HE KNEW

 

Trigger warning: everything

From here, I’d like to ask you to take everything you’ve read before and convert it to this: instead of Adam struggling with p*rn and inappropriate s*xual behaviors, I want you to think of it as smoking. Suppose he had started smoking at a young age, and no matter what I did, he continued to find ways to get cigarettes and smoke them. Suppose we had gotten him therapy, done treatment programs, tried to help him quit in every way we could find. Suppose this is a child/teen struggling with nicotine addiction.

You also need to understand that I was following all our plans to prevent Adam from smoking, but that John had relaxed his standards and rules, and it was well known that Adam was smoking at his house. Suppose every time I brought it up, John lied, and/or told me I was overreacting. Suppose Adam had tried to offer cigarettes to his sister. Suppose he got caught at school smoking. Suppose he was using his cigarettes to burn holes in his clothes, his bedding, even the wall. Suppose John continued to blow off these infractions and take no responsibility for helping Adam quit.

January 22, 2022- I caught Adam (age 15) burning Honey (age 8) with his cigarette, leaving burn marks on her skin. I was stunned and immediately terribly upset. I took Adam into my bedroom and shut the door behind me. I took Honey into our kitchen where we could be alone. She told me all the details of what Adam had done to burn her, and then said the words that set off the atomic bomb in my mind:

“Dad knows. Dad has known for a while. Dad saw him burning me before and asked me, and I told him.”

She then went on to share the multiple times Adam had burned her at John’s house and other places (not including my house until that day), and that it had been happening for months.

For months AFTER John knew. I asked her how many times Adam had burned her. She said, “I don’t know…10, 12, maybe 20…I guess too many to count.”

I went to my bedroom and asked Adam about what he had done. He fully admitted all of it. He is very strange that way: He is sneaky, but if he gets caught, he knows the game is over. He was very upset with himself. He detailed his end of it, which matched Honey’s. As I was leaving the room, I turned and asked him, “Dad knew?” He said, “Yah, dad knows. I got in trouble for it a few times.”

The blood in my veins ran ice cold, and then it turned to liquid fire, and it has remained that way to this day.

Wanda Maximoff has become something of an icon to me

I called the “Cigarette Burn” hotline to report this. Here is where my extreme naivety and innocence showed through.  I truly believed I would call the hotline, and that someone would come “get” Adam that day and that John would be arrested for his negligence. Or at least, I would be immediately given full custody of the younger 3 kids.

I made an immediate plan for Honey so she wouldn’t be in the house for the coming chaos and so she would feel safe- I called my sister and asked if Honey could spend the day/night with them and have a fun sleepover with her cousins. I told my sister what had happened. It was all bewildering. I can’t remember if my sister or my mom came and got Honey, but within an hour, she was out of the house and fully protected.

I sent Adam to his room and told him he would be staying there for the day, or until something else was arranged.

John was out of town. I knew he was on a church retreat (irony of ironies), and I was so angry with him that I didn’t feel like trying to involve him. I was driving the train now. He had hijacked it from me, and the result was my precious, perfect baby girl being given countless burns all over her body, with scarring that would not heal for years, if ever. NO, he had lost the right to a voice in this conversation.

My hope for immediate action was squashed as the day wore on. Finally, the next morning, the local county Sheriff’s department called to say they had a deputy on the way to interview me.

The deputy who came was nice and helpful. He got all the details of Adam’s history of cigarette addiction, of the incident at my house, and the history of other incidents that the kids had shared with me. But he then got up to leave, and I asked about Adam and what would happen next. He told me I should find a way to keep the kids separate, but that the next people I would hear from would be the Juvenile Office. I said, “Will they call today?” He laughed- actually laughed- and said, “Oh no, it will probably be more like a month or a few months.” I didn’t understand. I had a kid who wanted to burn people in my house, but I just had to sit tight with that for months?

Yep.

I was reeling. I was lost. I felt like I’d been dropped in a swirling sea of cold water and was left to find a way to swim.

The good things at this point: my family immediately believed me and Honey. My boss (who is a dear friend) said, “You are just off work until you tell me you are back. We will figure out the PTO/leave pay.” The few friends I told immediately were 100% on it to help me. People brought food. People offered to take my other kids places and such. I had support, help, and love right away. I will never forget this.

The bad things at this point: everything else.

I decided Honey should stay with my sister until I could make a better plan. The other kids knew what had happened and were justifiably upset. Adam remained in his room, and I went up periodically to talk to him. I was angry with him, but we never fought. Adam was mad at himself too, and was scared about what would happen next.  I told him what the deputy had told me. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, but I would keep him informed.

