Our Lost Boy

Count All This — Chapter 22: looking for repentance

Just when Jo Kasten’s son encounters schizophrenia, she discovers she has breast cancer. Meanwhile, her marriage faces a test. Count All This is a story about love and loyalty, addiction and madness. This is the twenty-second chapter. Find the first chapter here.

After Eddy came home from the detox center on Thursday, we didn’t know what to do with him. He was still disoriented — still anxious and dissatisfied under our supervision. He still needed more help than we could provide. And I was still scheduled to have surgery on Tuesday. We needed to deal with Ed.

During the hours he was missing, I had done some research on the Internet and found a residential drug treatment program in Santa Cruz that I thought might work. Instead of the tough, ex-con ethos of the Project 60 program, which still wasn’t letting him in, Cronus of Santa Cruz promised an alternative approach, including yoga and meditative walks on the beach in addition to the basic Twelve-Step model for overcoming addiction. And it had what seemed like a reasonable fee. We thought that Eddy might fit in there.

After finding him on the sidewalk and driving him home, we held a family meeting at the kitchen table. Eddy sat at the head, like a king receiving petitioners, his long, greasy hair falling into his face as he surveyed the people arrayed around him. He wore a sleeveless tee shirt and low-slung jeans, and exuded self confidence and charisma. If he weren’t so emaciated, he’d pass for a celebrity. Rose and Larry sat on one side of the table. Michael and I sat on the other. Eddy seemed to be trying to organize his thoughts, to participate in the discussion in a logical way, but you could see that it was an effort for him to hold ideas in his head, and to put words together in a coherent sentence.

“Why should I go there again?”

“We’re thinking you need to have treatment right away,” I coaxed. “Waiting for Project 90 to let you in without any structure didn’t work for you at the detox center. And you don’t like it here. But if you’re in Santa Cruz, it won’t be easy for you to walk away. You won’t have anywhere else to go, so you’ll have more reason to stay put.”

I talked about the hippie flavor of the web site, the reasonable voice on the other end of the phone calls I’d made, and the lack of other options. Before long, Eddy had agreed to go. Since it was already getting dark, and everybody was exhausted, we made plans to drive to Santa Cruz the following day. Rose followed Eddy into his room to help him decide what to pack — for the second time in two days. Michael left the table looking dejected. Larry and I retreated to our room.

“I don’t like asking for more time off from my new job so soon.” Larry sounded halfhearted. “I’ve already told them I have to take Monday off for your orientation at the hospital and Tuesday for the surgery.”

“We could go without you, if we have to…But I really don’t want to.”

“No. I can swing it. I’ll call Devie. She’ll fix it for me.”

“Devie?”

“She’s the receptionist. She likes me.”

“Oh… Good.”

In the morning, four of us piled back into the little black Nissan. Larry drove. I sat in the passenger seat in front, and Rose and Eddy slouched together in back. Michael had decided to stay home, for once, which didn’t relieve me as much as I had thought it would.

Just as with the Palm Avenue admission, it took time to get Eddy into the car. He kept thinking he had forgotten something. Rose assured him he had everything he needed in the big, green duffel bag we loaded into the trunk.

“We can always bring whatever you need, if you realize later that you’ve forgotten something,” I told him, trying to hide my impatience. “It’s not like you’re going to be five hours away.”

The drive from Santa Inez to Santa Cruz takes just a little more than an hour if you take the quick route — 101 down the the Peninsula to San Jose and then over the coastal range on curvy Highway 17. I usually take the longer, more beautiful route down Highway 1, next to the Pacific Ocean. But Larry was driving, and we all wanted get there quickly. Talk was minimal as we made our way over the mountains, but the mood in the car felt upbeat. It seemed we were finally making some progress. So what if Project 60 wouldn’t let Eddy in? We’d found something better. Eddy dozed a little, laying his head on Rose’s shoulder, taking up more than his fair share of the cramped space. Rose looked out the window. I kept my eyes forward, on the road.

We found the address no problem, surprised to realize it was just a dozen blocks south of the beach house we occupy every summer — where Eddy had admitted his drug use just one week before. That was fortunate. He should feel at home here.

