Suspended Sentence

by Janice Morgan

  So here was my strategy: I would contribute half of the down payment if Dylan saved up his half. He already had a big chunk from the proceeds of his bricklaying job and the garden work. Next, Dylan would take out a loan for the remaining $11,000 over six years for $200/month. If he could finish Drug Court and graduate, that should be possible. I would have to co-sign, but he would be the one to pay. Essentially, he would take a cut in his allowance. It meant he would get $50 less per week, but it also meant that I wasn’t paying more. He would still have enough for food but not enough for gas; he’d have to work for that. He’d also have to set money aside for the auto insurance—he knew how much that would be. That deal, if I was going to help him finance a vehicle, seemed to be the best one I could swing. Overall, I took solace in the belief that I was following the playbook of then-current Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke. I considered my monetary aid a “stimulus package,” on the condition that my support would “taper off” once Dylan completed his degree and was able to earn his own living.

  Through it all, it was imperative that Dylan continue to do well in college and in Drug Court. If he failed to fulfill his duties or he had any serious driving infractions, the deal would be off. Then I’d re-possess the vehicle and sell it. The stakes had to be high to get Dylan’s attention—that much I knew.

  We all have our accounting systems, and they encompass way more than money. Even though Dylan saw himself as being majorly disadvantaged in one key way—having Bipolar II, which gave him an endless array of problems to solve—in other ways, he was privileged. He was able to attend college and work toward his degree while being supported with an allowance, which wasn’t exactly the case for most students. He was also fortunate to have received the option of a court-ordered diversion, unlike many facing felony charges who get incarcerated for years. We talked about this, but I’m not convinced he could fully appreciate his good fortune yet. Maybe because his internal issues seemed to override these advantages. Or maybe he did realize it but was always comparing what he had with what he thought he deserved—that old entitlement grudge.

  I let Dylan do all the research for a vehicle, but he had to stay within the parameters of what we’d discussed. I don’t know how skilled his research was for his college classes, but when it came to this particular project, his investigational acumen was phenomenal. He was motivated. He used Carfax, sites like carsdirect.com, and the Blue Book to find what he deemed “a good deal.” Finally, he located a 2010 Dodge Ram at a dealership in Atlanta, selling for $17,000. Despite being still fairly new, it already had 90,000 miles on it. Even so, it was under the mileage limit set for the loan, though Ms. Clark at People’s First did fuss over it. “The price should be lower,” she said. Undaunted, Dylan was able to produce the vehicle’s estimated resale value from the Blue Book. Besides, everyone knew that Dodge Rams held their value well over time. Even the testy loan officer had to agree with that.

  Then there was the issue of how to make sure the vehicle would live up to the dealer’s claims. Dylan located an online service that could check it out; they would e-mail comments and even photos to clients after an examination and test drive—for a fee, of course. It cost, but not as much as going to Atlanta and back. The report, when it arrived, was promising. Eventually, contracts were duly signed and money transferred. Where we found the energy to do all this while fall classes were already in full swing, I can’t say. It must have been the adrenaline.

  Finally, the big day arrived. We’d arranged for the truck to be delivered from Atlanta to my house. On the designated morning, a text message came in, then two phone calls, one from the driver, the other from Dylan. The truck was on its way and would be in town at about 9:15. Before long, a huge trailer with a bright red truck mounted on top rolled past my front windows. The driver had missed my house and sailed right on past! After an orienting phone call, he rolled back, and going out to the street, I found myself gazing at a spectacular muscle truck in all its glory. I waved and called out to a neighbor, obviously bewildered as the trailer had backed into his driveway in order to turn around. Seconds after the driver parked in front of my house, Dylan arrived on his bike. The rest of the sequence passed as if in a dream. Of course, we’d seen plenty of pictures, read all the specs and details online, but to actually see the object of desire in the morning light was beyond imagining.

  The driver and his assistant got out and greeted us. Then the driver climbed into the Ram to start the engine. A smooth rumble began, and he slowly, slowly backed the truck down the ramp. Next, he had us check the truck over and sign the delivery papers. The driver mentioned that while crossing one of the narrow bridges in the area, the side mirror on the driver’s side of his rig had suffered a nick by another passing vehicle. He shook his head—another one for the insurance company. But it looked like the Dodge Ram was fine. I hugged Dylan.

  “This is a big moment,” I told him.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “If you hadn’t worked hard and saved your money, it wouldn’t have happened.” I’d actually told him this several times over the last two months. “Just remember, it’s important that you stay on your path,” I continued. He nodded. For a few moments, we both stood there, transfixed.

  Then, as the rig drove off to another job, Dylan started up the truck and went to do his errands. He drove slowly down the street, and I knew he was excited; he hadn’t driven a vehicle for a long while. Later that same day, he told me the truck was exactly what he thought it would be—even better. It drove like new and handled smoothly. He’d put in $25 worth of gas and the gauge had gone way up; he felt it was going to be conservative with fuel. Someone at the evening AA meeting had told him a truck like that could go beyond 200,000 miles with no problem; his own was up to 177,000. So far, Dylan didn’t seem to be puffing up too much. He was just another muscle guy with a muscle truck, and that was fine.

