoid of gifts and not be DOING something to effect change of some sort. Good Gawd, could I please just DO something? Something big, something major? My husband hinted the other day that he might be transferred to another state for work and my heart nearly leapt out of my chest with glee: YES, let's pack up and move! Let's do something radical. Please, please, can we do something radical?

But of course we won't. I will wake up tomorrow and put on nice slacks and a blazer and drive to my office and return phone calls and write safety training articles and life will resume its normal kilter. But now, tonight, oh, how displaced I feel.

A fresh snow

2005-12-14T07:30:00.000-06:00

He hugs me for a long moment. "Bye, Mommy." His name for me when he's being affectionate. He hugs so long I wonder if he's fallen asleep on my shoulder.

I kiss his stubbled cheek. "Call me when you get back to Cali."

My husband waits, the truck running. We're at the opening pages of a major snowstorm, and he's eager to get started on the hour-long drive to the airport.

It's 5:30 am. I'm in my bathrobe; they're dressed and ready to leave. The feeble hall light falls around us as Logan hesitates, not quite ready to leave.

Something transpired during this brief trip. I'm not sure what, but something did. There's some easiness to this, some trust. I let him go out last night. He thanked me. He came back when he said he would. He woke his own self up this morning at 5:15. That's all different, very different.

I don't feel panicky, teary. Something in his hug this time is very sincere.

"Where's that new kitty?" He looks around. "I have to say goodbye." He finds the stray we adopted, rubs its head. Turns to the dog, his little dog of 14 years. "Bye, Molly." Rubs her ears, looks into her cataract-filmed eyes. "I love you too."

He hugs me one last time and climbs into the truck with my husband, goodbying me again and again as he does, in a tender sort of way.

I stand with the cat melted into my arms and wave goodbye as they pull into the snow. No tears. No need, somehow.

I just feel...proud. And somehow hope-filled, maybe more than ever since we first found out about his addiction almost a year ago. I don't know why, exactly...it's just there. He's doing it; he's getting -- and staying -- sober.

I couldn't be more content, standing there at 5:30 in the morning in a snowstorm, my arms full of cat and my heart full of hope.

##
##

Pins and needles

2005-12-12T19:13:00.000-06:00

Rapid developments here in Drama City, folks.

Last Thursday I got word that Logan's trial is being postponed until January. Otherwise it would have been held today. That was a hard one to swallow, since it seems like so much is on hold until the decision. On one hand I'm happy he has another month before judgement day; on another, I fear the holding pattern may be draining him. But there's nothing I can do about it, so...breathe, Frankie, breathe.

His dad had bought him a plane ticket home for the trial. I assumed he'd reschedule the ticket for January. Not. Friday night I learned Logan would be coming home the next day.

Well, then. Blink, blink. So this is Christmas? With one day's notice I, who have not yet started shopping, am supposed to throw an early Christmas? He won't be home again after this until the trial.

So Saturday night he came in. His flight was canceled out of Chicago due to snow, and he had to take a bus home to the city. He didn't arrive until after midnight. Hub and I drove downtown in a soft snow, enjoying the chill of the night, the late-night bustle of the city, the side of it we never see because we're not,like, 20 any more, you know. It felt so Christmas-y -- people standing under snowy streetlights, him clambering off a midnight bus, making his way through fat flakes and into my open arms. "Merry Christmas, Mama."

It's been an interesting two days since. Kindof up, kindof down. Like life, I guess.

I held off on getting the tree on Saturday, waiting for him so we could do the family tree-getting thing like we've done every year for the past 20. Of course he'd want to go with us, right? Wrong. The day was a bust, and very strange. No one wanted to "do" Christmas. I almost had a hissy fit in the middle of it, when one too many people sighed at the mention of putting the tree up, but I managed to stay cool. We bought a dinky little tree at a lot, just three of us, not a family event at all. Ah well, flexibility is everything, you know.

We saw a movie together, all of us. He ran into an old buddy in the line for popcorn, and immediately disappeared outside. My panic level shot up: what is he doing? Is that kid a dealer? Did he freaking ARRANGE to meet him here?

Oldest kiddo Joe actually went and looked out the window, then returned to my side. "Apparently Logan now smokes." Oh god. I knew that would happen. Everyone in rehab smokes. Deep breath, it's better he smokes than shoots heroin.

And now, now. Now he is seeing his old girlfriend, the one barely pregnant with someone else's kid, the one he completely ignored when he was here for Thanksgiving. I'm the one who encouraged him, when he was waffling about it, to go see her. Closure, if nothing else. Help you figure out how you feel about her, kiddo. You're strong, you can do this. Just be kind, and don't say things you'll later regret.

Ah, but that's not what I'm worried about. What I'm worried about is he'll fall for her all over again, and confuse the hell out of himself.

But it's done now, and I can't take it back. All I have to do is deal with the pins and needles, sitting here home alone now and wondering if I gave him the wrong advice. Well, he's a man now, and men have to learn to deal with the hard things in life. So I guess I'm not sorry. No, not sorry at all.

Stay tuned.

##

Update: He just got in. Looks blue. Went right to the garage to smoke a cigarette. Said, of his girlfriend, that she was "all flirty, but whatever." All righty, then. It's 8:30 at night, but, uh, hey, let's go shopping. Anything for a diversion.

##

Update #2: We went shopping. It was actually very nice. He morphed into a good mood, and we had light, easy conversation and actual, deep ones, too. It was good, folks. Very, very good.

Feeling happy.

##

Eyes forward

2005-12-06T07:36:00.000-06:00

I'm driving home from work, squinting through the windshield dirty from this morning's snow. It's freaking cold, hovering near zero, and I'm hunched over, shivering. It's a ten minute ride home from work, but the car never warms up.

I won't call, I won't call, I won't call. Jeezus, I'm muttering to myself. Logan hasn't seen his counselor since he first started getting bad news -- girfriend pregnant, friend dead, police curiosity into his involvement. Not seeing the counselor is bad news. Relapse behavior, they call it. That dreaded word.

I spoke to him, after a day of horrible feeling about him topped with bad news from the attorney, last Friday night. He's hard to reach. "PROMISE me you'll call Marie for an appointment. You need to be able to talk to someone about this stuff. PROMISE ME." He promised.

I've no sooner left the frigid car and walked into the warmth of the house when the youngest is yelling from the other room. "MOM! Phone call!"

"Jeez," I mutter, "Let a mama get her gloves off. Coming, coming!" I trip-trap across the wood floor in my still-cold heels, into the office where the phone is.

It's Logan. "Hey, Mom."

"Hey, Kiddo! How ARE you?"

"I'm fine. I'm at Marie's office right now, and--"

"Oh, Logan, good. I'm SO glad." Happy cells flood my body.

"Yeah. And she wants me to let you know I'm not suicidal."

There is a great big, giant STOP -- like a movie grinding to a halt in a freeze-frame -- while the word SUICIDAL flings itself around the empty cavity that is my head. After about a 150 blinks I say, "Well, I, uh, I didn't think you were, Logan."

"Yeah, well, she wanted me to tell you that. Here, talk to her."

I talk to her for a minute, still in sticker-shock over the use of the word I wasn't prepared to hear, wasn't thinking, wasn't worried about. She tells me he looks good, not to worry, he plans to go register at the college in a couple days and that he'll be back to see her next week. I listen and nod and thank her for reassuring me.

Then I hang up, feeling anything but reassured. Suicidal? Why did she feel it necessary to let me know he's not? Is he sometimes? Is suicide par for the course with heroin users? Last year when he was first in rehab they told me not to worry about suicide: heroin addicts usually don't try to kill themselves. They relapse, they O.D. But they usually don't deliberately try to end their lives. That piece of info was a nice, solid firewall: kept all the worry of that particular ilk far, far away.

"Hey, Mom," says the youngest, not aware that I can't breathe. "Let's go to the store now. I gotta get a binder for school."

A binder for school. Such a small thing. The glue of life.

We get into the car, both of us shivering immediately. I glance at him as I look behind me to back out the driveway. He's getting a binder. For the future. He's thinking about getting his learners permit. He's looking forward, he's living.

My kid in Cali? He's signing up for school. That's looking forward, too.

##

Australian boy hanged

2005-12-02T07:49:00.000-06:00

I'm ignoring the horrifying story about the Australian boy who was hanged in Singapore yesterday for selling heroin. I can't think about it, can't think about it. It's too much pain -- pain that I can't take on without implosion. Thinking of his face, thinking of his mother, thinking of how they must've locked eyes in that last moment. Thinking of his brother, for whom he supposedly sold the drugs to raise money. This is where denial becomes such a precious and life-enabling thing. I don't think my kid ever sold or even thought about selling heroin, but he sure as hell was dependent on it, and I'm aware that he got it from his friends from time to time. Should they be hanged? My god, no. They're trapped, all of them, in a desperate web.

I hate this story. It makes me panicky for my son. It makes me cry. It makes me crazy.

I might not even have the details right. Every time I hear about it my head involuntarily swivels as if slapped, and I try not to absorb the details. I try.

##

Work is a beautiful thing

2005-12-01T08:26:00.000-06:00

Okay, the truth is I've been ignoring blogging lately because I'm absolutely scared shitless over my child's upcoming trial, and I guess I'm pretending it all won't happen.

He came home for Thanksgiving, blew in one cold night on a late flight. My family was all here; he was the last to arrive. His big brother and his cousin went to pick him up. We all waited up, hanging around the ping-pong table and draped over couches. I'd fallen asleep in a curl on the couch before he finally arrived. I woke up to "Frankie, he's here," and the sight of him being hugged by family, that adorable crooked grin on his face and his heavy Cali glasses drawing teasing by cousins.

Over the next two days he flowed right into the family, never asking to go see friends. Everyone kept saying how GREAT he looked.

I thought he seemed depressed.

But the thing I cherish from his visit is how much he played with his younger brother: the brother for whom he never had anything but disdain. Used to be the youngest and oldest would wrestle and play and poke and tease and laugh and one haul the other around on his shoulders, upside down, like kids will do, me shouting, CAREFUL, DON'T HURT YOUR BROTHER as they did, and Logan would walk past it all and never join in, never crack a smile. I don't think I've seen him play with his little brother once in the last five years. Used to worry me sick.

But this time they played and wrestled and hooted and hollered. We were riding home from a late-night bonfire in the back of my brother-in-law's huge SUV, five of us in the front and middle, and those two in the back. They started wrestling and laughing and I'm sure my relatives were irritated that I didn't tell them to shush, to settle down. I couldn't. I was lost in a happy bubble, hearing them laugh and interact.