Cronus was housed in a non- descript, two-story, brown wooden building that looked like part of a much larger office complex. There was a stand of tall pine trees at one end, and a stretch of green grass in back. We saw two men sitting and talking intently on lawn chairs near the grassy space. Another group of people sat in the parking lot near the entrance to the building, smoking. I approached the second group alone, anxious and unable to wait for Eddy to climb out of the car and get his big, green bag out of the trunk. Larry and Rose hovered around him, helping.

As I got closer to the group I made out a young woman in a tight, yellow tank top with a tattoo of a dragonfly on her arm, two older men in flannel work shirts, and a middle-aged couple in jogging suits, both dyed blonde. “Do you know where I can find Fred?” I asked the woman, referring to the man I had spoken with on the phone to arrange Ed’s admission.

“He’s upstairs, in the office.” She pointed to a glass door behind her with the cigarette gripped in the first two fingers of her left hand. “Are you checking in?”

“Not me. My son.” I turned to look back at Eddy, who was approaching slowly with Larry and Rose.

“Well, you found a good place,” she reassured me. “He’ll like it here.” Others in the group nodded and added their recommendations. I smiled.

“Eddy, here’s a few people who are in the program here,” I said cheerily as he came closer, but he gave no indication that he wanted to talk. “The office is upstairs,” I continued. “This way.”

We walked through a glass door and up concrete and metal stairs to an open office door on the second floor landing. A big man sat at a desk there in a tank top, shorts, and sneakers. On the wall behind his desk a window looked onto a bigger room filled with round tables, plastic chairs, pressed-sawdust bookshelves and random clutter. The room looked clean enough, but low-budget. None of the furniture matched. Two people sat together at one of the tables eating something unidentifiable from a paper plate. A woman with a clipboard was passing through to another room, beyond.

“Fred?” I asked tentatively, knocking lightly on the open door.

“Yes. That’s me.” He swung around in his chair.

“I’m Jo. I talked to you on the phone about bringing in my son, Eddy?”

“Then you made it. Good.” He rose to greet us, putting out his hand. “Come on in.” The four of us squeezed into his small office. There weren’t enough chairs to accommodate us. It was unusual, I guessed, for the whole family to come to an admission interview.

“Which one of you is the client?” he asked. I stepped aside and gestured to Eddy. “Okay. You sit there.” He put Eddy in the most prominent chair, closest to the desk. Larry and Rose took two others against the side wall. I stood. “Let me get another chair,” Fred said comfortably before leaving the office.

“I’m not getting a good feeling about this,” Eddy said as soon as Fred left the room.

“Why not? He’s really nice! I talked to him on the phone. And the people out front said they like the program.”

“Give it a chance, Eddy,” Rose said.

Eddy didn’t answer. Fred came back in with a plastic chair held high. There was barely enough floor space in the office to set it down. Once we all had a seat, he began the intake process.

“First, we’re going to have to fill out a few forms together. I’ll just interview you, and fill in the answers. That might be easiest. Then after we do that, I’m going to want to talk to your son alone for a while. Then we’ll all meet together once more before you leave.”

“Okay.” Larry and I exchanged relieved glances. This seemed like standard operating procedure. Nothing was amiss. Fred wrote down our name and address information and went over the general policies of the program before asking about Eddy’s case history. I looked quickly around the room. No one was eager to jump in.

“Well, Eddy spent a week in a mental hospital about a month ago,” I finally spoke. “At the time, we thought he was having a nervous breakdown. But last week, he told us he’s been using crystal meth. That’s when we started trying to get him into a rehab program. We thought we had something lined up in San Mateo, close to home, but it fell through. Then we found your place on the Internet.”

Fred nodded. “Is there any other drug use?”

I shrugged, looking over at Eddy. “I don’t know for sure. He smokes pot, I guess. He also was trying hallucinogens — Ecstasy, mushrooms — a few weeks before he went into the hospital.”

Eddy started shaking his head. “What’s the matter, Ed?”

“That’s not true.”

“What isn’t?”

“Maybe now is a good time for me to have the private interview with Edward,” Fred interrupted. “Why don’t you let me talk to him briefly in confidence?”

“Okay…” I said uncertainly. Three of us stood up to leave.

