The Art of Adapting (11 page)

“Please,” she said.

Graham let out a terse sigh. “Honestly, the way you baby him . . .”

“I'm going out to look for him. He's on foot. He can't have made it far.” She willed this to be true as she said it. “I'll call when I'm back.”

“Lana . . .” Graham said wearily, as if this sort of thing happened often, as if Lana burdened him with her troubles regularly, when in fact she hadn't asked him for a single thing since the moment he said he wanted to move out.

Lana hung up and dialed Nick Parker. As his phone rang she realized it was the first time she'd ever hung up on Graham. She was proud of herself, but didn't have time to gloat. Nick's voice mail answered. He was the only police officer she halfway trusted, but what had she called to say? Did a half hour of getting reacquainted entitle her to call in personal favors from him? He was the same Nick: still handsome and solid, polite and poised and impenetrable as ever. A gorgeous machine of a man. She still knew virtually nothing about him. Was he even the type to honor personal favors? Lana had no idea.

“Nick, it's Lana. I, um. First off, it was great to see you yesterday. We should do it again soon. I wonder if you could call me back? I seem to have . . . Well, there's a Matt issue I could use a hand with.”

She sounded like a stammering crazy person. Her request had
been too vague, but it seemed crazier to call back and leave a second, more detailed message. She rounded the rooms of the house a second time, a third. But of course Matt was gone and frenzied searching wasn't going to reveal him. She took a deep breath, fetched her car keys, and set out. She called Becca again.

“Two calls in ten minutes? You must miss me desperately,” Becca said with a laugh. Lana started the car and backed out of the garage. She headed north. She'd cover a grid, street by street.

“Matt's missing.”

“Oh, crap,” Becca said. “How long?”

“I don't know. Last time I saw him was when I went up to bed last night, around ten.”

“Well, he could be anywhere by now.”

“That's not helpful, Becca.” Lana felt a surge of bile, pure acidic panic, rise up her esophagus. She'd had two cups of coffee and no food. Of course her stomach was upset. Matt was fine. He had to be. She'd just gotten him back. He was safe now.

“Okay, okay, I'm sure he's not in Mexico or anything. Did he bring his wallet with him?”

“Yes. And a jacket. But not his phone.”

“Well, can he cross the border with just his ID?”

“I don't even want to think about that,” Lana said. She didn't know the answer. She was sweating now, little trickles of failure dampening her armpits and dripping between her breasts. In the past few months Matt had gotten a DUI and ended up hospitalized for an overdose. He needed supervision. Lana had arrogantly assumed she was up to the job. What had she been thinking?

“Okay, probably not Mexico. Matt doesn't like dirt or germs or people. He's a creature of habit, right? So what are his habits?”

Lana hit a cul-de-sac and stopped the car. “Outside of the house? I don't know. He's never gone anywhere.”

“Maybe you should call the police?” Becca said.

“I just called Nick and left a message.”

“I meant a cop you haven't slept with,” Becca teased.

“I'll find him.” Lana doubled back to cover the streets south of her house. “And if I can't, I'll call Nick again.” The grid idea wasn't
working. The streets were long loops of similar houses interrupted by cul-de-sacs. There was no grid, which she knew, as she'd lived in the curving-road development for fifteen years. She couldn't think clearly. Where would Matt go? She knew he missed his nightly walks, but he'd only taken them around the neighborhood, just a stroll around a block or two, until Lana had taken them from him, worried about what her neighbors might think. How far would he wander without her there to stop him?

“San Diego's a pretty big city,” Becca said. “And Matt's brain is . . . well, it's Matt's brain. I mean, who knows what he's thinking? Maybe the police already picked him up.”

If the police had Matt, that wouldn't be good. Especially if Nick wasn't available to intercede. That pissy social worker who'd wanted to put him in a state facility would no doubt hear about it, and would probably interfere with Lana getting him back. Maybe rightfully so. “Let's just pray that they don't,” Lana said.

“Never knew you were much for praying,” Becca chided. Her levity irritated Lana.