Anyway, he left two days later, on an early flight while it was still dark outside, and I didn't even cry: yay me. Although I did go to the top of the airport stairs and watch him through security. Typical him, he didn't notice me standing there on the other side of the glass as he walked past after clearing security. I was waving, but he didn't notice. I turned around and some lady said, agony on her face, "He didn't even look up and see you!" Think she's a mom, too? I do.

Three days later, day before yesterday, my mom and sister left. Shit, I cried harder then than when Logan left. We stood in a parking lot to say our goodbyes, the wind whipping around us. We hadn't cried until then, but as I hugged my brother-in-law goodbye and thanked him for being good to Logan earlier this year, my floodgates opened. I turned to my mom next, suddenly seeing the sagging skin around her beautiful eyes go red with impending tears — as red as the raw scars on her cheeks from her recent case of shingles. I know I may not see her again. She's 84 and lives a 12-hour plane ride away. We hugged hard. My sister turned her back into the wind, hiding her face and tears as my mother and I hugged and Mom told me in a broken voice that everything will be okay with Logan. I'm a mother, I'm a daughter.

I could barely stand the pain in my throat as they pulled onto the highway. To work, to work, I told myself. Go to work and don't think about it. And so I did.

Logan never once called his pregnant girlfriend while he was home. But she was heavy on his mind: I could see it all over his face. I talked to him about it, but it broke my heart he didn't at least call her and tell her he wasn't coming to see her.

And the final, painful thing I can't even write much about is that I learned while he was home that he was with the boy who died on the night he died. Not when it happened, he says, but earlier. The implications are too much for me to think about. Too much, too much. Maybe I'll go to work now.

To work, to work.

##

Now what?

2005-11-29T16:50:00.000-06:00

My horse is gone, my kid is gone, and my family's gone. Jeez. I sound like a Country Western.

More later.

##

Home for the holiday

2005-11-19T21:57:00.000-06:00

He's coming home, folks. Just two days, just for the holiday. Just to see his extended family, many of whom will be here all of next week. Just to catch his breath; just to be loved.

I CANNOT wait to put my arms around that boy. Just cannot wait.

##

Such a tragedy

2005-11-18T09:25:00.000-06:00

Fuck it all. Logan just called. As if the news that his beloved girlfriend of four years is pregnant--not by him--isn't enough to have to bear this week, one of his close friends died last night. An overdose: Methadone and something else--Xanax, maybe? The kid lived in one of the sober-living houses we'd considered. Logan really liked him--hung out with him all the time. I barely met this boy, but I am brokenhearted--for all of them.

Can I just go on record as saying how much I DESPISE drugs? Quicksand, folks. They're quicksand.

##

Imagine

2005-11-16T17:02:00.000-06:00

I've talked to him a couple of times now. He seems to be handling this well -- and by "well" I mean not relapsing (excuse me while I prostrate myself in gratitude.) But he and she have been arguing long distance. She says he's not being supportive. Yeah. I wonder why.

Funny how as the mom, I feel a little betrayed by this girl who has seemed like a daughter for so long now. I love her, I do, but, but, but...I don't know. There's just a "but" now, and there never was before.

Imagine how he feels.

##

A thin crust

2005-11-12T14:34:00.000-06:00

We're cleaning today, a family affair (rather unusual around here) and my husband has playing first the Beatles, and then the Carpenters on the CD player.

And I'm having a hard time dealing with it.

See, here's the thing. Having a kid with a heroin addiction is like having your normal life suddenly morph into you, alone, standing in the middle of the desert. At least you think it's a desert, until you realize it's more like a dry mud flat. No, you realize, it's a crust. A thin, brittle crust that supports your weight just fine--most of the time. You can walk on it. Hey, you can go to work. You can even laugh and smile and appear totally normal. But all it takes, folks--all it takes--is a phone call. A message. Or a question: "Hey Mom, have you, uh, have you talked to Logan in the last day or so?"

And the crust quivers. You thought it was dry, but no. There's something gelatinous under it.

"Why?" you say, heart palpitating.

"Well, cause, I talked to him to other night."

The crust cracks. "What? What do you know?" You can't breathe.

"Caitlyn's pregnant." Then, quickly, "Not by him."

You suck in air, you grab the countertop. The crust breaks and you fall through, into the sticky mess below. But you manage, somehow you manage. Twenty-four hours later, you're ironing curtains and listening to the damn Carpenters sing "I can't live a day without you" and suddenly you're freaking crying.

I mean, Jeezus. It's not his, and for that you have sacrificed a small lamb of gratitude. But you know how much of his hopes and dreams for recovery were tied up in this girl, of how they talked about getting married and having children, of how he adores her and she's talked recently about moving out to be with him and he's wanted so badly to get clean for her, for her, for them. And you ache for your child. Oh, you ache.

And you drive somewhere meaningless to pick up something meaningless, and your eyes are leaking and your lip curling and you know it's gone, the crust. You're sinking now, mired in the salty, tar-like gel that lives constantly under your surface. You try to climb back out to the top, you scramble and claw and tell yourself he can get through this, he won't relapse--and then you remember how devastating it can be for a young person in love to feel betrayed--and you know how goddamn lonely he must feel, and next thing you know you're home pouring your husband a cup of coffee and damn if you're not suddenly crying silently again, and to his, "What? What, honey?" you can only wail, "I don't know" because you weren't even thinking about your brokenhearted kid at that moment.

And you wonder if your crust will ever, ever heal and quit collapsing under you and christ, even grow grass again.

And you wonder about his crust. Oh god, you wonder, how strong is his crust.

##

A horse is a horse, of course, of course

2005-11-11T09:03:00.000-06:00

Actually I'm just testing photo uploads, but just for the heck of it, here's that horse I'm always referring to. Purty, ain't he?

##

The cat's in the bag

2005-11-09T19:19:00.000-06:00

Okay, hush up on this one. I brought the kitten inside tonight. I've been saying, no, No, NO on having another cat in the house. Sure, they're cute when they're little. But 14 years later you're picking cat hair out of everything and swearing when they pee in the carpet. So that's NO, I don't care how damn cute it is. Sure, it wandered up to our house three weeks ago starving and emaciated, and yes you can feed it and keep it in the garage, but it CANNOT come in this house. Thus sayeth mother.

But---shh---no one was home tonight, so I snuck it inside and just watched it play while I cooked dinner. It's not skinny anymore, and almost over its fear of people. Made me smile. I'd forgotten how kittens just play, just for the heck of it. It dove into corners of the stairs, delighted by the stoic stillness of the carpet, driven to hilarity by the fact the stairs have levels.

Playing just for the sake of playing: what a concept.

And yeah, I already put it back outside, so quit giving me grief.

##

A limp carpet of oak leaves

2005-11-08T15:10:00.000-06:00

I’m on my way out to feed the horse before work when a coughing fit seizes me—I just can’t seem to kick this cold—and after I recover, my eye is caught by a scrap of blue-white off to my far right. From the ridge of the road I'm on, I can see the base of the next ridge, a mile or so away. It’s dotted with rusty-red swirls of fall colors—the oaks that so stubbornly hang on to their leaves late in the season. I’m trying to decide if the blue-white is smoke that's trailing in a thick deposit from someone’s woodstove, a woodstove tucked into a home which is tucked into the trees, or if it’s just a scrap of fog caught on thick branches when all the rest of the fog cover has cleared out. Fog, I finally decide. It’s too even and flat to be smoke.

The road dips and twists and takes a couple hills, and then I’m there, crunching up the gravel drive to the horse shed. My oldest built this shed, and I feel a sense of pride—in the son—every time I’m out here. I have an apple in the back of the car, which I palm off to the horse. He eats it greedily, nodding his way through it, as horses do. I thow him some hay, rummage around in the feed bin for his daily ration, and pick my way through two-day-old mud to fill his water buckets. We have to haul the water every day from home. It’s a pain. Another coughing fit seizes me, and after it passes I lean against the fence rail, exhausted. Jeezus. I should be home in bed.

But since I’m on my way to work, I'm dressed up. The horse is muddy. But I unhook the chain and walk into his three-sided run-in stall, where he’s busily munching grain from his bucket. I sigh. We’ve been trying to sell him. I just don’t have the time to spend with him, and he’s a waste of money. Two hundred dollars a month for boarding as soon as it’s too cold to haul water out here any more. I lean into him, burying my face in his winter coat. Mmm: the smell of horse. I get that strong sense of peace I always get out here, feeding the horse. My fingers find their way into the soft folds between the top of his leg and his powerful barrel. I’m probably getting my new green sweater and lace cami dirty, but I suddenly don’t care. Jeez, it’s peaceful—the quiet and the leaves and the horse munching. Almost worth 200 bucks a month for this feeling. It’s like therapy. Although. I could do two sessions a month with a trained counselor for 200 bucks a month. Better yet, I could send 200 bucks a month to my boy in Cali for therapy. I talked to him last night. He sounded good, but distant.

I really have to get to work. I rub the horse between the ears—he hates that so I always do it, just to assert my dominance—and pick my way back through the mud to the outside of the pasture. The leaves are thick here, oak leaves that carpet the ground quietly, limp from the recent rain. I’ve barely climbed into my car to leave when there’s a loud cracking thump—like a horse’s hoof hitting the heavy wood wall of the shed—and suddenly the horse is barreling out, head high, tail lifted, eyes wide. Damn. Good thing I wasn’t standing there with my head buried in his shoulder when he decided to do that. I’d be lying in the mud now, new green sweater and cami and all. Stupid horse probably kicked the wall and scared his own self silly.

I back the car across the leaves and crunch out the gravel drive. That’s the thing about life. Just when you stop to drink in a moment of peace, suddenly you’re flat on your back in the mud. It’s just so damn unpredictable.

I pass again through the intersection of G and Brown—now there are orange police-marks all over the road, measuring the motorcycle skid marks. The blue-white fog is gone now. The day has begun.

##

Dawn to dark on the same road

2005-11-02T19:49:00.000-06:00

The phone rings and I pick it up, knowing it'll be my hub. "Hey."

"Hey. I'm just now getting out to feed the horse." Just now? He left work when I did. I have a ferocious sore throat so decided to go by the pharmacy for cough drops and Vitamin C after work. He said he'd feed the horse; we'd get home about the same time. We have a work-related contract to go over together tonight.

"Just now? What took so long?"

"I've been at the intersection of G and Brown for while." That's half a mile from our property, from the horse on our empty land, the hungry horse.

"Explain yourself, dearie."

"Accident. A motorcycle."

I wait for the wave of fear to pass before I realize he couldn't have been in the accident. Could he have? No. He begins to tells the story.

He was the second one on the scene: A motorcycle strewn across the road, a man's body lying almost smack on the yellow center line. The man was face down, unconscious, head resting in a pool of blood. My hub threw the truck into park in the middle of the road, flashers going, and jumped out. The other man there, the first one on the scene, was deferent. "I used to be an EMT, but it's been a while." "Me too," Hub said, and flew into action.

