Crystal Lies (14 page)

“Right.” I sighed and wondered exactly how a mother avoids worrying when her pushing-the-limits son comes home late.

It was around ten o’clock when I broke out a new novel that Sherry had given me. “To take your mind off things,” she had said. But I was barely through the first lighthearted chapter before I heard sirens blaring outside. I went and looked out the kitchen window to first see several police cars screaming down the street. These were followed by a fire truck and two ambulances, and it looked serious. I wondered where they were
headed. Who was in trouble tonight? As I usually do when I hear sirens, I imagined it was Jacob. Perhaps a car wreck or a drug squabble that resulted in a shooting, or maybe someone’s meth lab had blown up. Oh, my imagination could go all kinds of places at times like this. I must’ve paced back and forth for thirty minutes, then I decided to turn on the eleven o’clock news and see if they had anything on it. It turned out to be a three-car pileup on the interstate just a mile away. By the descriptions of the cars I could tell Jacob wasn’t in it. That is, unless, he was riding with someone else.

It was after midnight by the time I went to bed, telling myself there was nothing I could do about any of this anyway. But instead of falling asleep, I lay there running all the horrifying possibilities of my son’s future through my head. I could still vividly see that horrible duplex and could imagine the awful things that went on in there. And the more I thought about it, the worse it became. After a couple of hours of my self-imposed torture, I finally had to get up and make myself a pot of herbal tea—a calming blend. And there I sat, at the narrow, plastic-topped breakfast bar, sipping my tea and waiting for the sun to come up.

As luck would have it, Jacob got hired at the Red Devil. It was one of those discount gas stations—the kind that Geoffrey always warned against. “You get what you pay for, Glennis,” he’d told me once after I’d filled the Range Rover with cheap gas and it had started thumping and pinging. “Those cut-rate places are known for getting the last dregs off the tanker trucks.”

The last dregs, I thought as I drove by the Red Devil just to see if Jacob was really at work like he was supposed to be. To my relief his car was parked around in back, and I spied him talking to an older guy who I had begun to suspect was Daniel. I still didn’t know Daniels last name. According to Jacob,“It doesn’t matter.” But that only made me more uneasy.

I’d taken to driving around town as part of my daily routine. I would check on Jacob at the gas station. Then later in the evening, if Jacob failed to come home, which he’d started doing again, I would drive by the “duplex dump” to see if Jacob was there. I also kept track of the other cars that came and went from that place. I suspected that the old blue Ford van belonged to Daniel since it appeared at both the duplex dump and the gas station. But there was also a beat-up gold station wagon and a little red Honda parked there frequently. For some reason I felt the Honda belonged to Amber. Don’t ask me why.

Jacob had been pumping gas for a couple of weeks. He still stayed out late, sometimes all night, but he seemed to have the uncanny ability of guessing when I was about ready to give up on him. And that’s when he’d
show up with a smile on his face, sometimes even with flowers, and he’d say all the right words, and, presto, I would feel better. Of course, he was often “between paychecks” at those times and usually needed a “little cash” to get him by, fill his gas tank, things like that. I would tell myself that at least he was still working. Somehow I imagined that if he was working, everything was pretty much okay.

Until the day I found a used syringe. I’d like to say it was quite by accident, but to be perfectly honest, I was snooping. I still cleaned Jacobs room for him. I did his laundry and made his bed. Somehow I believed that this would help him on his road to recovery. Or maybe it was just my penance for being a bad mom. Who can be sure?

Whatever the case, I had taken to looking around a bit as I made Jacobs bed and hung up his clothes. I had discovered some odd things under his futon bed, like a cinnamon candle he had obviously filched from me, although I hadn’t noticed it was missing. I didn’t see any harm in this, although I wondered why it was under his bed. Worried that he might burn the place down, I got a nice big candle holder and put the rust-colored pillar on it and placed it on his dresser. I figured if he was going for ambiance, he should at least be safe about it.

I’d also found a number of grimy spoons, but why should this seem strange since I’d also found dirty glasses and cereal bowls and the occasional slice of uneaten pizza. But I
was
curious about the mirror at first. It was just a piece of broken mirror, about eight inches in diameter, but I knew it hadn’t come from anything in the apartment. Still, I figured that Jacob must’ve wanted to look at himself in the privacy of his own room. And so I bought him an inexpensive mirror from Wal-Mart and hung it above his dresser. No big deal.

