A Prayer for Orion by Katherine James

Author:Katherine James
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: memoir;heroin;overdose;addiction;motherhood;adolescent addiction;drugs;opioid;opioid epidemic;recovery;heroin overdose;heroin addiction;addict;drug addiction;story of drug addiction opioid addiction;opioid crisis;withdrawl;rehab;drug rehab;rehabilitation;Can You See Anything Now?;addiction memoir;addiction book;wayward child;suburban drug abuse;drug abuse;parents of an addict;addiction support group;12 steps;twelve steps;narcotics anonymous;NA;abusing heroin;my child is an addict
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2019-11-18T08:54:09+00:00

PATTERNS

CHESS IS A UTILITARIAN GAME; stripped first of pawns then knight then castle, a player wins by slowing down, measuring each step and figuring out what works best. But there’s charm too—the elegance of dark plus light side by side and the hint of shine from the ivory, the decussated board, the gentle touch of fingers before the hushed sound of felt sliding across it. Patterns evolve and expand as the pieces are moved, and if each of them glowed red and a camera, shutter open, hung above them and captured the movement in one long blink, the result would be a crisscross of lines, rectangles, and squares, stars on stars on stars.

It was a year before I found the text on Sweetboy’s phone from the drug dealer. Rick was in his office and it was around 11:00 p.m. A few months earlier Sweetboy had had a conversation with Rick and told him he’d been using drugs. He didn’t say what drugs, but we were encouraged that he’d told us. He said he would stop. We assumed that he’d started smoking marijuana, maybe something else, something innocuous. We didn’t know what he was doing, only that he’d told us he would stop.

It wasn’t too cold or too hot. The Lost Boys were up in The Chill Spot. Waylen had moved out months earlier. At that point Christopher and Stephan were living with us and the Bible study had continued to grow. Rick was working on a complicated piece of writing that compared Paul’s statement in 2 Corinthians 2:11—“So that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs”—with the game of chess. He was writing about pattern recognition and making the point that much like chess, over time and with practice, the patterns of The Evil can be recognized and its next move anticipated. He was deep in thought, and since Rick has attention surplus disorder like I have attention deficit disorder, he was oblivious to the world. But then suddenly, like some supernatural nudge, he thought he should check on The Lost Boys.

There’s a railing around the top of the stairs in The Chill Spot that obstructs your view until you’re standing in the room. The Lost Boys had pushed an oversized couch into the middle of the space, facing the round window and the picture of Jesus that I’d drawn a smile on, and dragged the rug and coffee table in front of it. Jeremiah, Christopher, Max, and Sam were there. When Rick reached the top of the stairs, he saw Sweetboy quickly brush something off a chessboard and tuck it next to the couch. But just like the moment before, in his office when he felt like he should check on them, Rick felt a sudden ache of affection for his son. He went to him, leaned over, kissed him on the head, said, “I love you,” and left. That’s all he did. The heterodoxy of this still baffles me.

Every drug

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.