And now, it’s time to live in a halfway house and put the pieces back together. I’m already looking better. I’ve put on weight and my face has filled back in. My skin is a normal color instead of gray. I feel more like myself.
“Don’t worry,” I tell my dad. “I’m still going to go to college. I’ll start in the fall. And . . . I’ve decided to go to Notre Dame. I’m going to try for a walk-on spot on the football team. Maybe I can still get that scholarship.”
I wait, even though he’s not here to react. If he were, he’d be crowing and doing a victory dance.
“And don’t worry, Mr. K,” Elin says. “I’ve gone ahead of him and felt out all the local spots. I’ve lit some candles for you in the grotto too.”
It’s me sucking in my breath now. I haven’t told anyone about my vision of my father in the grotto. I don’t know if they would believe me, but even if they did, it’s still so personal, so mine.
When I do move onto campus, I’ll be in that grotto a lot. I know it already.
“So I just wanted to give you the good news in person,” I tell the headstone. I know my dad isn’t here, but this is the best place to come to talk to him. Wherever he is, I feel like he hears me. “Everyone is okay, by the way. Mom, Kit, the kids. Anna-B hasn’t wet the bed in a while, which is good. Devin won the county spelling bee. He goes on to the state contest next. Oh, and Mom decided not to take the settlement. She’s going to fight it. She doesn’t want another car to kill someone else the way you died. The money would’ve been nice, but the lawyer thinks she’ll win. So we just have to be patient. We all miss you, Dad.”
I leave out that I think Mom and Kit will end up dating. I’m sure Dad already knows.
I kiss my fingers and press them to the stone, and then Elin and I stand up and stroll through the grassy lanes.
My gaze roves over the rows of stones, the colorful pinwheels spinning in the breeze, the flowers, the trinkets. I love how people come and try to breathe life into a place that is full of death.
We walk in comfortable silence and turn down another lane.
As we do, my attention is drawn to a stone at the end of the row. It’s white and glimmers in the sunlight, an angel statue perched on the side, its wings drawn up protectively, standing watch for all of eternity.
For some reason, I’m drawn to it. And as we grow closer, I look again.
The letters are visible now to me, and they are clear as day in the sun.
SARAH GREENE.
The date of her death was October 12. The day of my accident.
I freeze and stare at the grave. It’s sparse, with no decoration, no visitors. But the sole guardian angel stands, and I think it weeps.
“What’s wrong?” Elin asks quickly, because I’m not moving a muscle. My feet are frozen; my heart is stuttering.
Can it be?
I close my eyes and I am in that car again, before it was wrecked and twisted. I am behind the wheel and I look up from my phone, into the headlights shining into my face. Behind the light, there was a face, something I hadn’t allowed myself to remember until now. It was a girl’s face, a girl with short, spiky hair and wide, startled eyes. When our cars collided and rolled, blackbirds had exploded from the ditches into the night sky.
Angel.
I find myself kneeling on the ground in front of the white angel now, and my hand rests on the stone.
I feel the warmth now, radiating into my hand and my face and my arm. It was her. The whole time it was her.
Sarah Greene.
I close my eyes and envision her admonishing me for ever doubting her. She’d stare at me with her eyebrow lifted. You get it now, King? She’d ask.
I take a deep breath. Yeah, I get it.
She believed in me every step of the way. She always did.
You can do this, King, she would say. You’ve got this.
And I do.
author’s note
Dear Reader,
If this story felt authentic to you, that is because it is. My son is a recovering addict.
Loving someone with an addiction is a heavy burden to carry. At times, you feel alone, as though no one else could possibly understand. And most of the time, no one can, unless they’ve walked this particular path themselves.
My twenty-two-year-old son, my firstborn, my Gunner, was a cheerful little boy, his smile like sunshine, his charm enough to talk himself in and out of mostly everything. He was bright, he was bursting with potential, and he was beautiful. He was rambunctious, he was all boy, playing with lizards and turtles and snakes from the yard. His favorite show was The Land before Time, and he wanted to be a zoologist when he grew up.
