Crystal Lies

by Melody Carlson

  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.”

  “So it is my fault.” As I eyed the sack on the counter, I felt a mother lode of guilt burying me.

  “If you allow him to keep living with you, Glennis, when you know he needs help…then, yes, you are a part of the problem.”

  “But it’s cold outside. Where will he go? What will he eat?”

  “If he gets cold enough or hungry enough, he might decide he’d like things to change.” Her voice softened now “Or he may want to consider rehab when he sees that you are firmly drawing the line.”

  “Do you think?”

  “Draw your boundaries, Glennis. See what happens.” I sighed. “Okay, I think maybe you could be right.”

  “Good. Let me know how it goes.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Abrams.”

  “No problem. And next time you’re in, we’ll discuss what’s a real emergency and what’s not.”

  “Right.” I hung up and wondered if Dr. Abrams really understood what constituted an emergency for me. Oh sure, my problems might seem small compared to someone who’s standing on the ledge of a high-rise building with emergency crews down below But that wasn’t so unlike how I felt at this moment, like I was teetering on the edge of a cliff with no emergency crews anywhere in sight and nothing but a dark abyss below, and it seemed the only way out was down.

  I had done such an excellent job of keeping my problems to myself the past couple of years. Other than Sherry and my immediate family, everyone else was kept safely at arm’s length. I had developed a series of pat answers that seemed to work.

  “How are you doing?” someone would ask.

  “Just great,” I would say with a plastic smile.

  “How are the kids?”

  “Sarah loves college, and Jacob has become quite the musician.” More smile. Then I would deflect the attention from my family by asking how they were doing. It worked so well. Admittedly, some of this facade was designed to protect Geoffrey’s image. He’d made it clear to me early on that, as city attorney, he didn’t want his family’s dirty laundry aired publicly. But I must confess these answers became comfortable for me as well. I had enough trouble with guilt and grief without adding anyone’s judgments or pity to my pile. Even my mother had remained somewhat in the dark about what was going on in our family since I only gave her bits and pieces, always with a very optimistic spin. I was a bit worried that Sarah might’ve told her grandmother the whole story during one of her visits, but then I realized that Sarah, as much as Geoffrey, liked keeping up appearances. She never wanted to acknowledge that anything was wrong within our family. Sometimes she even acted as if her brother had ceased to exist.

  But on the day I discovered the syringes and called Dr. Abrams, I felt something inside of me snap. As I paced back and forth in my little apartment, waiting for Jacob to come home and trying to decide if and how I should confront him, I knew I could no longer keep this to myself. I realized I wanted to talk to my mother, and before I could stop myself, I had dialed her number. Shocked when I suddenly heard her happy voice answering the phone, I must’ve stuttered out a questionable greeting.

  “Glennis?” she said with alarm. “Is something wrong, dear?”

  Now, my mother already knew that Geoffrey and I were separated. “Just for a bit,” I had assured her early on. “Just until we can work some things out.” And my mother, the perennial optimist, had told me she felt certain we’d figure things out and be back together by Christmas.

  “It’s about Jacob,” I began.

  “Oh dear! Has he been hurt? Is it serious?”

  “Yes, it’s serious, Mom. But it’s not like an accident. I’m not quite sure how to tell you this—” My voice broke into a sob.

  “Oh dear,” she said. “But if it has to do with his sexual orientation, well, dear, you’ll just have to take it in stride. These things happen nowadays, and—”

  “No, Mother,” I said in a sharp voice. “It’s not about his sexual orientation. It’s that he’s involved in drugs.”

  “Oh, that.” She sighed. “Well, now, Glennis, that isn’t so unusual. I just saw a show on Dr. Phil where these parents and teens were talking about marijuana and—”

  “This isn’t Dr. Phil Mom,” I pleaded. “This is my life. And I’ve just discovered that Jacob is using some very serious drugs.”

  “What kind of drugs, dear?”

  “I, uh…I don’t really know.”

  “Well, now…” The tone of her voice reminded me of when I was little, when I would tell her something I felt was important, but she would simply dismiss it as if it were nothing.

  “I found hypodermic needles under his bed, Mom,” I said emphatically, wanting my sense of shock to be contagious. “At least a dozen of them. All used.”

  “Well, that’s not good.”

  “No, it’s not good at all.” I felt a tinge of relief then, as if maybe she was getting the severity of this after all.

