He stood patiently while Tom awkwardly twisted tiny pieces of metal and plastic through the many buttonholes. The bow tie stumped Tom, and Dylan wrestled it away to try it himself; together, the two consummate problem-solvers figured it out. I sat on the bed to keep them company and told Dylan he looked like Lee Marvin getting outfitted in Western finery in Cat Ballou, one of our family’s favorites. Both he and Tom laughed.
I had the camera, and Dylan tolerated a few shots before becoming self-conscious and annoyed as usual. I tried to catch one of his reflection in the mirror without him noticing, but he grabbed a towel and flicked it to block the shot. I developed the roll a few months after his death, using an assumed name so the press wouldn’t get ahold of the pictures. In that photo, only a fragment of his face is visible behind the towel—a mischievous grin under tired eyes.
We’d spent that year begging Dylan to get a haircut, to no avail, but I convinced him to tie his hair back into a ponytail with one of my own elastics for the prom. He put his prescription glasses in his pocket and donned a pair of small-framed sunglasses. We thought he looked very handsome.
Alison, our renter, came over and offered to take a picture of the three of us. In the picture, Dylan is clowning around, hamming it up like a professional model, Zoolander-style. The sharp lines of his formal wear stand in stark contrast to the faded flannel shirts and worn blue jeans Tom and I are wearing. He kept his sunglasses on as he posed with us; he wore dark glasses often during the last weeks of his life. I believe now he was hiding behind them.
Tom had remembered to charge the batteries on our video camera, and he filmed Dylan briefly before Robyn arrived. The conversation between them is stilted; clearly, neither of them is comfortable on camera. But we have looked back on this pre-prom video many times, and shown it to others. It is absolutely stunning how normal Dylan seems.
He and Tom talk lazily about baseball; Dylan mimes his hero, Randy Johnson, pitching in an ill-fitting tuxedo. Tom makes some comment about growing up, and Dylan remarks he’ll never have kids. Tom says he may change his mind, and Dylan says, “I know. I know. Someday I’ll look back at this and say, ‘What was I thinking?!!’?” It is breathtakingly prophetic. When Tom persists in filming over Dylan’s protests, Dylan pinches small handfuls of snow from a nearby bush, lobbing the miniature snowballs playfully at Tom until the camera stops running. The fondness between them is palpable. It breaks my heart.
Robyn arrived in good time, looking lovely in a deep blue-purple dress. Tom taped Dylan presenting her with her corsage, and smiling down at her as she struggled to pin a rose to his lapel. I made paparazzi jokes and asked them to move so I could get a picture without parked cars in the background. Since Dylan had assured us he and Robyn were just friends, I was a little surprised—and frankly tickled—to see him put his arm around her.
In the last few frames on the tape Tom shot, the two of them smile into the camera. Then, self-consciously but sweetly, they both begin to laugh.
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When I heard Dylan’s car arrive home from the prom after 4 a.m., I roused myself to talk with him. Though I was tired, I wanted to reach out.
We met at the foot of the stairs. He looked exhausted but happy, a kid who’d had a big night. As usual, he was reluctant to volunteer information, so I peppered him with questions about what he’d eaten and whom he’d hung out with. I was excited to find out he’d danced. He thanked me for paying for tickets and clothes, and I was pleasantly surprised by his effusiveness when he told me he’d had the best night of his life.
I had kissed him good night and turned to go back to bed when he stopped me. “I want to show you something.” He pulled a metal flask from his pocket. Someone with a little skill and a lot of solder had fixed a large crack at the top with a messy patch.
“What is this?” I demanded. “Where did you get this thing?”
He said he’d found it. When I asked what it contained, Dylan said it held peppermint schnapps, and that he’d rather not say where he’d gotten the alcohol. I was about to launch into my well-worn concerns about drinking when Dylan held up a hand, silencing me.
“I want you to know you can trust me and you can trust Robyn. I had filled this so we could drink it tonight. I want you to see only a little tiny bit is missing.” He handed me the flask, and insisted I examine it closely, as if he were going to do a magic trick with it. “We had a little bit to drink at the beginning of the evening but no more after that. See? It’s close to the top.” I acknowledged the flask was nearly full.
“I just wanted you to know you can trust me,” he said again. Still a little shaken, I thanked him for sharing the information with me before adding, “I do trust you.” Then I headed off to bed, reassured. I’d never expected him to get through high school without experimenting with alcohol, after all. At least he’d told me about it.
I’ve given a lot of thought to that private moment between mother and son in the stillness of the night. In retrospect, I sometimes think that engaging me in that conversation about the flask was among the cruelest tricks Dylan ever played on me. Was he consciously manipulating me into trusting him, even as he was planning a massacre? Was he mocking me? If he was preparing to die within a few days, why was it necessary to establish my trust in him? Did he need reassurance, or was he trying to prevent me from searching his room?
I once shared these thoughts with a psychologist who then asked me, “How do you know he wasn’t in earnest? Maybe he did want to earn your approval, and it had nothing to do with what was to follow.” It’s one of the many things I will never know.
? ? ?
Sunday after the prom, Dylan slept late, then left for Eric’s in the afternoon. He looked terribly tired, which was only to be expected after the sleepover on Friday night and a late night at the prom. I made a large kettle of homemade vegetable soup with posole, but Byron had plans and Dylan didn’t get home until later, so Tom and I ate alone. April 19 was a Monday, and Dylan let me know he wouldn’t be home for dinner. He’d made plans to go to a steakhouse with Eric, the same restaurant where we had eaten with Eric’s family two months earlier.
“What’s the occasion?” I asked. (When Dylan ate with friends, they usually went for fast food.) He told me Eric had a couple of coupons. They didn’t need a reason, as far as I was concerned. Three weeks from graduation, they were about to move on to the next phase of their lives and I applauded their impulse to celebrate. I told Dylan to have a good time.
He got home about 8:30, and I greeted him at the door. “How was it?” “Good,” he said, as he removed his muddy shoes. Always trying to pull a little more information, I asked, “What did you have for dinner?” He looked up from his shoes, tilting his head to one side so he could give me a “Come on, Mom” look; they’d gone to a steakhouse. “Uh, steak?” he said. We both laughed.
Tom was reading in the living room, and I asked Dylan if he had time to sit down with us for a minute, but he said he had a lot of work to do, adding he’d probably have to be in his room all evening to get everything done. He seemed particularly evasive and eager to get upstairs; I assumed he had some last-minute, end-of-year homework to finish up. The phone rang a few times; I let Dylan get it. I do not remember kissing him, or going to his room to say good night. I am still trying to forgive myself for not remembering if I did or not.
The next morning, I got up in the dark to get ready for work. Before I had the chance to call him for bowling, Dylan bounded down the stairs past our bedroom. I opened the door, trying to catch him before he left. The house was dark.
I heard the front door open. “Dyl?” I called into the darkness.
“Bye,” was all he said.
CHAPTER 15
Collateral Damage