Suspended Sentence Read online

  SUSPENDED SENTENCE

  Copyright © 2019 by Janice Morgan

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed,

  or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording,

  digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior

  written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied

  in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright

  law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.

  Published October 2019

  Printed in the United States of America

  Print ISBN: 978-1-63152-644-2

  E-ISBN: 978-1-63152-645-9

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019912711

  For information, address:

  She Writes Press

  1569 Solano Ave #546

  Berkeley, CA 94707

  Interior design by Tabitha Lahr

  Interior sketches by James Secor

  She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.

  White Rabbit

  Words and Music by Grace Slick

  Copyright © 1966 IRVING MUSIC, INC.

  Copyright Renewed

  All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

  Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The characters in this story are based on real people and events; however most actual names of individuals as well as names of local towns and places have been changed to protect privacy. Much of the story has been reconstructed from journal notes I wrote during the time events were actually occurring, while the backstory was composed later from fragments of my remembered experience.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1: The Boy

  CHAPTER 2: Bombshell

  CHAPTER 3: Time Out

  CHAPTER 4: Get to Gigi’s House

  CHAPTER 5: Locked Up

  CHAPTER 6: Signs and Portents

  CHAPTER 7: Circuit Breakers

  CHAPTER 8: Drug Court

  CHAPTER 9: NAMI I

  CHAPTER 10: The Rule of Twos

  CHAPTER 11: Forgive Us Our Debts

  CHAPTER 12: Attila the Hun

  CHAPTER 13: Deepak and Tupac

  CHAPTER 14: Off Track

  CHAPTER 15: Road Warrior

  CHAPTER 16: A New Start with Dad

  CHAPTER 17: Jamaica

  CHAPTER 18: White Rabbit

  CHAPTER 19: Young Men on the Roadside

  CHAPTER 20: NAMI II

  CHAPTER 21: Two Steps Forward

  CHAPTER 22: One Step Back

  CHAPTER 23: How Far Is It Still?

  CHAPTER 24: A Garden in the Forest

  CHAPTER 25: Fireflies and Stars

  CHAPTER 26: Wheels

  CHAPTER 27: When

  CHAPTER 28: Mom, Where Are You?

  CHAPTER 29: NAMI III

  CHAPTER 30: Visions in the Slipstream

  CHAPTER 31: Looking Out There Together

  Acknowledgments

  References

  For Further Reading

  Useful Resources

  About the Author

  In memory of my parents,

  and my brother

  And for my son

  Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing

  and rightdoing, there is a field.

  I’ll meet you there.

  —Rumi

  CHAPTER 1: THE BOY

  At this time of year, the sunlight falls at a lower slant into the living room in broad swaths of gold. When that happens, the sun sends shadows of the tulip poplar leaves outside to dance inside on the brightness of the wood floor. These are always a signal of time passing: changing leaves, crickets singing at night in the tall grasses, dry wood smoke—memories.

  The shifting light sends me back to my photo album, searching for the three photos of my son at eleven years old. I think back to that summer afternoon in ‘99.

  Somewhere during those first couple of years of being a divorced single parent, I remember thinking, “Look at your son. He’s going to change soon, become a whole different person. He’ll suddenly grow tall, his face will change, his voice will deepen, hair will grow. In no time at all, you’ll barely recognize him.” I was thinking of other friends’ kids, young persons I had known for years and then didn’t see for a while before suddenly catching sight of them at the bank or at an event in town. They’d be standing with their parents as tall, totally transformed teenagers, persons who held only a faint resemblance to the children I had so easily recognized before through their years of steadily inching upward. Then, seemingly overnight, the slowly munching caterpillar turned into this new, winged creature who was returning my gaze from new heights. It would happen to my son, too. By age eighteen, the unimaginable would have taken place. That’s why I would sometimes steal a watchful look at him at dinner, noticing his child’s cheeks, round and pink from the sun, his throat encircled by a macramé necklace, the skin so fine it looked like a girl’s, his eyes—those long lashes. Well, the lashes might stay, but the rest, it was going to change for sure. I just didn’t know how yet.

  I page through the album to look at other photos from this time in Dylan’s life. There are photos of him negotiating curves and waves on the BMX track. Then, after the race, standing tall with his trophies. There are photos of Dylan taking summer trips with his dad somewhere in a deep forest, Dylan crossing a log high above a creek. Photos of Dylan in his new clothes from Grandpa and Grandma, practicing tricks with a brightly colored yo-yo before showing them to a crowd. These were all photo ops; he was performing. But it was around that same time that I felt it was important to capture my son at a “before” moment, when he was still a child. I wanted to hold on to those moments. One day, rather than choosing a particular event to record like a photojournalist, I tried something different.

  I kept my camera undercover. Then, as my son twirled around in our living room at a time when we weren’t doing anything in particular, I quickly took three candid shots. For once, he’s not flashing a goofy smile or taking up his “look at me” bravura pose. Instead, his gaze is averted. He’s looking at something else across the room, maybe something that’s not even there. The photos catch him somewhere in mid-daydream flight. In the third shot, he’s looking down pensively, his head tilted, almost as if in question. It must have been summer. He’s wearing a t-shirt that’s a bit big on him, and his hair is moist from sweat on his forehead. Probably he’s just come in from outside. I remember the heat of his compact body, his torpedo rushes of energy and emotion, the stories he would tell.