  “You know the problem with youth today is that they have too much time on their hands,” she began. “Back when I was a kid, we were so busy we didn’t have time to think about silly things like drugs. Is Jacob still involved in the church youth group?”

  I groaned inwardly. Jacob had quit going to youth group back in middle school. “No, not really,” I told her.

  “Well, you see, if he was involved in the youth group, he wouldn’t have time for that kind of foolishness and such.” She paused. “Do you remember when you were his age, Glennis? Why, you went to youth group all the time. Didn’t you even work with the youth group after college?”

  “Yes.” I sighed.

  “And wasn’t that how you and Geoffrey first met?”

  “Yes.” I desperately wanted to hang up now. I couldn’t see how any of this would help Jacob.

  “So how are things going with Geoffrey, dear? Have you been in for your marriage counseling yet? My friend Francis said that her son and daughter-in-law just went to a marriage-enrichment weekend, and it has literally changed their lives. I could probably get the name of the ministry for you. I think it was interdenominational, and they—”

  “No, thanks, Mom. I don’t think Geoffrey and I are ready for that yet.”

  “But you are getting counseling?”

  “I am.”

  “What about Geoffrey?”

  “I don’t think he’s interested.”

  “You don’t think…but, honey, have you even asked him?”

  “Well, there are other complications, Mom.”

  “You mean this thing with Jacob? Well, Glennis, you can’t let Jacob’s problems destroy a perfectly good marriage. That’s it, isn’t it? Jacob has come between you and Geoffrey. You know Sarah has alluded to this very thing. It must’ve gone right over my head at the time. But now that I think about it, I know that must be the source of your marital distress. You’ve allowed Jacob’s drug problem to ruin your marriage, haven’t you? Am I right?”

  “No, Mom, you’re not right. I’ll admit that Jacob’s problem hasn’t helped matters. But, trust me, our marriage was already in trouble. In fact it was in a lot more trouble than I realized.”

  “Oh dear. Does this mean you’re not trying to work things out?”

  I took a deep breath. “Mom, I think that Geoffrey is having an affair.”

  Long pause.

  “Did you hear me, Mom?”

  “Yes, dear, I heard you. I was just thinking about what you said. You know, honey, it’s not the end of the world when your husband strays—”

  “Mom? What do you mean?”

  “I mean this sort of thing happens to a lot of people.”

  “You mean like you and Daddy?”

  “Yes, and many others, too.”

  “But you guys ended up getting divorced.”

  “It wasn’t my choice, Glennis. I told your father that I could forgive him, but he had to have things his way.” She made a tsk-tsk sound. “And look where that got him.”

  “Are you saying that’s
what killed him?”

  “God only knows, Glennis. God only knows.”

  “Right.” I shook my head. “So you’re saying the fact that Geoffrey may be having an affair is no big deal. Not grounds for leaving him?”

  “I’m saying it’s been happening since the beginning of time. Goodness, don’t you remember the story of King David and Bathsheba?”

  “Mom.” I could hear the impatience in my voice growing. I suddenly felt like I was fourteen again.

  “Hear me out, Glennis. It’s true, men do stray sometimes. But its the godly woman’s role to forgive and forget.”

  “Oh, please.” That was not what I needed to hear.

  “Well, it’s the truth, dear. These things happen in the best of marriages. And God expects us to forgive one another and move on.”

  “Right.” I stared out the window and wished I’d never called.

  “I know it’s hard to hear the truth sometimes, Glennis. But I’m your mother, and I love you, and I can only tell you what I think the good Lord would tell you.”

  “That I should go back to Geoffrey?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I was almost ready to go back to him,” I told her. “I even drove over there, ready to apologize, to tell him I was wrong and wanted to come home…and you know what?”

  “No, dear, what?”

  “He was having a candlelight dinner with his new love interest.”

  “Oh my. That must’ve been hard.”

  “I’ll say. But that’s when I knew it was really over between us.”

  “No, no…it’s not over, honey. Don’t say that. Where there is life, there is hope. Now, I’ll be praying for you and Geoffrey and our poor Jacob. But I have no doubts whatsoever that God is taking you through the fire so you can all be purified and strengthened for his glory.”

  “Right.”

  “Will I be seeing you for Christmas?”

  “Christmas?” I felt the meekness in my voice. How could this woman talk about Christmas when my life was completely falling apart?

  “I thought maybe you’d all like to come out here for the holidays, dear. Get a little sunshine, play some golf. Our church is putting on a wonderful musical this year.”