“I guess this is as good a time to start as any,” Lana snipped. Lana had said mini-prayers before, like after watching Abby go down hard on the soccer field once, unable to move for a few endless seconds because she'd had the wind knocked out of her. As Lana had sprinted toward Abby's unmoving body she'd offered up a quick,
Please, please, please let her be okay
, to whatever force controlled such things. That was prayer, right? And it had worked. Abby was fine.

“I don't pray, per se,” Becca said. “But I've been doing these meditations. You visualize what you want, put it in this glowing, spinning ball, and you send it up to the universe and ask for ‘this or better.' It's very relaxing. And empowering.”

“Well, can you ask the goddamn universe for this one for me?” Lana said. She was starting to cry, which wasn't helping her look for Matt. She couldn't see a thing. She pulled over and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her sweatshirt.

“Lana, he's fine,” Becca said. “He's Matt. He's . . . protected by angels or something. You know what I mean?”

“He's fresh out of the hospital where he almost died,” Lana reminded her.

Becca sighed. “Okay, I get it. Keep looking and I'll keep you company.” Becca lived in Virginia, so she couldn't help look for Matt, but her voice carrying across thousands of miles calmed Lana's nerves. Mostly.

Lana found a wadded but probably clean tissue in a side pocket of her purse and wiped her eyes. “Just when I think I've gained the upper hand over my train-wrecked life, something has to happen to remind me it's all still in flux.” The harder she tried to stop crying, the more she cried. She hadn't slept well, never slept well anymore, and that always made her more emotional. She'd hated it whenever Graham pointed that out to her, but he'd been right. “I'm coming undone, Becca. Unspooling like one of Graham's golf balls. Byron sawed one open the other day and it had these endless loops of rubber inside. He unraveled the guts of the ball, turning it from something to nothing in moments. That's me.”

“Healing is like that,” Becca said. “You're right where you need to be: unformed and full of promise. It's a process of undoing the very things that have been binding you together your whole existence.”

“And then what?” Lana finished blotting her eyes and kept driving.

“You ask for better. You make manifestation lists. You give yourself permission to have everything you need. And just hope to hell that in the end all of that work will be worth it.”

“Is this from your meditation crap?” Lana asked.

“It is.”

Lana turned around in another cul-de-sac and sighed. “Can I have a copy?”

“I'll send it as soon as we find Matt,” Becca said. “So, let's try to think like Matt.” She was silent for a moment. “Never mind. Doesn't he have any friends you can check with?”

Lana hooked a left and sped out of the familiar development, squealing her tires and causing an old man to stop trimming his roses long enough to glare at her. Matt didn't really have anyone
that Lana would call a friend. But she suddenly had an idea of where he might be.

“I'll call you back,” she told Becca.

Lana pulled up outside Spike's apartment complex. There was no sign of Matt, but why would there be? He knew better than to return here. The doctor, the social worker, and Lana herself had all made certain Matt understood that the only way he'd get better, the only way his liver counts would return to normal, was to avoid Spike and all of his drugs.

She knocked on Spike's door but got no answer. She didn't have a number for Spike. She didn't even know his real name. It was probably Charles or Henry or Lawrence, something befitting his banished-rich-kid status. She knocked again, louder.

“Spike?” she yelled at the door. The apartment complex was vast and boring, beige blocky structures loaded with college kids—Spike's clients, living all around him. Along the walkways were bicycles and skateboards and empty five-gallon jugs of drinking water waiting for pickup. One of them was half full of murky water and had a goldfish swimming in the muck. Lana shook her head. These were UCSD kids. Supposedly smart ones.

She pounded the door a final time and it opened a crack, revealing one of Spike's green eyes, red-rimmed and clearly under the influence of something. A stale and rank aroma wafted out of the apartment. Spike was small, thin, pale, and jumpy. Your stereotypical strung-out-looking drug addict. He was in his twenties but he looked about forty. A man-child in a child-sized body. Everything about him emanated lost soul. Spike wasn't angry, never seemed violent, he was just Spike. At another point in her life, he might've become one of Lana's pet projects. He needed someone to care about him, that was clear.