But on this particular day, I noticed what appeared to be a roll of tissue in his wastebasket. Curious as to what it was, I picked it up and examined it. The tissue appeared unused and clean. Somewhat wasteful, I
remember thinking, since I now knew the exact cost of a single roll of toilet paper, and this appeared to be at least half a roll. I gave the round wad a gentle squeeze and realized there was something inside that felt like a ballpoint pen. And being a mom, I slowly unwound the ball until I arrived at the center. But it took me a moment to realize what I was looking at.

I carried the object to the kitchen to examine it in better light. And then it became obvious. Of course, it was a hypodermic syringe, probably the kind they used for insulin injections, the sharp-looking needle still intact. It was a wonder I hadn’t poked myself with it. As I stared at the bright orange plastic syringe lying there on the kitchen counter, my first response was to wrap it back up and hide it. It felt wrong and illegal and frightening, and I couldn’t imagine what I would do if someone walked in here and found me with it. Could I be arrested? Then I told myself to calm down and think clearly. Why was this in Jacob’s room?

Suddenly I wondered if Jacob had used this needle. Yes, now it seems silly that it wasn’t more obvious to me, but that’s exactly what I thought back then. “Has my son used this on himself? Has he really filled it with some horrible substance, actually inserted it into his flesh, pushed the plunger, and”—well, it was just too horrifying to imagine the rest. Somehow I convinced myself that he had only been playing with the idea. Or maybe he had found the syringe somewhere and didn’t know how to get rid of it in a safe way. Even so, I felt as if my world was caving in, and I knew I would have to ask him—face to face.

I considered confronting him at work as I did my daily rounds that afternoon. But I felt that wouldn’t be right. I waited for him to come home that night, and when he wasn’t in by midnight, I thought about making another surprise appearance at Daniel’s duplex dump, then reconsidered. Going during the day was one thing; at night was altogether different. Even so, I don’t think I slept more than an hour or two that night.

The image of my son sticking a needle into his arm and injecting himself with—well, poison—made me sick to my stomach.

“It’s not mine,” he told me the next day when I finally had a chance to corner him in the kitchen with my “evidence.”

“Really?” I made no effort to hide my skepticism.

He looked me straight in the eyes now. “I found it at work,” he told me. “I was cleaning the bathroom, and it was sitting right on the counter.”

I made a face. “And you
touched
it?”

“Not with my bare hands,” he explained. “I was just starting to wrap it up in tissue so I could put it in the garbage, you know. But then my boss walks up and I got scared, like he might see it and think it was mine, so I slipped it into my pocket.”

“Your pocket?”

“Yeah, it was stupid, I know, but the garbage can was already out the door, and I didn’t want him to see it and think it was mine.”

“You put a
used
syringe in your pocket?”

He nodded. “And I forgot about it until I got home.”

“But what if you’d jabbed yourself on the needle?” I demanded. “You could’ve gotten HIV or hepatitis or who knows what.”

He nodded with wide eyes. “I know, Mom. That’s what I thought too. That’s why I wrapped it up so carefully. I didn’t want anyone to get poked by it. Especially you.” He looked at me with real concern now. “You didn’t, did you?”

“No. But it could happen.”

“I’m sorry, Mom. If I had remembered, I would’ve thrown it away in one of the trash cans outside, but it was really busy that night.”

“And that’s the truth?” I questioned, still not completely convinced.

“Yeah, Mom.” He looked down at the needle and frowned. “You don’t really think I’d pump that kind of crap into myself, do you?”

I considered this. “Well, not really.” I kind of laughed then, in relief I suppose. “I remember how much you hated getting vaccinations as a kid, Jacob. It was hard to imagine you would inflict that on yourself.”

“Want me to throw it away for you?” he asked.

“Be careful,” I warned him. Then I grabbed a paper towel. “Here, wrap it in this.”

For the next week, Jacob seemed to stay home more, and I felt like maybe, just maybe, we were finally getting somewhere. I thought that perhaps he had finally realized that all those late nights jamming with Daniel hadn’t been such a great idea after all.