The other man watched while Hub checked the prone man's pulse and listened for breathing. The first guy read the man's name from his wallet: Earl. "Earl," Hub kept saying. "Earl, can you hear me?"

Nothing. Nothing but gurgled breathing and an occasional moan.

More cars arrived, and finally a sheriff who had rubber gloves to offer and nothing else, no EMT skills. Hub kept his head down by Earl's face, listening to the breathing.

"Why?" I ask.

"If his breathing stopped, I would've had to do mouth-to-mouth. Which is kindof hard without a buddy mask." He knows I don't know what that is, so he explains it's a device to keep the patient's blood out of your mouth. I cringe. He tells me how he stayed until the actual EMTs and fire trucks and ambulance arrived, how he watched them set up flares for the arrival of Med Flight in the empty field, watched them apply traction to his head and cut off his leather jacket with long scissors, and then slipped away, unthanked and not wanting any thanks, to finish his original task: feed the horse.

Our long phone call has lasted long enough so that he's home now, pulling in the driveway. He hangs up and comes inside. I'm sitting on the bed wrapped in flannel, babying my cold. He comes in and kisses me. "You never know what the day will hold," he says.

"You're not even bloody," I say.

He holds his hands out, and I see the dried blood caking his fingers, his palms, his fingernails. He goes to wash it off and I sit soaking in admiration for him.

As the water runs in the other room, I begin to feel panicky for Earl, whoever he is. It was on that very road earlier this morning that I was thinking of my kid in Cali, thinking how you never quit worrying about them, wondering if they're okay, if they'll relapse, and wondering how you'd know if they did. No, you never quit worrying. I was thinking about that as I finished feeding the horse early this morning, when the day was golden and new. I was thinking about it as I passed through the intersection of G and Brown.

You never know what the day will bring.

##

Maybe next time, kids

2005-10-29T10:55:00.000-05:00

Wearing the duh-queen hat, here. Finally figured out...that special pancake recipe I was talking about? Is not my special pancake recipe. Ahem. It was a Joy of Cooking recipe. Found a link to it, here.

So next time all the boys are home? Like Christmas? I'll try again. Sheesh.

Alzheimer's Prevention, special recipe. Now that's what I need.

##

On the wide, empty streets of the business park

2005-10-28T11:06:00.000-05:00

The blue-white flashlight beam bobbles its way through the dark until it reaches my car window. A face appears, sideways because its young owner is bent at the waist.

"Maam, I clocked you going 45 miles per hour on John Street. Is there justification for your speed tonight?"

John Street? That's the street where my office is. What is the speed limit on that tiny stretch of blacktop, anyway? Don't know that I've ever even seen a sign posted. I'm tired, so I don't imediately realize the goofiness of his request. A whole freaking 45 mph at 11:00 at night in a deserted business park: talk about criminal activity.

"I don't know, officer. I'm tired, I guess. I'm just leaving work--been there since 8 this morning--and just want to get home. The kids have off school tomorrow, so I stayed late to finish up some work so I can be home tomorrow."

He blinks.

"I just wasn't thinking. I just finished writing a 600-word article, assigned three other ones out, filed a whole bunch of old papers--you know how old papers pile up--wrote a couple thank you notes, paid the bills, printed out the promo letters, and wrote a large proposal. So I guess it just feels good to be out of my office and headed home."

He blinks again. "Give me your license, please, and I'll be right back."

I barely have time to check my voicemail before he's back, handing me my license and telling me sternly to "watch my speeds, now, would you?" as he sends me on my way, ticketless.

I drive off--slowly. When I reach home, Hub looks surprised at how late I am. "I had a little run-in with the law," I tell him.

"You did not," he says.

"Honest. I was going 45. Can you believe they care if you're going 45 at 11 at night?"

He squishes my face in his hands. "My little outlaw."

I look up at him through the squinching, and think about how unsettling a run-in with the law can be. Even a silly, inconsequential one. I see again the officer's face sideways in my window and think of all the times my kid has had an officer's face in his. Just yesterday he told me how he lost his bike lock key in Cali and had to have two officers cut the lock off his brand new bike. Lucky for him he had the receipt for it in his wallet, but they still weren't convinced. Finally one said to the other, "Write down the serial number of the bike. If it turns out to be stolen, we'll just take him to jail."

Jail. That word must've struck terror through him as he stood there waiting to get his new bike freed. Little did the officers know he has a jail sentence far more severe than bike theft hanging over his head, and the very reason he has this bike and is in this town is to try to do all he can to convince the judge he doesn't need to be in jail, he's turned his life around and can indeed be a productive member of society.

I go to bed oddly unsettled. 45 miles per hour. I should be in handcuffs.

##

Honest, I'm okay

2005-10-26T08:30:00.000-05:00

Further on point five.

You learn, when you have someone in your family with an addiction, not to believe fantastical stories like "I got hit by a car but don't worry I'm okay." You learn to narrow your eyes in suspicion at, "Oh, the front bike tire is just a little bent." You cock your head and probe for details like which way the car was going, where it happened, who saw it. You learn to ask a million questions.

You also learn that addicts can be amazing liars. Truly wow-ifying liars, telling stories replete with amazing detail. "No, the driver was okay too. She was turning right on red after stop, and was looking the other way for traffic and didn't see me. She was so upset though, I mean, really freaked. I was laughing at her, she was so worried."

You learn that the more detail, the more you should suspect. You learn this because you've heard so many stories, stories like: "I was hiking in this canyon I go to sometimes. It's really cool out there, with these narrow paths that wind down the hill, and hardly anyone is around...anyway, I tripped on a piece of barbed wire and rolled down the hill a ways. I'm okay, honest, but the barbed wire must've hit my arm when I fell, because now I have this big infected cut. I think I'll go to the ER." And you find out later it's really an ugly, weeping abcess from the needles.

So, yeah. The stories. And then your kid gets sober. Or at least, you think he's sober, but you don't really know for sure because you're 2,000 miles away. And then what do you do when you hear fantastical stories?

I guess you believe them. What choice do you have?

##

Top ten events of the weekend

2005-10-25T11:33:00.000-05:00

Quick update from rehab-land:

1. He was arraigned in court. Which is nothing like "I a-wringed his neck" which is what I occasionally want to do.

2. His dad took him for the balance of the time he was home, which made me cry. Hard.

3. He left early Sunday morning. Which made me cry again.

4. He returned my phone call Monday night. Good boy.

5. He was hit by a car on Monday. Which made me stop breathing.

6. He's okay. The bike's okay. The driver of the car is okay. Which made me start breathing again.

7. He may have a job, starting tomorrow. At last.

8. The kid he was supposed to take a trip with landed in detox over the weekend. Which is making Logan rethink going with him. Good boy, again.

9. He kept his counseling appts Monday and showed up in group on time. Which means no relapse from this last visit home.

10. He returned my phone call. Good boy.

##

DId I teach you how to make pancakes?

2005-10-22T10:51:00.000-05:00

I wake up this morning with my pulse still fast from the afterglow of yesterday's sale. A major sale to a major employer in this state, for a boatload of writing to be done by the end of the year. It's the kind of sale that keeps a small business like mine IN business, and I am happy.

It's 6:45 am, and I snuggle into the flannel sheets in the warm knowledge that I don't have to get up, don't have anywhere I have to be, and geez I made that sale.

I hear running water and I look at my husband in bed next to me. "Is someone up at this hour?" My youngest had a friend over to spend the night, and of course I'm "keeping" Logan for the night since as we know, the ex can't be bothered and Logan hates being there anyway.

"It's just the friend using the bathroom," hub says.

"No...no, now I hear the fridge opening." I flip the flannel sheets off and swing out of bed. "I gotta see who it is."

"Well, inquiring minds have to know, you know." He buries his head further in the pillow. Obviously no inquiring there.

I belt my robe around me and pad into the kitchen. "Joe!" It's my oldest peering into the fridge. I go to him with arms open. "I didn't know you were going to be here with"--my eyes trail to the floor--"a million boxes of stuff you brought into the house in the middle of the night."

He hugs me and grins. "It's my new computer."

"Ah. That's right. You're building a new computer. Here. On my kitchen floor. At 6:45 on Saturday morning. Right before I have a bunch of other moms coming to visit for coffee."

"I suppose you want me to move it."

"You'd do that?"

"Only for you, Mom."

It hits me suddenly, a massive wash of joy: all my boys are home.

And it's a Saturday. And I can make pancakes. And there will be someone to eat them. And Logan is sober. And there is an extra boy, a friend spending the night. And I made the sale. And I am happy, so happy.

"Pancakes!" I say. "I'll make pancakes! Would you eat pancakes?"

"Sure," Joe says, like I've just asked if he wants a ride in the space shuttle.

"Who's here?" Hub emerges, fully dressed, hair askew. "Joe! Hey, hi! What are you doing with all this...stuff?"

Small grin. "Building a computer."

"Sweet." Hub pulls a chair up to the table and they do man-talk about hard drives and gigabytes and motherboards while I dig through the cupboard looking for the pancake recipe. Wait. Do I have a special pancake recipe? I think I do, in fact I think I used to take great pride in my pancakes-not-from-a-box.

"Joe? Do you remember if I used to have a special pancake recipe?" What am I, 82?

"I think so." He's naturally diplomatic. "Yeah, I'm sure you did. It was good."

They go back to discussing building stuff and I rummage some more. Gawd, I can't even find my damn cookbooks any more. That's how far I've slid from motherhood, so fast. I find an old, split-into-two cookbook in the back of the pantry and flutter through pages until I find a pancake recipe. Was this it? The special one? I dunno, but it'll have to do.

I grease the griddle, the big one, the family-size one we never use anymore.

I made the sale. My kids are home.

Recently Joe asked me to teach him how to cook meat, and here I am cooking pancakes. I think about how mothers pass things on to daughters, and well, why shouldn't I do the same with sons? "Joe," I say. "I should show you how to make pancakes."

He sounds lightly offended. "I know how to make pancakes. I'm really good at making pancakes."

"Oh, you've been experimenting since you've been away at college?"

"Mom. You taught me how to make pancakes. Remember? Remember how I'm really good at it?"

I do remember. Suddenly, I do. An image of him standing over the skillet, somewhere in the middle-school era, asking if there are enough bubbles on the edges of the batter yet to flip them. That's right; he was good at it.

"Oh. Yeah. Well, but did I teach you how to sprinkle water on the griddle, and if the water dances, the griddle's ready?"

"Yeeees, you did."

"Hmph. I was a good mama."

"Yes you were."

Hub coughs, masking a laugh.

"I even taught you how to scrub toilets, once upon a time. Remember that?"

"Yeeees."

The other boys begin to stir, the house coming to life with the advent of an at-home Saturday.

