Not Again

By Sarah Schultz

The smell of this hospital is enough to make me sick. That common smell of gauze and pine-scented cleaners lingers through the still air as I sit with my daughter. See, my grandson, Ryan, was rushed here after an accident this morning. I figured Laura could use my support so I got here as soon as I could.

This isn't the first time I've had to rush to the hospital to sit with her. It was about 14 years ago that the first accident occurred. Not involving Ryan though, he was only 3 at the time. This time it was his father.

Tim was the accountant for a big architectural company called Lewis and Brinkmann. He was at work one day when an electrical circuit caused a fire in the building. For some reason the smoke alarm on his floor was a little delayed and he didn't make it out in time. A fire crew finally got in, but by the time they found Tim he had breathed in so much smoke that they doubted he had any chance to make it.

They rushed him to the hospital hoping to save him, but after about an hour they decided there was no use. The smoke had filled his lungs entirely, his heart was barely beating, and burns scorched his whole body.

Laura's heart sank to the floor as the doctor came out and told her he couldn't save him. She stayed upset for months, which is understandable. I remember her moping around the house with red swollen eyes from constantly crying. All she could do was mope and feel sorry for both herself and her son.

After a few weeks of this I took Ryan to my house, so he wouldn't have to watch his mother in so much pain and he wouldn't become too upset himself. She obviously wasn't in her right mind, and she obviously couldn't take care of a 3-year-old in this state. However, after about a week and a half at my house she objected and insisted I bring Ryan home. She claimed she had already lost her husband and she needed her son to be with her. This was probably her first mistake in raising him.

She always felt bad for Ryan and was afraid to even punish him most of the time because he had to live without a father. She felt that was punishment enough for both of them. Laura never would date anyone else though. I don't understand really, she didn't want him to live without a father, but she didn't think it was fair for him to think of anyone else as a dad.

I'm not sure if she ever even told him exactly how his father died for fear that it would hurt him too much. She took down all of his pictures around the house so Ryan wouldn't have to see them, and she rarely spoke of him unless Ryan asked. I think that was a way for her to deal with the pain as well.

She and Tim had been high school sweethearts, and since she was probably 16 she dreamed of the life and family that they would have together. Yet, I think the whole time that she thought she was looking out for and protecting her son she was really creating a monster.

Ryan's problems started when he was about 10 years old. Laura walked out into the backyard to tell him to come in for lunch, and noticed a 2-foot flame in the left side of the yard. She hoped that it was some crazy natural phenomenon that started this fire, but as soon as she saw the matches in Ryan's hand she knew he had to be the one responsible. His friend Timmy was over and in her mind she knew that Timmy had given him the wild idea.

She called me upset and told me that she had yelled at the boys for about an hour, and they just stood there giving her those innocent 10-year-old boy faces, and denying that they were responsible. When they finally admitted that they did set the grass on fire, she couldn't get them to admit to using anything but a single match. She did ground Ryan for a week, but he deserved more.

I remember thinking that she was crazy as she told me that she couldn't possibly punish her darling 10-year-old son for something that he did only because his awful friend, Timmy, told him to. I told her not to believe those innocent little faces that 10-year-old boys can do so well, but she wouldn't listen. Even her brother Alex tried to warn her about those faces, obviously he had tried them on me, but she didn't care what we said. She knew that her son was a good kid and claimed he could do no wrong.

It seems like for two years straight, after that incident, she had to punish him almost every week. I was over at their house about a week after the "fire" in the backyard, when she received a call from Mr. Johnston, who ran the gas station down the street from her house.

"Laura?" Mr. Johnston said over the phone.

"Yes Mr. Johnston, how are you doing today?"

"Well," he said, "I'm ok, but I am sorry to tell you that this isn't just a friendly phone call today."

"Oh," she said.

"Well, Ryan was down here this afternoon, seems that he decided to see how many old milk cartons he could melt together. I walked out to the back of the store to throw out some trash, and there he was."

"Oh, you're kidding," I say. "What in the world was he melting them with?"

"I'm afraid I'm not kidding, Laura. He seems to have been melting them with that lighter you sent him down here to buy the other day."

"Huh, lighter? I haven't sent him for any lighters. Where would he have gotten such an idea?"

"I don't know, Laura," he says. "I told him to stay here until after I called you, do you want me to send him down there or do you want to come up and get him?"

"Oh, I'll be there in a minute. Did he do any damage that I need to pay you for?" she asks.

"No that's ok, Laura, they were only old milk jugs. No damage was done. I'll see you in a few minutes."

I think she would've liked to beat him to death after this one. She hung up the phone, shaking her head with a look of shock and anger on her face.

" Mom, I just don't understand. Where did he get such an idea to hide behind the gas station and melt milk jugs together? And then tell Mr. Johnston that he was buying a lighter for me, I wouldn't send him to buy me a lighter! I don't even use lighters."

She yelled at him a little less than last time, and then sent him to his room. He stood there trying to convince her that it was a science experiment. She obviously wasn't sure whether to believe this one. I warned her not to, but she hoped he was actually telling the truth and didn't know what to believe.

