A Kidnapped Mind

by Pamela Richardson

  The next day, Dave and I packed up the boys and drove ten hours through majestic mountains to a horseback riding ranch near Bend, in the foothills of Oregon’s Cascade Mountains. This was our third trip to the ranch, and we were meeting another family from Vancouver there. The horses were round, contented, and well-loved, and nickered softly at night so we could hear them from our cabin. The children had their favourite horses and were given carrots from the kitchen each morning to run downhill and feed to them. It was such a wonderful family time together, and Dave and I had hoped that this year Dash would join us. He would have loved the horses, the farm dogs, galloping over tumbleweeds, and the wide, open spaces. It wasn’t to be. We hoped next year.

  Back from an afternoon ride on the fifth day, I was handed a phone message. In a flurry of letters and phone calls back and forth between Jamie and Peter’s lawyer, it was agreed — Dash was coming back to my house. I flew back on the next plane with Quin, and Dash walked through my door at half past four in the afternoon that Thursday. For once, Peter had brought him.

  “Welcome back,” I said.

  I walked to him with my arms held loosely out and embraced him, but in contrast to our easy physicality in Whistler, now he was awkward and stiff. He told me he loved me but he didn’t melt into my arms as he usually did when we were together. We sat in the kitchen and I hoped that the fragrant cut flowers and sunlight in that bright room, with the fridge and kettle close by, would all feel comforting and friendly to him. We talked lightly about what he wanted for his birthday, horse-riding in Oregon, skateboarding, movies he’d seen over the past few days. Easy stuff. I made grilled-cheese sandwiches and tried to re-establish what we had begun building in Whistler, but he had been with his father for six days and nights and the connection was gone.

  Dash was more dismissive and hostile to me than ever, and there were few moments of sweetness and consideration now to moderate his blasts of abuse. “Nothing is fucking wrong,” he shouted when I asked if he was okay. “You’re driving me there,” he said when he told me he was going to a friend’s. “What are you fucking going to do about it?” he asked when I asked him to please stay.

  A school friend Dash had known since he was young was in the car during one of Dash’s obscene rants at me. He told his mother later that if he were me he would tell Dash to “fuck off” and never see him again. The boy started to distance himself from Dash after that, and would soon cut off all contact with him. Dash’s healthy friends all started to do it. Dash was whittling down the people in his life to just a few holdouts: his father, me, Greg.

  Slowly, over time, his group of friends started to change. He started hanging out with kids two years younger, kids with whom he could still be a leader, and they were rougher than his old crowd. They had broken-down families and homes with no rules — just like Dash. He did what he wanted, when he wanted, with whomever he wanted to do it. Although part of him could still relate to a structured environment when we were up at Whistler, now that he was back in Vancouver it was impossible for him. When he stormed out of the house he didn’t come back for hours. He spent more time at other people’s houses — smoking dope — than at ours. He went to his father’s, came back, demanded money from me, went away again. So I did what I could. I offered to drive him and his friends to the skateboard park. I picked up the taxi fares when he called me at midnight and said he was ready to come home. I made his favourite meals, rented movies, and encouraged his friends to come over so that Dash would stay under my roof. After a couple of nights he would disappear again, staying at friends’ then ending up back at his father’s.

  I needed to get Dash away or I would lose him for the rest of the summer. This was an intervention and it was drifting. I had to get Dash out of Vancouver. He couldn’t function here. It was “Fuck off, whore” when we were together. Away, it was “I love you, too, Mom.” Dash was nearly fourteen years old and what better place to sell a teenager than California? Universal Studios. Movie stars. Las Vegas, Nevada. Desert heat. American food. Theme restaurants. Magic shows. Roller coasters! Thirteen hundred miles between us and his father.

  Dash had said he’d come. I booked tickets for two o’clock that afternoon and let him sleep as long as he wanted. That way he’d have less time to change his mind, less time to bleed back into his other life.

