if you earn a college scholarship, and complete the requirements for Eagle Scout, we’ll give you a car for graduation. And if you get your college applications done in the next two weeks—before we leave for California—we will take you to look at cars while we’re there,” I say.
“Just think, you would be able to use your car for getting to work or getting away from campus for some camping and fishing,” adds Joe. “As long as you take a full load of classes, maintain at least a B average, and don’t ever drink and drive, the car would be yours.”
Joey is thrilled about the possibility of car shopping in a few weeks.
Bribery accomplished.
I’ve collected a suitcase full of schoolwork from Joey’s teachers that will hopefully keep him on track to graduate while he’s hospitalized for his eating disorder. There’s been speculation on campus that the decline in Joey’s appearance and mood might be due to drug abuse. Thank goodness that’s not the case. I’ve heard that drugs are easy to come by here—as easy as signaling to a certain dented green rickshaw circling outside the school gate—so I guess things could be worse.
India. She’s a beauty. So colorful and proud, she wears even poverty and overcrowding with a certain grace. But the need in India is overwhelming—and so, I’ve been trying to save babies for the past year. What started as the holding and feeding of orphans evolved into learning about afflictions such as anal fistulas, clubfeet, and hearts with holes, and then raising money to change the fate of the little orphans who have them. It evolved into the Moms’ Circle of Love, a circle of loving expats all volunteering their time to the same cause. Now, before my departure, I’m handing off baby Prisha—one of the orphaned babies who brightened our home for weeks and months pre- and post-life-altering surgery—to one of the other substitute moms.
Have I been too busy with sick babies to see the sickness in my own son? So much for my oft-spoken motto, “Love Begins at Home.” What other things have my boys seen me do that were at odds with what I said?
I would never have allowed them to eat a whole bag of Oreos in an hour or only salads for a week—but I have done both. “Love yourself for who you are,” I told my sons, while not ever finding myself quite right—always either too thin (once) or too fat (more than once). Did I flip-flop Joey into an eating disorder with my mixed messages? I crashed the car once because of an immediate need for lipstick. Will my boys now disregard that thing I keep telling them about keeping their eyes on the road at all times? I tried yoga once, but when I planked it was only in my mind; I looked like a log—but I was a quitter. Oh, what have I done that can’t be undone?
The short years of childhood don’t allow much time for slapping down the solid brick-and-mortar foundation of fulfilled and capable adults. I tried. I had good intentions. But I messed up—a lot. I guess I always hoped some cosmic scale would balance out all the rights and wrongs. Or some benevolent scorekeeper would just look the other way once in a while. Now I guess I hope I’m right.
In leaving India with one son, I leave the other behind. That there’s no real choice in my doing so doesn’t make this any easier. Even though Rick will be in the caring hands of my friend Cindy and her family until Joe’s solo return, I’m leaving him parentless in a foreign country. I feel sick not knowing when I’ll see him again. Dropping him off at his temporary home, I walk Rick to the front door. He’s ready to make a quick good-bye of this, but I don’t care. I take a deep breath and freeze the moment. Closing my eyes, I inhale the aroma of chocolate mixed with boy sweat, and I memorize the feel of barely-there bristles rubbing against my cheek as I hold my young son close.
The trip from New Delhi to Los Angeles via Beijing lasts twenty-seven long hours. Nerves stretch over the thousands of miles like ribbons of silk caught and pulled by the wind until frayed to threads. Joe and I never discussed whether he would make this trip with me; we didn’t need to. He’s always been there for his sons—from changing diapers to pitching tents to just hanging out doing nothing at all—and this wouldn’t be any different. Joey’s not in any mood to appreciate that, but I do. Wedged between my taut-jawed travel companions, I pretend to read and eat and sleep, and I pretend we’re a happy family, countering Joey’s snappishness with sweetness or eye-contact-avoidant silence. My elbow brushes Joey—the tightly wound bundle of sticks sitting to my left.
“Get off me,” he sneers, jerking his arm away. As though I’ve stabbed him. “I can’t believe you’re making me see this doctor. I’m not sick. You’d better make reservations as soon as we land to have me back on a plane to Delhi right after the appointment tomorrow.” When we finally land, Joey is so tense that he appears even more shrunken than his already shrunken self. I’m surprised he makes it all the way to the hotel before snapping.
Jet-lagged, rumpled, and weary, I roll my suitcase across the gray-green mottled carpet and do a quick assessment of our room—two queen beds, a small sitting area, a view of the hospital beyond a little terrace filled with potted plants. Joey tosses his suitcase onto the floral bedspread nearest the door as Joe lifts his onto the folding luggage rack in the closet. I peek into the bathroom at the shower and soap.
“Who wants to go first?” I ask, turning to beam my smile upon the first chivalrous responder. But Joey is gone. I catch just a glimpse of his sneaker as he darts out the door toward the dark streets of this unfamiliar city. Joe and I don’t budge, or even blink. Time is sucked out the door behind Joey. It is seconds or minutes or hours before we start to bump around, yelling at each other to do something. Joe runs after Joey. I stay behind because we can’t find where we put any of the room keys. It’s only a few minutes until Joe returns, out of breath and empty-handed. He saw Joey running far ahead on the sidewalk but couldn’t catch up. When he called out, Joey took one glance over his shoulder and ran faster.
Joe and I shout about what we should do and which of us should do it, but our room soon turns quiet. There is nothing for us to do. Nothing but wait. And pace. And hope that Joey comes back. So that’s what we do. Hours later, when there’s a knock on the door, Joe and I trip over each other to open it. Joey enters, flicks away our questions, and collapses on his bed without a word. Rolling toward the wall, he pulls a pillow over his head. Turning out the lamp on the nightstand, Joe and I sit on the edge of our bed. We whisper and wait for the rough cadence of our son’s deep-sleep breathing. Finally, tiptoeing, we move around the darkened room, creating a tipsy mountain of suitcases and shampoo bottles in front of our hotel room door. Now, if sleep does come, we’ll be awakened if Joey attempts another escape during the four hours until sunrise.
Nobody eats the hearty breakfast served outside on the terrace under the warm December sky that nobody notices. We just move the sausages and eggs around on our plates until it’s time to depart for Joey’s appointment. The three of us trudge across the street to the sprawling hospital, but only two of us know what’s coming. (I’m only trudging on the outside; on the inside I’m running away.) The closer we get—to the glass doors at the main entrance, to the sign aiming us to the psychiatric ward on the sixth floor, to the metal door behind which he’ll be locked up—the more halting Joey’s steps become. And the harder it becomes to keep my trembling knees from folding. I watch as my son’s grudging trust turns to rabid anger at the realization that he’s been duped. A whirling dervish of elbows and legs, Joey turns on me, face twisted and pleading. As he’s taken away by the white-coated staff trying to restrain him, I claw at the air between us, crying, begging Joey to understand what is to him an inexplicable betrayal.
Weighing in at 138 pounds, down from a normal of 190, and measuring a heart rate of thirty-eight, Joey’s vital signs indicate that he’s a sick young man indeed. The medical team prescribes three to six months in the eating disorder program. If Joey weren’t so weak, he’d blow a gasket.
Several days later, Joe returns to India and to Rick. Eventually, I move into a beigely appointed efficiency apartment within walking distance of the hospital. Visiting hours are from four to six o’clock in the evening, but that only matters if Joey deigns to see me. I fawn over him as much as I can to make up for my big fat