It was probably a little over a month after this before Ryan got into any more trouble, or that I know of at least. I was relieved and shocked, thinking that maybe the last punishment had actually taught him.

Until one afternoon, when I received a call from Laura, and realized I had been wrong. As she was standing in the kitchen doing dishes that afternoon, she glanced out the window into the backyard and saw something odd. Looking a little closer, she realized that there was a fire in the neighbor's backyard. She quickly turned the water off, dropped the dishrag in the sink, and headed for the back door to go warn someone at the Friedman household.

As she stepped out the door, the first thing she noticed was that it was their doghouse on fire. The second thing was Ryan - there he was sitting on the side of the house looking mischievously at the flames.

"Ryan," she yelled, "get in that house and into your room until I can get in there and discuss this with you."

He looked up, kind of startled with a questioning look on his face. She wasn't falling for his innocent looks this time. She knew he was responsible and this was the neighbor's doghouse that he decided to set on fire for some reason.

"Ryan, now!" she yelled.

She ran to the hose to try to put out the flames and then to the Friedman's door to let them know what had happened. Mrs. Friedman was at home and appeared shocked as Laura told her what happened. I explained to her that I know Ryan had done it, and told her to let me know how much it will cost so that I could replace the doghouse.

She then proceeded back to her own house and straight into Ryan's room, where he was, surprisingly, sitting quietly. "Don't even try to pull this innocent stuff with me this time. Now tell me exactly what in the world you were thinking. Why would you set the doghouse on fire? And how did you set it on fire!"

Getting a response was like pulling teeth. She finally got him to tell her that he was mad at the dog, Rascal, and he decided he would get revenge. Yeah revenge! With a dog too. What the hell had gotten into this kid, she wondered? Why would he get revenge with the dog? It ended up costing almost $200 to replace that stupid doghouse, thanks to his little plot. Laura told him that he was to do different chores every day, in order to make the money that she had to pay to replace Rascal's house.

He agreed and did his chores for a little over three weeks, earning about a hundred dollars. Then, of course, she became stupid again. Feeling sorry for him, she rationalized that he was only 10 years old and this was probably still just a phase. So she told him that he didn't have to make up the rest of the money.

For a while things went ok, but it didn't last. He did stop playing with fire for a little while, but he was still up to no good. Laura tried to blame his friends, but I'm sure he thought some of his stupid little schemes himself.

One day, when she went outside to see if the mailman had come yet, she realized that the mailbox door wouldn't open. She was standing there pulling with all of her might when Ryan walked up from school. He started giggling as soon as he saw his mother struggling to pull the door open. She looked at him and the little smirk he had on his face and asked him what in the world he was laughing at? He proceeded to tell her that he had glued the mailbox closed that morning, so that the mailman would have problems getting it open. She was furious, and he was thinking that it was funny!

Not too long after this, she received a call from Mr. Johnston again. He was informing her that Ryan and Timmy were outside burning the milk jugs again.

Here we are now, seven years later, and Ryan has obviously still not grown out of this prankster phase. Then again, I honestly don't think it's a prankster phase, I think it's more like he has become a pyromaniac. Laura refuses to believe this though. Obviously, he's not just into pranks; he seems to like ones that involve fire the most. Thank god he has not burned down their house yet!

Anyway, today was his high school's homecoming. He along with some other friends from his senior class had put together a float and were riding on it in the parade. Laura was anxious to go to the parade and see what they had come up with. Well, she made it to the parade, just in time to see an ambulance bringing Ryan to the hospital, and a fire engine putting out the flames on their float! Yep, you guessed it - he had set the float on fire midway through the parade route. Or I am assuming that it was him anyway.

Luckily he was the only one hurt, not that I want him to be hurt, but if anyone deserved to be injured from this little stunt, it was him! Not only did he ruin the float that the group had put so much work into, but he ruined the whole parade. Laura called me in tears, as soon as she got into her car, and told me that she was on her way to the hospital.

"Mrs. Taylor," I hear, and come out of my thought trance. It is the doctor coming out to speak to Laura.

"Yes," she says to the doctor. "How is he?"

"He seems to be doing ok, he has secondary burns all over him and they will take a while to heal. His lungs seem to be ok, so he isn't in too bad of shape. We'll need to keep him here at least overnight so that we can begin to treat the burns and then we'll see how he's doing tomorrow afternoon. You may want to go home and get some of his things."

"Ok, thanks doctor, I will be back as soon as I can," she says.

As soon as the doctor leaves, Laura turns to look at me.

"Thank god, Mom. I'm so glad he's going to be ok. I couldn't take losing my baby. Not a second person to a fire, I just don't know what I'd do."

I just give her a hug and tell her I know. I figure I better wait until he goes home from the hospital to start giving her a lecture about taking him to get help. She needs to realize that this is a major problem. And if she doesn't stop feeling sorry for the kid, next time he may not be ok.

Hopefully, after this incident, she will realize that his playing with fire isn't just a phase. Not anymore at least. I'm sure all boys go through phases where they play with fire, Alex did, but they don't last seven years.