Читать книгу The Joey Song - Sandra Swenson - Страница 13
ОглавлениеIn the smallest hours of this not-yet-dreadful morning, I’m snug in my bed in Bethesda, Maryland, tangled in a tumble of pillows, Joe’s arms, and dreamy dreams. Such a cozy cocoon. Until I roll over to answer the phone.
I hear the voice of an old family friend, but don’t want to hear what she’s saying.
“Joey’s in the hospital. He was drunk and then swallowed a bottle of pills. The emergency room doctor is pumping his stomach now. Sandy, he was trying to kill himself.”
My heartstrings stretch the miles to where my son lies in San Diego, California.
“Hold Joey’s hand. Even if he can’t hear you, please tell him I’m coming.”
Clutching my head in my hands, I cry without breath, without sound. Turning my face upward, I struggle to set free the anguish that’s jammed inside my chest, my throat, my being, but I’ve no strength to propel it forth.
A mother’s silent scream.
Maybe I should have seen this coming—after all, the launch of Joey off to college was sputtering, at best.
Maybe I should have.
But I didn’t.
Joe is awake now and sits up, his face twisted like the confusion of sheets and blankets around us. I want him to turn the lamp back off so I won’t have to see his face when I tell him his firstborn son just tried to take his own life.
As dawn takes its first groggy peek at today, I’m airborne, squashed between bulky shoulders and behinds on my way to Joey’s suicide-attempted side. To the gurney where he lies retching against long, rubbery tubes—the poison from his belly more easily sucked away than the poison in his spirit that will be left behind.
Why is life so hard for my child? So damn hard?
Yesterday Joey called to tell me about his first week of college, but he didn’t tell me about the desperation right underneath his cheerful veneer. Why didn’t he know I could handle—and could help him to handle—the truth? Why didn’t he know I would want to know he was hurting? And why didn’t I already know?
There have been signs Joey is struggling. I’ve seen them. I’ve felt them. But I didn’t know what to do with them. Between the reentry from India and the send-off to college, summer was wedged like a contented sigh—full and pleasant. Lured, lulled, and giddy, I wanted to believe Joey was one happy and productive adult-child, ready to launch.
I wanted to believe that the end of the eating disorder episode meant the end of all problems forever. But then he was arrested for driving 103 mph (with marijuana in his pocket) while driving from East Coast to West, on his way to San Diego University (SDU) in California. He took anger and manipulation to a new and hideous level when Joe and I put his car into storage. And he quit and un-quit college several times over the days we were there to help him move into the dorm. Yes, the college send-off-from-hell was full of signs. So maybe I shouldn’t be stunned that my child tried to commit suicide. But I am.
Later this morning, Joe will serve up the latest bad news to Rick along with his toast. It was only last week that Rick started his sophomore year at his new high school (in a new town, state, and country) and Joe started his new job. While yesterday seemed off to a good, solid start, today begins on shaky ground. We’ve moved so frequently that we’re adept at adapting, but that’s because we lean on each other, and now I won’t be there, for I don’t know how long, to help smooth kinks and soothe worries.
The plane curves in for a landing, tilting its wings over the sparkling San Diego Bay, a view Joey would see from his dorm at SDU this morning if he weren’t comatose in some emergency room.
Except, it turns out, he’s not.
It is Joey’s lanky form that unfolds from the backseat of the green SUV idling at the curb. Somehow, he’s here at the airport to meet me, sprouting a single row of vacuum-cleaner-like bristles from his otherwise hairless head. I’m oddly struck by the thought that Joey’s gray pallor, his stubble, and his bruised-looking eyes suit his new Mohawk quite nicely. As quickly as I grab him up into a tight squeeze, I push Joey away for inspection. A scrap of bloodied gauze is taped on his arm; there’s a bit of yellow crud stuck in the corner of his mouth; his eyes have no spark.
“Thank God you’re alive and standing here. But what the hell?”
I’m furious.
My son’s cry for help was bounced out of the hospital in less than twelve hours.
“Where’s the diagnosis? The prescription? The plan?”
“Mom, I’m fine. I was drunk. Trying to kill myself was a mistake. I’m glad you came, but I don’t want to talk about this.”
“Well, Joey, that’s not an option.”
Whether it’s to please me or shut me up doesn’t matter—Joey agrees to be evaluated by a doctor at a nearby psychiatric hospital. With strings attached, of course.
“I will talk about what happened, but I will not go to the loony bin.”
I have no way of knowing what the doctor will advise, but I look Joey straight in his trusting blue eyes, and I lie. Because, as with the eating disorder, Joey has to get through the door to get the help. Whatever kind of help that may be.
“Joey, this appointment is for you to talk through what happened. Nothing more.”
