Lost and Found part III

Liam

I pull out the envelope and just stare at it for a moment. This had been my secret, except it hadn't been, not really. Is it really a secret if it's meant to be found and eventually shared? Not all my vices started because of these words, but it certainly put them in overdrive. I look at my father as I head back into the living room and he looks hesitant, as if he knows something is about to hit him between the eyes.

He is still standing, arms folded, his face impassive. "This," I say holding the envelope up. "This has my name on it. My name!" I say with a lot of emotion. "It wasn't yours to keep from me."

I can tell he is trying to figure out what the hell I'm talking about as his eyes follow the long white envelope, that has my name written in what I guess is my mother's loopy script. I'm glad that I had learned cursive writing in school or I wouldn't have been able to read the damn thing.

"Her letter to me," I say in case he hasn't figured it out yet. "To me!" I emphasize once again.

He remains quiet and I assume it's because he knows he was wrong by keeping it from me. Finally, he speaks. "Where did you find that?" Like he doesn't already know.

"In the fire box," I tell him. Which is the fireproof box where he keeps all the important papers. It is on the floor at the back off his closet.

"Why were you in there?"

"Why did you keep this from me?" I demand to know.

"Answer me first," he says, his voice even, but I detect cracks breaking through.

"I needed my birth certificate for sociology class. I needed to know where I was born."

"You know you were born in Chicago."

"I needed to know which hospital. We're going to track the data to see how far we are now from where we started. Turns out, I didn't go very far at all."

"And you found the letter?"

"I did. It wasn't your right to keep it from me."

"Yes it was. It was very much my right. Your mother asked me to give that to you when you were ready. She gave it me with those instructions."

"I am ready!" I argue, having no idea what conditions are required to be considered ready.

"Your recent behavior dictates otherwise. Your reaction shows that you don't have the maturity yet."

"It was mine." I say again as if he missed it the first ten times. "When were you going to give it to me?"

"I don't know. I was going to wait until you were sixteen and then decide whether or not I should read it first before I gave it to you."

"You've read it," I accuse.

"I haven't."

"It was open. The flap was wide open."

"Son, it's ten years old. Heat and air conditioning have dried the glue out. I promise you, that I didn't open it, or read it."

I want to accuse him of lying again, but I can see in his face that he is telling the truth. Apparently he can't lie to me any better than I can to him. Somehow his revelation deflates me. I pull the letter out and stare at the words, seeing them, but not absorbing any of them. I hold it out to him—"go ahead then—you should know what it says."

"Do you want to read it to me?" He asks, perhaps thinking the exercise would somehow help me. I'm not sure I agree, but for some reason I began to read.

To my beautiful son,

One day when you are old enough, I hope that you can understand the excruciating decision that I was forced to make. Life can be so uncertain and so unfair; and I have constantly dealt with both. I look at you every day and cherish each moment, taking a picture of it in my mind and heart to keep forever. You are my treasure, the one thing that I did right. I have never loved anyone as much as you and my heart is absolutely breaking.

Some tragedies are sudden, while others creep up on you. This one has been lurking since before you were born, waiting to take hold and to take me away from you. You were such a blessing, one that I never deserved, and you will bear pain that should only be reserved for me.

You and your father were one of the few beautiful things in my life and I could never fully enjoy either of you. Jay will never completely understand how much I truly did love and care for him, but I know he will make your world the best that it can be.

I don't know if what I am doing is the right thing, and the hardest part of it all is that I will never know. I did not agree to the life I had been born into and I will be damned if it is going to take you as well. A big part of me wants to stay here, invite your father in and live as the family I had always wanted us to be. But even the thought of what might happen brings tears to my eyes in such a sudden way that I know it is a message I must obey. The risks are too large, the possible loss too great.

There is nothing more tragic than paying for the sins of another, and now, I have passed that trait down to you—the family curse from a cursed family.

I have seen the love for you in your father's eyes, deep and intense. I watch you hold each other tightly and I know that neither one will let go. I will never stop thinking of you; I will never stop loving you.