I watch the bubbles form on the edges of the batter circles. I taught them about the bubbles. And I made the sale. And my boys are home. All of them.

When the boys have cleared out of the house for various activities and my friends arrive for coffee, the first one in the door says, "Wow, what smells so good?"

I open the door wide. "Pancakes. Special recipe."

##

Arugula salad

2005-10-20T23:40:00.000-05:00

It's about 8 pm and we're at work, the hub and me. It feels like about 1 am, given how my back aches and how endless the work seems. "Take a break?" hub asks.

So we sit down in the conference room and eat the dinner I made for us and packed into a cooler earlier in the day: grilled swordfish on the garage-sale china plates, with a side of arugula salad.

I warn him the salad may not be very good. It's not. I didn't know this before, but apparently I hate arugula salad.

A little orange candle flickers on the table -- the candle tucked into the flower basket my two employees gave me last week for bosses day. I was clueless: it's bosses day?

We talk as we eat, listless talk because we're both just beat. I've just scraped the salad into a mound destined for the trash when the front door opens. I look up to see my California boy, just in from the airport and grinning because he's surprised me. He loves to surprise people.

I have the secret "It's Logan!" feeling in my chest, and then I say, "You caught us having dinner. Would you like to share some of our--" I look down and gesture to the china plates.

"--leaves?" he offers, looking at the wilted arugula. "I'll pass, but thanks."

I stand up and hug him and immediately scold him for not calling me the past couple weeks. I take his stubbly chin in my hands and force him to look at me, mock-stern: "You need to call your mama, young man, you hear me?" He grins, avoiding my eyes and looking sheepish. I keep mock-scolding until I think I've made my point.

"What?" says his girlfriend in shock, and I'm not sure if it's mock shock or real shock. "You haven't been returning your mother's calls?"

But hey, he's just in the door so after a little more half-serious ribbing I change the subject. "How's the new house?"

We talk a little bit,and it's by turns weird and wonderful and strained and sweet -- the job hunt is dumb and the counselor is useless and he's doing good, honest -- and then they leave.

"Make time for me on Saturday," I tell him. "I need a little time with you before you go back to Cali."

"Okay," he says, eyes connecting with mine.

As the door swings shut behind him, I look at my husband and neither of us speak. Finally he says, "Hey. He's safe and he's sober."

And the candle flickers and the arugula stinks and I must go back to sorting mail. And I am tired, just so tired.

##

Welcome home

2005-10-19T09:19:00.000-05:00

Boy, am I beat. Once a quarter my little company prints and mails tens of thousands of pieces of collateral material in a three-week period. That's now, and since staffing is low and finances tight, guess who gets to stay late at night, sorting and stuffing mail? We're almost finished for this run, but boy am I tired.

In other news, the boy comes home tonight. Now, this I do not understand. He has the first of three court appearances in the South on Friday, and yet his dad chooses to fly him here, to the upper Midwest, and then drive him 8 hours down to court. Why? All that does is open little pockets of relapse-spaces on either side of the event.

Anyway, it's booked now so nothing I can do about it. I'll see him when he gets in tonight, albeit briefly. Long enough to say WHY HAVEN'T YOU RETURNED MY CALLS. Although I suppose that's not the most welcoming greeting in the world. But it's how I feel.

It's definitely how I feel.

Yeah, it's a Monday

2005-10-17T08:51:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was amazingly great. Still glowing from the book festival events, we had a "brunch" by bonfire at our property, bacon and eggs sizzling on the grill and the delicious smell of woodsmoke running rampant, surrounded by startling fall colors and blue, blue sky. We rode the horse, played some disc golf, did a quick grocery shopping, then a long bike ride, the three of us, and wrapped it up by dinner out and then hauling a load of hay home in the dark for the horse. Just a nice, earthy, parents-and-kid kind of day.

Now, today, it's rainy, we overslept, a nasty bill is looming over my head, work needs me--and the car won't start. So the kiddo had to bike to school in the rain, making him even later (and grouchier) and I have to figure out how to get to work and then back to the final soccer game of the season tonight--and how to get the friggin car fixed.

Ain't life grand?

##

Tell me a story, please

2005-10-14T07:48:00.000-05:00

The highlight of my week (or month) is happening today: I get to go to a book festival and hear my dear friend Jane read from her excellent novel. Talk about a treat.

And in fact being anywhere books are being discussed, analyzed, and promoted will be a real shot in the arm for me after a week of processing thousands of pieces of direct mail. Wait -- shots in the arm hurt, don't they? Okay, so never mind that analogy. You know what I mean.

But what I could really use is a phone call with an update from the boy. He's apparently been swallowed by the vast coastline of California: not a word for a week or more.

So. Get absorbed in Jane's novel and get a long distance phone call: my two wishes for the day.

How does this happen?

2005-10-10T21:01:00.000-05:00

You're whizzing, flying, zooming your bikes down an autumn-lined road, the crisp October wind taking your breath away. Or--you squint into the wind--is it the shockingly gorgeous backlight of dappled sun through neon-green leaves that robs you of the ability to breathe? No matter, you don't need to breathe, don't want to breathe, because you're whizzing, you're flying.

And then it's later and you're at supper, at appetizers, actually, because at the only restaurant in town there's an hour and a half wait and you're too hungry to last so you're sitting at the bar eating crab cakes and artichoke dip and talking with perfect strangers about biking up north, and you're happy, so happy.

And then it's the next morning and you're lying in bed in a tangle of limbs, thinking how lucky you are to have each other, how lucky to be in love, just how lucky.

And then he goes to the shower and you are alone in the bed. And there are no whizzing curves or stunning fall colors or laughing strangers or loving husbands~

And you are afraid, suddenly and completely. And you don't know why. It's worse after you don't think about it for a stretch of time: it comes rushing back at you, strong and powerful and all the more immediate because you've left it for a while, this nameless fear.

And he comes out of the shower and he looks at you and he knows, he knows something is wrong, something changed while he was away for those few minutes. But you don't want to ruin the anniversary weekend, so you look into his eyes and you smile and say brightly, "My turn!" And you hop into the shower and you let the water run, hot and stinging and almost painful, and you wonder how your kid's addiction can do this to you. There's nothing even wrong at this moment, and yet you can barely breathe again.

And you finish your shower and get dressed and you say, "Can we go biking again now?" And he says, "Again?" And you close your eyes and remember it, the bright leaves and the rushing wind and the absence of fear, and you say with desperation in your voice, "Yes. Please. Again."

##

Opposing weekends

2005-10-08T07:00:00.000-05:00

Execution temporarily stayed. He's allowed to stay in sober living until the questionable test returns from the lab, which will take three days or so. They're giving him the benefit of the doubt, as they say.

During which time the hub and I are off for a weekend of fall colors, biking, and thinking about things other than drug tests and court dates and sober living homes. (Do I know how to do that anymore?)

See you all on Monday.

##

I'm not sure where he slept last night

2005-10-07T10:10:00.000-05:00

Did you know that could happen? That you can pee into a cup—at the request of the director of your sober-living home, the one to which you have only just moved—and have it come out positive for pot and cocaine, but then, in a fit of indignation, you could walk back down the block to rehab and pee into a cup there, and have it come out clean?

And that then your rehab counselor will try to convince your sober-living director that you're okay, that the one test was faulty, that you should be allowed to stay there in sober living? And that your fate—where you sleep tonight and for the forseeable future—is completely in the hands of your new house director: his judgement call, his amount of trust in you?

Yeah, I didn't either. Huh.

##

Yes, Your Honor

2005-10-06T14:23:00.000-05:00

So the attorney called today. Logan's court date is at the end of this month. Yikes, already. We thought it wouldn't be until end of the year. We just got him tucked back into Cali, and now he'll have to leave again to fly back across the country for court. Never a dull moment. Never.

##

I much prefer oblivion, thank you

2005-10-05T12:49:00.000-05:00

Yay, we have "comments" again. I'm no code writer, so it took me a while to figure out what to delete and what to add. Oh well.

In other news, I was just interviewed by a magazine writer about writing and publishing in our local area. Talk about nerve-wracking. I much prefer to be on the interviewING side of the equation. Takes a fair amount of trust to say things to an unknown writer and hope he or she won't twist your words, or take them out of context, or worse, use them in the (stupid) way you actually said them.

"Why do corporate customers choose to use you as a writing outsource?"
Cause, well, I dunno. Their marketing departments are overbooked?

"Why did you pick the town you're in to establish your business?"
Uh, um, because I can ride my bike here from home?

"What's the hardest part about your job?"
Being interviewed and not being able to edit the damn article after you write it. Don't forget the em dashes, okay? No spaces on either side. Spell out "okay," and be sure to use serial commas. And don't use the word "plus!" I hate the word "plus" unless we're talking math.

Sigh. Going back to my anal little writing world, now. I'll just leave town when that article gets published.

##

One that slipped through

2005-10-04T17:05:00.000-05:00

Here's a nice comment that slipped through Haloscan somehow. Thanks, Kami!

OMG I love this blog. It hits home in alot of ways and I love how you express your feelings in such a way, that I get lost while reading it. It's like reading a great book that you don't want to put down. Most of all, I wanted to say thank you for your courage and for sharing. This blog is awesome! -Kami

--craptastic--.blogspot.com
Kami | | Email | 10.04.05 - 10:58 am |

##

But first, this

2005-10-04T07:03:00.000-05:00

Just an FYI that I'm going to try dropping Haloscan for comments, and just use word verification to cut down on spam. Will try, anyway, since it makes commenting easier for everyone. Which means all your lovely remarks so far will be erased. I'm sorry!

But first, I pulled this one up from Bookish Wendy from a couple weeks ago. It was just too poignant to allow cyberspace to swallow:

"I'm half hoping my comment will be lost here, half hoping it won't. My brother is an addict and mentally ill. First suicide attempt four months ago. My mom found him. He's 27, will be living off of welfare, will likely try again. The nuances of family and addiction and illness are so hard to explain. You have captured it well. My brother is to a point where he can only help himself - and he's being forced to by circumstance and desire. The desire gets squashed and/or mutilated by the mental illness. I feel this every day and can't write about it publically. I'm so glad that someone else is able to!"

I think she explained it quite well. Thinking of you, Bookish Wendy.

##

Addendum: Looks like I inadvertantly lost the ability to receive comments at all. Aack. Will fix later, when I have time. Sorry for now!

How it ended, part 2

2005-10-02T11:18:00.000-05:00

We walk in through the garage door and I take off the oversized shoes. My husband stops me in the hall. "Do you know how you want to handle this?"

How do I want to handle this. I don't care. I'm too exhausted to care. Put on the strong mama face and be the adult, or be real and let him see how I feel. A counselor's voice comes back to me from last winter: He needs to know what he's put you through. Okay, I pick that one.