  Sure enough, when Dash woke up, he wouldn’t come. I waited him out. Finally he changed his mind: “Okay, I’ll come.” As soon as he said it, I flew into action, dragging a suitcase up from the basement and filling it with my clothes and Dash’s few things. I organized meals for Dave, carpool pickups and drop-offs for the other two boys. I asked Mimi to stay with them for the nights I would be away. Dave couriered American dollars to the airport. I checked our passports and silently thanked my forward planning: when a judge had given me joint guardianship two years earlier, I had immediately applied for a passport for Dash. We would use it now and not need his father’s permission to cross the border.

  But in the rush, Dash panicked. “I have to get my skateboard from Rob’s place,” he said.

  “You won’t need your skateboard in California, Dash.”

  “Mom, I want it. I’m going to get it.”

  “Then I’ll come with you. Out to UBC? Let’s go!” I wasn’t letting Dash get away. We drove to his friend’s place and I stood with him at the front door as he knocked. I knew I was annoying him, but I didn’t care. We had come too far this last month to let it fall away again. As Rob answered, I watched Dash. He was coiled, ready for action. He asked for his skateboard, then pushed past Rob to get inside. Too quickly, Dash had gone. I waited, hand on the door jamb, my heart hammering. At what point would I go in and look for them, I wondered, but a moment later the boys appeared. Dash looked around and then back at me. This was it: he was going to run. But I was still bigger. I was stronger. I lunged for the skateboard.

  “Thanks! I’ve got it!” I said breezily and at a half-run repaired to the car with the skateboard under my arm. His prized possession was my hostage. Dash had hold of one end of it, and we tugged it back and forth. “Okay, Dash, we’ll put it in the front, no problem!” I said, as I gave one final pull and slipped the freed skateboard under my arm.

  I got in the driver’s side and watched Dash climb warily into the other. When he’d closed the door, I handed him his board and drove out University Boulevard, taking the long way home, not wanting to get too close to his father’s house. Five minutes from home, we pulled up to a four-way stop sign. Dash’s fingers tightened on the board. As I moved forward, Dash opened the door.

  I grabbed the end of his skateboard and held it tight. “Dash! What are you doing? Close the door!”

  “I don’t want to go. I’m not going. I’m getting out of here, Pam.” He had one leg out the door.

  I had to be firm. I had to be tougher than him. “Shut the door, Dash. We’re going.” I kept my eyes on the road and picked up speed. As Dash pulled the skateboard my fingers slipped on its smooth surface and I lost hold of it. Dash moved toward the open door. Using all my strength, I grabbed a handful of his arm and sweatshirt and hauled him back into the car. I took hold of the board again.

  “Dash! Shut the door!”

  He wouldn’t. His eyes flashed, watching, waiting to yank the board away from me. I saw tension in the whites of his knuckles as they grasped the board’s trucks. He said nothing, not a syllable — no “you whore,” no “fuck this.” He just held onto that board as if it were his lifesaver in a stormy sea. I drove as fast as I dared, mother of three and resident of tranquil Kerrisdale, struggling over the skateboard, calling to Dash to shut the door. A bus bore down on me and honked; pedestrians turned their heads as we passed. I swerved as a SUV pulled out in front of us. I missed a stop sign but just kept going. With my right hand holding the board and my left hand holding the steering wheel, I began to cry, pleading with Dash.

  “Dash, you’ll see. We’ll have a good time. We’ll go to Universal Studios and …” I struggled
to think of our plans. “And the casinos … and Dash we have to get to know each other again. It’s been so long. I love you so much. I love you, Dash.” I said it over and over again, trying to convince him. The door swung wide open, then snapped lightly closed. Dash pulled on the handle and hauled on the skateboard again. Be stronger than he is, I willed myself. Be his mom through this. I was driving at forty kilometres an hour. The door was wide open. With my driving hand I reached through the wheel and grabbed my cell phone from the console. Forcing it down low under the wheel, I called 911. I had a ninety-day access order with police backup. They would come within minutes as they had before. But I hesitated when they answered. We were only three blocks from home. I hung up and called Mimi instead. “Mimi, we’re one minute away from you,” I cried. “Is the cab there? Good! Go down and press the button for the garage door!”

