Every mother’s greatest fear visited me that morning.

 I bound through the house and out the back door, kneeling at his side, I held my breath until his chest rose. Exhaling, I shook him awake.

Noah had been going to an out-patient rehab facility in Austin for the the last 2 months. He hated it. Four times a week we’d make the drive. Everyone sitting in traffic to go home, us headed into the eye of the storm.

 I navigated him to his room and plunked him down on his bed. Zach was asleep in the other bed, a half empty bottle of champagne stood on the floor claiming victory. Cursing myself, I dumped it down the drain, recalling its past location, the Bermuda Triangle of the refrigerator, bottom shelf behind the condiments, unseen but not forgotten.

 I called Noah’s dad, who was already halfway to Dallas for a meeting. “Call Bill.” he said. Bill was Noah’s therapist at the the out-patient facility.

 Two hours later, Noah and I arrived to meet Bill who informed my son what he’d been dreading, he’d failed out-patient rehabilitation and was required to go to Houston for in-patient treatment immediately.

 I closed my eyes while the words hit. Opening them, I knew.

 Without goodbye, he fled. Out the door, down the stairs, he vanished into the greenbelt. .