My eyes feel like slits in swollen puffballs. Through the slits I see him sitting on the couch, his computer on his lap. He speaks without looking up. "Hey."

I don't answer, just drag myself over and sit cross-legged on the couch next to him, facing him.

He looks up from his computer screen and his eyes widen. "Mom, it's okay."

I explode in tears again. "No, it's not okay! You lied to us, Logan! Lying is relapse behavior! It is NOT okay!"

"Mom, I didn't lie. I walked up there, like I said I would. I had every intention of watching the game. But I was very uncomfortable, since I don't really know anyone there anymore. I'm two years older than the seniors."

"I know, but—"

"So I called Redlin, and he said Jason was in town. I haven't seen Jason in a long time, and he's clean now. So they came and picked me up. we went into town and saw some friends. They smoked weed, but I didn't have any. I wasn't even tempted. And no one had any heroin around, either. It was okay, Mom. It was good to see my frineds again."

"But why didn't you call me and ask me if you could do that?" I'm wailing, and shaking with sobs now. Once the floodgates open, there's no stopping them.

"I'm sorry. I should have."

"And why didn't you answer the PHONE? We called and called and called, and you never picked UP! That is NOT OKAY! Of course we're going to think you're relapsing!"

"Mom, the phone was set to silent mode. It was on the floor of the car. I didn't feel it vibrate until we got out and went into Jason's house. I'm sorry," he says again. "I'm really, really, sorry. I didn't think you'd take it like this."

"I take it like this EVERY time, Logan. Every time. Do you hear me? EVERY time!"

He pauses, as if he hasn't considered this before. "Come here, Mom." He opens his arms and I grab him, the thickness of him, the unexpected strength of him, careful not to squeeze the shoulder he injured in his last relapse. He holds me as I continue to shake with sobs, there on the couch at midnight. Not a pacifying hold, but a tight, long, strong hold. After a minute I go to release him, but he keeps holding on, as if he's the strong one and me the relapsing one.

We finally pull apart, and he looks into my eyes as I wipe the tears from them. "Look, Mom. Listen. You asked me the other day about the steps. I'm going to show you what I'm working on, okay?"

I nod.

He reaches for the paperback book and notebook he has nearby. "This is the book of 12 steps. Last time I didn't do the steps, okay? This time I am. Let me show you."

His words are measured, as if he has to speak carefully so I follow him. He opens the book and reads me the steps. I know the steps. Believe me. But I don't interrupt. He goes through them, slowly, one at a time as if I've never heard of them. Then he begins to explain them, and his understanding of them.

"I've done the first four with my sponsor," he says. He goes through each of them, and shows me some of his notes in the notebook. He's trying. Thank god, he's trying. As he talks, longer and in more detail than I've heard in ages, I begin to feel some of the tension slowly drain out of me. It's so unusual, hearing him talk like this, from the heart. It feels good. It feels right. It feels healing.

He gets to the step that says: Humbly asked God to remove all our defects of character.

He pauses. "I haven't done this one yet. I'm not sure what it means." He brings the book a little more closely to his face, peers at it. "I think it means..." He scrunches his mouth. "I don't know. It's another God-step."

He moves on to the next step, and I find my husband's eyes. I can't help but smile a little. Another God-step. He smiles back, a tiny wink accompanying it.

I inhale deeply. My son is okay. He survived the night after all.

And so did we.

##

How it ended, part 1

2005-10-01T15:39:00.000-05:00

He survived it. He came home unscathed, maybe even stronger.

But first, oh. The "but first" part was gawd-awful:

My husband sits at the kitchen table right after the phone call, drumming his fingers. "He's with Redlin. I wish I had Redlin's number. I almost asked him for it today when I saw him at work."

I pause in my frantic pacing. "I want to wring that kid's neck. He knows what's at stake here. He knows all Logan's been through. What kind of 'friend' picks a kid up one day out of rehab and smokes weed in front of him?" I have a moment of sheer hatred for this weasel-like kid who's dogged our paths for years. Christ, now he even has a job at the same place my husband does. What are the odds.

My husband lifts chin out of hands. "If I had Redlin's number, I'd call and tell him if anything happens to Logan tonight, he's out a job."

My pacing stops. "What? You would do that? You could do that?"

"Yeah. I could get him fired. Easy."

"Call him."

Takes him fifteen minutes to track down the number, fifteen minutes in which I think there's maybe a prayer Logan gets through this tonight.

I step into the other room while he's on the phone, but I can still hear him.

"Redlin! Hey, how are things? How's Logan?...Good, he's okay so far?...Good. You'll bring him home soon?...Good....Yeah, sure, see you at work tomorrow...Have a good night...Stay safe...Sure, we'll play a hand of cards tomorrow. You draw first. See you soon!"

He comes out the door and my blood is boiling. I try not to say anything. I try, oh, I try.

"What?" he says. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

My lips are taut as a piece of steel and my nostrils wide as caves. "That. That."

"What?!" His voice is loud.

"That. Was very far away from 'You'll lose your job if anything happens to him.'" I'm panting.

"God, Frankie! I'm doing the best I can!" He's yelling. He never yells. We go into separate rooms.

Somehow the next hour passes. And a half. I'm curled on the couch staring at a mute TV, wondering how to handle the fact that he's now late. "Be home in an hour," my husband had said to him, and he'd promised he would be. Now it's an hour and 15 minutes later.

"Well." Husband stands up. "Time to place a follow-up call."

"He's late." I croak. "You told him to be home in a hour and he's not home."

"Let me call him." He punches numbers. "Logan! Hey, good job answering the phone. About time to head back this way."

"He's late! Tell him he's late!" I have turned into the shrew from hell.

"So you'll start heading home soon?"

"You told him to be here by now! Tell him he's late!"

"Good, so we'll see you in an hour or so? Okay, bye."

An hour or so? He's giving Logan MORE TIME with these kids? More time to screw up? More time for me to wait in agony? I begin to cry again, and instead of comforting me, he's mad at me. Arms crossed, I go into the garage to cry so the youngest doesn't hear. My husband follows, and I turn to him, furious. "WHY DO YOU DO THAT? WHY DON'T YOU SAY WHAT YOU MEAN? WHY DO YOU PRETEND EVERYTHING'S OK WHEN IT ISN'T?!!!"

He turns on his heel. "Fine. You're welcome to call him yourself next time." The garage door slams behind him, and I begin to sob.

After a while of hunched-over sobbing, I'm aware he's behind me again in the dark. I turn to him and spit out, "Why are you acting so mad at me?"

Again he yells. "I'm doing the best I can! What do you want from me?!"

I should preface this by saying we never fight. Never. Ever. We adore each other. Not tonight.

My spine fails me and I double over, stamping my bare feet on the driveway. Suddenly they are moving, my feet, taking me away from this house, these troubles. I stamp up the hill, around the corner, through the street light. It's 11:30 at night in a middle-class neighborhood. Everyone else is asleep. I keep walking, my tears turning to bitter anger. I do not want this job. I do not want these people. I want to live alone. I want to keep walking. I'll be like Forest Gump, and just keep going. My bare feet stamp against the rough road and I head for the concrete gutter. I trace blocks and blocks and blocks of gutter in the dark, knowing it's too cold to be out without a coat, knowing I'm foolish to be barefoot. Who the hell cares?

Eventually I head toward home. I just won't speak to my husband for a week. How's that. If he wants to attack me when I'm beyond myself with worry, fine. Who needs him. Who—

Who is that?

A man's figure steps out of a backyard, striding toward me. I freeze.

"Hey." It's my husband, fleece coat zipped against the chill. He reaches my side and I turn away. He turns with me.

We walk in silence for a minute. "You're in bare feet, Frankie."

"Yeah." It's all I can think to say.

He takes off his shoes. "Put these on."

"No, I'm fine."

"Frankie, the last thing I need is for you to get sick. Put these on. I have socks, I'll be okay."

I slip into his way-too-big-for-me shoes. He puts his arms around me, there in the dark street. I sink into them. He rubs my back. I mutter into his jacket, "It's not fair for you to be mad at me when I'm so worried."

He squeezes tight. "I know. I'm sorry. But it's not fair for you to criticize me when I'm trying to help, either."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Come on, let's go home."

We head back: him silently, sockfooted on the rough pavement, me shuffling the oversized shoes along.

We see a car ahead: Redlin's.

"See," he says. "We got him home. That's all we were trying to do, just get him home safely. We'll deal with the other stuff later."

I nod in the dark, wondering what we'll face when we get home.

##

A night of anguish

2005-09-30T23:13:00.000-05:00

Oh jeezus fucking christ. I said I wouldn’t use that swear, but there’s nothing else that conveys the anguish of the night.

I can’t even describe it. It’s too much work. Sorry, what follows won’t be "well-written." It’s just too hard right now.

First the funeral today. He looked so good. We bought him his first suit last night. I use the term "we" loosely. His dad paid for it, but said he’d "rather" I pick it out with the boy. Can’t be bothered, eh? Whatever.

Back to the funeral. Tough, but got through it. Even went to the "after" party and hung with the ex in-laws. They’re nice; I enjoyed them. Avoided the actual ex, but only because his girlfriend and I have a mutual dislike going, and she couldn’t leave his elbow. Her own legs don’t work, I think. And any woman who says my son isn’t welcome in his own father’s home is, well, I can’t even say what I really feel about her.

So the kid hates being out there, of course. Duh. Which means he stays with me. Which means guess who gets to be the stay-clean-police?

I knew it would happen, and sure enough, supper’s no sooner over and we in our after-funeral clothes than he wants to go see a friend or two.

Uh, no.

Follow a freaking full hour of "discussion." At least it wasn’t arguing. At least it wasn’t swearing or stomping or punching walls. Hey, whaddya know: growth.

But it was torture. He begged and cajoled and argued and on and on. And I didn’t say "no," rather I discussed, reasoned, explained.

God.

His older brother sat right there, didn’t say anything until I asked him what he thought.

"Well, I hear what you’re saying, Mom, and yes, he did say all these same things last time when he was here and he still relapsed. But he does have to do this on his own."

Triumph in the kiddo’s eyes: Exactly!

So the onus was on me: whatcha going to do?

I still said I didn’t want him to go.

Then, an hour later, he came up with the alternate plan of walking up to the small-town high school football game. It seemed like a safe alternative—anything was better than having him meet friends.

I worried and fretted and invited him to a movie, a game of cards, a drive in the country, ANYthing. Nope, he just thought he’d walk to the game.

Heart heavy, I gave him my cell phone and let him go. The game would only be an hour. Just an hour left, and I’d come pick him up.

I tried to watch TV. Laid on the couch and drifted to sleep. Jerked awake, heart pounding: What?! What just happened!?! Nothing, said my husband, it’s okay.