  Dylan said he worked for Arlo on Wednesday afternoon after classes and earned $100. He needed part of that to pay off a debt for the DUI classes. And now he would need to save for fuel. That would keep him busy.

  For days and weeks after the arrival of the Dodge Ram, a strange phenomenon occurred. I started seeing huge, red trucks everywhere. They cropped up on every street corner, in every parking lot. They were at the bank, on campus, at the supermarket; in town and out of town, rolling on every highway, moving in all directions. Not only that, but my neighbor across the street magically acquired a huge, red truck too, parked in plain view right on his driveway. The case was contagious—or maybe a conspiracy.

  There was another phenomenon ushered in by the truck. I got wind of this one Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks later. Dylan wanted to meet up with me at home so that I could reimburse him for the bags of pine bark mulch and a soaker hose he’d bought for the garden taking shape in my front yard. He’d bring the receipts to show. Glancing out the door when the truck rolled up, I noticed a young woman was with him up in the cab. There seemed to be some brief discussion before Dylan got out, receipts in hand. Not used to seeing him with any women now for a year, though often hearing about them as classmates on projects, I asked him about the dark-haired girl.

  “Oh, she’s helping me with a project. Well, gotta go now. Have a lot to do. See ya later!”

  I wondered if I’d see her again. Better hope she was calmer than the last one! I knew about his volatile relationship with Caitlin, whom he’d met the first day of his freshman year. Though charming, she turned out to be possessive, with a red-hot temper. Once she threw a wooden rolling pin at his bedroom window on a drive-by and broke a pane of glass. And who knows how many arguments and changed phone numbers occurred over many months?

  “Well, you know,” I told him one day, “with women, it’s like looking for the right car. Just like in the Smokey Robinson and the Miracles song, “Shop Around.” That’s what his mom told him, and it still stands true in my book.”

  “Well, I’ve met plenty of girls,” he told me. “It happens that
one will say to me, ‘I’m attracted to you, but I don’t think I could put up with you.’”

  “Oh, yeah? That’s happened often?”

  “Many times, many times,” he answered, shaking his head. But not, I think, in total despair.

  I’ve reflected since then that the proposed vehicle of that summer had slowly and inevitably morphed from being a mode of transport to being a mirror reflection of Dylan himself. The 2010 Dodge Ram was a rough and ready truck. Bold, powerful, it could take on heavy loads and still move fast, still rumble. It may have been high-maintenance, but it was high-performance, too. That was exactly how Dylan wanted to see himself, and the way he wanted to be seen in the world—as if he could be invincible. The Ram wasn’t just a vehicle. It was a talisman, a totem, a techno spirit animal. It had a job to do: give him the strength to achieve his dreams.

  Whatever else the truck may have represented, for both of us it marked a turning point. We were still in the middle of changes. There was still another year of Drug Court to go, and still at least another year of college before any degree could be conferred. Nothing was certain. But shortly after Dylan started up the Ram’s engine, I began to realize that the unique road trip I’d been on with Dylan for about a year was officially over. He had his own wheels now. More than that, he was at the wheel; he was the driver. We still met up and talked, but it was clear that Dylan wanted to manage his own affairs. From now on, he would be more under his own recognizance, taking on more responsibilities.

  Was he ready for this? Was I? I’m sure we both asked ourselves this question all through the truck acquisition process. But to him—to both of us—it became the inevitable next step. For the rest, we would just have to find out what would happen the way most everybody does, by trying it.

  CHAPTER 27: WHEN

  When do parents and adult children start to look at each other as separate persons, instead of as aspects of their own personalities, destinies, and desires? When can each one see that the other is truly another individual, that their qualities and faults are their own, not anything powerful enough to tie you up forever or hold you back from becoming the person you are meant to be?

  It’s true that the bond between parent and child can be long and complicated. For a while, at the beginning or at the end of your journeys, one will be the protector of the other. If both live long enough, these roles can change completely, will reverse. The oncechild may become the strong caretaker, the decision maker for her parent. We know this could happen.

  Yet in between these early and late care-takings, there can be an open field of possibility, a space for two unique persons to encounter each other. The bond strong but almost weightless.

  My question is this: when will a parent and her adult child start to see each other as fellow travelers on the rocky, curvy road of life? A place where you get hurt, where there is so much to learn?

  Does it ever really happen? And if so, how long does it take?

  Will they both still be alive when it happens?

  CHAPTER 28: MOM, WHERE ARE YOU?

  Please, Mom, let’s get together. My sixty-year-old self would like to speak to your sixty-year-old self. Yes, finally, I caught up to you. Listen, we could sit down and talk together just like we used to—only now it will be as friends exactly the same age. Let’s agree to meet at your house, the one on Dogwood Court. I’ll bring us some cake, and we can make coffee. I hope we can be together out on the patio.

