Where'd You Go, Bernadette

SATURDAY, JANUARY 15

Fax from Audrey Griffin

Dear Soo-Lin,

Congratulations on your newfound happiness. You’re a wonderful person, and you deserve all the joy your new life has brought to you. May it continue.

I have found serenity myself, in Utah, where Kyle is in wilderness rehab. He’s a drug addict and has been diagnosed with ADHD and borderline personality disorder.

We found a wonderful, if arduous, immersion program. The reason we chose Utah is because it’s the only state that by law essentially allows you to kidnap your child, so they specialize in these wilderness programs. On the first day, they drove Kyle and a group of kids, blindfolded, twenty miles out into the middle of the desert and dumped them without sleeping bags, food, toothbrushes, or tents, and told them they’d be back for them in a week.

It’s not like a reality television show where there are cameras and everyone is being watched. No. These kids are forced to cooperate in order to survive. Many of them, like Kyle, were coming off drugs cold turkey.

Of course, I was terrified. Kyle is incapable of doing anything for himself. You remember those calls when we were having girls’ night out. “Mom, the remote is out of batteries.” And I’d leave early to go to the store to get him more? How would he survive seven days in the desert? Or worse, I looked around at the other mothers, and I thought, My son is going to kill one of your children.

After a week, the kids were rounded up and brought back to the rehab center. Kyle came back alive, ten pounds lighter, smelling to high heaven, and a tiny bit meek.

Warren returned to Seattle, but I couldn’t. I checked into a motel that makes the Westin look like the Taj Mahal. The soda machines are covered with metal grating. The sheets were so scratchy, I drove a hundred miles to the nearest Walmart and bought cotton ones.

I started going to Al-Anon meetings, ones that specialize in parents whose kids have substance-abuse problems. I have come to accept that my life has become unmanageable. I always went to church, but this program is deeply spiritual in a way I’ve never before experienced. I’ll leave it at that.

Truthfully, I’m afraid of going back to Seattle. Gwen Goodyear has generously offered to take Kyle back at Galer Street after spring break and let him make up his credits over the summer so he can graduate with his class. But I’m not sure I want to go back just yet. I’m not the same woman who wrote that foolish Christmas poem. At the same time, I’m not sure who I am. I trust God to guide me.

That is very upsetting news about Bernadette. I know she’ll turn up. She always has a trick up her sleeve, doesn’t she?

Love,

Audrey