Consequences - Escape from Cape Coast (cont)

Dakota’s next text message read, “Please tell Scott not to yell at me.”

I texted back, “I promise I won’t yell. Please call me.” And my vow was true. I wasn’t angry with Dakota. I was so terrified that anger was unfathomable. I just wanted my little boy safe, this son of mine who was so desperate and hopeless that he would face a Third World country alone rather than confide in me.

My phone rang. “Mom?” His voice was steady, but the effort to make it so was clear.

I kept my voice low and calm and steady. “Dakota, where are you?”

“I’m at the embassy. I’m in security.”

“Cody, who drove you to the embassy? How did you get to Accra?”

“I don’t know. Some taxi driver named Paul.”

Now my demeanor cracked. I couldn’t hold back my panick, “What are you doing? What are gonna do at the embassy?”

Now his voice was the one that became comforting, “Mom, I just want to talk to Sarpei. That’s all. I just want to talk to him.”

“Well what are your plans? Are you going home?”

“Mom, I need to talk to Sarpei. I have to go.” He paused to emphasize his next statement, “Mom, please promise me you’ll still go to the beach resort.”

“O.k. We’ll go,” I humored him. “But I need to know what you’re gonna do. I need to know if you’re leaving the country!”

“Mom, I have to go! I’m in security!”

“Does your father know anything about this, Cody?”

His impatience travelled through the signal. He raised his voice and forcefully declared, “ NO! I HAVE to GO! I spent 80 cedis to get here and I’m GOING TO talk to Sarpei. I don’t want to interrupt you but I have to go NOW! I’ll call you in one hour.” Click.

The thought of waiting an hour was excruciating. I needed to know what was going on, what he planned to do next. Who had helped him with his scheme.

Scott was the rational voice, “Molly, you have to call Leif. He needs to know what’s going on.”

I scanned the phone’s time display and subtracted 5 hours. It would only be 4:30 a.m. in Spring Lake. I punched in Leif’s cell number. There was no answer. I punched in his step-mother’s. Same.

I spent the next hour pushing send on my cell phone and cursing myself.

Dakota had tried to tell me he wanted to leave over and over. He’d said he didn’t like it here. I’d always responded by telling him he had to stick it out. Things would get better. He’d adjust. Why didn’t I listen to him? Why didn’t I take him seriously? Why did I force my son to put himself in danger rather than just believe him when he said he wanted to go home? If I’d only listened. If I’d only been a better mom, someone he could trust and depend on, he wouldn’t have felt compelled to take matters into his own hands.

Scott was speaking to Sarpei on the phone now. I heard his side of the conversation, “So you’ve got him now? Is he OK? Is he with you? O.K. O.K. O.K.”

He hung up the phone with a heaving sigh, “Sarpei has him. He said that Dakota is upset. He’s afraid to call us. He needs time to calm down. Sarpei will call us back.”

This is when Scott and my united front of worry and panic diverged. Scott was livid and betrayed. I was sick to my stomach imagining the desperation and hopelessness that had driven my boy to run. I felt his gut-twisting anxiety. I felt his lonely need to find some way to escape on his own. His own mother wouldn’t listen. She wouldn’t help him relieve the trauma he’d been feeling. She couldn’t be depended on. I felt his shaky knees as he stepped out the flap flap door to face this foreign world alone.

We paced back and forth on the magic porch, sucking on Rothmans cigarettes. The cool morning air had melted to suffocating, still heat. Scott seethed, “He is the most self-absorbed…he doesn’t think of anyone but himself…well, he got his free trip to Norway out of me…I’m done. He’s not my son anymore.”

I sat down to ease my tense stomach, cramped in empathy, “Of course he wasn’t thinking of anyone else, Scott. He was miserable. He only needed to get out of here. He was desperate. He needed to escape. He needed to find a way out. We weren’t listening. We weren’t helping him. It was his only way out.”

“He’s just totally self-centered. He’s been comlaining since we got here. He’s spoiled and is going to get what he wants. He knows how to get what he wants. He doesn’t care about how this affects anyone else!!”

“He’s not thinking of anyone else right now because he’s in self-preservation mode. He’s desperate, like a trapped animal. No one would save him so he had to save himself the only way he knew how.”

I didn’t know how to express my gnawing guts to Scott. I didn’t know how to relate to him that Dakota felt the same uncontrollable eating away at his insides. I was sure Dakota was out of his mind with desperation.

“He could’ve been killed, Molly! He didn’t even think of how much danger he was putting himself in. What if there’d been a car accident and he died. What if this driver was some sicko?”

