I passed through the aisles of Vons the next day, pushing my cart with all the determination of a speed walker. I didn’t want to be here shopping if this was the moment that Kurt called home. As I rounded the corner of the bread aisle, another cart clanked into the side of mine, forcing my attention back to the here and now. “Oh, sorry. I should have looked first. …” When I saw who was driving the other cart, all apologies froze in my throat.
“Well, hello. Fancy meeting you here.” From the expression on his face, and the jeans, T-shirt, and Angels baseball cap he was wearing, no one would assume that Detective Thompson was anything other than surprised to be running into an old friend at the grocery store. I, of course, knew better.
“Are you following me?”
He leaned both elbows on the rails of the cart and whispered. “Just doing a little shopping.” He gestured toward the chips and salsa in his cart, then smiled up at me. “Why? Should I be following you?”
I remembered what Lacey had said about their not having much evidence to work with. In my head I knew that the guy was just trying to do his job. He wanted to find a killer and silence the public outcry. That all sounded well and good— until my son became part of his doing his job. “You know what? I wish I could tell you something. I wish I knew where my son is. I wish I could tell you the name of the rehab where he’s been for the last couple of months and help lighten your load. But I can’t. Why don’t you go follow some other lead and quit harassing the innocent citizens of Santa Barbara?”
“Hmm, didn’t realize that grocery shopping constituted harassment. I do apologize.” He tipped the cap and offered a lazy smile. “You know what, though? My gut tells me that someone with nothing to hide shouldn’t be so upset about this chance encounter. Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?”
I gripped my cart so tight my fingers went numb. “I don’t know anything. How long is it going to take for you to get that through your head?”
“My head accepts it already; it’s just that my gut hasn’t quite caught up yet.”
“Well, tell your gut to get over it and leave me alone.”
“All righty, then. I’ll just make my way up the fruit aisle and harass some other citizens for a while. How about that?” He turned his cart the other way and sauntered off, whistling “Yankee Doodle” as he went.
I looked at the couple dozen items still unmarked on my list and decided we could live another week without most of these things. I hurried to grab the necessary gallon of milk, Caroline’s favorite string cheese, and yogurt. Fudgsicles and chicken nuggets would have to wait until the next trip. I wasn’t staying in this place with that man for a second longer than necessary.
When I pulled onto my street, I found myself checking the curb for black cars before I pulled into the driveway. There were none. Finally starting to relax, I carried the first couple of grocery bags inside and dropped them on the kitchen counter. As always, I went to the phone and checked it for voice mail. There was one message. I pressed the pass code, held my breath, and waited.
“Hey, it’s me. I need to chat with you as soon as you’ve got a spare minute. Call me. Okay?” My sister’s voice carried the same even tone with which she always spoke. You could rarely tell from Jodi’s voice, or facial expression for that matter, if she was happy, sad, mad, or afraid. She always came across as … for lack of a better word, content.
No message from my son, but of course that didn’t stop me from continuing with the second step in my routine—checking my caller ID. Not everyone left messages. Maybe Kurt wouldn’t, either. It was a long shot, but it was all I had.
Today’s reading told me there were three missed calls. I perused the list. The first was from Lacey; she never left a message. The second was from my sister, the third from a number marked Private Caller. That one set my heart to sputtering.
Every day I received calls marked Private—telemarketers, the local thrift store when they call to say they’ll have a truck on the street next week to pick up donations, several of my friends who are particularly uptight about their privacy. None of those things even went through my mind. Logic ceased to exist where my children were concerned. This call was from Kurt, it had to be from Kurt. It wasn’t just emotion; there were facts to support it.
When he’d called the first time, the call had been marked private. He told me that he would call me when it was time to be released, probably six to eight weeks. Well, it had been seven weeks and eleven hours, so this call had to be from him. Maybe he was even now on his way home. And that’s what I needed, to get a glimpse of my son’s face, to see that he was all right, clear eyed, and turning his life around.
What if that was his only chance to call and I had missed it? Would he still come by unannounced, or would he wait for the okay? A discordant clang began somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, telling me that it couldn’t possibly be Kurt because he’d probably left rehab a day or two after calling me, that maybe Detective Thompson was right and he’d never been there at all. I put my hands over my ears to muffle it, but even when I concentrated on staying positive, the negative thoughts pushed their way inside.
I knew one way to win this battle. I would make myself behave as if I believed only the positive. I would prepare Kurt’s room for his arrival.
I walked down the hallway and opened the door that had remained closed for far too long. As soon as I switched on the light, I regretted not preparing better for this moment. The bedspread, although clean and tidy, was at least ten years old, and somehow I doubted that multicolored surfboards were age appropriate for a twenty-one-year-old’s duvet cover. The blue stripes on the curtain panels looked faded, I’d never noticed that before. Why hadn’t I replaced those things while I had the chance? Maybe this room would be too full of bad memories for him. Then again, maybe it would feel more like home—as if his room had just been sitting here waiting for him all this time.
I got the Windex and cleaned the windows, then dusted the furniture and vacuumed the beige carpet. At least it would be clean when he got here.
I opened his mostly empty closet to see if anything needed straightening. An old ski jacket hung in the back—reminiscent of happier times when we actually took family vacations. I hoped those days would return to us now that Kurt was drug free. It would never be the same, of course. Nick was gone and would never be back. Still, better times, even good times, awaited.
