A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy(66)
Tom and I thought the punishment was unnecessarily harsh. Dylan deserved a disciplinary consequence for his involvement; he had no right to dig into school records. But he’d only opened the lockers to see if he could, and closed them without touching anything. Tom in particular felt the punishment failed to show the boys why the offense was wrong, and alienated them from their school when it would be better for them to feel connected to it. We both hoped the school would consider a warning or probationary period instead of banishment, and arranged to meet with the dean.
It was not a good meeting. There was nothing in the rulebook to cover what the boys had done. In the absence of written policy, the administration had decided to treat the boys as if they had brought a weapon to school.
I was shocked. What they had done seemed closer to sneaking into the girls’ bathroom, or an act of academic dishonesty like plagiarism or cheating. I wasn’t minimizing the offense (nor would I have thought it was okay to sneak into the girls’ bathroom). But the boys hadn’t brought a weapon to school, or done anything like it.
We asked if the administration might consider other consequences. The boys could donate extra time to maintain equipment, or clean out a storage room. The dean told us that the district superintendent was aware of the incident and wanted it to be handled with a high level of severity; we could speak with the computer teacher if we had additional questions. An administrator myself, I recognized the dean’s need to get the papers signed so she could move on to the next problem.
While we waited for the computer teacher, I got a moment alone with Dylan. I wanted him to understand the consequences of what he had done. He was fond of the teacher, and I told Dylan he could have gotten him fired, or caused the elimination of the program altogether. There was no defiance or cynicism on Dylan’s face, just sadness. I was satisfied to see he understood. The teacher, when he joined us, seemed shaken but kind, and primarily concerned about Dylan. There were apologies all around. What came next, however, was more painful for Dylan than the suspension: the teacher told Dylan he could no longer help with the school’s computers.
As we drove away from the school, Dylan seemed numb. I asked him if he thought he’d be okay; he told me he would. He was taking accelerated chemistry, trigonometry, world history, fourth-year French, computers, and composition—a fairly heavy workload of difficult classes, and I asked how he would keep up during his suspension. He said he could get the assignments from his friends. When Dylan asked what I was thinking, I told him the truth. “I don’t understand the decision, and I don’t agree with it, but I’m going to support it. This will be resolved quickly if we comply with the ruling, and I don’t want to make a bad situation worse by alienating you from the people running the school.” He nodded, to show he understood.
Tom was home with Dylan most of the time during the suspension. During one conversation, Dylan complained that the school’s administration favored athletes, making excuses for them while coming down hard on others for lesser offenses. In Dylan’s mind, school was a place where things were “not fair.” Yet he seemed to take the suspension in stride, and after the five days were up, all three of us smoothed our ruffled feathers and moved on.
In October, Dylan got his driver’s license. I was nervous about him driving around without an adult in the car, but he was relieved not to have to depend on us or on his friends for rides. Tom’s hobby was finding beat-up old cars at bargain prices. As soon as he felt Dylan could handle a car responsibly, he bought a black BMW for $400. It had a broken window and some interior damage, not to mention it was light-years away from being able to pass Colorado’s emissions tests, but the two of them weren’t daunted by the amount of work it needed, and they both got a kick out of the fact that the car was sixteen years old—exactly Dylan’s age. Dylan agreed to help pay for gas and insurance.
After Dylan got his license, I told my sister it was as if he’d grown wings. Most of his friends were still in the suburb we’d left behind when we’d moved out to the foothills. From a safety standpoint, we’d rather he stay overnight with them than drive home late on the canyon road, but I didn’t like feeling so separate. Tom reminded me I had to let him grow up.
He and Nate and Eric and Zack went bowling, played pool, or went to the movies. Occasionally there were supervised parties. Raising teenagers was not new to us, and Dylan faced the usual barrage of questions when leaving the house: “Where are you going? Who’s going to be there? Who’s driving? Will there be drinking? Will the parents be home? Leave us a phone number.” We checked often, and Dylan was always exactly where he said he’d be. The only time he ever came home late for curfew, he’d gone to the rescue of a friend stranded after a fender bender.
Tom and I did feel Dylan was withdrawing from us that year. He’d quit Blackjack Pizza so he could look for a job working with computers, but he hadn’t found one, and he wasn’t doing sound for any school productions that fall. It was nice to have him home at night, though I worried he had too much time on his hands, and thought he spent too much time on his computer. Withdrawal, of course, can be a sign of depression in adults and teens, but Tom and I didn’t identify Dylan’s desire for privacy as a red flag. When he was in his room, he was either talking to friends on the phone or interacting with them on the computer. He wasn’t withdrawing from others; if anything, his social life had taken off.