The Challenge(56)

“If he shows up here, I’ll call you. I’ll tell Pattie too.” Marlene hung up, and she and Tom sat in her living room, waiting for Justin to return.

“Would you like to search his room?” Tom asked her as gently as he could.

“What for?” She looked panicked.

“I’d like to see if there’s booze in his room. You should know too, if he has a problem.” She hesitated and then nodded. But she still couldn’t see how they would ever recover from her son seeing them having sex in the kitchen.

They went to his room together and looked in all the obvious hiding places. Sports bag, suitcase, guitar case, box of old clothes under the bed, chests of drawers. When they had finished, Tom had found two bottles of bourbon, a bottle of vodka, a bottle of gin, a bottle of rum, and two bottles of wine. He had enough to run a bar, and there was a small plastic bag with just a dusting of what looked like green herbs.

“What’s that?” She looked at Tom.

“Marijuana. What’s left of it. It’s all gone. He’s been smoking dope too. Maybe it all started when Bob was sick and he couldn’t face it. But he can’t blame you for this. This isn’t because we had sex in the kitchen. It’s because he has a serious problem with alcohol and substances. You need to put him in rehab,” he said sternly, as they took the bottles downstairs, emptied them in the sink and threw them away.

“I’m not going to do that!” Marlene shouted at Tom. “I’m not putting him in rehab. He just lost his father, and now look what he saw today. He needs me. He needs to be at home.”

“He needs to stop drinking and smoking dope, Marlene, before he gets hurt or kills someone on the road. You have to face this, and so does he.”

“I won’t send him away.” She started crying again.

“He won’t stop drinking if you don’t,” Tom said calmly.

They were still sitting in her living room when Noel came home from school at six o’clock, after a violin lesson, since he couldn’t do contact sports because of his pump. He was dropped off by his teacher and happy to see Tom. Tom left a few minutes later to go home after telling Marlene to call him if she heard anything. He was worried about a possible terrible end to the story, if Justin was driving around somewhere drunk and out of his mind. There was absolutely nothing they could do unless they wanted to report him to the police.

Tom was restless and worried when Juliet came home after volleyball practice. One of the mothers drove four of the girls home who lived near them. Juliet was enjoying being on the team, and the girls she was meeting.

“Something wrong, Dad?” He decided to tell her at least a partial truth.

“I’m worried about Justin. I think he may have been drinking lately.” Juliet was silent for a long time, and could see how concerned her father was.

“I saw him drinking this summer, at the Pollocks’ barbecue. He was drinking a bottle of wine.” And that was before his father died, two days before, in fact.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to squeal.”

“I’m just as bad. I saw him drinking vodka at the reception after the funeral. He had it in a bottle of water.”

“Is he in trouble?” she asked her father.

“Not yet. But things can get out of control pretty fast. His mother is very worried about him, and so am I.”

“You like her a lot, huh, Dad?” she asked, and he wanted to be honest with her, to the extent he could.

“Yes, I do. But this is a hard time for them. Especially if Justin has a serious problem. That takes precedence over everything else.”

They had a quiet dinner that night, and then she went to sleep at her mother’s. She liked going back and forth between them. Tom was relieved when she asked him to drop her off at Beth’s. He wanted to be available in case Marlene called him for help when Justin came home, or if he didn’t. He called her as soon as he got home after dropping Juliet off.

“Any news?” He sounded as tense as she felt.

“Nothing. He hasn’t called me. I left him another message. I asked Noel if he knows where he is. He said he doesn’t, and I believe him. He asked if Justin is in trouble. I think he knows about the drinking too. I didn’t ask him. We know enough. I don’t want to put Noel on the spot.”

“Do you want me to come over?” he offered.

“Why don’t you wait ’til Noel goes to bed. Around nine. If Justin’s been drinking all afternoon, I don’t want to be alone with him when he comes home.”

“Good idea.” He drove to her house at nine. Noel was already asleep, and they sat on the couch waiting to hear something. They fell asleep waiting. The phone rang at midnight. Marlene answered it and her face went sheet white as she listened. Tom just prayed it wasn’t the police and that Justin wasn’t dead.

It was the police, and he was alive. She was choking on sobs when she told Tom. “He had a car accident and totaled his car an hour ago. He has a head injury, but he was conscious when they found him. He has some broken bones. They took him by helicopter to Saint Vincent’s in Billings. He’s not in critical condition, but he’s very banged up. They’re testing him for drugs and alcohol at the hospital.” She put her coat on and wrote a hasty note to Noel, in case he woke up, that Justin had had a minor accident, he was okay, and she had gone to pick him up. And not to worry.