rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_da348952-d265-54f9-ad31-f0c8914d54fb">Verse One
The mystic’s crinkled old hands sweep my tarot card reading off the table and onto the scraggly patch of New Delhi lawn at my feet. Bangles jangling and tongue clacking, she leans forward, staring at me, I suppose, but her eyes are just shadows behind her beaded red veil. Hindi words snake out from beneath the gossamer folds and across the little hairs on the back of my neck. I don’t understand what she’s hissing at me, but she’s made her point: Whatever she saw in the cards isn’t good.
Slightly miffed, I turn my back on the ancient party-pooper; doesn’t she know the fortune-telling tents have been pitched here for pure entertainment? This, most certainly, is not entertaining. Wrapped and rustling in a bolt of shimmering lime-green silk, I sashay back to the gala event where dignitaries, diplomats, and expats gather. Lifting the hem of my sari, teetering a bit on bejeweled heels that sink into the spongy grass, I dismiss the ominous scattering of cards with a flick and a twirl.
The sultry night air is swirled with melodic tendrils of sitar and flute. Gently swaying to the exotic music, I lean into Joe, sipping wine and tasting curried morsels offered by turbaned waiters. The starlight, lanterns, and ethnic finery outshine for a moment the garbage-picking poverty right outside the iron gates. Sighing, I delight in the fancifulness of the evening—its costumes, carpets of marigold petals, and aromatic clouds of frangipani. A Bollywood-style finale to our happy first year in India.
Slipping away before the party is over, just before the moon glides into tomorrow, Joe and I stroll the campus of the American Embassy School, the same grounds where during the week our boys huddle with friends between classes. Joey is finishing up eleventh grade and Rick is finishing eighth. Meandering arm-in-arm between flowering trees and down paved steps, as we approach the stone perimeter the revelry fades into the night. Once outside the sandbagged, armed-guard entry, Joe and I dart between rickshaws, honking cars, and cows—New Delhi is wide-awake even at this late hour—to our house just across the street. Giggling, we toss pebbles through the massive gate at the end of our driveway, aiming for the whitewashed sentry hut where our guard snoozes.
In India, every little thing is an adventure, a masala, a spicy blend—and I love it. As with all our moves, Joe’s job brought us here. With one pinky toe on the corporate ladder before the boys were even born, he’s been moving up—and so we’ve all been moving in, moving out, and moving on about every two years—ever since. From Florida to Minnesota, Texas to Spain, and Kentucky to India, our family has shared experiences I couldn’t have imagined back in our newlywed days of a two-room apartment, one car, and no money.
Life is good. One long, smooth wave that we’ve somehow hopped on and are going to ride all the way to gray hair and happily ever after.
Anything different is not in the cards.
“Sandy, wake up.”
I can’t see Joe’s face, but I can feel his fear even from under the pile of blankets. I can hear it in his voice when he tells me that Joey is down the hall in his bedroom, right now, at two-thirty in the morning, doing sit-ups in bed in the dark. Not just doing sit-ups. He’s in a froth of sit-ups. And he won’t stop.
There’s no more hiding from the truth. We’ve got a son with a problem.
It’s not that Joe and I have ignored Joey’s baffling bits of behavior up until now, but we have been trying to shove them into a puzzle where they didn’t all fit. Over the summer and first few months of his senior year—as Joey became increasingly edgy, dramatically thinner, and weird about food—we wanted to believe he was displaying teenaged, not troubled, behavior. But we were wrong.
Joey’s transformation from good-natured to short-fused can’t be blamed on hormones. Not entirely, anyway. And the stench from Delhi’s garbage piles crawling with hairy hogs and hungry people isn’t to blame for Joey’s shrinking appetite. No, my son is down the dark hallway in a frenzy of self-flagellation because of something really scary. The wasted frame, the knobby wrists, the sunken eyes; I can see the truth now. Joey needs help. Help he’s not going to receive in this country where having an eating disorder seems sadly ironic.
Joe and I don’t know much about eating disorders, only enough to be afraid. Through a friend in the US, we get the name of a doctor in Los Angeles. Because of the time difference, it’s the middle of the night when I place the call asking for guidance. As I recount Joey’s recent behaviors, Joe leans in close, talking into one ear while the doctor speaks into my other. Tentatively confirming what we already suspect, Dr. Sather says he’ll do a formal evaluation of Joey in two weeks, just after Thanksgiving, when a bed opens up in the inpatient eating disorder program.
“Plan for Joey to be here for several months.” Stunned, I hang up the phone.
This is real and we need to make plans.
Joey was born tenderhearted. When he’s around, hugs don’t go un-hugged, smiles don’t go un-smiled, and upside-down bugs don’t go un-uprighted. Yes, Joey is an angel. Except when he’s not. Lately unpredictable and explosive, Joey is more likely to slam a clenched fist into the wall and storm from the house than he is to agree with anything or to share a smile. So, if Joey doesn’t like the idea of being locked up in a faraway hospital, Joe and I agree there’s no way we’ll get him there. Shrinking though he may be, Joey is still a sizeable young man bursting with stress, testosterone, and whatever else is going on inside him. To get him help, we must first get him on and then off a couple of planes and halfway around the world. For us to accomplish this, Joey must be willing to travel. The thought of Joe needing to use his size and strength to contain or restrain Joey on our upcoming journey slips my soul off its axis. So, in the spirit of safe and happy travels, Joe and I agree to lie.
Herding Joey into the little sunroom where I sit picking at my cuticles, Joe nudges the door shut behind them with the toe of his shoe. Cornered upon his return home from school, Joey’s face is taut, teeth clenched, but still, I’m struck by his poise and strikingly handsome good looks. How is it possible for someone so sick to look so good? And just yesterday, Joey spent an hour patiently working a ring off my too-fat finger, cringing when I cringed, and murmuring gentle words of comfort. He wasn’t cranky or explosive at all. Maybe Joe and I have figured things out all wrong. Taking a deep breath, I give Joey a fake smile and pat the sofa cushion beside me, but, caged and wary, Joey ignores me and starts to pace. Following him with my eyes, I give him the fake truth.
“Honey, your dad and I are worried about you. You’ve gotten so thin. It’s very possible that while living here in India you’ve contracted an intestinal parasite. Giardia, maybe. We’ve made an appointment with a doctor in California to have your weight loss evaluated. We’ll both go with you, we’ll figure out what’s going on, and we’ll have you back here in no time.”
Bellowing, Joey whirls around and smashes his fist into a picture on the wall. Glass shatters. Dots of blood roll from his hand onto the floor. Shouting hateful words, he roars down the hallway and slams his bedroom door. I try not to think about what his reaction will be once he discovers the truth.
“We did the right thing. We needed to lie. We must do whatever it takes now, if there’s even to be a later to deal with,” I say to Joe. And myself.
“Joe, it’s time!” I’d hollered, flicking dust bunnies
