It's One of Us(65)

Point was, the stories were endless, varied. Every life, every need, every desire, different.

Did they ever stop to think that the children might not be what they wanted? That a child would not heal the emptiness in their soul? That a child might tear a hole in an otherwise perfect life?

Online, his mother tried so hard to warn them. She tried to make them aware there could be issues, that everything wasn’t always sunshine and roses. She spoke from experience. She spoke from the heart. She spoke of his problems so eloquently while still protecting him. So loyal, his mom.

When he’d realized he was different, that he wasn’t sunshine and roses, he’d done everything they’d asked of him and more. He wanted to be good for his mother. He loved her. Loves her.

Those people in her group, they never listened.

He finishes placing the solar panel, taping it securely, and steps back into the darkness. The last traceable part of his previous life is journeying to its last stop. It’s heading east to the mountains, and he is not. He doesn’t feel sorry to see it go.

The phone shivers again, and this time he takes it out and looks at the breaking news alert.

He almost feels relief. Almost.

It’s over. As he feared, there will be no goodbye.



31


THE MOTHER

It is nearing dawn, and Darby hasn’t slept.

How could she? She’s been calling Peyton every five minutes for the past several hours to no avail, alternating frenetic speed-dialing with laps around the bottom floor of the house. Her calves and thighs ache. Her heart aches.

This is not the situation she ever thought she’d be in, faced with an impossible choice.

Confront her son and ask if he murdered a woman or call the police and tell them she knows the man in the sketch they’re circulating. And hope to God she does it before a stranger does.

The boy. He’s barely a man.

Apparently, he’s man enough, her mind helpfully provides. Man enough to rape. Man enough to strangle.

Her boy, that darkness in him. The rages. The altercations. The push and pull of love and hate.

It can’t be him. Her Peyton did not do this. The police have made a mistake.

Ah, but you were afraid of him when he was ten years old. Could they really have fixed him so easily? Did he not grow out of his problems, as the doctors thought, only found a way to channel them? To hold them close to his heart and never share them again? Have they finally risen up and overwhelmed him? Has he been hiding his true self this whole time?

No. It is not him. Of course it’s a mistake.

It started with night terrors. Peyton had slept alone for years with no problem, but after Scarlett was born, suddenly needed to be in Darby’s bed or he would scream in fright all night, waking the baby, who would join in the chorus.

Then the tantrums began.

Not typical tantrums, not crying because he couldn’t have candy at the checkout tantrums, but full-blown rages that forced her to lock him in his room so he wouldn’t hurt her, or the baby. Frustrated by the lack of targets, he would bang his head on the wall until huge lumps formed on his forehead.

She took him to his pediatrician. To specialists. There were brain scans, MRIs, drugs. So many drugs. He’d cry his little heart out at the kitchen table because he couldn’t feel anything anymore, then tear through the house ripping paintings from the walls and overturning tables if she tried to console him. You’re doing this to me. You hate me. You love her more than you love me.

More drugs. Higher dosages. They zombified him, and he sat, staring blankly at the walls, losing weight because she couldn’t rouse him to eat. He was tall and thin, a wraith with a shock of brown scarecrow hair and dead eyes.

She tried everything. Every drug. Every doctor. With every new specialist, a different diagnosis. Autism. Bipolar. Borderline. ADHD. Early-onset schizophrenia. She changed his diet, eliminating gluten, dairy, soy. Skipped his vaccinations. Anything, everything, she tried it all.

He was eight when he accused her of trying to kill him. He was nine when she caught him in the bathroom, Scarlett in the bathtub merrily splashing away and Peyton with his dead eyes, a knife raised over his head.

She had no choice at that point but to try inpatient treatment. She had to protect Scarlett. And she was so tired. So tired.

The horror of her choice wouldn’t let her rest. She’d chosen her daughter over her son.

Her safety, Darby. You chose to keep her safe. Big difference.

The hospital that specialized in childhood-onset psychological disorders was in Maryland, so she moved them there to be close. And miracle of miracles, it worked.

After the first few months, they experimented by weaning him off the drugs. Her little boy was clear-eyed again. After a year, they let him do an in-home visit. He cuddled with Darby and played dolls with Scarlett and seemed so happy again.

When he was thirteen, after they’d definitively determined the psychotropic drugs he’d been given in the early days of his disease were inducing schizoaffective disorder and got him on a small dose of antidepressants daily with good vitamins and lots of clean food, he returned to the sunny, bright, precocious child he’d always been, and was deemed stable enough to be sent home permanently.

He never blamed her. This he told her the first night after Scarlett had been put to bed, round-eyed that her big brother was home. They’d sat at the table, Darby with a glass of chardonnay, Peyton with chamomile tea, and he told her his heart.