A/N.: Sorry for the delay, but new country, new city, new university, new people, I just had no time ;) Thanks for all your reviews, they remind me not to forget my stories ;)

Powerless

Leaving him alone is hard. But we're powerless against his fears and demons. Why he's acting like that is obvious and it had been too obvious for me too see it earlier. Leaving him alone is not the right solution. It won't help him to overcome his fear. But I'm also afraid of pushing him too hard. I don't know how he'll react and I don't want to harm him. We both don't want to, but everything we do to make him trust us, to make him confident, seems to do so. It feels utterly wrong to leave him. But hurting him more only to satisfy our parental instincts? Showing him he can't push us away? It might help the same way as it might harm him. It's a one-way street, only we can't foresee what's at the end.

"Why is he doing this?" My wife asks me. She had been shocked by Ryan's outburst. Either have I. We both had known that it was a tough fight to get through to him. But that bad?

"Isn't it obvious?" I ask her. I don't want to discuss this topic anymore. I want a solution.

"No, not for me." She answers. I look into her eyes.

"He's hurting us, before we can hurt him. That simple. When he tells us he doesn't want us around, he doesn't get hurt, if we aren't." How screwed was that? I never would be able to come to such an idea. Worse of all, the boy doesn't even know that this was his problem.

"This isn't…healthy…or?" My wife asks. I only shake my head. We need to do something, anything.

"Not really, but I also have no idea how to cure him from that." The phone rings.

"Can you answer it?" My wife asks. She looks too tired to do so and I'm sure she also is too tired.

"Sandy Cohen?" I answer it. Honestly, I'm too tired to talk to anyone as well. I want to lie down and just forget about the last…past days. I want to turn back time and then just…handle things different. Unfortunately I'm stuck in the real world and this isn't possible.

"Mr. Cohen? Here's Marissa."It's Marissa's hysteric voice and I don't want to know what drama comes up next. Well, I know what drama will come up next, but I don't tell her. She's his girlfriend I can't be impolite.

"Hey…uhm…sorry, but Ryan isn't home…"

"I know, I know. I…only wanted to know how serious it is. He called me, but…he didn't really talk about what had happened." Okay, she's already in the know. He didn't tell her? Was that a wonder? He doesn't tell anything to anyone. But if he even didn't talk to Marissa it's only more reason to worry. He used to talk to her about everything. My wife and I had been envious about her relationship to him. And how to tell her without making her…even more hysteric?

"It…it's quite serious, but he's out of the woods. No need to worry." I tell her. I catch some concerned looks from my wife.

"Are you sure? I wanted to come back, but he insisted not to." Even Marissa? Now there's really a lot reason to worry.

"He doesn't want to see any of us right now." I calm her down.

"But that's not good. I come back, I can get…"

"Marissa, I don't think this is the right time. You should stay in France and enjoy your time." I don't want Ryan to freak out and risk their relationship only because of something imprudent.

"But…he needs help. Someone needs to tell him how…wrong he is with his behaviour." She got the point. She's really a smart girl, although she's Julie Cooper's daughter.

"And your right with that. But…this is a parents' job, not yours. Let's make a deal. You stay in France and collect as much impressions as you can, so you can distract Ryan, when he's home and has to accept that he has to slow down for a while. I'm sure he'll need you then. And we do the parents' job. Okay?"

"But…I want to be with him now." She's close to tears. This boy has one gift: making the women cry. This had to stop.

"But you can't help him right now. As far as I can judge the situation it only would harm him and you and your relationship. Trust me in this. I …know what I'm talking about." I'm still not used to switch from adult into teeny modus while a conversation. But the kids were in a difficult age – caught between childhood and the life of an adult.

"Oh…okay…then…I call him then and…and write more post cards, but cam you call me if…if it's getting worse again?" She asks me. She's really concerned about him.

"Of course I'll do. But I don't think that this will happen. He's on a good way of recovery." I tell her.

"Okay, thanks and sorry for my late call." She says and then rings off.

"Marissa?" My wife asks. I nod and go back to the place I've stood before. I'm thrown back into my state of heavy thinking, but still without success.

"He's rejecting her as well. He…he doesn't know what love is and he's refusing to learn about it." She says. She's right. If he did know, he wouldn't behave like that. He would trust us and Marissa. But right now he doesn't even trust himself. How to teach him? How to make him allow us to be around? How to get through to him? This boy is a closed book. But we need to open it. We need to read what's written in it. This is important. I start to feel that we might have to force him to learn. Maybe it's not good to draw back every time he's rejecting us. Maybe we have to show him that he can't reject us. Would he accept this? Not at the beginning, but he could be able to adapt…What am I thinking? The boy was living together with us for so long and still wasn't capable of adapting. Why would he then?

I go to the living room and switch on the TV, the most indifferent behaviour I can think of. But what else to do? My wife sits down next to me and I put my arm around her. We both need a break right now. We need to get our minds free for a moment and then we can start to think about solutions and conflicts from new.