It was late October, just before Halloween, when I decided to flip the mattress pad on Jacobs futon. He’d been complaining about a backache, and I’d grown concerned that this inexpensive bed might not be very good for his back. I thought I’d try turning it over, just to even out the lumps until we figured out a new sort of bed. But as I lifted the heavy pad, a flash of bright orange caught my eye. With the mattress resting on my head, I knelt down and peered at the now exposed wooden futon frame to see several neat little rows of hypodermic needles lined up on the wooden slats. With a rush of adrenaline, I heaved the heavy mattress pad over and onto the floor, then clasped my hand across my mouth as I stared at maybe a dozen obviously used syringes. I don’t know how long I stood there, shock waves jolting through me like bolts of electricity. I knew I needed to do something. But what? I couldn’t think straight. I felt angry, betrayed, worried, fearful, hopeless—every negative feeling imaginable coursed through me just then.

I started to leave Jacob’s room, then froze in the doorway and stood there. I couldn’t leave those nasty things just lying there out in the open and exposed for the entire world to see. As if anyone ever came to visit me in the apartment. Just the same, I couldn’t bear to handle those horrid
objects. And yet I definitely wanted them gone. I walked back and forth, shaking my head and waving my arms like a crazy woman or perhaps an unfortunate chicken with her head cut off.

Finally I ran to the kitchen to get something to put the syringes in. I opened every cupboard in search of the perfect container. A glass mixing bowl, no. Saucepan with lid, not quite. Tupperware, no, but closer. Finally I reached under the sink and grabbed a recycled paper grocery sack (another money-saving trick I’d learned), then I dashed back to Jacob’s bedroom where I used a ballpoint pen to push these detestable objects into my brown paper bag. Then I rolled down the top of the bag, creasing it several times, as if by sealing these things I might forget that picture. But even as I set the sack on the kitchen counter, I could still see all those plastic hypodermic syringes lined up on the wooden futon frame like angry orange soldiers intent upon annihilating my only son. I wanted to throw up.

Instead, I took a deep breath and called Dr. Abrams. After explaining to her thickheaded assistant that it
really
was an emergency, I was connected to the good doctor.

“I don’t know what to do.” I gasped out the words as if I’d just finished a marathon.

“Take a deep breath,” she told me.

I did as she said.

“And now,” she continued,“slowly explain what is wrong.”

“I found…I found
needles”
I said. “Beneath my son’s bed.”

“Needles?” Her voice sounded unimpressed.

I hadn’t told Dr. Abrams about the severity of my son’s drug problems yet, and I immediately imagined her envisioning sewing needles or perhaps knitting needles as if Jacob had suddenly become domestic.
“Hypodermic
needles,” I explained. “At least a dozen of them—all used.”

“I see.” Long pause.

“I don’t know what to do, Dr. Abrams. I mean I feel like I can’t even breathe, like I’m going to be sick or just give up completely. I’ve never felt so desperate before. It’s as if my husband was right all along; I am only making things worse.”

“Do you think it’s your fault that your son has hypodermic needles under his bed?”

“No, not like that. But it feels as if I’m just messing everything up. I can’t even think anymore.” And then I began to sob.

“Glennis,” she said in her soothing voice,“listen to me. The only thing you can do about your son’s problem is to encourage him to get help. Do you understand? But it’s his choice whether he’ll do that or not.” And then she gave me the phone number of a rehab center in town.

“That’s it?” I said in a meek voice. “That’s
all you
can offer?”

“Glennis, that’s
all
there is. But you need to remember what I told you the other day. Your main job is to take care of yourself right now. It’s a job you’ve neglected for too long.”

“I know…” I pressed my closed fist against my forehead, angry at myself for wasting my time by calling her in the first place. Obviously she didn’t understand what this was like for me. She had probably never been in this position herself. Of course, I realized, her children were probably perfect. Well, why wouldn’t they be?

“I’ll see you in a couple of weeks then?” she asked in an obvious hint that it was time to end this conversation.

“Right.”

“And you’re okay?”

“I’
m great.”

“Now, Glennis—”

“I’m sorry for bothering you, Dr. Abrams,” I said in a tightly controlled voice. “I’ll see if Jacob is interested in visiting this rehab center.”

“You do have some clout, you know,” she said as if suddenly inspired.

“And that would be?”

“You could tell him that he can’t continue living with you unless he agrees to seek treatment.”

Great, I was thinking. Not only does my son have a very serious drug problem, but my therapist is counseling me to throw him out on the streets. “I…I can’t do that.”

“Then maybe you
are
part of the problem.”

“What?”

“You’re enabling him, Glennis. Remember, we’ve talked about that. When you roll over and allow people to keep making bad choices, walking all over you, you
enable
them to continue in their problems. By letting Jacob live with you when he obviously needs professional help, you’re making it easy for him to keep using.”