“Don’t go!” Eddy shouted, starting to rise from his chair.

“We’re not going anywhere, Eddy,” I put my hand on his shoulder and looked into his hazel eyes. “We aren’t leaving, yet. We’re just going to wait outside while Fred talks to you in private.”

“This isn’t right. This isn’t working,” he said urgently, a whining tone creeping into his voice.

“It’s okay, Eddy.” Rose put in sternly. “Just talk to Fred for a few minutes. We’ll be right outside.”

The three of us walked down the stairs to the outer door while Fred closed the door to the office. Outside, in the parking lot, the group of smokers still congregated, but I wasn’t feeling sociable anymore.

“What’s he talking about?” I asked Larry worriedly. “What did I say that wasn’t right?”

“I don’t know. Don’t worry about it. That guy looks like he knows what he’s doing. He has it under control.”

“I guess.” We milled aimlessly at the foot of the steps, not wanting to venture too far, in case he called us back into the office. We surveyed the mostly pleasant environment, and eventually I was sucked back into conversation with the other program participants, although Rose and Larry stood apart.

“He all checked in?” the young woman asked cheerfully.

“Not exactly. Not yet. It seems like he’s having some second thoughts. Fred’s talking to him.”

“Oh yeah,” she smiled knowingly. “We all had some second thoughts. It’s hard to make the decision to enter the program. But once you do, it turns out to be the right thing. Look at me. I’ve been here for 28 days. I’m going to graduate next week.”

“Really? Did it work for you, in just 28 days?”

“Absolutely. I mean, I could probably stay a little longer. But I don’t have the funds. But what I got so far, though, it’s going to help me on the outside. And with a little luck, I won’t have to check in here again.” She nodded to herself while taking a long drag on her cigarette.

“Yeah. For some of us, it takes a little longer than others,” a man in a flannel shirt with an unruly blonde beard put in. “Some of us are slow learners.” His buddy laughed.

“But we all get it eventually. We all get it some day. When we’re ready,” the young woman said. “Don’t worry about your son, ma’am. Fred will take care of him. He’s in good hands.”

I thought she was probably right, and felt glad for the reassurance. A few minutes later, a woman we hadn’t seen before poked her head out of the doorway. “Fred wants you to come back upstairs now,” she said. I gave a little wave to my newfound friend before we filed back up the stairs and into the cramped office. Eddy was still sitting in the same chair as before, but now he was hunched over, with his head in his hands.

“Okay,” Fred said, turning towards us on his chair. “I’ve just got a few more forms for you to fill out, and you’ll need to give me a deposit, and then you can leave your son here.”

“Okay,” I said, looking worriedly at Ed.

“Mom. I don’t want to stay here,” he lifted his face to me. “I want to go home. This isn’t the right place for me,” he pleaded. I looked in confusion first at Larry, then at Fred. Neither one spoke.

“What do you mean, Eddy?” I asked, carefully. “I thought we all agreed that this would be the best option for you.”

Eddy began shaking his head again. “When I told you I was doing crystal meth, I was lying,” he said. “I thought that was what you wanted to hear. But this isn’t the right place for me, Mom. I’m not a drug addict. I’m crazy. This place won’t help me.”

“What do you mean, you were lying?!”

“I lied to you.”

“But how can that be, Eddy? You’ve got all the symptoms. You’re skinny and hot and your eyes are dilated. You were on a crying jag.”

“I made it up, Mom. I thought it would be easier for you to hear. Don’t leave me here. Please don’t leave me!”

I looked at Fred in distress. It was true that I would rather he had a drug problem than a mental health problem. A drug problem was voluntary. A drug problem was curable. A mental health problem was out of your control. Fred motioned me and Larry out into the hall, while Rose moved in closer to comfort Ed.

“I don’t understand why he’s saying that. What’s going on? Is that what he told you in the interview?”

“It’s just denial,” Fred said in a calm voice. “A lot of them want to deny they have a problem. Believe me, I’ve seen it before. It’s natural. I think the best thing for you to do is leave as soon as possible. That will make it easier on all of us, including him. The sooner he gets used to the idea that he’s staying, that you aren’t going to rescue him and take him out of here, the sooner he’ll start working with the program.”