  These are the three photos I stare at now, trying to go back in time. I wonder what he was seeing then. I study his face, so different from the face of the young man he is now. Isn’t there a hint of loneliness I didn’t notice at the time? Something I missed? And there I was all the while, so confident he was an open book, telling me everything. Of course, he did tell me most of what he knew when he was eleven years old. I believed then that he and I were going to traverse the realm of teen years together. We would cross the threshold into his adulthood side by side like other parents and their kids: ball games, trips, vacations, diplomas, proms, plans. Now, though, I wonder about all the things he didn’t tell me. Would I have been open to hear them if he had? There would have been much he couldn’t even put into words yet. Just as neither of us knew how, exactly, the terrain would change ahead of us. That boy is gone now, but I want so much to be able to go back and find him: to see him again, talk to him. Even just for those hours and days. And I wonder what I could have done differently.

  CHAPTER 2: BOMBSHELL

  When I hu
ng up the phone, I knew I had to get my hands on today’s newspaper. I pulled on my jacket and walked up to the local Walgreens. As soon as I got there, I could see where they were, right next to the checkout counter. I glanced at the date, June 16, 2011, and the large front-page photo. A young blonde was placing a rhinestone tiara on the local county fair queen. Nope, that wasn’t what I was looking for, but the date was right and I knew there would be another story inside. Allison Marie had just called to tell me so. Rather than just dive on the paper and rifle through the pages, I thought it would be better to maintain some everyday nonchalance. I drifted into the cosmetics racks, scanning rainbow rows of nail polish. I decided on one and made my way casually to the counter, remembering—as if at the last moment—to pick up a newspaper to add to my total. I tucked the bag under my arm and strode home quickly to read the bad news in private.

  Spreading out the newspaper to its full size, I immediately found the article I was looking for. It was on the front page after all, just lower down. “CPD charge man with cultivation,” the title read, with a color photo of flourishing marijuana plants being grown in a large indoor planter box. The story continued on the next page, along with a mug shot of the young man in question, his last name under the shot along with his age, twenty-three. He had been arrested a few days earlier on a tip from an acquaintance that he’d been waving a gun around while drinking at their apartment. Then he’d fired it upwards on a whim when friends dropped him off in his apartment’s parking lot. He was later charged with wanton endangerment and possessing a stolen firearm. Several days later, the police came with a warrant to search his apartment for another gun they suspected he had but didn’t find. However, they did discover the illegal plants growing behind one of the walls. This story would be only vaguely curious to me if I had just happened to stumble across it, if someone else were the subject of the story. But this was excruciating. The guy in the mug shot was my son.

  Of course, since the night he was arrested, I had already learned all the information conveyed by the paper. When I found out about the firearm, I was horrified. My son with a gun! No one in my family used firearms. When Blaine, the apartment manager, told me about the police coming to search the apartment, he said I might want to be there, so I was, waiting in the dark parking lot while several officers tromped upstairs and spent considerable time rummaging around. When they finally came down, each one had an armload of planter boxes and leafy plants to be loaded into a truck. Yep, it was a clandestine marijuana installation, that’s what they called it. The rest I could read in the newspaper or find out in court.

  Way beyond the cold facts, what the phone call from Allison Marie drove home for me (and what the newspaper article made crystal clear) was that my son and my family were all out there in the wind now, exposed. My son was a criminal. He was in jail on felony charges. He’d had infractions before, but nothing this bad. By extension, we were all scandalous social outcasts—or so I felt. This was not supposed to happen to mild-mannered, liberal-arts-college-professor parents, even if they were divorced like I was. Especially not if you were a college professor living in a small, conservative town in west Kentucky that takes pride in strong family values and community spirit. By all rights, my kid should have straight A’s, be on the honor roll, and maybe even be one of those young princes in a tuxedo dancing with the tiara-crowned princesses. But no, here it was in black and white. My son had definitely set himself into the renegade category of society, and now with this latest episode, it was all out there, with me plunged knee-deep right into the mess as his mom.

  Closing the newspaper pages, my cheeks were burning. I felt scorched by the shame of it. I heard Rev. Allison Marie’s voice over the phone again: “It’s always that way in a small town. And everybody’s going to be talking about it.” She had spoken to me for a long while in her calm, reassuring voice. She was the co-vicar, along with her husband Rev. Patrick, at the local Episcopalian church, St. Alban the Martyr, and she wanted me to know others had gone through this and survived. I would make it; I had support, she said. But today I wasn’t so sure. How could I sustain such a massive breach of my security? Any cover I ever had was blown. The wildcat was out of the bag, the unruly horse miles away from the barn. This was no minor infraction, nothing you could patch up quickly and move on. Fortunately, it was summer, so I didn’t have to prepare classes. But was there no cave I could hide in for a while? Mammoth Caves weren’t too far away, and I had never visited them. Or how about a quick trip to the West Coast to visit Uncle Albert, just until the storm blew over? Of course, even as I was fantasizing about this, I knew I’d have to stay right here in Croftburg; there would be a lot to do to follow this through. But just allowing myself to think of a possible escape far, far away helped me get through the day. Allison Marie had told me to come over if I felt like it. We could sit on their deck in the evening sometime and chat, an offer I was sure to take up soon.