Somehow I got through the remaining minutes until the game was over. Drove up to pick up the younger son, and knew, knew, knew the middle one wouldn’t be there. He wasn’t.

Started calling him. Called and called and called. No answer.

Came home, spine limp as a wilted stalk of celery. Just no ability to stand up straight. None. Silence in the household as we all looked at each other: he’s somewhere getting high. We failed him. On our watch, we failed him. More specifically, on MY watch.

Follow a half an hour of pure anguish. I go outside and rub Saint Francis’s concrete head. "You can’t save a kid’s life who doesn’t want to be saved." I have a black, black moment of the soul wherein I know this child will not live: if he is this driven to get high on the first chance he has, with so much at stake and all we’ve done to help him, then it’s bigger than he is. It is simply too big to conquer. I sit on the front stoop in the dark and begin to get angry, furious. The ex brought him home. Yet I must watch him. I must be the bad guy. I do not want that job. I despise that job. I know what the director of the rehab place will say, and I pre-hate him for it. He will say, "The kid begged and begged and what did the mom do? She said, oh, I trust you, go ahead." He’ll say it while shaking his head at the stupidity and permissiveness of the mother. Yeah, well, Mr Program Director, I do not have 30 years of program training behind me. I am just a mother who wants to see her kid live, a mother who doesn’t want to go to another funeral any time soon. A mother who fears she will be.

My husband joined me on the porch and THANK GOD, THANK GOD, fates intervened just as I was opening my mouth to say, "I don’t mean this, honey, really, but WHERE THE FUCK WERE YOU WHEN I HAD TO TELL HIM NO?" At that second, from inside the house, the phone rang. We both ran to answer it, tripping over ourselves.

It was him.

And that was when I lost it. I think he’s actually okay. He sounded okay. I begged him to come home. I don’t care if it was the wrong thing to do. I begged and I bawled and I yelled at him and finally I was crying too hard and had to give the phone to my husband.

He says he’s okay, but he is with friends. They’re smoking weed. He says he’s not tempted at all, and if he does get tempted he’s going to call his sponsor in Cali.

"Mom," he says. "Mom, stop crying. I love you and I’m not going to do anything to fuck up. I don’t want to go back to jail. Listen, if I don’t learn to be around this stuff and not use, I’m never going to get better."

Yes, I know. But not tonight. Not one day out of rehab, not the day you buried your grandma. Give yourself time, honey. Give yourself strength. You can’t do it all in one night.

He’s supposed to be home in 15 minutes. I’m only writing to keep from crying my eyes out. There’s not even a reason any more. I’m just wrung out, and crying just happens. It just happens.

##

Three days of loving family harmony (ahem)

2005-09-28T22:17:00.000-05:00

Good god. Conflict, conflict, conflict. And he's only been home a couple hours. Yeah, this is why I've been so nervous the past few days: I knew this was coming.

And the ex is no help, he just lost his mother and is in some ethereal grief mode. I can't very well say, "Hey, YOU'RE the genius who brought him home from rehab, YOU figure out how to deal with his hostility." Cause the boy doesn't want to be "watched," see. Says it's bullshit. Yeah? Well, newsflash, kiddo: your case manager said we're supposed to have someone with you at all times while you're here. Said, and I quote, "It doesn't matter if he doesn't like it. Those are the conditions. Period."

Mmm-hmm. Well. The case manager can say it and get a reluctant nod in response. The mother tries saying it and gets "THIS IS FREAKING BULLSHIT!"

Deep breath: It's only for three days, Frankie. It's only for three days.

##

Valid reason to leave rehab: pallbearing.

2005-09-27T12:57:00.000-05:00

I'm to pick my middle son up at the airport tomorrow night, then drive to JC Penney's to buy him funeral-appropriate clothes. There is something very odd about this. I'm not sure I'm prepared to watch Logan be a pallbearer at a funeral when I have this massive fear that the next funeral I attend will be his.

How am I supposed to get through this one? I get told all the time how "strong" I am. Not, folks. Not strong at all. Small consolation: I'll be at a funeral, where tears making their way down the faces of attendees and even ex daughter-in-laws are—no questions asked—completely and utterly acceptable.

Permission to cry: granted.

Permission to wonder if your kid is next to go: denied, denied, denied.

##

Three/Zip

2005-09-26T19:09:00.000-05:00

The little guy is playing an awesome game of soccer tonight. Listen to me: little guy. Hah. He's in high school, for chrissake.

The game is excellent, a shutout on a team who normally dominates us. The bleachers are rowdy -- parents clutching each other's arms and gasping and cheering and stomping up a huge ruckus. I'm sitting by some of my favorite parents and we're having a good old time...

...and yet.

I keep finding myself in gaps of silence, moments between cheers when all I can think of is son number two, headed home for the funeral. It's like he walks into a minefield whenever he comes home, and I really despise that sense of impending doom. But I'm at a soccer game, you know?

"Hustle, hustle, hustle, SHOOOOOT!"

Gap of silence: Don't mind me, pals, I'm just feeling doomsday hanging overhead.

"Go to, defense, GO TO!"

Nah, don't wanna discuss it.

"Nice cross, there's a header, OOOOHHH, RIGHT IN THE NET, BE-A-UUUU-TIFUL!"

I can't explain it, just let me be this way, please.

It's good to have friends who let you do this, friends who give you the space to have gaps.

##

Ex's mother

2005-09-26T08:11:00.000-05:00

She died yesterday. That means another of that great and graceful generation slipped away from the world and into oblivion -- just another old lady dying, another obituary in the paper, another buck for the funeral home. Another wonderful soul, a life well-lived, lost.

It also means Logan will be coming home for his grandmother's funeral.

Focus on the living. This will be an interesting week.

##

Everything you can

2005-09-24T10:18:00.000-05:00

Joe, my oldest, stiffens as I link arms with him. It's dark, and the cement stairs embedded into the hill are hard to see.

"I remember when your grandpa poured these stairs. Grandma was so happy."

"Yeah?" He's always cordial, this son.

"Yeah. Even then grandma complained about how hard they are to see at night."

"I suppose."

"When was the last time you saw her?"

"About two weeks ago. She could still talk then."

He opens the door for me. I haven't been in this house for maybe 10 years. The brown log walls, the mustard shag carpet leap out at me: remember when you lived here with them? Joe was a baby, Logan was born here. As if I could forget.

My ex meets us in the kitchen. "Thanks a lot for coming. She's barely with us. Come on in."

He leads us into the bedroom, dark save one small lamp on a low table. The old double bed is gone, replaced now with a hospital bed. Soft piano music wafts from a cassette player in the corner.

My ex-sister-in-law is standing, back to me, bent over the bed. She turns when she sees me. I open my arms, and she collapses in sobs. I hold her for a few minutes while she shakes in grief. He daughter is there, also in tears.

My ex rubs his eyes. "Talk to her, Frankie. She can't respond, but she can hear you. She'll know who you are. Tell her about the ring."

I step up to the bed and lean over the frail creature, a shadow of the woman who once held such dominance in this family. Her mouth is open, her eyes attached to mine. I lean close, whispering. I tell her I came to say goodbye, to thank her for always being so kind to me. Although I don't say it, I think of how she wanted me to forgive her son, to take him back despite what he'd done all those years. Think of how Jesus forgave people, she'd said, blushing, in her one and only plea to me to stay.

But I'm not Jesus. I'm just human.

"Logan isn't here," I whisper to her now, "but I know he'd want to be. He loves you." I leave out that he'll be coming back for her funeral. I just can't say it: you're dying.

I talk to her for a minute and then I don't know what else to say--it's strange, saying things without a response at all--so I pull back and look into her eyes for the space of a piano song or two, hoping she'll know that I care. It wasn't her fault her son was an ass.

Soon it's Joe's turn, and I watch as he leans close, also whispering and stroking her forehead. Her eyes stay locked on his. I wonder what this son will do when it's me lying there. Because he would be the one. It would be Joe who'd be there with me, day in, day out.

I look at my ex and acknowledge that he's here with his sister, tending to his mother on her deathbed. Another sibling lives two minutes away and isn't. I have to give my ex credit. He's here.

I stand in the room and feel both awkward and right in place. That's the thing about families. There are ups, downs, clashes, and tears. There are worries, hopes, joys, fears, and pleas for forgiveness. But a family is a family is a family. And I'm still part of this one in some weird and, at the moment, oddly sweet way.

Her eyes flutter shut. I find my ex's gaze. I don't want my words to be the last she hears. "I think you should tell her about the ring."

He nods and steps up to the bed, hunching over her. "Mom, remember the ring you gave me for Frankie when we got engaged? The one with all the garnets in it, I think your grandma gave it to you? Frankie wants you to know she still has it, and she'll give it to one of the boys some day. She wants you to know your ring will stay in the family."

The covers move slightly, as if she's trying to reach for him.

Is she angry? You take that ring back from that bitch right now. Or pleased? Tell her I'm touched. She can't let us know, and I feel bad. Why didn't I come out two weeks ago when she could still talk, and tell her this?

Oh yeah, I was in California, trying to help Logan save his own life.

Her eyes find mine, and somehow I know she understands what it's like to do everything you can for your son, even to the point of embarrassment.

Her arm feels like a skin-covered stick as I lay my hand on it one last time: goodbye. Goodbye, and thank you.

##

How many hits?

2005-09-23T14:04:00.000-05:00

Not by hitmen. By blogsurfers. Daily.

C'mon, join the nano-survey. It's good for your health. Honest. Click comments under this post and jot down:

1) what you're averaging daily on your blog
2) the nature of your blog
3) how long you've had it up

Be anonymous if you like. Come back tomorrow and see what everyone else says.

I'm super-curious what's average -- are you?

##

Open your mouth and say "ah"

2005-09-21T10:56:00.000-05:00

Me at the doctor’s office yesterday for the annual physical:

“So, Frankie, you don’t smoke.”

“Nope.”

“Or drink.”

“Well, occasionally.”

“And your cholesterol is okay. And blood pressure down, that’s good.” She looks up. “Do you have any other questions? Like say, er, questions about your, ahem, mental health?”

I blink. Aw, why not? “Yes, doc,” I say, inhaling, “I do.”

She smiles, almost imperceptibly: I knew it. Could tell by the way she’s sitting there on the exam table, all hunched over like that.

“I’ve been under a considerable amount of stress this year, mostly because my son is—well, he’s—okay, he’s a heroin addict.” Not many people in our town know. It’s a small town.

She blinks back. “Oh my.”

“Yeah, that and my small business is always struggling for money, so I’ve been feeling kindof panicky at times lately. Should I be worried?”