I ask you for your forgiveness.

With all my love,

your mother, Emma James.

P.S. I signed my real name. Your father is a detective, he can discover all my reasons for this letter. Please believe my love is true. I love you Liam James Halstead, my treasure forever.

You were meant for great things and I was meant to ensure that they are allowed to happen.

I set the letter down on the coffee table and pinch the bridge of my nose to wipe the tears away without looking as if that is what I am doing. Dad looks like someone just hit him over the head with a hammer. There is no doubt that he had been honest when he said he had never read the letter. I guess I never thought what it would be like for him to hear the words from her heart and what she had truly desired at one time. Suddenly I feel very selfish. He had just discovered that my mother had actually loved him and wanted nothing more than to be a family.

Of course we already know why she felt she couldn't stay and I still have mixed emotions about it. Part of me feels that she took the easy way out—that she was more afraid to stay and be normal than skip back down the path of her heritage. But then again, I had never met her family and had no idea of their capabilities for hatred and vengeance.

Dad still looks shell shocked as I tell him I really have to get started on my paper. He nods his permission as I leave the letter on the coffee table, sitting there silently screaming out all the words and emotions it had just dropped on us. As I step into the hallway that holds our bedrooms I think back to the other night when I heard him cry out in the throes of a nightmare and wonder if he had been dreaming about me. Now my guilt flows through me as fast as my heart can force the blood through my veins.

I'm not sure why I was so surprised that he would turn his worries into nightmares—it seemed to be how he processed things. It was if the daytime simply didn't have enough room or power to unwind his problems. But nearly his entire life as and adult has been made up of witnessing devastation, making him more than aware that there is no age requirement and certainly no fairness in what happens to whom.

I always reached out to him when I would hear his nighttime struggles. When I was younger, I would crawl in bed with him, somehow my presence soothing him even though he rarely woke up. As I aged, I would call out his name, or softly touch him and he would roll over and slip back into peace as if he just needed the subconscious reminder that all was well. But I had never just ignored him—until I did.

I finished my paper and went to work on my attempt at a conciliatory poem for Macy, but I still couldn't get started much less finished. I kept thinking back to words my mother had written ten years ago and wondered how difficult it was for her to write them. And how hard it was for her to decide to leave. I hated that she left, I hated that she came back and I hated that she left again.

I heard my dad moving around in the living room and then he quietly knocked on the door. Before I could open my mouth to invite him in, the door swung open. "Hey, it's getting late. Don't stay up too late."

"I'm almost done," I promise as he nods and closes the door.

I look where he had just been and wonder what I'll do if he has a nightmare tonight.

Even though my days at the district are over, I'm obviously still grounded. My school day ends at 4:05 and I'm to be home immediately afterwards unless I have an extracurricular activity. Since I shattered any trust my dad had in me, he has devised tricks to ensure that I am home. I do have my smart phone back, but my burner phone is long gone and I was told that if Mouse were still around he would have come up with some kind of monitor would have been strapped to me like the ankle bracelets that those under house arrest wear. So instead, at least twice an evening he texts me and I have to send him the required selfie, which has to be done to his specific request; such as, standing in front of the refrigerator or in my bedroom. And if I had a thought of taking a thousand selfies to be prepared from afar, he also would add stipulations such as, frowning or smiling, showing the peace sign, holding a pillow from the couch and so on and so forth. Or if he has a minute, he'll Facetime me and I go through the same thing to prove I am at home.

And if that wasn't enough, patrol officers would show up at the door to confirm that I am indeed at home. This doesn't happen every day, but often enough and occasionally twice a night, that even if I had entertained thoughts of escape, it would be far too risky. And he constantly reminded me that trust was so easy to break, but was a long journey to restore.

He also said he was still mulling over additional penalties. I just couldn't wait to hear what else he had in store for me.

