Happy Birthday- Republished

Into the Wilderness: Story 5

On Catina’s 15th birthday, I gave her a drug test.

She walked in the door from school, a rare smile on her face, and, without as much as a “hello, honey, happy birthday,” I stretched out my arm, holding the small cylindrical container for urine collection. Surprising me, she laughed. She thought I was kidding. I was not. She eyed me warily. “I’ll go as soon as I can,” and she snatched the container from my hand.

I watched her with binocular vision, as if I were sighting a rare bird, very quietly, shhh, so as not to disturb her habitat. She nestled on the sofa. Brooded over her phone. Gleaned a TV show. An hour later, she said she had forgotten homework in her room. I tracked her up the stairs, down the hall, to the far corner of the house. She rustled beneath piles of dirty clothes and pecked around her trash, clawed a notebook. We reversed the trail.

She ate dinner with us- a rare and wonderful exception. We had cheesecake, her favorite. She blew out candles. She opened a few, small presents, removing the paper with great care. A smaller birthday was planned since I had taken her to London earlier in the year. She settled down on the couch again. Preened her way through Snapchats. Then stayed there. For hours.

Like birdwatching, it was interminably boring.

7 pm.

8 pm.

9 pm.

10 pm.

She had not moved.

At 11 pm, the birders grew impatient. We marched her to the powder room and stood with the door cracked to make sure there wasn’t some unknown way she could cheat. She peed into the cup and came out with her sample.

We put the testing stick in. We waited for the colors and lines to emerge. We compared the stick with the chart. She passed.

Passed? For weeks, she had been acting strangely. Her pupils were dilated. She said she was going to the gym; when my babysitter checked, she was not there. One day, she seemed to be hiding something in the pocket of her hoodie. It was more pooched than her two hands alone would make it be. I asked her to bring out one hand, then the other. Then I rummaged around in her pocket. Nothing. Her therapist also thought she was hiding something and, when asked, Catina pulled three oranges out of her pocket like Mary Poppins’ purse.

We were paranoid by now. We had found an empty bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label hidden beneath sweat pants in the bottom drawer of her dresser. We kept it only for our son-in-law to drink when he came to dinner. She told an elaborate tale of a slumber-party game of dare: tasting it, gagging, pouring the entire, expensive 1.75 liters down the toilet, swearing never to do it again.

I wanted to believe her.

The empty bottle sat on the kitchen counter, so she could see it. I asked her, constantly, what had happened. I drove the two friends who had spent the night to the mall and asked them questions. They stayed silent. I watched her every movement.

Spring break came. I had a business trip to London and couldn’t leave her alone. So I planned an early birthday present, using airline points to bring her and her sister with me and setting up day-long private tours so she would be occupied while I worked. My younger daughter, a rule follower, knew what was up and conspired to watch her. The entire trip, Catina was engaged, funny and delightful.

A month later, Catina had a fight with one of the slumber-party friends. I got a text. The text told me everything. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Well, what I thought was everything at that time (see Twenty-one for the moment of complete revelation). I consulted her therapist. I called the friend’s mother. Catina was impenetrable. Remote. Unreachable.

Reading this, you may think you have avoided these perils. You may look at your school-council, National-Honor-Roll, sports-winning teen and say to yourself, “not my kid.” If that is you, I will break this gently to you: your teen has a secret life. They have said something awful to someone in school, snubbed the weird kid eating alone in the cafeteria, selifie’d a provocative pose or exposed body part. They have pocketed a Snickers from Quick Check, cheated on a test, drank too much at a party. They have watched anime porn (there is such a thing). Heck, they have watched regular porn. Your teen has done something that would make pain heave through your body leaving invisible but deep fault lines. And you will never know. You are the lucky one.

When I got the text, I didn’t say, “not my kid.” I thought how hard it must have been for her friend to leap the gap between friend and friend’s parent. That gap is as wide as Bryce Canyon, and as deep. It was an act of love. It takes a brave person to save a friend.

We got together- the friend, the friend’s mother, Catina and myself- at a diner, picking over Greek salads and french fries while our legs squeaked across the vinyl seats. The girls stumbled about, trying not to lie or tell the truth. It was a wash.

I drove home, only ten minutes away, but it may as well have been a journey across the world. For it was a journey from denial, whatever was left of that, to certainty. When I got home, I went into my office and closed the door. I called our educational consultant and said two words: Blue Ridge.