And then we talk, a long talk. It’s not the usual hurry-up-I-have-ten-other-patients-waiting kind of visit. She tells me about a doctor she knows, a high-profile guy in the city who makes over a million a year. His daughter died last winter from a heroin overdose. She asks if I remember that. I shake my head no: I was too absorbed in my own crisis to notice another’s.

She tells me I have a right to be worried sick, and that I shouldn’t worry about being worried sick. Ahhhh, that feels good to hear. You mean I’m not psychotic because I wake up at night, heart pounding? Because I sometimes cry for no reason? Like right here, right now, in her office, for chrissake?

She’s gentle with me. She has reason to understand. Her own son, at 14, died last year from a brain tumor. She looks me deep in the eyes and tells me I have to do everything I can to help my kid now, in case I can help. She says a 20-year-old addict is really more like a teenager in mentality, and still needs parental help. She says that if she could have done anything to help her son recover, she would have.

We sit there and look at each other, the physical exam forgotten for the moment, and feel each other’s pain.

And yet in the next instant her eyes are bright, hopeful. She smiles a lot. I ask how she’s doing, and she says, “Oh, we’re fine.”

I walk out of her office oddly calmed. We’re fine. We’re really fine.

##

Lucky

2005-09-18T17:44:00.000-05:00

Jagged lightning stripes lie carved in the desert floor 25,000 feet below. My airplane seatmate leans over: is that the Grand Canyon? No, I assure her, the Grand Canyon is much, much bigger. Ohhh, she nods, but points out that it still looks way cool underneath us. Yep, I agree, way cool.

I sit for awhile with my nose glued to the window, watching tiddlywinks of irrigation pass slowly below. These plane rides are weird for me. I have to leave my beloved kid, the kid who needs so much. I’m headed home to my other kids: one almost completely independent, the other still young, still needy. And yet he needs so much less than this one does.

I was over at Anne’s blog this morning, and I was grateful to read the perspective of “the other kid.” The one who doesn’t need so much. Go read it, it’s well worth the trip. When all this first started for us almost a year ago, a counselor admonished me to remember that I have three kids, not just one. Months later, that same counselor told me to consider that this one kid may require triple the parenting of the other two.

Okay, so which is it?

I don’t know. I can only go by my gut, which delights in the oldest and youngest kids and aches, oh but it aches, for the middle one.

Last night after our goodbye dinner, he was antsy to get to an AA meeting.

“Stop right here, Mom,” he says as we’re driving down the beach strip. “I’ve gotta save a seat at the meeting.”

I slide eyes right at him: he cares where he sits? This is the same boy who refused to go to meetings just a month ago?

“On Saturday nights it’s packed in there, standing room only.” As I pause in the side street he leaps from the car, taking those huge twenty-year-old kind of bounds across the sidewalk. The car is empty for a moment, vacuum-like, then he’s back, energy in his wake.

We drive to the house to drop off his things: the alarm clock and towels we bought today, the only things he has here besides a few clothes. He takes the same kind of enthusiastic bounds into the house. I follow, slowly, to drop off a check. The night duty guy looks at me. “You taking him to an AA meeting? You bringing him back?” Before I can answer, he starts talking about Logan’s last relapse. “He’s young. He was walking back from AA and”—he throws his hands up—“these girls asked him to come inside and party.” He says girls like he would say pigs. “It’s hard on these guys when they’re so young, you know?”

Yeah, I know.

Logan reappears, freshly cologned. “Let’s go!”

I drive him to AA. How do you say goodbye on the side of the road in front of AA? How do you impart everything you want to impart? “Logan…” It’s hopeless; there’s too much to say. I make him wait while I climb out of the car to hug him. He holds me tight for a long moment. “Thanks, Mom.”

And then he’s gone. I watch long enough to see him disappear into the seated crowd, the way I used to watch the kids walk into school.

I choke back those damn tears and try not to wonder if I’ll see him alive again. Lucky, I tell myself sternly. You’re lucky you got to come out here this week. Lucky he got a second chance. Lucky he’s willing to try so hard. Lucky to have had the privilege to be his mom for twenty years.

The tiddlywinks below have given way to fine lines scratching across mountain ranges, and I think how lucky I am to have two more great kids to go home to. Just plain lucky.

##

Crabby

2005-09-17T23:05:00.000-05:00

Bittersweet day, this final one with the kiddo. Frighteningly agenda-less, we stagger around artsy stores, awkward in each other's footsteps, unused to hanging out like this. "Do you want to go in here?" "I don't care." But I learn he likes art galleries -- oil paintings, to be exact. I didn't know.

Our aimlessness leads us eventually to the beach, where we find our land legs again. The beach: yes, we spent many many hours at the beach together during his childhood, so this we know how to do. He shows me the tide pools, the crabs, the anenomes. We watch the little mini-pools of ocean water caught in the rocks, populated with hermit crabs of every size and shape. Small ones, smaller ones, and ones so tiny you can hardly see them except for these miniscule hair-like legs scrambling from under tiny and sometimes spotted shells. "Pick one up," I tell him. He does. "Now promise it you won't put it into a bathtub." He grins: when he was around five or so he collected about 20 hermit crabs on one of his first forays to the beach, fascinated with the little things. That evening I ran his bath water and stepped out while he climbed into the tub. When I poked my head back in a minute later, there he sat in the bathtub, 20 dead hermit crabs floating around him. He didn't know the hot water would kill them, thought he was doing them a favor by putting them back in water.

He puts the crab down and scrambles over rocks -- not grinning and carefree like he used to, more heavy and wooden now. But still. It's nice to see him silhouetted against the ocean, nice to talk to him with the sound of waves pounding in stereo. We don't talk much, actually, and I feel bad about it at first. But what can I say? "Stay clean" gets old after a while, and we already discussed Hurricane Katrina ad nauseum. So I struggle to accept the silence as we walk. It's okay, I finally decide: part of supporting him is just being with him, just being "there."

We finally leave the beach and have supper out with one of his counselors. It's nice, he grins a lot, comes out of his shell. "Don't stay in your head, man," the counselor tells him, thumping his forehead, "it's dangerous in there." Logan nods and grins a sweet, crooked grin of acknowledgement. I sit across the table, look at the two of them, and wish I could stay.

I hate leaving him. Sure, we have a great post-rehab structure in place: a solid sober-living home, a couple counselors, and scheduled outpatient work with the rehab place. His bases are covered, and I feel really good about what we accomplished in such a short time this week. But still.

Going home is hard to do. It's like leaving your preemie in the hospital. Tough, tough. But hey, it has to be done, so I best get my rear in gear and start packing.

You know? Can I just say it one more time? Going home is hard to do.

##

Sober living by the sea

2005-09-16T22:33:00.000-05:00

And at the end of a long, exhausting search, we think we found one tonight. His eyes found mine as the man was talking, and I saw in them quiet assurance: this is the place. I agreed.

It's almost on the beach. It's bright, light, airy, clean. Good mix of ages. Structure as needed, flexibility for those who earn it. Drug testing as needed. Records kept for the court: see, he's tested clean this many times. Visitors and friends allowed (sober only). Barbeques on Sundays. Zero tolerance for insobriety: you're on the street within ten minutes if you test dirty. You test clean, man, you're "in." You are so in.

The house manager is big, bald, rugged-faced--and gentle. Firm, kind, no bs. I kept my mouth shut, because it's not my decision, but five minutes into the visit and I wanted to blurt "you're hired."

We have one more place to see tomorrow, a place Logan heard about. But it'll have a tough time competing.

A house by the sea: jeez, I'm jealous. Not really. What I am is grateful. Truly, deeply grateful for good people who dedicate themselves to helping addicts. Logan told me today he's gotten a sponsor finally: a 30-some-year-old guy who's helped about 15 kids so far. This guy doesn't get paid or get any recognition from anyone. He just wants to help.

Makes a person grateful. Like when you buy sushi at the local grocer and when you walk out, this guy is standing outside dressed in a white uniform and collecting money for the homeless, and there's no way you could say no. Seeing the undersides of society up close as you have opens up a whole new perspective. You just have this tremendous compassion inside. It's kind of weird: you cry easily and often. And you hate the idea of going home and back to your regular life. You want to stay, walk the salty beaches, be near your kid, hear about his day, his session with Jim, his plans for college, his thoughts on staying sober. You want to be part of it, his recovery, his life. You just love him, and you don't want to leave him.

But you know you must, and so you cherish every second with him, there by the sea in the salty air.

##

Red tide

2005-09-15T22:09:00.000-05:00

The surf is particularly rough today, the crests of the waves muddy brown from all the kicked-up sand churning underneath.

“Oh, that was a huge one!” A lady stares at the waves, dumbfounded by their strength, as I pass her on the pier. Tourists linger, pointing, smiling. Look: seagulls! Look: waves!

There’s something almost ethereal about piers, these little connections between earth and sea—tiny juxtapositions of upright and vertical creatures, of dry and wet. Old fishermen and fisherwomen lean over the wooden railings, watching their lines below, waiting for some unseen creature to take the bait. One woman wears long yellow sleeves, pink rubber gloves, and a hat that’s so enormous she appears to have no face at all. How conveniently she can hide under there—from the sun and from humanity—a human in a turtle shell. Her heads turns almost imperceptibly as I pass, her eyes following my path.

The air smells of fish—not unpleasantly, it’s just there. It’s radiant throughout the area, no matter how many corners I turn. I stride past stores with names like Boardwalk Burgers, or Back to the Beach Cafe, or even Shore Brakes. I’m walking, trying to fit in some exercise while I wait.

Because that’s what I’m doing. Waiting. Waiting for the probation officer to call back. Waiting for the Hope House to call back. Waiting for an appointment with the Recovery Coach. Waiting for Logan to get out of afternoon group. Waiting for sentencing. Waiting for recovery.

Just waiting, the waves muddy brown with kicked-up sand.

##

Rope, please

2005-09-13T12:19:00.000-05:00

I’m sitting here cross-legged on the floor of the airport, snuggled up against the back wall of the President’s Club. That’s the outside wall of the Prez Club, of course. I’m trying to encroach on their wireless internet by smooshing myself as close as possible to the connection blinking away on the other side, and so far it’s working. Hah. Score one for the beauty of improv.

I’m waiting for my flight, see—the flight that will take me cross country to see my boy for a couple days. On the agenda: Find a(n affordable) sober-living house for him where he can…well, where he can stay sober. Where they’ll check up on him. Support him. Guide him. Help him. Watch him.

Pssh. Might as well say, “On the agenda: Lasso the moon.”

Sure. We’ll hop right on that one. And when would you like delivery, Ma’am?

Hooo boy. In just three days, I’m supposed to locate, check out, and secure a place for Mr. Promise-not-to-relapse-oops-sorry-mom. And not just any place, either. A place that will play a huge role in his recovery.

