Page 100 of Rescue

“I can’t believe this,” Daltrey says, shaking his head in disbelief. “This is crazy.”

“I don’t understand why you didn’t tell us this,” Cash says. “Why don’t we remember anything? You’d think we’d have memories of her being on drugs.”

“You were very young,” my dad says. “And she was very good at hiding it.”

“So how did you find out?”

My dad turns from Cash to me. “Lennon…”

“One time she took me to that house and I cried. I told her I was scared and I didn’t want to go inside. So she said I could wait in the car. And then…”

My dad sounds heartbroken. “Oh, Lennon.”

“Did she fall asleep?” I ask him. “Is that why she took so long?”

He nods.

“How long was it?”

“She wasn’t sure. An hour. Maybe more.”

I nod. I had been too little to tell time, too little to judge how long it had been. All I knew was that I was hot and scared and she didn’t come back.

“An hour of what?” Cash asks, his voice panicky. “What are you talking about?”

“She left him in the car,” Dad says, his voice shaking. “In California. In the summer.”

“Oh my God,” Daltrey says.

“A neighbor from a few houses down found him,” Dad says. “Passed out on the grass.”

“I tried to wait, like she said, but I got so hot,” I say. “I was old enough to get the door open, but I didn’t know what house she was in.”

“The neighbor called the police,” Dad says. “They brought you to the hospital. You were dehydrated and…” His voice breaks. “It could have been so much worse. If there had been child locks.”

“Did you know, before that?” I ask. “That she was doing drugs?”

He shakes his head. “When we were younger, but she stopped before Reed came. She always drank too much. She smoked pot sometimes but only at night. I had no idea that she was…” He comes out of his chair and crosses to me, kneeling in front of me. His eyes are desperate. “You have to believe that if I had any clue that she was doing that in front of you, that she had taken you there… Lennon I never would have allowed it. You know that, don’t you?”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” I whisper.

“The doctors said it was best not to.” Guilt laces his voice. “They said it was better to let you remember on your own, if you ever did. I had you in therapy for a year after she left, and you never said a word about it. We all thought you must not have remembered or even realized that anything bad had happened to you.”

“I’ve felt so guilty for so long,” I say, my throat closing up. “I never knew why. But whenever I thought about her, or whenever the boys were sad… I blamed myself. I think I thought if I hadn’t gotten out of the car, she never would have had to leave.”

“None of this was your fault,” Dad says. “None of it, Lennon. She was sick, and she needed help—”

“Then why didn’t you help her?” Daltrey interrupts.

I look over at him in surprise. I was so lost in the memory that I almost forgot they were here.

“I tried, Daltrey.”

“You said yourself that you kicked her out!” he cries. “How is that helping her?”

“Son—”

“No, you know what, Dad? Why in the hell should we believe anything you say? You’ve been lying to us for years!”