Now Fred was saying what I wanted to hear. I didn’t want to turn around and bring Eddy back home. I had no idea what to do with him there. And I didn’t want to be worrying about him when I went in for surgery on Tuesday. It seemed like there were no good options besides leaving him here. “What do you think, Larry?”

“I think we should do it. This guy is the expert. But let’s hurry. I don’t think I can take much more of this.”

We nodded agreement and moved back into the office where I hurriedly signed two more forms and filled out a check.

All the while, Eddy was complaining in the background, his voice getting louder and more hysterical. “Don’t go, Mom. Don’t leave me here! This isn’t right. This isn’t working!”

I felt like I was abandoning my troublesome baby in the wilderness. All my instincts told me that what I was doing was wrong. I felt an overwhelming desire to comfort my child. But my mind overruled my emotions, pointing out that this was the best option. Eddy didn’t want to stay at home with us, and he couldn’t make it on his own. Besides, no one was physically restraining him. This wasn’t a locked facility, a fact that we’d gone over with him a number of times just last night. The fact that he remained rooted in his chair throughout his protests seemed evidence of a subliminal desire to stay.

“It’s okay, Eddy. You’re going to be okay. This is the best thing for you,” I tried to soothe him. But my efforts only seemed to make him more agitated.

“It’s not going to be okay. Don’t leave me!”

“Come on, everybody.” Larry pulled my arm in exasperation. “It’s time to go.”

The three of us hurried out of the office and down the stairs. As we left, Eddy rose half out of his chair as if to follow us, but Fred put a heavy hand on his shoulder and spoke to him in low tones. Still, if he’d wanted to break away, he could have, I reasoned as we hurried across the parking lot. I tried to walk at a normal pace, dreading the moment when Eddy would burst out of the building and come running after us. But that moment never came. We got into the car. We started the engine. We drove away.

As we pulled onto Highway 17 and started back over the mountains, I felt an enormous wave of relief. The crisis was over. We’d left Eddy in good hands. Now all we had to do was wait. Talk in the car was more lively on the drive home. We discussed what we liked about the building, the people in the parking lot, and Fred. We analyzed Eddy’s motivations for saying he didn’t have a drug problem. We congratulated ourselves on standing our ground. We felt certain we had done the right thing, the only thing that had a chance of working.

Once we got home, we peeled off into our individual bedrooms. It was noon, but I fell asleep the moment my head hit my pillow. It was close to 3:00 p.m. when I woke up to the phone ringing.

Larry was snoring beside me. I rolled over and let it ring. But 15 minutes later, it was jangling again. A jolt of fear stabbed my chest as I dragged my heavy body off the bed and to the phone on my desk in time to answer it on the ninth or tenth ring.

“Hello?” I mumbled.

“Jo Kasten?”

“Yes.”

“This is Moira at Cronus of Santa Cruz.” My chest contracted. “Yes?”

“I’m calling to let you know that your son has left the program.”

“What?!” I looked around the room for someone to appeal to, but no one was there.

“Yes. He left around noon. We tried everything we could to bring him back, but we were unsuccessful.”

“You’re kidding!”

“No. Unfortunately, I’m not kidding.”

“Where is he now?”

“We don’t know.”

“Oh my God. You don’t know?! How could this have happened? Is Fred there? Can I talk to Fred?”

“Fred isn’t here. His shift changed just before noon this morning, when I came on. I took some of the clients to the store, as we often do, and Ed came with us. We walked to the store, about three blocks from here, and everyone bought the items they wanted. But when it was time to leave, Ed wouldn’t leave with us. I tried to talk to him, but he just stared at me. He wouldn’t say anything — not anything at all. His eyes were completely dead. What kind of drug did you say he was on?”

“I don’t know!” I cried. “I don’t see what difference that makes. Why did you take him out of the building, when you knew he didn’t want to be in the program?!”

“He had to go with us. I was the only one on duty. When we go to the store, everyone goes together.”

“Well, that’s messed up, because it really didn’t work this time, did it? You lost my son!”

When she didn’t answer, I tried to calm down. “He told us he was taking crystal meth. But when we dropped him off this morning, he said that was a lie. He said he wasn’t on anything.”