Jay

I had been thinking about the envelope and all the words it had contained as they still floated through my mind, poking me like branches that scraped and scratched. I so often felt as if she had chewed up our love and I was the one forced to swallow it. I had denied the real feelings that I had held for her, letting them slip out into reality only once. I believed she had done the same thing. Knowing what I do now, I can understand her reasoning, but like our son, I'm not sure that I can accept it.

Looking back I think it was our bizarre and dysfunctional connection that reached out and prevented true success for any of my subsequent attempts at a relationship. Somehow I was trying to reconnect with a ghost, connecting dots that were forever gone, fixing the unfixable.

I hadn't been lying when I told him that I hadn't read the letter. But I wasn't honest about the heat drying out the glue. The flap had always been open, the envelope had never been sealed in the first place. I had found it in the middle of a stack of paperwork regarding her termination of parental rights. Perhaps I didn't open it, because I just couldn't take one more shock, one more blow. There had been a sticky note attached saying to give it to Liam when I felt he was old enough. The terms were too broad for me to think about, so I put the envelope away and hadn't thought much about it since.

It had always been a mystery to me that by leaving the flap open, whether she was inviting me to read her words to our son or simply allowing me access to them. I'll never know—and maybe she never knew either.

Liam had been on house arrest for two weeks and my methods of keeping him in place seem to be working. Our conversations have been short, but there have been some. I asked him if he wanted to discuss the letter his mother had written, but he declined. It felt like a bomb ticking away with us waiting to see if it would explode or just fizzle out. Admittedly, the words had cut me, stinging and slicing their way through me and I could completely understand why Liam had reacted as he did. But that didn't mean that I would allow or condone his self destructive behavior. Five years ago when she returned only to leave again, she had left a trail of pain and tears that we both had to survive and I was so angry at her for laying down the path that we were forced upon only for her to vanish from it.

It would seem that Liam and I would get to a place all our own, steady and strong and somehow her reach would shake it all up, leaving us both with shattered pieces that we had no idea how to pick up and put back together. And just when I thought it couldn't happen again, it did. Every five years like clockwork; her initial abandonment, her return and subsequent departure, and now, with just pen and paper, she tore right through our lives once again; a tornado of words. The worst part is that I know she didn't want to hurt us or cause the turbulence that she did and that made it all the worse.

Now, it was Friday night and Liam and I needed to discuss the last bit of his punishment. I had gone over and over it, and figured this would make him know just how serious I was and encourage him not to stray—or it could make him say screw it and just go rogue again. I hated walking this teenage tightrope. You think you know your child and then they have one more birthday and leave you guessing once again.

I actually found a decent parking space and wedge the truck in the spot our neighbor, that I call Soccer Mom Sally, had left open as she slipped out to pick up her daughter Francesca from acting class. I was a soccer dad so I guess I couldn't say much, but trust me when I say Francesca didn't need more drama in her life as she created enough of it all on her own. My presence had been requested one evening, because she didn't want to go to her dad's house for the weekend simply because her bathroom in his home hadn't been renovated to her specifications. When I was beckoned I was expecting an out of control and rage-filled father making some ridiculous demands and had to hold back laughter when I finally understood her actual complaint. Needless to say, Francesca isn't a my biggest fan, I'm not so sure about Sally or whatever her actual name is, but when she looks at me she always licks her lips.

With that on my mind, I unlock the front door and step into our hallway to find Liam and Macy Finch in a passionate liplock. Clearly neither one of them heard me come through the door as they remain devoted to one another. I finally clear my throat and Macy practically jumps backwards.

"Detective Halstead," she says as she sees me. "I stopped by to give Liam something."

"I can see that," I tell her with a half smile. Truth is, I really like Macy. She is a good student, polite, pleasant to be around, and seems to make Liam a better person.

Her mother is a prosecutor, and though I have never worked with her, I have heard only good things. Macy's parents divorced when she was a toddler and her father has since moved somewhere overseas. Liam thinks it was Hong Kong, but can't remember for certain.

