“Can you come over?” I ask Celeste and Alana.

No hesitation, they are on my vintage velvet couch rescued from the curb. I don Finn’s dog bed, alongside Finn.

Grown women, best friends, adapting to my drug addict’s choices, we live.

The phone rings. On speaker because I can’t understand him, I look to my friends.

“Shelley, he’s high” Alana says.

Feeling better about me, worse about him, I listen. He says it again.

“I think I need to go back to rehab.”

Alana and I in my truck before he gets off the phone, Celeste home to her husband, we part and head to his ghetto apartments twenty-five minutes north.

“Mom, don’t knock on the door when you get here.” I’m told.  We text and wait in the car.

Nothing. Thirty minutes pass, I call. No answer.

Peepers peering through sliding glass doors, I can hear it, “What’s up with the two suburban moms in the new Tundra? Are they waiting for a deal?” Stone face cold we wait, our ‘I don’t give a rat’s ass’ attitude, skin deep.

Finally, I tell Alana to stay in the truck with Finn. “I’m going up there.” Sauntering down the drive, up the stairs, I knock.

Four minutes, the door opens.

His hair, European style, shaved on the sides and long on top, falls to his face, greasy and uncombed. Gaunt and shirtless, pants hanging below boxers, his signature look, I embrace him, my handsome prince of a son.