“Well, he didn’t seem like he was on crystal meth to me. It seemed more like some kind of hallucinogen.”

“What happened after the store?”

“Some of our clients tried to talk to him, but they weren’t any more successful than I was. Finally, we had to leave. We couldn’t wait there indefinitely. When I got back to the facility, I sent two of our big guys down to the store to look for him. They followed him to the beach, where he sat down in the sand. But when they tried to talk him into coming back, he wouldn’t come. They stayed with him for about two hours, but couldn’t get anything out of him. He just sat there staring at the ocean. So finally, they had to give up.”

“Oh, God.” Tears were rising. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, dropping her defenses for the first time. “That’s the way we felt, too. We just didn’t know what to do with him. He’s unlike any client I’ve ever worked with here. He wouldn’t respond to anything we said, and we couldn’t force him physically. That’s not our policy. He left his bag here. He didn’t take a jacket. He didn’t even have on any shoes.”

“Okay…” I tried to gather my wits about me. “So, where did you see him last?”

“At Twin Lakes Beach. Just sitting in the sand.”

“And what time was that?”

“About twelve-thirty or one. I’ve been trying to call you since then, but no one answered.”

I remembered a ringing in my dreams. “All right. Let me give you my cell phone number, so if he happens to come back, you can call me, okay?

“Okay.”

After I hung up the phone with Moira, I woke up Larry and told him that Eddy was missing.

“What?” His deep brown eyes looked untroubled and seductive for a moment, his innocent face surrounded by a nimbus of curly black and silver hair. I wondered what he’d been dreaming about, or who. He was half naked, framed by white sheets, covered over with warm blankets. I wanted to crawl in beside him and pull the blankets over my head. But then comprehension sharpened his focus.

“Let’s go then,” he said, swinging his legs purposefully out from under the covers.

“You think so?”

“Don’t you?”

“Yes. I guess we better. We’ll go look for him. Yes.”

I was glad that Larry was ready for action — so different than his recent mood of malaise.

The second drive to Santa Cruz that day was much more frantic than the first. I said little but imagined a lot as Larry raced over the mountain, getting us there in record time. First we went to rehab facility, picking up Eddy’s green duffel bag and avoiding a long conversation with Moira. Next we drove the few blocks to Twin Lakes beach, parking the car near some rocks lining the roadway where a Mexican family was having a barbecue. We picked our way over the rocks, trying not to intrude on the party, before walking out onto the sand together. We looked up and down the beach.

“Do you see anyone who looks like him?”

“Not really. It’s hard to say. Maybe that person there,” I pointed to a black dot huddled under a towel 200 yards away. “Or maybe that person on the point,” pointing at a figure standing on a faraway cliff.

The beach was limited by bluffs on either end that jutted out into the water, preventing passage.

“Why don’t you go that way and I’ll go this? Then we’ll meet back here in the center.”

“Okay.”

I would have preferred to stay with Larry, but our time was short. It was already after four o’clock, and before too long the sun would be going down, making finding Eddy impossible. I hurried off over the sand, looking carefully at every person I passed to make sure it wasn’t my son. He wasn’t the long- haired hippie huddled under a black blanket. He hadn’t joined the group of young people smoking pot around a fire. He wasn’t one of three young people throwing themselves against the freezing waves. It took a long time to walk out to the bluff. My feet sinking into the sand with every step made the distance seem longer, as did my increasing anxiety as each person I passed turned out to be a stranger — not my son. When I met up again with Larry, I was exhausted.

“Any luck?”

“No. He’s not out here. Where else can we look.?”

“Let’s drive by Sunny Cove,” I said. “That’s a beach near here that he likes to go to in the summer. Maybe he went there, hoping to meet up with some students from UC Santa Cruz.”

We drove down Twin Lakes Boulevard to Sixteenth Avenue before turning right, toward the sea. Set in a deep alcove, access to Sunny Cove beach was down slippery earthen stairs carved into the rocky bluff. But the cove was small, and it was easy to see from the top that only a few people were on the beach, and none of them was Ed.

