Today
She stared at him, her beautiful boy, just out of reach.
She noticed his eyes seemed more saturated somehow. As if all his life experiences had intensified them just as those same experiences made his jawline sharper and his demeanor more callus.
She was holding on by a thread, a fiber even, but she had to focus. She needed to be strong. Right now, at the end.
The room felt too hot, even though the air conditioner was blasting recycled, institutional air one ceiling tile over from where she was sitting.
Minutes ago, when her boy entered the adjoining room, a ripple went through the others seated around her. The man at the far side sat up straighter. The woman next to him started crying. Most were stoic. All of them stared at him. But he only looked at her. His clear eyes finding hers, focusing on her, comforted by her love as it glided between them effortlessly, silently, through the cross-hatched glass, never-ending but broken.
26 Years Before
His pudgy legs pumped hard as he raced his cars up and down the hallway. Trucks, tractors and blocks scattered across the floor as he plowed a racetrack through the house. She took a mental snapshot. The crinkling diaper underneath his “choo-choo train” overalls. The slightly damp collar of his T-shirt, sticky from apple juice that didn’t quite make it in his mouth. The sheer joy of him being racecar driver extraordinaire inside his imagination.
These moments were precious, and she knew it. Her beautiful boy.
12 Years After That
Walking into the all-too-familiar school office, she could see him sitting there, sullenly. His hair hanging in his face, hoodie unzipped. His slouch indicated he knew he had done it this time. She touched his shoulder briefly as she walked passed, closed the door and took her usual seat facing the principal.
Half an hour later, she emerged and looked at him. He looked at her face, noticing the dark circles under her eyes, the defeated slump of her shoulders. She looked like she was holding back tears. “Get your stuff,” she said in a low voice. “You won’t be coming back here.”
He stood up, sighing, and went to retrieve his backpack. He was right. It was the last straw.
As she watched him walk out of the office, her heart ached. They were trying so hard. When would they get through to him? When would they make that connection? When would they find him? Her beautiful boy.
That Night
They sat together, alternately crying and browsing the internet.
It was time.
They had tried. Four schools in two years and no one knew how to help him. No one could get through. At the first school, back talk and attitude kept him after school more days than not. Eventually, he gave guff to the wrong teacher resulting in a classroom brawl.
The second and third schools had similar stories. Attitude and backtalk combined with a can of spray paint in the boys’ bathroom or a lawn job on the football field—all led to the same conclusion.
Now, this. The fourth school and the most concerning final straw. He was selling weed in the parking lot before and after school. They didn’t even know how he got the drugs, or how he got roped into that scene.
They looked at each other and booked the flights. One seat for each of them and one for their beautiful boy.
4 Weeks After That
All three of them were silent. They had said everything they needed to say and some things that shouldn’t have been said at all. Everyone was spent and broken hearted.
The overhead announcement echoed through the airport, “Now boarding, Main Cabin, non-stop service to Houston, Texas.”
5 Hours Later
Dear god, it was hot. And flat. And that was it. The couple researched and called and researched some more. The “special school for troubled boys” was rated top in the country for academics and rehabilitation, boasting an impressive success rate. They didn’t want it to come to this. With every mile that passed, they came closer to him hating them. To hating themselves.
The boy in the backseat stared blankly out the window. He took nothing in, observed nothing outside the car. His world was completely encapsulated inside his mind. That was fine with him.
They drove up the long drive to the entrance of the school. The headmaster stood at the doors of the institution. He looked like he was carved of granite with dark, penetrating eyes and a countenance that brooked no nonsense.
The headmaster walked down the stairs and greeted the couple at their car. The boy would get his one allowed bag of personal belongings and carry it to his dormitory. No parents allowed beyond the driveway. Once he was past the doors, he would be absorbed by the school.
The boy gave his father a stiff embrace. More perfunctory than anything. He moved to his mother next, and she pulled him into her arms, pressing him to her shoulder remembering this was how he liked to be comforted as a small child. She poured all her love into her hug. It needed to last until the end of the term and parents were allowed to visit again.
When he pulled away to follow the headmaster, he looked at her. Looked in her eyes. Then he turned around and began walking up the stairs and through the door, wiping her tears from the side of his face. The face of their beautiful boy.
Three Years Later
They touched down in Houston for what they hoped to be the final time. Relief, fear and uncertainty ebbed and flowed between them. Brief phone calls weekly and twice-per-year visits had worn them down until the patina of their souls lacked any shine. Anyone who looked at the couple could see their exhaustion. The hollowed-out part of their hearts hung limp. Their eyes swam with grief.
Years of questioning themselves bore down. Had they done the right thing? Would three years at the “special school for troubled boys” be enough to turn him around? Would they ever forgive themselves for it coming to this? Would he ever forgive them?
Time would tell.