  It started to pour rain. The jaw of the garage door opened wide as I wove the car downhill into the underground garage. With my left hand I turned off the ignition and jammed the keypad above my visor to bring the garage door down. Releasing my hold on the skateboard, I leapt from the car to catch Dash in case he ran before the door closed us in. I was panting and shaking; my body was wired. I was still crying. The door clanged closed into its lock and, still guarding the exit route, I turned to grab Dash but couldn’t see him. Had he run? I raced around the car to his door and found it still closed. As I yanked it open, I braced myself, expecting a skateboard to come hurtling at me. Instead, I gasped at what I saw. Dash was still sitting in his seat, his face drained of colour. The black sky outside had darkened the garage, and in the dull light Dash looked pale and suddenly very young. Staring through the windscreen, he looked straight ahead, not at me, not at the window in front, just into space, at nothing. He was still frozen, cradling the skateboard weakly in one arm, his other arm lying limp at his side, and tears streamed down his face. His body was soft and his face was slack. His brown eyes were tired and small.

  “Oh, Dash. It’s okay. It’s going to be all right,” I said. “It’s okay. We’re going to have fun together, you’ll see.” He blinked a few times, as if slowly waking up. “Oh, Dash.” I leaned into the car and held him. “I promise you it will be all right. You’ll be okay.” He turned to look at me, uncomprehending. “The cab is waiting to take us to the airport, okay? Okay, Dash? Let’s go, now, and have our holiday. Let’s just go. You’ll see.” Dash nodded slowly. He had given his all not to come. He had tried hard to escape, he could tell his father that. But with the garage door shut he could now accept his fate. It was peace I saw on his face, something I hadn’t seen in years.

  California glistened and gleamed from our airplane window. Our dramatic drive through West Point Grey and Kerrisdale seemed forgotten as Dash leaned forward to look out, a broad grin on his face. As soon as we touched down, he asked eagerly, “Where’s our first stop, Mom? Universal?”

  “You got it, Dash. We’re going to see Jaws!”

  “Jaws! Mom, that’s so old!”

  “The Psycho house?”

  “Older!”

  “Neverland?”

  “That’s Disneyland!” And so it went on. Dash and I romped around Universal Studios; helmeted up for the virtual-reality rides; got soaked on the Jurassic Park water ride. We lolled about for hours on end in the hotel’s pool, then flew to Las Vegas, that overwhelming, otherworldly mirage. Our goal: roller-coaster rides and theme restaurants. The glittering hotel had a casino and a pool with a running river that we swam against. Dash loved it, hauling himself into it with strong strokes. When I got out, exhausted, he made sure I watched him swim. We ate junk food and slept every night in hysterical, Las Vegas–sized beds, which we dragged side by side so we could talk sleepily to each other as though we were at camp. We rode every roller coaster in Vegas. I have never screamed so loudly in my life, most of it from genuine and paralyzing fear. Dash and his teenage bravado took it all in stride, laughed at me. To him it was all a hoot. When my knees gave way after one ride, he grabbed for my arm, with another great boom. He had found his funny bone again. He laughed more on that trip than I had heard him laugh in a long time.

  We went to a Lance Burton magic show that kept Dash mesmerized. I watched the simple, childish wonder on his face as he tried to calculate exactly how the magician had cut his assistant in half. When Burton made hundreds of doves appear out of his hat and beautiful ladies disappear, Dash turned and looked at me with a brightness on his face I hadn’t seen for years. He was fascinated by the casinos and gambling. “I’m going to come back when I’m old enough and win lots of money!” he declared. When we walked through hotel lobbies, we made a game out of slowing down but never quite stopping to watch the gambling, lest a uniformed guard come barrelling over and remind me sternly that Dash was under age. “Keep moving, please, Ma’am,” Dash joked, putting on a big deep voice.