We tried the Boardwalk next, miraculously finding a place to park at a meter that took only change, instead of in one of the expensive lots. We walked up the asphalt embankment, over the train tracks, and along the back fence of a string of buildings before finding an entrance. Once we got on the Boardwalk itself, we saw how hopeless this effort would be. The place was raucous with noise and color, packed with people walking up and down in various stages of dress and undress, getting on and off of rides, fidgeting in lines, bolting down ice cream and popcorn and pink cotton candy, hoisting babies and stuffed animals and green dollar bills, entering restaurants and video parlors and bathrooms and stores. We could traverse the length of the Boardwalk slowly and carefully and still miss hundreds of nooks where Eddy might be hiding. We walked only a short distance before turning back.

“This is hopeless,” Larry said. “We’ll never find him here.”

“You’re right. This is crazy. He’s probably not here anyway,” I tried to reassure us. “Let’s go and look for him downtown instead.”

Pacific Garden Mall was another people magnet. Lined with interesting shops, restaurants and thrift stores, it also attracted a sizeable population of runaway teens — kids with dirty hair and raggedy clothes who sat begging on the sidewalk or hung out in groups playing music or scoring drugs.

We drove the car to this part of town hopefully. Surely Eddy would have made his way there. We cruised slowly up Pacific, ogling every bench sitter and pedestrian, before turning around and driving back down Front Street on one side and up Cedar on the other. In one parking lot we saw a large crowd of young people — strangely coiffed and pierced and tattooed, made up in black lipstick lots of eyeliner — waiting to enter a building to see a show. Larry waited in the car while I got out and walked conspicuously through them, peeking into the auditorium and peering in the cars parked outside to see if any receptacle held our son. None did.

By the time we finished our circuit the sun was down and we were out of ideas. “What should we do now?” Larry asked dolefully, defeated.

“I don’t know. Maybe we should go by the police station? We could ask them to keep an eye out for him — tell them who to call if they find him.”

“That’s a good idea.”

As it turned out, there was a brand new police station just a few blocks away. We pulled into the nearly empty parking lot and walked up curved concrete stairs to double glass doors. They were locked. We could see a long counter inside, but no people.

“I guess they’re closed.” I was disconsolate.

“Wait a minute. What’s this?” There was a phone by the door with a sign instructing visitors how to use it. “I guess we’re supposed to talk to them on this phone.”

“Do you want to do it?”

“No. Why don’t you?”

I picked up the phone and pressed the listed numbers. A woman’s voice answered. “Santa Cruz Police Department.”

“Hi. I’m just outside here, at your station, and I have something I need to talk to you about,” I started hopefully, thinking they might let us inside.

“Yes?”

“We’ve lost our son, our 18-year-old son. We’ve been out looking for him all over town, but now it’s dark and we’re thinking we should go home, so we wanted to give you his description and our phone number so you could call us if he shows up.”

The empty parking lot looked surreal, sparsely lit with yellow-tinted lights, freshly paved with black asphalt and landscaped with baby palms. Larry and I, standing alone at the top of the stairs, leaning against the police station doors on a warm moonlit night, seemed like characters in a movie about the aftermath of an apocalypse — the last two people left in the world.

The woman on the phone took down our names, our address, all our vital information, and the details of our story.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “I think we’ve already had contact with him.”

“What?!”

“I think the county sheriff has him. Hold on.”

I put my hand over the receiver to talk to Larry. “She thinks they’ve already picked him up! She thinks the sheriff has him.”

“Ma’am?” she came back on the phone. “Yes. They have your son in custody right now.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful! I’m so relieved! I can’t tell you how glad that makes us. Can we pick him up now? Can we take him home with us?”

“Well, since the sheriff’s department has him, they can’t really come over the border into the city. They say you can meet them in the parking lot of a restaurant on the south side of town. They’ll hand him over to you there.”

“Okay. No problem. Thank you! Thank you very much.”

I got the name of the restaurant, the address, directions. We drove excitedly to pick up Ed. Once we got to the restaurant, we saw two sheriff’s cars in the parking lot. One was empty. One had Eddy in the back seat. His back was to us. He didn’t look around or seem curious in any way. He sat patiently facing forward. We parked behind the two cruisers and got out of the car. I approached one of the officers standing outside and identified myself. He was big and blonde, wearing a brown uniform. He wanted to know what was up with our son.