The empty closet once filled with things made me think about Kurt’s possessions in the back of our storage shed. What if I took his things out, got them all cleaned up, and set them up in his room for him? When he arrived, I could show him that his room was stocked and ready for him, and let him know that he was welcome to stay awhile.
How would Rick feel about that? I was pretty sure he would have issues with it. He held firm to the belief that after children were grown and left the nest, they should not return. Period. Even though he wasn’t living here, the house was technically half his. Besides, we’d always tried to work as a team where our kids were concerned. At least until recently.
Surely even he would be willing to make an exception in this case. How could he not see the necessity of doing everything we could possibly do to make certain that our son succeeded in his recovery? A wholesome environment, healthy food, and a safe place to sleep would be paramount at this time.
When the phone rang, I ran into the hallway and through the kitchen to find the closest handset. I snatched it up, looked at caller ID, and saw Private Caller.
My heart began to pound. “Hello?”
“Mom. It’s me.”
I sank down onto the bed, tears of joy already clogging my throat. “Kurt, how are you?”
“I’m making progress. Starting tomorrow, I’ll be released from the full-time residential program.” His voice sounded stronger than it had when he called last. Healthy and happy. Like it used to sound. Before.
“I’ve just been in your room, getting everything all cleaned and set up for you. So you’ll be here tomorrow, then?” I could scarcely grasp the reality of my son finally coming home to me. It had been such a distant dream since he’d left that I’d hardly acknowledged the dream existed. Now I knew that I would do whatever it took to make certain my son stayed sober. Yes, when he got home I would watch him, help him, support him. It would be a long and hard process, perhaps, but a team effort we were all willing to make. I saw the paper and pencil on the bedside table and picked them up. “By the way, what’s your phone number there?”
I could hear my son breathing on the other end of the line, so I knew that he was still there. He just didn’t speak.
“Kurt?”
“I … thought Aunt Jodi would have called you by now.”
“Jodi?” I thought about the message she’d left on my phone today. “We’ve played a little phone tag. She called, left a message. I was just about to call back.”
“Did she tell you anything? In the message, I mean?”
“All she’s told me is to call her back, that we needed to talk. What were you expecting her to tell me?”
Again, the sound of his breathing on the other end was the only thing that let me know he was still there. Finally, he sighed and continued. “That I’m moving in with them.”
A giant tourniquet squeezed the air from my lungs, as if my body wanted to stop the flow of pain into my heart. I couldn’t breathe. “Why?” The word croaked out of me.
“The treatment center where I’ve been staying has a satellite program in Paso Robles, and they’ve already arranged for me to attend daily sessions. I don’t think I can come back to Santa Barbara, where my old friends and old habits are just a phone call away. Besides, Uncle Monte has offered me a job working his olive orchards. Hourly rate plus free room and board as long as I work hard, stay out of trouble, and keep my grades up.”
In spite of the ache that filled every bit of my being, I knew that logically I should be glad that my son was now clean, glad that he was turning his life around. Why did the thought of him choosing to live with my sister over me feel so much like rejection? Like one more level of the failure that had been taunting me through his life for all these years. “Your grades?”
“I’m getting my transcripts together so I can start summer school at Cuesta College. I’ve been talking to the counselor there, and she believes that if I keep my act together and my grades up, I’ll have a good chance of returning to Cal Poly for my junior year.”
“It’s hard to believe that the same person who lived here, who never planned even a week ahead, has managed to map out the next few years of his life so beautifully.” I choked up and stopped talking before I lost it. After a couple of deep breaths, I managed to continue. “I am so proud of you.”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve heard those words.” His voice was every bit as thick as mine. “From anyone. But no worries, Mom. Things have changed. I’ve changed. A lot.”
The tourniquet loosened with each word. “I’ve got to see you. At least let me help you move in at Jodi’s. Besides, Caroline is going to be a basket case if she can’t get her paws on you soon.”
He laughed. “How is the munchkin? I bet she’s become quite the little lady since I last saw her.” He paused a moment, then continued. “I’ll be driving through Santa Barbara tomorrow night on the way up to Templeton. You want to have dinner or something?”
The menu began to form in my mind. Kurt’s favorite meal had always been beef stroganoff, even though I refused to cook it very often because of the high fat content and the amount of time it took to do it right. Today, neither thing mattered. “Of course I want to have dinner. You just wait, I’ll fix you a meal that’ll make you wonder what you ever did without me.”
“I know what I did without you, Mom, and it wasn’t pretty.” Again, his voice choked up. I heard someone in the background telling him that his time was up. “Look, Mom, I’ve got to go. Would you rather just meet at McDonald’s or something? It’ll make Short Stuff happy, and I know Dad doesn’t want me coming around there. I don’t want to cause trouble.”
This definitely wasn’t the right time to mention the separation. When Kurt came to dinner, I would make certain Rick was here, and we would all pretend that things were just fine. “Of course he wants you coming around here. He was thrilled when I told him that you were in rehab. He will be as excited as I am to see you.”
Kurt’s resulting laugh had a bitter edge to it. “Okay. I’ll call before I leave, just in case you change your mind before tomorrow.” He paused for a minute. “Mom, I love you.” The phone clicked, signalling the end of our conversation.
“No! I love you, too. I love you, too.” The tears poured down my face as the words kept ripping themselves from my very heart and into the phone, over and over and over again. I knew he’d hung up before he ever heard the first word, but I couldn’t stop myself. How many years had I spent wanting to say those words to him? Once I started, I just couldn’t stop.