After that incident, I kept expecting a call from human resources, but it never came. Charlie was on his best behavior for a few weeks, though Betty stepped in to make sure my duties as group leader remained challenging. While she tends to ignore the women in the group, she has this seemingly uncontrollable need to harangue the men who come, muttering comments like “Man up, you big sissy” or “Warning, man cry ahead.”
Betty would have made a great drill sergeant.
I steer Sharon to a chair and then settle in beside her, earning myself angry stares from both Betty and Charlie, who are seated in their usual places. I tend to sit in the same seat each week, and clearly neither of them anticipated me doing anything different tonight, since they are situated on either side of that chair. I resist the urge to smile, because I have to admit, I enjoy rattling them a bit. It’s good not to let them get too complacent.
“Welcome to this week’s meeting of our bereavement support group,” I begin. “I want to start by reviewing the ground rules first, both as a refresher for those of you who have been here before and to inform our new visitor.”
Predictably, most of those who have been coming for a while roll their eyes or shift impatiently in their seats. But reciting the ground rules is a must.
“First and foremost, remember that anything said in this room is confidential and is not to be discussed or relayed to anyone outside of the group. Remember that we are here to share experiences, not advice. Be respectful and sensitive to one another by silencing your cell phones, avoiding side conversations, and listening to others without passing judgment. And finally, try to refrain from using offensive language.”
I pause and scan the faces in the group. “Any questions about the rules?”
I’m answered with a sea of shaking heads and murmured declinations.
“Okay then. Since we have someone new here tonight, let’s start by going around the group and stating your name and who it is you’ve lost.” I turn and smile at Sharon Cochran. “Sharon, would you like to start?”
I’m pleased when she nods, even though it’s an almost spastic motion. My pleasure then dissipates as she completely derails the evening’s agenda.
“My name is Sharon Cochran, and I’m here because the cops think my son took his own life two weeks ago. But I know he was murdered and I’m hoping you can help me find his killer.”
Chapter Two
I often practice and rehearse my responses. It’s an admission I don’t make lightly, because I want people to view my words as spontaneous and sincere, not canned and practiced. But to avoid being caught off guard, I sometimes role-play with myself, trying to anticipate different comments or actions people may make or take, and then practicing my responses to them. I even watch myself in the mirror as I speak, trying to make sure my pale blond hair and narrow face don’t resemble what one coworker once called “a talking Q-tip.”
Unfortunately, Sharon Cochran’s announcement is nowhere in my repertoire of anticipated comments. And judging from the stunned quiet in the room, no one else knows how to respond, either. Finally, Charlie breaks the silence.
“I knew it, you know,” he says. “The minute you walked in here I knew there was something mysterious about you.”
I frown at Charlie, and I’m about to say something to try to mitigate the awkwardness, when Sharon Cochran continues.
“You’re all looking at me like I’m crazy,” she says, fighting back tears. “That’s how the cops looked at me, too. But I’m not. I know my son. They said he died of a heroin overdose, and technically that’s true, but I don’t believe he administered it himself. He didn’t use drugs.”
There are looks of skepticism, sympathy, and curiosity on the faces of the others.
“Okay, he used pot on occasion,” Sharon says with a hint of impatient irritability in her voice. “But what college kid doesn’t these days? And I’m telling you he didn’t use anything else. He had no tracks on his arms, but the cops said that was because it was likely his first time shooting it up, that he’d probably been snorting it before. They think he either killed himself on purpose, or he was unlucky and got too large a dose on his first try. They said there was some really strong stuff out on the streets at the time, way more potent than the usual.”
I’m momentarily at a loss for words, unsure what to make of Sharon’s claims. Denial is a common phase of grief, and not just denial of the death itself. The loved ones of those who die from drug or alcohol abuse often claim someone else is to blame as they struggle to deal with their own guilt for not having done something to stop it. Was that the case with Sharon?
I also know that teenagers and young adults are quite adept at hiding secrets from their parents, and that only strengthens the denial later when things go terribly wrong. I know this not only from my training and experience working with people in that age group, but also because I was quite adept myself at hiding things from the adults in control of my life when I was that age.
In my case, those adults kept changing, which sometimes made the deceptions easier, and sometimes didn’t. My own mother died—was murdered—when I was seven, and I never knew my father. I don’t know if my mother knew who my father was, either, though I have reason to believe she might have had an idea on the matter. But things were complicated. She was what polite company refers to as a “lady of the night,” forced into selling herself to support the two of us.
My mother got pregnant at sixteen, and her very religious, very strict Iowan farm parents disowned her. She ventured out into the world to try and make it on her own, and several months later, that first pregnancy ended up a stillborn. She tried to establish some sort of life on her own since her parents were still stubbornly refusing to let her come home, and two years, several low-paying jobs, and a lot of male customers later, she ended up pregnant with me.
She did her best by me, though heaven knows it wasn’t much, and despite our situation I have some fond memories of her. Her death saddened me deeply and altered my life in ways I didn’t always understand. It forced me into the foster system, beginning a long procession of parental influences, some good, most not so much.