“We don’t know exactly,” I said awkwardly. “It might be a drug problem. We dropped him off at Cronus of Santa Cruz this morning, but he left this afternoon. We’ve been looking everywhere for him. I’m so glad you found him. We were about to give up.”

He nodded, but his eyebrows were still bunched with concern. “It’s a good thing you called, because we were about to let him go. He hasn’t really done anything illegal.”

“Why did you pick him up?”

“Someone called us who was concerned about him. Apparently he was just knocking on doors, asking if he could come inside and talk.”

“Oh,” I groaned, looking over at Larry.

“He was perfectly friendly, just acting a little strange. And he doesn’t have any shoes or any belongings with him. It doesn’t seem to me like he’s on drugs.”

“Well,” I hesitated. “There’s also a possibility that he has a mental health problem.”

We stood in the parking lot uncomfortably, shifting from foot to foot. It was dark, and the people in the restaurant behind were bathed in bright fluorescent lights. I didn’t look at them. I didn’t want to look in anyone’s eyes except this kind officer who had found our lost son. The other officer stood outside his car, at a distance from the three of us, apparently keeping an eye on Eddy. Eddy still hadn’t turned around to see us or shown any curiosity about what was going to happen next.

“Can we take him now?” I asked tentatively. “I’m not sure what we’re going to do with him. Just bring him home, I guess.”

“I don’t know what you can do,” the officer offered his sympathy. “Get him in to see a doctor, I guess.”

We nodded.

After taking down our name and basic information, he moved over to his car and opened the door. “Okay, Eddy,” he said. “You can come out now. Your parents are here.”

Eddy looked full of energy and light as he stepped from the back seat. He was smiling.

“Thank you officer,” he said, holding out his hand. The policeman was reluctant to shake it, but finally did. Then Eddy turned to us brightly, “Hi, Mom…Dad.”

“Hi, Eddy,” I said softly. “We came to get you.”

Larry opened the car door and pressed the button to make the front passenger seat move forward, allowing more room to climb into the back. Eddy went in first, and Larry climbed in after him.

“Are you both going to sit in back? Okay…” I closed the door and walked around to the driver’s side. “Goodbye,” I waved to the officers, who were still standing outside their cars. Then I got in and drove slowly and carefully away.

On the drive home, as we made our way back over the mountain on Highway 17, I lectured Eddy. I thought maybe I could elicit the same reaction I’d gotten when I was tough with him at the beach house — some admission of guilt. Some remorse.

“I’m very angry at you,” I said. “Your dad and I have been looking all over town for you. We’ve been so worried! Why did you leave the program? The woman at the place said you wouldn’t talk to her, or to anyone, about it — that you just walked away. But we all agreed that the program was the best thing for you! I don’t know what we’re going to do with you now…”

A quiet sobbing started from the back seat. I looked into the rear view mirror, but couldn’t see anything except the headlights of the cars behind us. There were no silhouettes. Larry and Eddy must be huddled together beneath the level of the back window. The road was dangerous and the night was dark; I had to keep my attention on my driving, but the crying encouraged me.

Maybe Eddy was having a change of heart? I continued reciting what he was doing wrong, how he was hurting us, what we expected from him in the future. I heard him crying softly and imagined that he was taking it in. I supposed that my lecture would bring about some kind of reformation — some healing. Now Eddy would see the light and stop his foolish behavior. Now Eddy would repent of going insane. I spoke until I’d said everything I could think of. The crying continued for a little longer. We drove the rest of the trip in silence.

When we finally got home, Eddy went straight to his room. After checking in on Michael and Rose, Larry and I shuffled into ours. Once under the covers, in the dark, I reached for Larry’s hand. “At least he seems sorry about what happened. Maybe he’s ready to stop now.”

“What makes you think he’s sorry?”

“The crying. He must have been crying for a good 20 minutes…”

“That wasn’t Eddy. That was me.”

That was the twenty-second chapter of my novel, Count All This. To continue, follow the free chapter links below or buy a digital copy of the whole book on Amazon, where leaving a rating or review will help others find my story.

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