"Um, I better go," she says, her face flushed with embarrassment.

"It was nice to see you," I say as she disappears into the night. "Are you back together?" I ask Liam, as I notice that whatever she had to give him wasn't anything solid as he is empty handed.

"Not yet," he says as he steps back into the apartment to let me inside. "I tried to write her a poetic apology, but I couldn't, so I went with a letter and I think I nailed it. But she, just like you, said trust takes a long time to regain. But I think the visit was a good start."

"I'll say."

"I didn't leave the apartment, not technically," he explained. "And she didn't come in, not really anyway. She was just here for a minute."

"It's fine. Just don't make a habit of pushing it."

"Who me?" He asks, his voice high and innocent.

I just shake my head and take my coat off and settle in for the night and explain the further stipulations on his punishment.

I thought I had gotten through to him, I thought he understood that I was serious, so several days later when I come home on the early side, I'm shocked to hear Jameson's voice coming from the kitchen.

We had a long talk about how his grounding was affecting his practice time for driving. He had taken driver's ed in school after he had gotten his learners permit and now had to get his practice driving hours in—all fifty of them. This was not easy, between my schedule, his schedule and the fact that we had to use Will's car since mine was a work vehicle and belonged to the city. With him being grounded he doesn't get to practice, part of the deal and I know it is aggravating him. Then I piled on that if he went astray by breaking his grounding, or drinking again I would push back the date that he would take his road test to well past his sixteenth birthday. His entire face seemed to crumple at that news. I thought it would give him the motivation to keep his head down and get through this, but clearly I was wrong.

I wasn't sure why he was so intent on getting his license. Like a lot of Chicago teens, the opportunity to drive wouldn't be all that often. He could walk, bike, or use mass transit to get pretty much anywhere he wanted to go. And he certainly wouldn't be buying a car anytime soon. But it was a rite of passage, that much like I desired so many years ago, he wanted sooner than later even if he rarely got to use the privilege.

But now that was in jeopardy and I guess it surprised me, but then again, he had surprised me a lot recently. The way our apartment was set up gave me a great place to listen to their conversation without being seen.

"Dude, what are you doing?" Liam asks.

"Crying to my best friend," Jameson states as I hear the refrigerator door open.

"You can't be here. I'm still grounded."

"Arggh, it's been, like forever."

"Well, part of it is your fault," Liam states.

"How is it my fault?"

"I probably wouldn't have gone to the party if you hadn't pushed me."

"Pushed you? Please. I hardly pushed you. I think all I did was mention the address and the fact that Hannah Miller wanted to get into your pants. You needed the release since you've been in mourning for blowing it with Macy, plus whatever your other funk was about, that got you mad, sad and a ton of other ugly adjectives.

"Besides I don't want to hear you complain about being grounded."

"What do you mean?"

"At least your dad loves you enough to show up and fucking punish you. I don't think my father ever has—and I mean ever. Kind of hard to do when you're never around. In fact, it's easy to do whatever you want when nobody's watching and get away with it."

"Well, I'm watching you now and you need to put that beer back."

"He's not going to miss it."

"He's a cop, he notices shit like that. I'm not taking the rap for it."

"Say I took it then."

"You're not supposed to be here." Liam says, his voice exasperated.

"Oh. Yeah. Say you dropped it on the floor and it broke."

"Those bottles are too strong to break on this floor. Put it back," I hear Liam say as the sounds of the bottle cap hitting the counter finds my ears.

"Dude, what the hell!" Liam exclaims.

"Relax man, it'll be okay. I need it. I miss you man. I miss our get-together's in my dad's man cave. I need my best friend," he says sounding a little too loose to be entirely sober and it makes me wonder what he was up to before he got here.

"I'm sorry." Liam apologizes.

"You should be. I'm kinda lost without you man."

"Sorry," Liam says again. "But you can't be drinking my dad's beer or I'll never not be grounded."

I figure now is probably the best time to interrupt since Liam is trying to do the right thing.