  Dash donned a jumpsuit and climbed into a flight-simulation capsule, then helped me choose a theme restaurant for dinner that evening. Over the week we had a “rainforest experience” and a red-and-white-checked-tablecloth Italian dinner, a 1950s burger night and a Japanese sushi night. We shopped for clothes as we always had. It was, by now, one of our favourite things to do together. I indulged his whims up and down “the strip.” We did anything and everything he wanted to do. I wanted to spoil him, because he had missed out on so many great family times with us. I could never smooth away what Dash had lived, but at least as he lay his body down on the chaise longue by the pool, or laughed along with PG-rated stand-up comics, I could tell myself: At least I got him here.

  It wasn’t all easy, though. It was exhausting to be with Dash. I had to supervise him as if he were half his age. I didn’t trust him to stay with me, and we were in too bizarre a town for Dash to be wandering off by himself. One night we had an early dinner before going to the Cirque du Soleil. Dash disappeared, saying on his way out, “I have something to do.” He didn’t come back for half an hour.

  “Where did you go, Dash?”

  “Yeah, well, I was in the washroom. So what?”

  “Well,” I put my palm flat on my chest to show I had been worried. “Dash, please. Would you let me know where you’re going before you shoot off like that? It’s not fair to make me worry about you.”

  He didn’t seem to understand what I was saying. He shrugged his shoulders, and gave me a look that said, “How uptight are you? It’s no big deal.” The show started and the moment was up. Sometimes I had to push aside what had happened to Dash and remind myself that he was also a teenager. I leaned over and, with a smile, nudged him sideways and let it go.

  Although Dash reacted poorly to criticism of any kind, I still called him on his bad behaviour. I was his mother. He had to learn from someone. Because I saw Dash as a traumatized child, I depersonalized his slurs, dismissiveness, and sudden impulses to get up and leave. It helped me to not overreact and gave me a base from which I could just keep pouring on the love. I used humour. It had always been an important part of our relationship, and when I used humour he understood. I said, “Baby, I am not your whore!” when he called me a “Ho” and “Do I look like a young girl to you?” when he called me “girl.” Dash’s charming habit of pulling his pants down and bending over to show me his naked bottom finally stopped, once and for all, when I said, “Do you think I want to look at your cellulite and pimples? Could you please cover up your bottom?” and laughed. He had neither cellulite, nor pimples, but I never saw his bottom winking at me again.

  We had some long, grown-up conversations, but no miraculous epiphanies, and I didn’t expect any. It was one tiny step at a time with Dash, and I was patient. I didn’t push anything, or ask anything, and I let Dash begin most of our conversations. The only thing we had to accomplish during that intervention was reconnection. It had been there in Whistler. It had disintegrated in Vancouver. It was back now, and everything else flowed from that. Dash rarely mentioned his dad. Over dinner I asked Dash if he had any heroes, and he sa
id “No,” but then after a slight hesitation said, “Oh, my dad. And he’s in AA now. To stop you saying things about him.” It was a reflexive, protective line. I understood. “He’s not an alcoholic any more,” he said. I was surprised as ever at his naïveté, his utter lack of cynicism, after all he had been through. He truly thought that, if his dad said he wasn’t going to drink any more, he really wouldn’t.

  I had been waiting with growing anxiety for what would happen once we went back to Vancouver, but it came a night early. On our last night in Las Vegas, Dash’s growing agitation broke loose.

  “The flight tomorrow is too early!” he shouted. “Pay the extra, change the flight.”

  “Eight o’clock is not too early, Dash,” I said firmly. “I’m not changing the flight.” Dash started calling me names, crying out, complaining. He shouted, “Pam, Pam, Pam!” over and over. He rolled around on his bed and made noises as I lay in the dark room trying to tune him out. It didn’t last long, half an hour maybe, and he must have exhausted himself, because he fell asleep quickly once he calmed down. The next day, again, the moment was forgotten. Dash was fine. He got up without drama, got dressed and ready, wandered onto the plane still half-asleep, and we flew home. He lay his head in my lap and slept until we flew over the sprawl of San Francisco.

  But off the plane, back only minutes at my home in Vancouver, Dash flew into action. “I’m going to a friend’s place,” he said, grabbing his skateboard from where it sat inside the door of our house. I followed him outside and took his arm lightly to get him to look at me. “Your friend can come here,” I said. “I’ll pick him up.”