This time, the drive to school was different. The couple was excited to see their boy. Previous visits were filled with anxiety and trepidation. It was torture for them to see their boy twice a year. It tormented them that he might be unhappy or scared and they weren’t there for him. If he got sick, who would make him tea with honey just the way he liked it? Who would he talk to about friends or movies he wanted to see? Who would take him out for driving lessons or watch his baseball game? Not them and it was agony.
As boys do, he had grown the three years he was away. Daily exercise and supervised diet erased the gangly older boy and in his place was nearly a full-grown man. He still would fill out, but he was tall with the promise of an imposing figure in his future.
He greeted his parents with calm politeness, gently kissing his mother on the cheek and offering his father a firm handshake. No emotion-filled embrace. No nonsense.
The boy led his parents to his dormitory room for the first time. Because he was graduating, he was finally allowed to show them where he had spent the last 1,095 days. But there wasn’t much to see. A simple metal bedframe supported a mattress that had seen better days. Functional blankets covered the bed, which was made to military standards. A simple desk sat in the corner and a window looked out on the school grounds. Old wood floors worn smooth—almost soft—by years of boys’ feet clicked with each step they took. The walls were bare.
The tour was over, so the boy picked up the one bag he was allowed to bring and slung it over his shoulder and made for the door. He didn’t look back.
The couple followed him to the parking lot, but instead of heading to the rental car, the boy headed to a car with some others around his age. He explained that he was an adult now and had made up his mind to stay in Texas. He had a job lined up at an oil company and would live with some friends.
He looked his mother in the eye again and could see her tears. So many tears. This time he embraced her fully. He knew what this would do to them. To her. She returned the hug with every ounce of her being. Holding on tight to his shoulders, laying her head on him like he did to her when he was little.
He hugged his father next, but without the depth of emotion, unknowingly shattering his heart, and threw his bag into the waiting trunk.
The couple gravitated toward each other without thinking, reached out and held hands as they watched their boy, their beautiful boy, climb into the car and drive away.
18 Years Before
The couple stood staring into the bassinette next to their bed. Snuggled inside was their beautiful boy. They had just brought him home from the hospital and were loath to put him down, but they were exhausted. So, they just stared at him from the edge of their bed, with his slightly chubby cheeks and lashes that had all the nurses cooing over him.
This was their beautiful boy, and they were in love.
19 Years Later
The phone ringing in the middle of the night jarred them out of sleep. The duality of being scared awake, then realizing this can’t mean anything good turned their stomachs into puddles.
Yes, they’d accept a collect call from Texas.
3 Hours Before
His hands were shaking as he tried to grip the steering wheel. Darkness was settling in for the night around him. Sweat beaded around his brow, his neck, his back as his breathing refused to settle into a normal cadence.
He had returned to his apartment after working a 12-hour shift for the oil company. Turning the key, he heard commotion coming from inside. He opened the door and there was his girlfriend and the neighbor. They were struggling to find their clothes, hurrying to find an excuse for what he was witnessing.
But he wasn’t listening. He couldn’t if he wanted to. He was in a blind rage. No clear thoughts were in his head, no common sense registering. Just cold rage.
On the countertop lay a handgun. He reached for it, and without a second thought, squeezed the trigger over and over. At first, there were screams. So, he kept squeezing until the gun went silent. Calmly, he reloaded the clip and fired again over and over.
Then finally, silence and realization.
He ran from the apartment and into his car, flooring it out of the parking lot and onto the interstate. But it wasn’t long before he saw flashing lights in the mirror, and he knew. He knew it was the end. And, oddly, he celebrated that thought. It was the end.
Their beautiful boy, the monster.
6 Months Later
Their lives had changed forever with that phone call. Lawyers and bail. Plane tickets and court dates. That hollow feeling in their hearts was now filled with dread and so much sorrow. So many emotions swirled inside them they could barely speak.
Had their boy done this terrible thing? Had their boy taken someone’s daughter? Someone’s son?
The next few months weighed on the couple heavily. Court and testimony. Jury selection and verdicts. When the judge looked at their boy, pronouncing the maximum punishment possible and slammed the gavel down, the couple’s world collapsed. Why had they chosen Texas for their boy?
Their beautiful boy was now sentenced to die.
Back to Today
The boy’s legs began to shake as the guards took off the ankle shackles, but he never broke contact with her. Slowly, so slowly, he walked to the table. She put her hand on the glass.
The guards forced him to lie down, arms spread wide. She watched as leather straps bound him down, her heart right there with him. Her other hand gripped her husband, their pulses keeping a dangerously high rhythm.
This was their worst nightmare. The father looked across the room at the parents who already mourned their children. The children their boy took from them. His wife never looking anywhere but at their son. He knew she didn’t want to miss one second of the life he had left. She wanted to see the light in his eyes while it was still there.
He looked away as the needle pierced his boy’s skin. Held his wife as his boy’s heart stopped.
Their boy. Their beautiful boy full of love and giggles as a child, who nearly knocked over the neighbor’s garbage cans learning to ride a bike. Who loved corn dogs so much he once ate four in one sitting. Who loved to skateboard and play video games, was now gone and he had taken part of them with him.