“Scott,” I attempted, “Do you remember on 9-11, when those people on the top floor realized the floors beneath them were blocked by fire. Remember how they just started jumping? They didn’t think, they just knew they had to get out! Their only need was to escape somehow.” I was convinced that Dakota must’ve felt that terrifying trapped feeling in order to leave like he did. And the thought of my boy experiencing such bleakness made me feel nauseous, guilt-ridden. This was my fault. If I’d listened and helped, he wouldn’t have run.

“He needs to go home. We need to send him home. If he’s this desperate to get out of here, we have to let him go back.”

Scott threw up his hands, “He’s weak! You’re giving into him again. This is why he’s so spoiled and self-centered! If this were Elle pulling this, there’s no way I’d let her leave. I won’t raise my child to be a quitter!”

My cell phone rang. Big John, Scott, and our moms held their breath to listen as I answered the phone.

The voice on the line was a slow southern drawl. The woman reminded me I had met her on our last visit to the embassy. Her name was Mary. She was calm and patient. She advised me that I was on speaker phone. She said she’d spoken to Dakota. She could see he was wrought with anxiety but wasn’t clear exactly what was going on. She only knew that Dakota had left the house with 35 cedis believing that if he could get to the embassy, they would cover his cab fare and fly him out of Ghana.

I told her all I knew.

She told me she wore two hats. One of those hats entailed a responsibility to refer minors to the government child protective services. A minor couldn’t just stay at the embassy without a guardian. She promised me she didn’t plan on turning Dakota over at this point because she wanted us to figure it out together. “I just need to know, Molly, what you’re thinking right now. What do you want to happen now?”

By this time, Scott’s anger had evolved to disgust. He hissed in the background, “Send him home. I don’t want him here. I’m done. Send him home tonight. There’s a flight from Accra tonight at 11:15.”

I told Mary, “I know for sure Dakota needs to go home. Running away is his cry for help. He needs to leave. There’s a flight tonight. He could go on that. That’s one option. Or he could get a taxi back here and in a week fly home with his grandma. I would prefer that.”

Scott pssshhhhhed. “Send him home now. I don’t even want to see him.”

I was sure my boy was hurting and to hear Scott’s heartless denial of him stung. I pushed my hand out, signaling him to shut his mouth. He stomped off repeating, “I’m done. I’m done. You deal with this.”

Mary’s reply made the decision. She knew that Dakota had Leif’s written and notarized permission to leave the United States. But she also knew that document didn’t allow any departure from Africa until June. She told me the only way Dakota could be on a plane without his father’s permission was to become a ward of the government. “And as a divorced mother myself, Molly,” she warned, “you do not want to get them involved in this.” The she declared that the American Embassy advises that Dakota return to us in Cape Coast until an arranged departure could be organized dependent on Dakota’s father’s permission.

That was the plan then. The embassy cannot release a minor without a legal guardian present. I would be riding to Accra to pick him up. My mom insisted on riding with me. She didn’t want me going to Accra alone. Meanwhile Scott and his mom would take Elle to the Bushua Beach resort as planned. It took some convincing for Scott to agree to go. He was ready to give up the much-needed weekend of pampered beach resort living. “The vacation’s ruined. Cody ruined it. We might as well not go.”

My mom convinced Scott that only a few hours of our vacation was ruined. He should still take his mom and Elle to the resort and we’d meet them later.

I called Nanayaw to drive us to Accra. Big John’s trembling car wouldn’t have made the trip. This is the point at which Dakota’s father called. I gave him the bare facts and told him to answer his phone so we could make our decision together about how to handle the situation.

Most of the three hour plus drive I spent talking to or texting Leif. We agreed that Dakota wouldn’t ever have pulled such a stunt unless he was completely overwhelmed with desperation. “By the way,” Leif added, “Tracy and I are in a huge fight about this! She thinks I’m being too easy on Dakota.” I justified Scott and Tracy’s opinion by convincing myself that only Dakota’s real parents can understand how he must be feeling.

This is what I said to Leif, “Dakota will learn a life lesson today, Leif. We are the ones who need to decide what that lesson will be. We have to think of what kind of man we want to raise here. One lesson is that in life we make decisions. Sometimes we realize that we’ve made the wrong decision or we change our minds. And that’s ok. We can change our minds without feeling shameful or weak. That’s a fine lesson. It’s a good lesson. But the other lesson is about commitment. If we make a commitment, we need to follow through. We need to stick it out no matter how hard it may be to honor our commitment and stay true to our word. We’ll reap a natural reward once we’ve fulfilled that commitment. That’s also a fine lesson and a good lesson. Now we need to figure out which lesson we should try to teach our son today.”