“Yeah?” Spike said. He'd met Lana before, but she didn't expect him to remember her. He was either high or sleeping each time she'd stopped by to pick up Matt for one of their occasional lunches.

“I'm Matt's sister, Lana. Do you know where he is?”

“I know who you are, sister,” Spike said. He smiled, revealing a
gap where he was missing a molar. Spike shuffled and a metal baseball bat clattered to the floor next to him. He swept it aside with his foot. The top of his white sock was stained with something red. Lana hoped it was ketchup. It seemed likely. Fast-food bags littered the room. According to Matt, Spike had flunked out of college and was cut off by his well-to-do parents after a stint in rehab didn't take. She wasn't sure how he and Matt had met up. She'd been busy trying to resurrect her slipping marriage at the time. Clearly she should've been paying more attention to Matt back then. She was trying to make it up to him now. She just needed a little more time.
Please
, she prayed to whoever might care,
let him be okay. Give me more time.

Lana looked around for witnesses, but it was before noon on a Saturday in a college town, and everyone was still sleeping off the night before. She saw a form on the couch behind Spike. In the darkness she could just make out a dark blue sock hanging precariously off one foot. She pointed toward the form.

“Is that him?” she asked.

Spike smiled, braced the door with his bony shoulder. “What's it worth to you?”

“Oh, I don't know,” Lana said sweetly. “A call to the police, maybe?” Maybe it was time to stop being so nice to people. It never got her anywhere. She brought up Nick's number on her phone, poised to call.

Spike frowned and opened the door. “You don't play fair,” he said.

Matt was passed out on the couch. On the coffee table in front of him was a bong, a small glass pipe, a tinfoil package of Lana-didn't-even-want-to-know-what, an open orange pill bottle, a half-empty bottle of tequila, and a box of Pop-Tarts. There were food containers and discarded clothes everywhere. She stepped inside and was hit with the smell of urine.

“He pissed himself,” Spike said. He dropped into the nearest chair and propped his feet up on the table. “You going to clean it up?”

Lana made her way to Matt and felt his cheek, his chest, his neck. He was warm, breathing, his pulse thumping steadily in his
throat beneath her two fingers. He looked so young, with his rosy cheeks and blond curls. So helpless. She sighed and fought back tears. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. She was still holding her phone. She looked at the screen, debating. How much could she trust Nick? He was as by-the-book as they came. Spike was watching her closely.

“Careful, sister,” he said. “This doesn't look good for him.”

A seething rage filled her up. Who the hell was this little shit, to do this to her brother? And now threatening her? She palmed her phone and hesitated. He was right. It was clear that Spike was breaking an assortment of laws, but Matt was still finishing off his DUI suspension. And he'd only been out of the hospital for two months since his overdose. That social worker had wanted to put him in a state facility. What kind of ammunition would this give her? Lana battled a sense of powerlessness. Matt deserved better. She switched her phone to video and lowered her hand, pretending to be done with it.

“What exactly did you do to him?” she asked. He had Pop-Tart crumbs all over his chest and Lana dusted him off.

“Gave him my special Matt-sleeping cocktail. Don't worry. He didn't OD this time.” Spike laughed as if it were all a great joke, the destruction of Matt's psyche and liver and everything that was good and pure about him. Lana turned her phone to get a good shot of Spike, a wide pan of the drug-paraphernalia-strewn table and surrounding space. She tried to avoid getting any part of Matt's body. She lifted her phone and quickly emailed the video to herself.

“Hey, now,” Spike said. He scrambled toward her but stumbled over his own heaps of crap and couldn't get to her in time. The phone whooshed that the message had been sent.

She held up her phone. “My insurance policy. You want me to be the only one who has that video, you never see him or interact with him again. You hear me?” She had no idea if the police would care, but she was banking on the hope that Spike didn't want to find out.

Spike shook his head, fell back into his chair, and rubbed his bristly head. “You can't save him, you know. He's a goner. Just like me.”

Lana dropped the phone into her purse. “Help me get him into my car,” she said. “And give me a blanket or a towel to put under him. I need to get him to the hospital.”