Okay, so then there’s the whole theory that it’s not my job to find him a place, it’s his job. This is his problem, his recovery. So let him go through the agony and trouble of getting his own program lined up. That way, he’s more invested in it, so he’ll take it more seriously.

You know, that’s a nice little theory. Really, it is. I love it! That way I could stay home with my younger kiddo, go to his soccer game on Friday, ride our horse, grill out with hubby, have coffee on Saturday with my friends.

And ache inside.

So maybe the only reason I’m flying 2000 some miles is to mollify myself. To feel like I’m doing something, anything to help. Cause I gotta take care of myself, too, you know. I have to know where he is, that he’s safe, that he has a place I feel good about. I have to know I’ve done all I can to help set up his chances for success. And then it’s up to him.

The client I write for wanted me to take articles with me this week, work on them while I’m gone. Nope. Sorry, no can do. Got a more important job to do this week. Got to go throw a rope around that big ol' moon up there.

##

Hazardous either way

2005-09-10T20:18:00.000-05:00

The back of my neck is killing me, folks. I've been hunched over the damn computer all day, see. Yeah, yeah, I know, cry me a river, right?

No, see, it's Saturday. And everyone else I know is out rah-rahing the last shorts-wearing days of summer, while I am sitting in my office editing safety-training articles for the transportation industry. Grr.

But. And here's the big but (hate saying that). I'm doing it because on Tuesday I'm winging my way west (what's with me and alliteration tonight?) to go see the boy. Yessirree, Bob.

And you know, it's weird. I'm equal parts elation—my kid!—and dread—my kid. Ah, forget it. It's hard to explain.

Anyway, the point is to find a sober-living house for him, since his 30 days in rehab are almost over. I know, I know: he just got there. Just yesterday you were listening to me agonize about where to send him, and now he's approaching graduation day. Jeezus Christ. Shouldn't this be like a 30-month program, instead of 30 measley little goodmornings-and-goodnights? I'm not sure I ever realized before just how short a month is.

You know, hope springs eternal when your kid is in rehab. It's when they get out you start that agony thing.

I think I should go back to editing safety articles now. I'd rather think about how truckers should react in hazardous materials-related accidents than how my kid will survive the hazards of driving away from rehab.

Isn't there a training article somewhere for this?

##

Who is this, anyway?

2005-09-09T21:58:00.000-05:00

Jeez. he sounded so good when he called that I wasn't sure it was even him.

"Hi!"

(pause) "Logan?"

"Yeah, hi, Mom! I haven't called in a few days, so I thought I'd check in. How's everyone?"

(stunned silence...he's asking how someone else is?) "Fine, fine. Hey, listen, I was REALLY mad at you the other day when you relapsed."

(sheepishly) "Yeah, I know."

"What happened? I mean, you were so gung ho to make rehab work this time."

"Yeah, well, (deep intake of breath) I talked to my counselor and I think I thrive on chaos. Kind of like, I tried to sabotage my own recovery. That's pretty common addict behavior, actually. Mom? Mom, are you still there?"

"Um, yeah, Logan. Yeah. Gee." When did he learn to speak in whole sentences? What kind of chipper-mood medication do they have him on? It's been months since I've heard him speak so clearly, so confidently. It's been since...well, since last winter when he was in rehab the first time. That's how long it's been since I heard that positive timbre to his voice. Since the last time he was in rehab.

And suddenly, suddenly, I'm a believer again.

##

And how come there's not?

2005-09-05T20:29:00.000-05:00

Till Friday, folks.

I'm out of town until then on a speaking engagement. "How to market your small business in three easy steps," blah blah blah.

Too bad I'm not listening, instead of speaking, and too bad it's not "How to free your kid from heroin in three easy steps."

Now that would be a speech worth hearing.

##

Weakness, or disease?

2005-09-04T07:34:00.000-05:00

Yesterday's comments contained an interesting debate, excerpted below:

Gotta keep telling yourself that it's a disease, hon. Not that it's not his responsibility, not that he doesn't own what he does, only that it's not a matter of rational thought. It's not as if he can make rational choices right now... You can't be cured of this disease, you can only control it.

To which another commenter replied:

It's a disease my backside. It's a weakness. It's an inability to take responsibility for your own desires and actions.

This is nobody fault but your son's and the defeat of his drinking problem is going to lie solely on his shoulders...AA brainwashes its members to believe it's a disease. To believe that it's not their fault. Yes, yes it is their fault. AA will erode your son's thought process to the point that any and every vital life decision will have to be run past his "sponsor" to be sure that it won't "jeopardize his sobriety."

Nobody can help him but him. Period.

Which was countered with:

Anger at the abuser won't help, even though it may feel good at the time. It IS in fact, a disease, a insidious, horrible, mean lil disease. Anger is a useless emotion. Anger at your loved ones is, in my opinion, even more useless. Do I have anger? Yes indeedy. Yet my anger is at the disease, at the bottle, at the drug and at the system that makes it OK.

Those comments swarmed around inside my thick little head last night. Disease? Weakness? What? What? I don't know the answer: heck, even medical science doesn't agree on causes and treatment methods. But I did wake up this morning with some sort of clarity that arose from a weird dream I had. Okay, hear me out. It's interesting, promise.

Before I tell you the dream, though, let me tell you this. Once upon a time I taught preschool, and we used some Montessori priciples. Montessori allows the kid to discover things on his/her own. The teacher's job is to set up the environment so the kid learns from it, and then just be there to guide the kid through the process. It's cool stuff.

So in this dream, I was teaching a little girl who was deaf to recognize the numeral 6 through a game similar to bowling. She had six silver balls in a basket. If she selected all six at once and rolled them down a lane, pins would fall, revealing a prize she was eager to have. If she rolled any other number, the pins wouldn't fall.

The girl was deaf, so there was no "explaining" anything. I showed her how to do it one time, and then, big smile, she tried. Except she rolled the wrong quantity. When the pins didn't fall, she cried. I picked her up, hugged her, and stroked the back of her head. Smiling, I set her back down at the starting line, pointed at the numeral 6, and placed all six balls in front of her again. And again. And again, until she got it.

Okay, so here's the tie.
I never got mad at the little girl.
I understood that she would fail.
I allowed her to learn on her own.
My role was to support her as she went through the process.
My patience through her failure was a given.

Well, I dunno, maybe there's no tie. After all, he's not 3, he's 20. And he's not deaf, he's a junkie.

Then again, maybe there is.

Midnight in the vacuum of good and evil

2005-09-02T23:11:00.000-05:00

Hey. You out there following my story. Yeah, all five of you (I love you all). It's midnight and I just now put the vacuum away. Oh, but you don't know this about me: I only clean when I'm really, really, REALLY upset.

**

My assitant beeps me today. "Frankie, can you take a phone call? Someone named Elizabeth. Sounds personal."

Personal? Okay. I'll take it.

"Hello, Mrs. Bryson?"

That's the old married name, but whatever. "What can I do for you?"

"This is Elizabeth from Mercy Hospital in California."

Christ. "Yes?"

"We have your son Logan here, he fell and hurt his shoulder last night, nothing serious, but could I get your insurance information?"

I give it to her, speaking in staccato and smiling through my teeth because a new trainee is sitting across the desk waiting for me to finish critiquing her article about fucking safety training. Blink. Blink. I hang up, explaining to the trainee that my son is apparently in the ER. Smile reassuringly when her eyes grow huge. "No, no, it's okay. They said it's nothing serious."

Mmm hmm.

Nothing is "nothing serious" in this game. But you tell yourself that. You smile and say, "No, no, nothing serious, ho hum and tweedle dee. Time for dinner, everyone!" You want so badly to believe it.

Home, four hours later, and I get the first call from the rehab house. He's relapsed, they tell me.

After my string of obscenities, they rush to say it's only booze, only booze. He got drunk, fell off a bike. He's in detox now. Spent the day in the ER, yeah, separated shoulder they guess, so sorry about it.

And HOW, I demand in hot fury, how does it happen that he had OPPORTUNITY to get drunk? How is it that I begged and fought and pleaded to get him into rehab, the GOOD kind of rehab, the EXPENSIVE kind, and yet while in rehab HE IS UNSUPERVISED long enough to get drunk? Huh? Can they answer me that?

Because suddenly I'm furious, see. Suddenly I'm so PO'd that I could wring someone's fucking neck. Maybe the rehab director's. Maybe my son's.

Jeezus. Like four freaking days in rehab, and years of prison hanging over his head if he screws up this chance, and HE GETS DRUNK? Drunk is one step away from heroin, my love. One tiny step.

And get this, pals: it happened when he was walking three blocks back to rehab from an AfuckingA meeting.

So there you go.

And do I think my kid will survive this? My heart is tripping up flights of endless stairs as I admit...I admit...no. I do not.

Hear the agony when I say I need to go clean some more.

##

Excerpt: Intervention, part 2

2005-09-01T06:56:00.000-05:00

Alex is still sitting there. I turn to him. "Hey, Alex, do you mind giving us some time alone?"

How rude of me, asking him to leave his own house, but he just stands up obligingly. "Sure, Mrs. Bryson, no problem. I was just leaving anyway. Merry Christmas to you!"

Logan looks confused, his eyes wandering from Joe to Caitlyn to me. He puts his bowl of cereal down and looks at me, biting his lip.

I have been imagining this moment all night. What he’ll do, how he’ll react. He’ll jump up in a rage: what? What? How could you accuse me of this? What are you talking about? He’ll fly from the room, maybe he’ll break something. Maybe we’ll call the cops.

Joe and Caitlyn look expectantly at me. I’m the mom, of course I’ll handle this.

I suck in a roomful of air and squeak, "Logan, I, I…I know about the heroin." That voice speaking is not mine. It’s jagged and bumpy and helium-thin. It continues: "Joe came and told me last night, and I’ve talked to Caitlyn and to Dad and we all want you to stop, we all love you very much and we want to take you to detox to help you get well." My heart will burst out of my chest any second now, it’s banging and bumping so loudly.

Breathe, Frankie, that’s right, breathe while you wait for his reaction.

Caitlyn and Joe sit, Caitlyn crying quietly and Joe taut as a wire.

"Okay."

I blink. Did he just agree to go to detox?

He stands up, his skinniness reaching forever up to the ceiling as I look up at him. "I’ve been wanting to get help for a long time now. But I didn’t want you and Dad to find out, and I didn’t know how to go to detox without you finding out. I’m glad you know now."

I’m speechless. No fight? No argument? No denial?

"Well, then." There’s that weird, bumpy voice again, belonging to someone else, "Get your things together and we’ll go to the hospital right now. Joe can drive you and Caitlyn and I will follow."

"Okay." He stands and leaves the room with Caitlyn, and I implode with unused adrenaline. I begin to shake uncontrollably as Joe comes over to put his arms around me. Dear god, dear god, dear god. He’s willing to get help.

##