  Meanwhile, the reactions from others didn’t prove to be nearly as painful as I feared. During the week, only a few of my colleagues ever mentioned it. They would wait for a private moment, then let me know they had read the article, waiting for me to respond, to see what my reaction was or if I had a story. I would sigh, shrug, and shake my head. That was my only official statement for the moment. I felt their concern; they respected my silence. One or two told me in hushed tones about a court case that their cousin, a nephew, or their daughter had to face—but their tales weren’t anything as serious as this. Not three felony charges all at once! No, I kept the lid down tight on the firestorm inside.

  CHAPTER 3: TIME OUT

  The next day dawned cool and sunny. Normally, I would have noticed the beauty of such a morning, but recent events had disabled all my beauty sensors. For a while now, I’d noticed this pattern. Whenever I woke up after a life-altering incident, there would be a split-second of benign, sheltering fog, then—like a thunder clap—the new reality would strike me.

  You’ve just broken up with your boyfriend!

  Your marriage is over!

  Your son is in jail!

  That’s when I’d realize that I must have actually fallen asleep, finally, the night before … but now I was awake. A deep dread would set in. My stomach would start to churn like the back end of a garbage truck. Still, I’d go downstairs and prepare breakfast mechanically. It’s not that I was actually hungry, but I had to keep a ritualized schedule for myself, go through the motions. Pretend it was going to be some kind of a normal day. Most of all, drink strong coffee and get my bearings.

  Mid-June already. More than high time to get the garden in. I’d been putting it off now for a few weeks. First there had been the press of final exams to make up and grade, then the trip to Boston. Then, just when I should have been easing into a more relaxed summer work pattern … nope, I fell into full catastrophe mode. I was sad, angry, confused. My son just ruined his life! How will he ever get through college now? How will he have a career? Well, I couldn’t just sit and stew about it. Time to head for my community garden plot.

  I’m a true garden warrior. Gardening is in my blood because my parents and grandparents were gardeners. Just about everything I know about working with dirt, seed, and plants I learned as a little kid, playing alongside them while they toiled under clear Minnesota skies. My mom was from Blue Earth county, and trust me, people in her generation knew a thing or two about how to grow things in that rich black soil. Before setting off, like them, I have a whole ritual I observe: special clothes, special tools. After donning my old jeans with multiple pockets, armed with my hoe, rake, and spade, I feel like Roland at Roncevaux, mounting his horse with his sword, Durendal, by his side. The steel blade has a special name because it’s one of his best friends. That’s the way I set off for the garden.

  I knew my principal aim was to get the soil in shape. I set down my basket alongside the tools and put on my battered, leather garden gloves. It was going to be a mano a terra combat. I gazed at the garden plot, not without some
dismay. If I had done this earlier, right after our chief garden organizer had done the tilling, my job would be much easier. Since then, there had been a rain or two, and some grasses and weeds were cropping up. I would have to get rid of those with the hoe, then use it—or maybe even the spade—to break up the heavy clay soil again into smaller chunks. I knew the ideal was to get the soil fine and almost siftable, like flour for making bread. The finer the soil, the easier for tiny roots to grow into. Hum, we’ll see about that; at least the clay was reasonably dry by then. That was one good thing. And it wasn’t too hot yet. That was another.

  From the edge of the plot, I set to work with the pronged hoe, hoping that would be enough to dislodge the small clumps of new grass poking up. As I got into a rhythm of turning the soil, my thoughts and worries churned right alongside. I’d known the whole month of May, right after the final push of the semester was over, that Dylan might have trouble adjusting, might go off-track—only not this far! With him, I’d learned that supposedly quiet, slow times could be downright treacherous. So when he’d say “Everything’s cool, Mom,” that’s when I needed to prick up my ears for trouble coming over the horizon. When he didn’t have to worry, that’s when I had to do overtime.

  Why hadn’t Dylan gotten a summer job right away like we talked about? That was the plan, and it seemed easy enough. But no, instead, right after finals, this guy Keith Birchen shows up, a visit by an “old friend” from Cincinnati. I should have smelled that rat from day one. Instead, gullible Mom, I thought at first: “Oh, this will make a nice change. Give Dylan some needed companionship. He’s feeling so isolated. Having a friend here will give him a boost.” Yeah, it was a boost, all right. A boost that landed him in the county jail.

  I felt betrayed. My heart burned with the pain of it. Why did I ever try to persuade Dylan he should come here to continue his undergrad education? Wasn’t that just asking for trouble? As long as he was out there, somewhere, I could field the curve balls as they were thrown to me, but I would have my home and my job to return to as refuge. Now, with him right here in town, I had no refuge at all.