I decided to run some clothes over to my sister’s house so Honey could stay another night. I took the two younger boys with me and left Adam in his room. He had stayed by himself a thousand times – he was 15 years old. And through other circumstances, there were 3 adults I trusted in my home at the time. I didn’t charge any of them with “watching” Adam- he didn’t need watching. He was contentedly playing with his Hot Wheels in his room, as he always did.

When I returned, I found empty prescription bottles on the counter in our kitchen.

I went upstairs and found that Adam had made a huge mess in his room- knocked things over, threw things, put holes in the wall, etc. He was often physically demonstrative with his anger. But now he was lying on his bed, very calm. When I tried to talk to him, though, he was confused and incoherent. I asked if he had taken all that medicine. He said yes. I immediately called 911 and yelled for the adults to come help me. We brought him downstairs- he could walk but not well- and laid him on the couch. I checked his pulse, which was thready, and tried to keep him awake. The adults took the other 2 kids downstairs to distract and calm them. The ambulance came and took him right away.

And I knew that now I had to tell John.

“John, I know you’re going to be upset with me, but please just save that for later. Yesterday, I caught Adam burning Honey with a cigarette. I separated the 2 kids, and Honey is with my sister. Both Honey and Adam told me you knew, and that it had been going on for months at your house.” At this point, John began crying uncontrollably. “What?!?” he cried “I thought I got it stopped! I thought I took care of it!” he said between sobs.  “Well, you didn’t. And I am not sure why you didn’t tell me. Anyway, Adam took a bunch of prescription meds and is in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. You can meet us there.”  I told him I was keeping the kids with me for the time being. That is all I remember from that conversation. However, at NO point did John deny that he knew. He didn’t say, “That isn’t true” or “No, that’s not quite right” or anything.

At the hospital, Adam was put on 24-hour watch, as he confirmed the pills were a true suicide attempt. They researched what he took and decided he needed to be transferred to the local children’s hospital (he took ADHD meds prescribed to him and a brother, and some allergy pills). Adam was going to be ok. He wasn't in good shape, but he would fully recover.

The entire time, John was in the room and badgering me, saying, “I want to talk to you.” I kept refusing him. He seemed more concerned with trying to talk to me alone than he was with Adam’s state- I knew it was because I told him I was keeping the kids. Then, the nurse told us that a parent was required to go to the children’s hospital with Adam, more than an hour away. I was exhausted from dealing with all the trauma and emotions the last few days. Adam immediately said, “I’m really tired. I can’t go.” He had been at a fun church retreat and now he was too tired to be there for Adam. That was the moment the other shoe dropped for me. “He truly doesn’t care about his kids- he is only out for himself” I said to myself. The label of “narcissist” for him would only become more and more appropriate in the next few months/years.

My mom had gone to my house to stay overnight with the other kids. After a long wait, we were on the way out of town to the children’s hospital. They admitted Adam to a room, and I was taken there.

Seeing this big 15-year-old guy, now laying in a hospital gown in a children’s hospital- which was decorated with cartoon characters and pastel colors- and knowing he was going through so much internally, my heart was broken. His own father wouldn’t be there for him at this time. I knew so many things in Adam were broken, and I knew I had fought to help him his whole life. I knew he was in agony. I thought to myself, “I am all this kid has. I am the only one who will fight for him.”

Something inside me split- if not evenly, then close to it: I had to simultaneously fight for protection, care, and justice for Honey, as well as fight for the best possible help for Adam. Seeing him lie in that bed, it all really flooded in. He was also a victim- not of a crime- but of his situation. He didn’t ask to be abandoned as an infant by his biological family. He didn’t ask to move 1000 miles away to a foreign country. He didn’t ask for or cause the things that were broken in his brain because of that. And he was the oldest kid when we got divorced. He had been subjected to the chaos of two houses that operated very differently, and of a father who basically signed off on him hurting his sister. John failed to protect both Adam AND Honey.

The flood of care and heartbreak for Honey would be something that would consume me for the next few years, but in that moment, I felt I was shown again why I was chosen to be Adam’s mother.

I didn’t run away. I didn’t abandon him. I committed right then to staying by him to get him help. I would never, ever condone what he did or even excuse him from it. I was angry, and I was determined to stand against him to get justice for his sister. But I was also the only hope he had in the world. No, I wouldn’t walk away from him.

John came to the hospital several hours later, but I had gone home by then- having been awake for 24 hours straight. Again, any communication I had from John did not include him denying that he knew.

It was up to me to protect and fight for my children. My path was set. I didn’t know what was coming next (and there is much, much more), but I would do what I had always done: figure it out.