That asshole. Everything inside me crumples, a fist crushing a sheet of paper. He’s been using my son.

“Ugh. I’m sorry, Jewelann. If you didn’t hear anything from the school, that probably means it’s nothing to worry about. You know how they are over there. Jumping on the least little thing. Back when we were kids, man, you could show up to school totally baked and nobody said a word. The girls’ basketball coach was sleeping with one of his players, nothing was ever done about it. I’m sure this thing with Eli is just a dumb rumor. For all we know he could’ve been handing out breath mints.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” I tell her.

Lisa sounds relieved. “Hey. If it was my kid, I’d want to know.”

“If you hear anything else, tell me right away. And I’ll talk to Eli,” I tell her.

I barely give her the chance to say goodbye before I’m disconnecting the call. Down the hall in Eli’s room, I shove open his door and start my search. My skin crawls at this invasion of his privacy, but fuck that. If my mother had searched my room just once, who knows, I might not have become someone who makes terrible choices over and over again.

My son, like his mother, has a lot of stuff. Old toys, books, schoolwork spread out on a bookshelf that had once been mine. His closet overflows with clothes he’s outgrown. I shove aside hangers and reach toward the back, run my hands along the top of a shelf so high I have to push up onto my toes to reach it.

No drugs.

His laptop is closed on his desk, but I leave that alone. I sweep a hand under the edges of his mattress, tensing for the expectation of the stiff, glossy pages of a skin mag, but I guess kids these days get all they need from the internet. His bed is made, and I’m sure to check under the pillow. I look under the base of his lamp, which had been my favorite hiding place. I find only a few spider egg sacs.

Relief tries to fill me, but I won’t let it. Lisa had done her best to make me feel better, but I know something’s going on. Eli is tangled up in it, and Christian is the cause of it. Still, I know better than to confront my son without proof. Kids lie, even good ones.

I search the room again. Slower this time. I find no baggies, no bottles, not even a crumpled envelope filled with bitter dust. I almost find nothing, until one final sweep of his bookshelf sends a small square of paper fluttering to the carpet.

It’s a prescription, made out to Elijah Jordan, and it’s been signed by Dr. Christian Campbell.

I spend two hours on the internet, trying to figure out how to unlink my kid from all of this. I haven’t been able to find much. I can’t even find a way to discover if he’s filled that prescription or one like it, even though he’s a minor. HIPAA laws are complicated. Finally, I call the hospital directly to see if I can get some kind of confirmation, but since I don’t have a direct line to the surgical center, I first get the runaround. And then I get an answer.