The next morning came quite too early. But when we got up and looked onto the watch, we knew it was Ryan's time for the surgery. Not being able to be there for him now, not holding his hand, stroking through his hair was driving me crazy. On the other hand Dr. Conrad had told us that they put him into sleep the night before. They wanted as less stress as possible for him, thus he wouldn't have noticed we're being there anyway. But in somehow wasn't this a good opportunity to be there for him although he doesn't want us? No matter how to look at it, my bad conscience is punishing me. I look at my wife and she looks as miserable as I 'm feeling.

"I feel like the worse mother on earth right now." She admits. Her hands wrapped around the mug with hot steaming coffee.

"And I like to worse father on earth." I answer. But truth is there's nothing for us left to do. We only can wait and hope that Ryan gets a grip on himself and stops with his measures of rejection and insults.

"Hey, what are you doing here? I thought today was Ryan's surgery." Our son comes into the kitchen.

"You're right, but he doesn't want to have us around." My wife answers heavily.

"And you care? Do you know how unfair that is? No matter how pissed I am, I never get you to leave me alone." Well, yes he's right and he's not. Forcing my own son to talk is not the same than getting Ryan to talk. My own son likes attention, Ryan tries to be invisible.

"Yeah, but you don't fight us tooth and nail when we impose our attention and presence to you." I answer.

"That's right. Hey, but you should use this opportunity. Ryan is handicapped and can't fight you as hard as usual, what means you can impose your attention and presence to him as well." My son is quite smart for his age.

"You're right, but it's not as easy as you think." My wife answers.

"Or you're only afraid of something. I dunno, but I have no time to discuss this further, as I'm already late for school. Say hello to Ryan, if you decide to go to him." Our son says and then leaves for school. I look at my wife and she shrugs her shoulders.

"Should we take the risk?" I ask her.

"Right now? No. Seth is right, but I'm afraid of some stupid fight which might push him even farer away from us. Maybe we should start to get used to this status quo." She says. Status quo? This was no status. This was … nothing but a hurting burden for all of us. But she was right. Who knew what will happen if we ignore his desire for privacy. The consequences could be worse as the current state.

"What leaves us hoping that everything will be alright again?" I ask her.
"What else shell we do?"

"If I knew? But I'm sure sitting and doing nothing won't help with anything." I tell her. I can't sit around and do nothing. That's not my way of solving problems. But my way of solving problems probably leads to nothing but even more pain and cracks. Nevertheless I have the feeling as if it was time for us to risk this. We had to risk something if we want Ryan as our son. We already risked a lot, when we took him in. What more can happen? We can ground him as long as he gotten used to the idea that this was his home. And if it gets too much for him he runs away and the whole shit starts from new. Yes, I want to lock him up in his room upstairs and leave him there as long as he's ready for being treated like every normal family member in this house. Let us assume that Caleb doesn't belong to this group of people. They told us they'll call us when it's over, but this can take long, thus I disappear into my study and start working. My wife is doing the same – only her study is the dinning room. It's hard to concentrate on all these papers. I'm waiting desperately for the phone to ring and every time I'm disappointed because it's one of my wives's contractors calling.

It's already early afternoon, when the phone starts ringing again. I've given up hope it might be the hospital so leave the job of picking up with my wife. As I don't get a message from my wife I'm sure it only was someone from her office or who ever.

I can't stand this waiting anymore and leave my study frustrated. My wife is sitting out on the patio. She uses to do so, when she needs to come down after a rough meeting. Well, this tells me her nerves are on the edge either.

"Hey." I say and sit down at the table. The view is inestimable. Although I don't like Newport as I liked Berkeley, there are still some things that I appreciate of this place.

"I start to worry. I mean the doctor said it would take long, but that long?" I can't say anything about that. I'm not possessing a medical degree. I can't say how long surgeries take or not. I don't even know what they're doing to my boy. Of course they told us everything in detail, but who on earth understands this medical slang? I don't. I'm glad if I understand my own son's language and that's difficult enough from time to time.

"What if this was the wrong decision?" She asks me again.

"What do you mean?"

"Everything."

"You shouldn't even think that way." I tell her, but inwardly I have to fight hard against these thoughts myself. The phone rings again. I hate this annoying tone.

"Can you? I don't think my head can bear any more phone calls." My wife asks and I get up to pick up the phone.

"Cohen?" I'm bothered right now. I want to get drowned in my thoughts, without being disturbed by anyone.

"Mr. Cohen? Here's Sandra from the hospital calling…well I know about what your son said…but I guess here's someone who needs you." I don't know that I ever could be grateful for a phone call and for a voice.

"Okay…we're on our way."

"Fine, but be prepared…your son don't feel too well right now." She says. This doesn't sound good. But I still remember my own son after his surgery last year. We got him through that and we'll get Ryan through it as well.

"Alright, we'll think of it. Thanks for the call."

"Your welcome." And then there's the dial tone. I run out the patio.

"Who was it?" My wife asks hopefully.

"Sandra from the hospital. She says there's someone who needs us." I tell her and her eyes tell me that this message was more than she had hoped for. Her eyes shine of happiness.

"Then don't let us waste any time." She says, grabs my hand and then we head for our car. I feel relieve spread through my body. He doesn't feel to well, but this had been to be expected. Most important was that he seemed to need us and that we might now be able to let him know that we're his parents and that we love him. This is our chance to show him what love means and that he can't reject us. This is our chance to change the situation.