by John White

Created on: November 23, 2011

In the bottom right hand corner of the local newspaper’s website was a thumbnail mug shot of Heather.

Betty Young had just hoped to catch up on the national news she had missed while vacationing with her husband, Sam, on Florida’s Space Coast. The hotel computer had been available the last four days but she had wanted no interference from computers or cell phones or even the TV to distract from their much-needed vacation. But then there was Heather, looking older than her twenty-eight years, the eyes sorrowful, as if saying, “Mom, help me.”

 Betty clicked on the icon.

There was the daughter she hadn’t seen in five years, the daughter who had dropped out of college to live with a man of suspect intentions, the daughter Betty had nursed, taught, held and loved, the daughter who had left the only two people in the world who had loved her.

Betty adjusted her reading glasses to get a closer look at her baby. Heather looked so, what was it, tired? Yes, tired. She looked tired and hopeless. There was a caption underneath the mug shot but she wouldn’t read it, couldn’t read it. She knew what it said. “Heather Young, 28, arrested 10/12/2011 for obtaining a prescription or perhaps for solicitation of prostitution, it didn’t matter what it said, she couldn’t bear to read it. It hurt too much.

Heather looked desperate, streaks of mascara stained her cheeks. She had been crying. But why? Because of the arrest, or was it something more, something deep in her daughter’s heart that cried out for help?

Betty wiped her eyes and wished to go back in time to the day of Heather’s birth, when she held her to her breast and kissed the pink soft spot on her tiny head.

What had she done wrong? Why had it ended up like this? Her beautiful baby, arrested, perhaps addicted to those awful drugs the young seemed to crave. First Matthew and now Heather. It made Betty question her God. Only for a moment, but the doubt was there.

Sam leaned over her shoulder. She quickly shut down the page.

“Who was that, Honey?” Sam said, pecking Betty’s neck with a little kiss. How wonderful to have such a man for a husband. She tried to be a good wife to him and she thought she was. So why had she failed so miserably as a mother?

“Nobody,” she said. “Just another lost celebrity, you know?”

“Um,” he said. “Let’s go try out the clean sheets.” He rubbed her shoulders.

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