Free Lost Girls by Caitlin Rother Page A

had to help her own mother through her debilitating depression; she’d felt such a heavy responsibility to take care of and protect Linda, to be her “mother’s keeper.” She was sad that John was now going through the same thing, but she understood it. If she was out of the picture, she also hoped that her husband and son would establish a deeper relationship.
    â€œI guess we could try it and see how it goes,” she told John Jr. “I understand there’s lots of reasons for you to stay here with your dad. My going away and doing my work doesn’t mean I don’t love you, or that I’m not available.”
    She talked over John Jr.’s request with his father, who said he was okay with keeping the boy as long as Cathy paid him child support, which he’d never paid to Deanna.
    â€œI was willing to let my child hate me,” Cathy said, looking back. “I can’t tell you how bad it hurt. But I also told him I loved him.”
    She took her son clothes shopping for school, and left him at his dad’s house, where she paid for rent, groceries and other bills. She called John Jr. frequently and picked him up on weekends, when his father played with the band. Later, Cathy wondered if she’d been too clinical and logical in dealing with her nine-year-old, not showing her emotions enough.
    Because John Jr. had been okay without the Ritalin that summer, his father decided to see if he’d “grown out of it.” But by a couple of weeks into John’s fourth-grade year, the school was calling and sending home notes that his behavior was out of control. John had to go back on the drug, and even so, he was still getting into fights daily and causing other problems.
    One day, Cathy got a call from the principal’s office, saying the boy wasn’t taking his meds. John Jr. was coming to school hungry and unkempt, and they’d already called Child Protective Services (CPS) to report his father for neglecting him. They said they were going to turn the boy over to CPS, but they would let Cathy take him, instead, if she came over right away. Cathy left work immediately.
    Within several days of staying with his mother, John Jr. was already crying to go back with his father. “It isn’t Daddy’s fault,” he kept saying, referring to the school’s need to call CPS.
    John Sr. had told his son that it was his own fault they couldn’t stay together, because the boy hadn’t been following orders. When Cathy heard this, she couldn’t believe it. “He made it real ugly,” she said. “I blocked it out.”
    Although the CPS investigation found the home situation satisfactory, John Jr. blamed his mother for reporting the abuse, even though she’d never called CPS. By Thanksgiving, John Sr. asked Cathy to keep the boy at her house. After four years of living on workers’ compensation and disability, John Sr.’s benefits had run out. He’d become even more depressed, and he was having a hard time buying food.
    Father and son saw each other around Christmas, and John Sr. would always remember the moving gesture that his son had made. They couldn’t afford a tree because Cathy had always been the one to pay for it, so John Jr. trooped into a field and came back with a tree branch. Never one to get sentimental with his kids, John Sr. later told Deanna how much that moment had meant to him.
    â€œThat really surprised me and touched my heart,” he said. “It’s something I’ll never forget.”
    Cathy put John Jr. into Ramona Avenue School, near her house in Hawthorne, where they were in the process of enrolling him in special education. But by now, the boy felt that both of his parents had rejected him, which set off an average of five fits of rage each day. During these, he threw objects—and himself—against the wall. According to his medical records, he told his doctors that he had