  We could talk about our marriages, our sons. Good God, how are those for topics? Bring Kleenexes—ha! I know you always had a ton of those stuffed in your jacket pockets for all occasions. We can compare notes. Be forewarned, though: I’ll have lots of questions for you. You can tell me how you made it through the long days of uncertainty. How you managed to stay calm when you woke up suddenly in the night, then remembered the latest crisis looming up. Did you get up and walk outside? How did you get through those days?

  I’ll ask how you managed to be so brave—first, about things physical, like the operations you had. The emotional ordeals, too. You knew that there are times when you just have to force the issue, like when you foresaw a threat to your marriage. You staged a choice for your husband. One morning while he was at work, you packed your suitcase. Then you left a note for him on the table: “Meet me at the beach condo if you want us to stay together. I can’t accept you slipping away from me like this. If you want to talk, you know where to find me.” Who would believe that such an easy-going woman, with your ready smile, your cheerful laugh, could be so bold? So uncompromising in your emotional life? Mom, it felt good when you and Dad told me about all this. To say we had gotten beyond secrets.

  Then there was your son, Mark. How did you find your way through all those painful times? What on earth steadied your nerve back then? Like when you saw the scotch in the bottle was going down faster than usual. Or when he was sick with delirium tremens, and he begged you for a drink and you said no. Instead, you put a cold cloth on his forehead and kept vigil. Yes, I know you prayed a lot—that much you told me before. Well, me too, Mom. Me, too.

  Strange, the whole time I was growing up, we were both convinced I was so different from you. By the time I was twenty, even before, I was sure my life was going to take a completely different direction from yours. It did, in fact. So who would guess we would live through some of the very same challenges, you and I? Who would guess that I would come to regard you as my model for strength? Yes, I know, no one could have told me that when I was younger. I wouldn’t have believed it for an instant. Well, now we can just be there for each other. You won’t have to protect me anymore. Mostly, we’ll listen to each other.

  Our talk won’t be only about serious things. We both learned there can be a storm brewing somewhere even on the most cloudless of days. But that won’t stop us from enjoying our blue skies when they come. I hope you’ll tell me again how much you love birds. How you learned to take care of them in the winter by making sure they had seeds and berries after a snowfall. I try to follow your example, and I think of you when I do. I think of how you loved working in your garden, even when we were in Pasadena, when the “ground rules” were completely different!

  Tell me the story again about how you tried to grow Minnesota flowers in a subtropical zone. What a disaster! Do you remember the night you had us all outside in the back yard with flashlights, collecting snails in plastic bags? You and Dad, my little brother, Mark, and me. We must have seen hundreds of snails chowing down on all the tiny green leaves of the flowers you had just planted that afternoon. I didn’t think you would ever recover from the sight. Neither did Dad. While you were trying to save the tiny plants, he was lecturing to us about ecological niches, trying to convince you that Pasadena probably just wasn’t the right place for petunias. And that was right around the time of the first moonwalk, too: July 20, 1969. Apollo 11. Remember that night? We watched the whole spectacle on TV. How unreal it all seemed! So now Neil Armstrong’s historic boot prints in moon dust are inextricably linked to my memory of us snail-hunting together under the moonlight.

  CHAPTER 29: NAMI III

  Laura’s Story, Part II

  About nine months after my first encounter with Joan’s daughter, Laura, the NAMI group invited her back for another visit to see how she was doing. By this time, funding had been cut at the Safe Harbor Center at Chesterfield; they lost their director, who had taken another job. Before leaving, however, the director had given Laura special counseling training so that she could step into an advisory role. She was becoming a peer support specialist for the group she had belonged to now for about three years.

  This time, rather than sitting among us NAMI parents, Laura took her place at the head of the table as our main presenter and spoke to us about her new job. She admitted she still had ups and downs, still some bad days. But now, the bad days tended to be due to external events rather than internal dysfunction. For a person living with a mental illness, this can be a positive development. As an example, she
told us about a recent bureaucratic snafu. One of her prescriptions suddenly stopped being renewed because of a decision made by the insurance provider. We knew Laura was feisty; she would get the paperwork filled out and fight for what she needed. She eventually prevailed, though she joked that it took a few months off her lifespan to do it. She didn’t mention anything about Zach, the boyfriend, but it appeared that he was gradually coming around to understand her situation better—after she left. The romantic part of her life remained uncertain.

  No matter, Laura looked composed and on top of it, like any other professional woman taking her place in the world. She told us she felt calmer and more anchored now than she had been for decades. The reason: she was able to see how far she had come, knew better how to keep herself balanced. She had a safe place to live. She had a team to help her keep on the path: a case manager, a therapist, a psychiatrist. For the rest, she had valuable work to do, and she knew she could be good at it. She showed us materials she used with her Safe Harbor Center participants—told us about their lives, how she planned activities for them, how well she knew each one, how they problem-solved together. As advisor, she took things as they came; peers trusted her because they knew she had weathered some of the same storms they had.

  “I tell them that if they’re coming to the Harbor, then I’m going to be their captain. My dad was in the Navy, so I can do that,” she said, laughing. I remarked on how much more at ease she seemed this evening. This was my first time to encounter Laura when she was at her best.