I said: yes.
He said: thank you.
He said: for calling instead of.
He said: thank you.
I said: yes.
I hung up.
I sat with the phone in my hands.
I thought about my brother.
The bike.
The funeral.
The Sunday calls.
The person who had taught himself how to become someone who needed something so badly that he took it from his own mother’s medication drawer.
I thought about the specific way addiction worked.
The way it was not a moral failure and was also a moral failure.
The way the two things coexisted without canceling each other out.
The way love and harm coexisted.
I picked up the phone again.
I called the hospital’s social work department.
I talked to a colleague who specialized in substance use.
She gave me three numbers.
Inpatient treatment programs.
With availability.
I called all three.
I got information on two of them.
I called Jason back.
I told him.
He listened.
He said: the second one.
He said: I can go today if that’s.
He said: if there’s a bed today.
I said: let me call.
There was a bed.
He went that afternoon.
He drove himself.
He called me from the parking lot before he went in.
He said: Sarah.
I said: yes.
He said: tell Tyler.
He said: tell him I know.
He said: tell him I’m sorry.
He said: tell him he did the right thing.
I said: I will.
He said: okay.
He went in.
I spent the rest of that day making phone calls.
To the pharmacy, to report the discrepancy.
To my mother’s care team, to fully explain the situation.
To a family therapist, to make an appointment for Tyler.
To the home health agency, to arrange the aide who would manage medications from now on.
I did all of it.
I did it in the specific way I had learned to do things that needed doing, which was one at a time, completely, without thinking about the next one until the current one was finished.
At five o’clock I picked Tyler up from school.
He was quiet in the car.
He was watching me.
I said: I talked to Uncle Jason today.
He looked at his hands.
I said: he’s getting help.
He said: what kind of help?
I said: the kind he needs.
He said: because of the medicine?
I said: yes.
He said: is he sick?
I thought about this.
I said: yes.
I said: in a way.
He said: is it like Halmoni?
I said: it’s different.
I said: but it’s real.
He said: is he going to be okay?
I said: I hope so.
He said: but you don’t know.
I said: no.
I said: I don’t know.
He was quiet.
He said: Mom.
I said: yes.
He said: he told me it was fine.
He said: he told me I was confused.
He said: and I knew I wasn’t confused.
He said: but he’s a grownup.
He said: so I thought.
He said: I don’t know what I thought.
I said: you thought maybe you should trust him because he was a grownup.
He said: yes.
I said: and then you didn’t.
He said: I trusted what I saw.
I said: yes.
I said: Tyler.
He said: yeah.
I said: that was very brave.
He said: I was scared.
I said: being brave doesn’t mean not being scared.
He looked at me.
I said: being brave means you do the right thing even when you’re scared.
He thought about this.
He said: I didn’t do anything.
He said: I just watched.
He said: and worried.
He said: and slept in the hallway.
I said: and then you told me.
He said: yes.
I said: that’s the part that matters.
He said: is Halmoni going to find out?
I said: yes.
He said: she’ll be upset.
I said: yes.
He said: about Uncle Jason.
I said: yes.
He said: not about me.
I said: Tyler.
I said: you protected her.
He said: I just slept outside her door.
I said: you noticed something was wrong.
I said: you paid attention.
I said: you stayed with her.
I said: and when it was time, you told the person who could do something about it.
He said: you.