I shake off thoughts of my own mother and refocus. I decide to give Sharon a gentle dose of reality. “What makes you think your son was murdered?” I ask. “What I mean is, why would someone want to kill him?”
“There was something going on at his school,” Sharon says. “I don’t know the details, but something happened that had Toby very upset. He ended up leaving his fraternity over it, and moving home. I tried to get him to talk to me about it, but he wouldn’t.”
“What year was he?” I ask.
“Freshman,” Sharon says. Her eyes well up and she adds, “He had his whole life ahead of him.”
The others in the group are riveted, clearly intrigued by Sharon’s tale. The current mix of people in the group is a vociferous one, and one of my biggest challenges at each session is in getting them to talk one at a time. Yet now they are all silent.
“Sharon, I’m sorry this happened to your son,” I say, hoping to get things back on track. “If you feel strongly that the police have it wrong, then maybe you should take your concerns to them and push the issue. But for here and now, with this group, our focus is on helping you to deal with your grief.”
“Now, hold on,” says Mary Martin, a sixty-two-year-old widow who has been coming to the group for the past four months, ever since her husband died of cancer. “We can’t just dismiss her claims. What if she’s right? What if her boy was murdered?”
“Yeah,” pipes up Bill Nolan, a forty-something gay man who lost his partner to an automobile accident two months ago and has been attending the group since then. “Why can’t we help her?”
He sounds as eager as Mary, and when I see the others in the circle nod in agreement—everyone except for Betty Cronk, who looks bored—I realize what’s going on. The group has seized upon the mystery of Sharon’s son’s death as a distraction, something to take their minds off the
typical grief therapy issues they normally focus on. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing—in fact, it could prove to be a therapeutic diversion if handled correctly—I don’t want the focus of the group to shift away from its main purpose.
“I’ll tell you what,” I say to the group. “We’ll let Sharon tell us what she knows, assuming there is anything more she has to share on the matter, and we’ll focus on the details of that toward the end of the hour. But for now, I want us to stay focused on tonight’s topic. Let’s give the first half of the hour over to the topic at hand, and then we can shift later. Okay?”
Judging from the looks I’m getting, it’s not okay. I understand their curiosity; I share it. A potential murder mystery is great fodder for keeping one’s mind off other, more painful things, and it can give one a sense of purpose and direction. I’ve done some investigating into my mother’s death, feeling the need to avenge her and bring her killer to justice. But her case is more than twenty-five years old—not just a cold case but a frigid one—and I’ve made only minimal progress.
As I read the facial and body language of my group—scowling expressions, arms folded over chests, bodies shifting anxiously in seats, heads turned dismissively away from me—I decide to go off the reservation, a term that Carla, one of my fellow foster sibs, used years ago whenever she was going to do something unexpected, which, as it turned out, was often. Carla was fun but a bad influence on me.
“How about we open it up to a vote with a show of hands?” I say. “Who wants to focus solely on Sharon’s son’s death and the circumstances surrounding it?”
Every hand in the circle goes up except Betty’s. The others all turn to look at her and I debate whether or not the vote should be a unanimous one. If even one person doesn’t want to stray from the program, am I doing that person a disservice by giving in to the whims and wishes of the others?
The dilemma resolves itself seconds later when Betty arches one eyebrow, mutters an irritated “Fine,” and raises her hand. If it wasn’t for the hint of a smile I see at the corners of her mouth, I’d be worried. But I suspect Betty is just as interested in this course of action as the others are. She just doesn’t want to let on to the fact. It doesn’t fit in with the reserved, in-control persona she’s established here.
“Okay, then,” I say, adding the caveat, “but only for this session.”
The transformation on the faces in the group is startling and I worry that I’ve opened a dangerous can of worms here. “Sharon, do you feel comfortable giving us some more details about your son’s death and the events that led up to it?” I say.
“Do I feel comfortable?” she says with a scoffing laugh. “I’m delighted about it. I’ve been trying to get someone, anyone, to listen to me ever since it happened. I know people think it’s just some form of denial on my part, that I’m fixated on this as a way of avoiding the pain of it all. But that’s not it.”
“Then go ahead,” I tell her. “But if at any point it begins to feel uncomfortable for you, feel free to stop. You are under no obligation to talk, okay?” Though I mean this, the hungry, eager expressions on the faces of the others make me think they’d try to force her to continue whether she wanted to or not.
“Okay,” Sharon says in an oddly chipper tone.
“The usual ground rules still apply,” I tell the others. “If this thing gets out of hand in any way, I’m going to call a halt to it, understood?”
Enthusiastic nods and murmured assents answer my question. While I still think Sharon’s focus on this aspect of her son’s death is, in all probability, a way to avoid, escape, and defer, I can’t see the harm in letting the others shift their focus from their individual losses. At least for tonight.
It certainly isn’t by the book, and I’m not sure other social workers or group managers would approve, but I’m willing to experiment a little. I’ve always liked thinking and doing things a little outside the box. Sometimes a lot outside the box. The fact that it’s gotten me into trouble on more than one occasion in the past is a thought I gently push aside.