Leif weighed in on the first lesson, “Dakota needs to come home. Molly, I’m afraid that he did something this stupid and dangerous to get out of there, if we make him stay, he’ll try something even crazier next time. What if he tried to hurt himself so he’d have to be sent home? He has to know that he’s not weak. He has to know that it’s ok to change your mind even if it means breaking a commitment. But he also needs to learn that when you break a commitment, there are consequences. He needs to come home but he needs to honorably accept the consequences of breaking his commitment.”

Through phone calls and texts we continued our counsel. Back and forth we made our wishes known. One or the other of us wavered here and there but we soundly listened to each other’s logic. I’ve always been proud of Leif and me for being this way. Despite our own differences, we’ve always been able to come together rationally for our son’s upbringing. Sure, here and there our opinions and strategies differ on the small stuff. But on the big stuff, I know we can count on each other to love Cody the best we know how. We decided on four consequences if Dakota returns home early from Ghana.

1.     Dakota will get an after-school job to earn money to pay Scott back for any extra expenses accrued for changing his return flight home, including the transportation expenses resulting from his escape attempt and any expenses already paid that won’t be used, like school tuition and unused malaria medication.

2.     Dakota will start weekly counseling to learn how to express and handle his emotions in a constructive, rational way.

3.     Dakota will not participate in the Spring LaCrosse season which he’d foregone when agreeing to go to Africa until June.

4.     Dakota will not take driver’s training until he demonstrates an ability to make sound, safe decisions not before his 16^th birthday.

I was conflicted about the harshness of the consequences. I sincerely felt that Dakota acted irrationally because he was in crisis. I reasoned to myself. If Dakota had had a serious physical illness and was in pain on this trip, we would send him home without question. I thought his actions were a symptom of serious pain. Maybe not visible, physical illness, but a sickness in his heart and in his mind. He clearly felt pain within to have attempted this desperate act. Maybe he should be handled the same way as if he were physically ill. Maybe we should be sending him home because he needs relief from a sickness of his soul.

My inner turmoil abruptly halted when Sarpei escorted my mother and me into the American Embassy. Dakota sat in a chair in Mary’s office. He rose when I entered, wearing a self-congratulating smirk. He opened his arms and walked toward me in an empty showy embrace. He peppered Sarpei, Mary and my concerned discussion with snarky comments. He played up his charm, Eddie Haskel style and strutted out of the building like pompous nobility.

In the car ride home, he displayed no remorse or embarrassment for his actions; actions that had inconvenienced countless people, down to the school children Nanayaw couldn’t pick up because he had to drive to Accra, and his classmates at UPSS whose teacher was absent because he had to run to a frantic mother’s call, and his family whose vacation was cut short and overshadowed by his selfish drama. He was oblivious to anyone but himself.

He didn’t say a word of apology. I even heard him on the phone telling his dad, “Oh the driver should be happy; he’s making like three times as much money today than usual,” and, “that embassy has tons of money and they can’t even cover 55 cedis for my taxi fair.”

He asked over and over, “Did you tell … what I did?” “What did they say?” “What did they think about what I did?”

He told me he didn’t want to leave because he hated it. He wanted to leave because he was bored. He could do and see the same things at home. These people were no different than poor people in America. The market here was just another outdoor bizarre at a festival. He couldn’t learn anything here than he could learn in America. Finally I told him I didn’t want to talk about it right now. We could talk about it in private later.

I saw my son through Scott and Tracy’s eyes then. He was a spoiled brat. He was self-absorbed and self-centered. He couldn’t see beyond his own reflection, and even then he only saw how big his pecs were getting. He didn’t care how his actions affected anyone else’s lives. He couldn’t even see other people’s lives. Only he mattered.

I was stunned in my disillusionment. I was betrayed by the unconditional faith I had placed in my boy. Worse still I was horrified at this person I had made. I stared out the window of our unmoving car, stopped by frozen traffic and hawking vendors. I cried silently.

My phone buzzed. I pushed send. Scott’s voice choked, “My dad went to the doctor. He thought he had a kidney stone…” A sob interrupted his sentence.

“WHAT? WHAT”S WRONG? WHAT HAPPENED SCOTT!?”

He tried again, nearly whispering, “My dad thought he had a kidney stone. They found a growth on his kidney…”

Dakota and my mom had pieced together what was wrong by the time I hung up with Scott. My mom immediately sputtered a barrage of questions and optimistic predictions. Dakota turned his back and curled into the corner. My mom reached out to rub the back of his arm, “Are you o.k., Cody?”

He jerked his arm away and pulled further into his ball, “DON”T TOUCH ME!”

Then he cried.

We have a power strip crowded with plugs and adapters. At the end of the thin plastic electrical center is a surge protector. When too many volts travel to the plugs, it automatically shuts down any currents flowing through the outlets. I think our hearts have a natural surge protector too.

This morning I woke up numb.