28

Tyler

Thursday, January 19

The entire task upon which Tara Pickard worked was moved to an office in Crystal City.

If Tyler had been a singer, he would have been belting out an aria. Relief. That was one problem solved.

There were still other problems. He kept finding vodka bottles hidden all over the house—at the back of a drawer in the bedroom, another behind some books in the living room. How had he missed what was really going on? Easy. Just like he’d missed Katherine’s double-life, his son’s addiction, he should have seen Lana’s problem.

Some days he didn’t know how he managed everything. Learning a new job, taking care of two little kids, attending counseling with Brandon, and figuring out who would watch Micah and Celia in the afternoons when they got home after school consumed him.

When Molly and Josh offered to help watch the kids, Tyler nearly cried with gratitude. One more problem solved. He could never repay them for opening their home and their hearts to his kids—especially when they had none of their own.

Tyler kept in constant contact with Christina. Neither of them were allowed to visit Katherine at her treatment facility, but they both checked in frequently with the clinic and each other. She had even been supportive of Brandon’s counseling, the men’s group, and Tyler’s educational plan for the kids.

“I want Brandon on homebound until the end of the school year. Next year, we can talk about alternative education plans for both of the kids. I don’t want either of them going back to Runnymede.”

He braced himself for Christina’s tirade, waiting for a stream of expletives, accusations, and threats delivered in a glass-shattering decibel. Instead, she remained quiet. Finally, she sniffed. “Whatever. I guess it’s about time you started acting like their father.”

As offended as he wanted to be, as much as he wanted to throw her remark back in her face and accuse her of being a sorry mother, he stopped himself. Humility. Taking responsibility for his actions. No escapism. All things he was learning in his men’s group. He hadn’t been much of a father. He’d been self-consumed and absent. It had taken Lana’s departure, the near loss of his son, and the ongoing battle to retrieve the soul of his daughter to realize that he was a lousy father.

God had been trying to get his attention for some time. Well, now You have it, Lord. I hear You loud and clear. Everything had been ripped out from underneath him, leaving him in a fast free fall.

Tyler and Brandon attended counseling together every week, and on Thursday evenings, they went to a men’s group led by Nick. There, they met and prayed with other fathers and sons struggling with the same weakness. There was a difference in Brandon—his eyes were brighter, he smiled more, and his face was beginning to lose that burdened, pained expression. But it would take time—years, perhaps—to completely heal from all that had transpired.

As the meeting ended that Thursday, Nick Melioni suggested they take prayer requests.

Going around the circle of seventeen men ranging in age from thirteen to seventy, the prayer requests varied from needing help to stay off of the Internet to prayers that their wives would take them back.

“I’ve got one.” Tyler’s voice shook, and he cleared his throat. “My daughter’s in trouble. She’s uh…she’s at a treatment facility…for drugs and…um, other stuff.”

“How’s she doing there?” Nick asked.

“Well, they had a hard time with her at first. She was asking them every day to leave, and trying to run away. She had a…a sort of boyfriend…except he wasn’t really a boyfriend…” Tyler was too embarrassed to tell them the real story. He couldn’t hold back the tears that waited at the rim of his eyes. As soon as they spilled over on to his cheeks, he pawed at them. “Actually, her boyfriend was a gang member who was prostituting her.” The words muffled as they stuck in his throat.

The other men stared at him with expressions of horror, sympathy, and anger.

“What?” One of the men asked, his eyes wide. “How old is she?”

“She’s sixteen.”

A groan resounded from several of the men. Many others shook their heads or gaped with enlarged eyes and furrowed brows.

“Are the police involved?” Nick asked.

“Yes. They arrested at least one of the guys, and there’s a warrant out for the other one. There’s a full ongoing investigation.”

“The same thing happened to my daughter.” Luis was around Tyler’s age, although Tyler didn’t know him well. Luis had been relatively quiet the last few weeks in the group, doing more listening.

“When?” Tyler asked.

“Three years ago. She ran away with her boyfriend to New Jersey. He was in a gang, too. He was giving her drugs, pimping her out...”

“I didn’t know that, Luis,” Nick said. “How long was she missing?”

“We looked for her for a year and a half. All over New Jersey.”

“Did you find her?” Tyler asked, hopeful.

“We didn’t find her,” Luis answered simply. “The police did.”

“Where did they find her?”

“In New York City. In a dumpster.”

The room surged with the men’s expressions of horror—slight, chuffing sounds as they processed Luis’s words, his matter-of-fact confession. A father’s unimaginable grief. Then, a blanket of silence. Bile rose in Tyler’s throat. He wanted to say something, but his tongue wouldn’t work.

“I’m so, so sorry, Luis,” Nick said.

Luis nodded, his facial expression unwavering. “When Karla ran away, that was the last time I ever looked at pornography. Her mother found Karla’s pictures online. When I saw it, I thought of how I’d looked at pictures like that for years. When the pictures didn’t do it for me anymore, I’d even thought of calling an escort service—just like the one that was advertising my daughter. When we’re young, we all think pornography doesn’t hurt anyone. But now, we all know that’s a lie. Look what it has done to us. Look what it’s doing to our children.”

Images of Katherine dead in a dumpster flickered in Tyler’s mind. He squeezed his eyes shut, desperate to squelch the vision. He couldn’t bear to think about it.

“I want to pray for your daughter,” Luis said. “I want to pray she does not end up like my Karla. What’s her name again?”

“Katherine…Kaki…I used to call her Kaki.”