Rebecca—the old family friend who’s been sucked into our drama—drives us to the appointment, and as she pulls her SUV into the parking lot I can see Joey appraising the big granite block of a building that looks uninvitingly cold even in the late-summer heat. As she eases the car into a tight space, Joey flings open the back door and runs across the asphalt with the long, swift stride of a hunted deer. He’s gone, up and over a grassy berm, out of sight and heading toward the freeway before the keys are out of the ignition. Gone. I start to fumble at my door handle, ready to give chase, but Rebecca, still behind the wheel, reaches out for my arm.
“Wait! Driving after him will be faster!”
One . . . two . . . three times the engine will not start.
My heart stops. The world stops. Nothing exists except the utter stillness of this moment.
And the turning of the key.
If the car doesn’t start now, right now, with this turn, Joey will truly be gone. Killed. Frantic and afraid, he will surely dart into the high-speed traffic. My breath is ragged. I pound the dashboard with my fists; I yell at the car.
“Go, go, go!”
And suddenly, it does.
Lurching out of the parking lot—in stuttering slow motion—we catch up with Joey running along the freeway’s edge. Pulling up beside him, we’re matching his pace—the frenzied pace of the terrified—but we’re still moving far more slowly than the traffic whizzing past us on our other side. Eyes wild, the whites bigger than the blue, Joey’s face is streaked with tears and he’s gasping for breath. Yet he’s still able to scream.
“You tricked me! AGAIN! I’ll never be committed to another hospital. NEVER!”
I do what I must.
As Joey stumbles and swerves, I lie.
Full of fear and out of options, I beg, beg him to get into the car. Leaning through the open window, I reach out to Joey, hollering over the wind and the traffic and the pounding in my ears.
“Joey, I promise, the doctor is waiting for you, but only to talk. Please, please, get in the car!”
The truth is: If the expert on suicidal behavior tells me Joey needs to be locked up, I’m locking him up. I know Joey won’t care that I’m trying to save his life—because from his perspective, I’m not. But right now I can’t worry about that.
Joey slows down; a sweat-lathered bronco that’s run out of buck, he gets into the car.
A broken heart really does hurt. It’s a deep, squeezing ache, and it cries. I feel it when the doctor says my son is depressed and has been for a long time.
I didn’t see it.
Squeeze.
Depression—if I’d given it any thought, which I hadn’t—would have looked like a curled-up ball unable to get dressed in the morning. Joey didn’t look like that. Joey woke up happy (most mornings), laughed and hugged, and had friends. He loved animals and scuba diving and cooking. Sure, he’d been moody and had an eating disorder, but I thought that was teen angst. Yes, there was the arrest for possession of pot and speeding, but I thought that was just Joey acting stupid. Nothing is what I thought. It’s all been signs of his depression—a depression that has now tried to kill Joey twice.
Seated across from us, on the other side of his large wooden desk, the doctor tugs on his beard, telling me that teenage depression looks different from adult depression.
“It looks like Joey,” he says.
Decisions must be made about what happens next, but Joey needs to be the one to make them if whatever happens next has any chance of success. After some discussion, when Joey says he’s decided to quit college and return to Maryland, I expel a long breath I don’t even know I’ve been holding. The college dream (turned nightmare) is on hold for now. I’m filled with relief. And sadness. And dread.
Swiveling in my chair, I take a long look at Joey sitting stiffly beside me. I see more than the clenched jaw and tormented eyes. I see the pain I missed, the mistakes I can make up for, and the tough road ahead. Reaching out, I put my hand on Joey’s arm and tell him I’m sorry.
“I didn’t know, Joey. So I did all the wrong things.”
And then I turn back to the doctor.
“Tell me how to do things right.”
“A life spent walking on eggshells is not living. You shouldn’t change how you live or interact with Joey,” he says. “Making concessions out of guilt or fear will only foster a sense of victimhood in Joey, but by maintaining normal expectations you’ll promote strength and healing and be helping him to move forward.”
Turning his attention now to Joey, the doctor continues.
“Joey, your family can support you on a path to health and happiness, but you need to do the work. Take the prescription I’ve given you, see a therapist, and live a healthy lifestyle. Alcohol is a depressant. You say your suicide attempt was a drunken mistake you wished you could take back once you were sober, but never forget: You can’t take back dead.”
Joey wants to move his things out of the dorm on his own, which is fine with me; I don’t think I could face being a part of the good-byes, which were, just two weeks ago, hellos.
Loading the car for the short drive to the airport, Joey hands me a “Proud SDU Mom” mug. On the surface I’m all smiley, but inside something squeezes with sadness. Neither Proud nor SDU currently apply. But Mom does. Heartsick Mom, yes. But Mom no matter what.
We’ve packed up so much more than sweatshirts and sheets into Joey’s suitcases and boxes; they’re also full of unused plans and dreams. And it hurts. So does watching Joey try to keep his head held high as we hustle to our gate. But there’s no turning back.
Joey is carrying a one-way ticket to Plan B.
Delta Airlines #3487, San Diego to Washington, DC, departing 2:23 p.m.
Joey is heading home.