I just hope my boss is as open-minded on the subject as I am.
Chapter Three
It turns out Sharon Cochran is a born storyteller. She has a clear knack for organizing her thoughts and the necessary details, relaying them in an orderly and understandable fashion, and doing it all with just the right amount of inflection and emphasis on her words. As I listen with rapt attention to her story, I make a mental note to ask her later what she does for a living.
“Toby belonged to a fraternity on the UW-Madison campus,” she says. “He pledged them and went through their hazing ritual, something he refused to tell me about. Everything seemed great for several months. Toby was getting good grades, and he sounded happy whenever I spoke to him. When he came home for Christmas break he was excited about switching his major. Originally, he planned on studying information technology and getting a teaching certificate, but suddenly, he had this big interest in computer programming and game development. He said several of his frat brothers were interested, too, and it really had him fired up.”
I scan the faces in the group and see that Sharon has their rapt attention.
“Our Christmas was nice, but uneventful,” Sharon continues. “It was just me and Toby. It’s been like that all his life.” She pauses, looks around the group, and adds almost as an afterthought, “Toby’s father has never been in the picture.” There are some nods and murmurs from the group, and after a moment, Sharon continues her tale.
“I didn’t hear much from Toby when he went back to school after the holidays, and in March he called to tell me that he wanted to go to Florida with some of his friends for spring break.” Sharon gives the group a squeamish look. “I’ve heard horror stories about what happens on those excursions, so I was none too happy about it, but I also knew that Toby could do whatever he wanted. He was nineteen and no longer living under my roof. I told him to be smart and careful, told him I loved him, and prayed it would go well.”
“Did something happen during the spring break trip, then?” Bill asks.
Sharon shakes her head, her face pinched like she’s trying not to cry. “He never went,” she says after a moment. “Right before the break, he showed up on my doorstep. Said he’d dropped out of school and wanted to take some time, that he needed to think through some things.” She pauses, inhaling deeply and letting the breath out in a prolonged sigh. “I knew something was wrong, but any attempts I made to get him to talk were met with stony silence. I figured he’d tell me what was wrong when he was ready, and I gave him some space.”
“Did he go out during that time?” Mary Martin asks. Then, without waiting for an answer, she says, “One of my boys went through something similar when he was in college. Met some girl he was all crazy over and she was all he could think about, day and night. It turned out she ran with a rough crowd that was involved with drugs, and hanging with them nearly got my son arrested.”
Sharon gives Mary a tolerant smile. “I know things like that can happen,” she says. “But Toby didn’t leave the house for nearly two weeks. He barely left his bedroom, though I did hear his phone ringing and dinging a lot, so I know he was in communication with someone and was getting a lot of calls and text messages.”
“I assume the police checked out his phone?” Bill asks.
Sharon frowns at this. “They did, or at least they said they did. I worked mostly with an officer named Joiner, Brenda Joiner. I asked her to let me see the phone, but she said it was evidence. Even if Toby’s death was accidental or by suicide, she said they could prosecute whoever supplied the drug to Toby, and that the phone might help them figure out who that was.” Sharon frowns, staring down at her lap. “I don’t think it helped, though, because according to Officer Joiner, almost all of Toby’s calls and texts were from a girl he was seeing. She told me that the bulk of this girl’s messages were appeals to Toby to get back together because he broke things off with her. Officer J
oiner’s theory was that this relationship snafu depressed him enough that he started using drugs. I asked her when it was she thought Toby was supposedly using these drugs, given that he never left the house, and she asked me if I was home all day and all night, every day, to watch him.”
“And were you?” Mary asks a bit sharply.
Sharon’s shoulders slump and she looks wounded. I know what her answer will be before she utters it. “No,” she says so softly that I see some of the others lean toward her, straining to hear better. “I work eight-hour night shifts at the trailer factory in town. But I’d check on Toby every morning when I came home, and he’d be sound asleep in bed, wearing the same clothes he’d had on the day before, with either the TV on or a game console by his hand, some screenshot frozen on the TV.”
“But he could have gone out during the night, right?” asks Stacey Tungsten, a twenty-eight-year-old girl whose brother died by suicide last year. Stacey has been attending my group for nearly nine months, not only to deal with her grief issues, but also because she fears suicide is a hereditary tendency in her family since an uncle and a grandfather also did the deed. As the mother of two young boys, Stacey is scared to death—forgive the terminology—that her kids may have inherited a suicide gene.
Sharon smiles meekly at Stacey. “Yes,” she says. “And clearly he did go out on the night he died.”
“Do you think his overdose might have been . . . could have been . . . self-inflicted?” Stacey asks, her own fear transparent on her face.
To her credit—and a little to my surprise—Sharon doesn’t immediately dismiss this idea. “I considered it. I really did,” she insists. “Clearly something was bothering Toby, and he was upset, maybe even depressed. But Toby not only had a great love of life, he was afraid of dying. And no matter how hard I try, I can’t imagine him killing himself.”
“That’s a tough thing for any parent to contemplate,” Stacey says pointedly.
Needled to Death Page 2
