One More Apology I Owe My Mother

While he has returned with all his bits intact, the teen spent the last 24+ hours trying to push his father and I into removing some of those bits ourselves.

First, he called from his friend's house, after the paintball game was over, and announced that he wasn't going to come home. I explained that it was a school night, therefore not an acceptable night to spend at someone else's house. His response stopped just short of daring me to go over there and drag him home. We wound up referring the question to his father, who decided to let him stay there, on the grounds that he was worried how the teen would act if he was forced to come home.

I have to say, it's the only time I have ever been really scared of what the teen might do. I was actually relieved when he didn't come home. His voice, over the phone, was ... well, angry just doesn't describe it. He frightened me.

Today, after school, he never came home. No call, no warning, just no boy bounding up the stairs at 3 o'clock. And he always gets home at 3. I started to worry at 3:30, and by 3:35 was already having to fight back a certain degree of panic. Called the school, called his friends - no-one had any idea where he was. Loaded the girls into the car and drove around for awhile, but caught no glimpse of him. I let the husband, who was at work, know what was happening. I called my sister to help me calm myself down.

I knew, logically, that he was probably OK. It was probably an act of defiance, a proclamation that he was independent and we couldn't tell him what to do. But that didn't mean he was safe. I envisioned him with some friend we didn't know, sharing drugs in some dark basement bedroom. Or maybe he'd had it, and decided to run away, back to his friends in his mother's town. Did he understand how dangerous hitchhiking was? He tends to rely too much on his size and strength, sure that he could never be in danger because who could take him down?

My mother has been a longstanding joke amongst her children because of her tendency to call the police every time one of us was half an hour late getting home. Now I understand why. Even with everything that's happened with him, even with as angry as I get with him, even with being afraid for my safety around him, I was terrified for his safety. I was so afraid that he was in danger somewhere, and even if he was safe, feeling confused, hurt, angry.

We found him finally. We were minutes away from calling the police when I thought to make one more phone call. He'd gone to the movies with a group of friends that included a girl we have reason to believe he likes and who we think likes him back. The girl's mother was surprised to find out we didn't know where he was. She called her daughter with orders to have the teen call home immediately.

Not telling us his whereabouts was, we suspect, a deliberate omission. The husband is going to handle discipline. As he put it, "Now I have to find a way to pinch his head off while getting him to thank me for it."

But at least he's home, in bed, safe for the moment. I think. And now I'll go beat my head against a brick wall for a few hours. It'll be a nice change of pace.