"Yeah, I forget you have to answer to someone." Jameson says with a sigh.

"Well so do you," I say, coming into view. Jameson wears an expression I doubt the world has seen in a very long time if ever.

I try to balance my actions and voice to come out as stern, but not ugly or mean. It's the tone I often use with witnesses and those whose cooperation would be a benefit to both of us, but being pushed looks better for them than an instant alliance, and I'm more than happy to oblige.

"You," I say pointing to my son, "go to your room. And you," I look back at Jameson, "sit down." I say pointing to the kitchen table.

Liam looks sheepish, but slinks off to his room, uncertain as to what might happen, but having a feeling it won't be all that bad—that I know what I'm doing and have a plan. His eyes shine through with the trust that I no longer have in him.

Jameson does what he is told and sits down looking pensive. I look over to see the beer sitting on the counter. "You help yourself to alcohol at every house you visit?"

"No. Sorry," he mumbles in a whisper. "I wasn't going to let Liam take the blame."

"But you aren't supposed to be here." I remind him as I pull out a chair and put my foot on it and lean forward with my elbow on my knee.

"Yeah. Guess I'm just a screw-up."

"No, you just need to be reminded that you are a kid and should be doing kid things which don't include drinking beverages reserved for those twenty-one and older. Have you been smoking pot?" I ask him, causing his head to snap up guiltily. He opens his mouth but nothing comes out. "I'm a cop. I notice these things. I notice everything. Sometimes it really does suck to be my son." I say thinking about Liam explaining that I would easily note the missing bottle.

"I am sorry. But really it doesn't matter."

"What doesn't matter?"

"Me getting into trouble. Marta was great when I was little, we were close back then. But she just gets frustrated with me and I don't listen to her and besides she not my mother. And my parents are never around. You know the last time I saw them?"

"When?" I ask gently.

"I'm not even sure. I think Christmas. Yeah, they had a party on Christmas Eve. They stayed all day on the twenty-fifth and were gone again on the twenty-sixth. That is the sum total of their interest in me. Only home because they felt an obligation to have a gathering for their friends. I don't have anyone that I have to answer to."

"Yes you do," I tell him. "You are going to answer to me. And I just busted you." He looks confused but doesn't fight what I just told him as I suspected he wouldn't. He is yearning to be cared about, to be noticed. Liam had been filling the roll just enough to keep him appeased, with Liam grounded, the kid felt more lost and abandoned than usual.

"What does that even mean?"

"It means, that you don't drink, you don't smoke, because I will find out."

"Then what?" He dares, but I can tell he is silently begging me to have an answer, a consequence, any consequence. "How would you even know," he adds petulantly.

"Because, I'm a detective and it's my job to know."

"But I'm not your son."

"You don't have to be in order for me to care what you are doing."

I let this sit for a minute while he studies the table and then looks back up at me, his eyes almost tearing up. He swipes at the floppy brown hair that coats his forehead. "My contacts are bothering me," he says as an explanation for his glistening eyes.

"I just signed Liam and myself up to help clean an old school on the west-side. The community is going re-purpose it for a neighborhood daycare. A lot of the old furniture needs to be pulled out, the place needs to be cleaned well and the walls painted. There's a group that's been working on it already, but they always need help. You're going to come with us and help."

"I can't, I have a swim meet in Shaumburg on Saturday." He replies, thinking that he has won.

"No problem. I signed us up for Sunday." I snap back trying not to wink at him. I had a feeling that Liam was in his room eavesdropping and smiling.

Liam

I was still grounded, my last day actually. But, here I am running down the street at full speed and calling my father to let him know. I am not yet breathless, as my regular morning run with him has continued from the time I was thirteen. I don't go out every day, or run his full route, but it is often enough and far enough that I know I can do this.

The phone is bouncing up and down as my feet slap the pavement and I hit his number on my speed dial and pray that he answers and that he trusts my instincts.

To be continued...

Soundtrack: Lost and Found Hugh Masterson