Then, as a teenager, he changed. He became a shell of his former self, his mood mercurial. He lied to himself, and to us, told us that nothing was wrong, that his disinterest in school was because he was bored. That was a lie.
The truth came out soon enough.
He had started out huffing aerosol cans in secret, and that progressed to other things, like methamphetamine and heroin and pretty much anything he could get his hands on. The Addiction hooked into him with sharp talons. I address it in capital letters, like it is a thing, because it is. Addiction is a palpable monster. It grabbed my son, and it wouldn’t let go, and he didn’t want to let it.
It dragged him down, and we all went with him.
Loving someone with an addiction is like being on a terrible roller coaster that you can never get off of. Like Beck, Gunner went off the grid. He slept on couches, in garages, in parks, under bridges. He called me in the middle of the night; he called me crying; he called me saying he wanted to die.
He raged. He cried. He soared. He crashed.
People on the outside looking in thought that I should’ve been able to fix it. That if I FORCED him into getting help, he would’ve beat the addiction.
That’s not the way it works. I put him into rehab multiple times. It didn’t take. Because he wasn’t ready. He wasn’t a minor anymore—he was over eighteen. So I couldn’t MAKE him do anything, not even when he was killing himself with that dangerous cycle. The addiction made him someone he wasn’t, someone who said awful things, someone who tried to hurt those who loved him, because the only thing that was important to him was feeding that demon inside of him.
It was exhausting.
And then, one night, at two a.m., he called me. I could tell he’d been high, that he’d crashed. He was very, very low. His speech was jumbled, incoherent. Eventually, he said, “Mom, what time is it?”
I pulled the phone away from my ear to look at it.
“Two thirty,” I told him.
He didn’t answer.
“Gunner?”
He didn’t answer.
“Gunner?!”
Still no answer. I could hear some sort of ragged, gurgly sound in the background, and I knew it was coming from his throat. I hung up and tried to call him back.
No answer.
So I did the only thing I could do. I called for an ambulance. I didn’t know if he was dying; I only knew, in my mother’s heart, that time was of the essence. I waited by my phone, barely breathing myself, until I heard back.
He had overdosed, and the police had found drugs in his house. He was lucky, though. He lived.
This certainly wasn’t the worst incident we experienced with Gunner, but it was the one that for some reason turned out to be his catalyst. He was treated and arrested, and he was put into jail. He was eventually released and placed on a list for rehab. Finally, after several weeks, he entered rehab. Again.
All we could do was hope that this time it took. That this was the time he’d want to get better and we could all get off the roller-coaster ride from hell. He told me he wanted to get better, but he was in for the fight of his life. He woke up in the night, in cold sweats and craving needles. The cravings were stronger than he was, he thought. But I knew that wasn’t true.
And you know what?
I was right.
&n
bsp; He came through rehab triumphant that time. And then he entered a postrehab program, and then a halfway house. He got a job and he put himself back on the path to recovery.
Today, he’s still fighting his way back. He got a crappy job and bought a bicycle so he could get a job farther away. Then he got a better job and rides his bike to work every day, through rain and snow. He’s determined to be better, and he’s doing it. He’s been clean for a year. That’s huge for him, and it’s huge for me as his mother.
In Saving Beck, I wanted to show how a series of choices can affect life, how addiction can affect anyone, from any walk of life. Our family is normal, like any family that might live next door to you. If it can happen to us, it can happen to anyone.
According to the numbers provided by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the rise of drug-related deaths is startling.
• During 2014, 47,055 drug-overdose deaths occurred in the United States.
• In 2015, that number increased to 52,404.
• In 2016, that number became 64,070.
This is a pandemic. It is growing, and it is real. I’ve lived it—I know. As a society, we have to stop ignoring it and start fixing it. Most of the time, people don’t start out wanting to use hard drugs. They slip into it, like a whisper that turns into a roar. We’ve got to stop labeling and condemning, and start helping.
I know that at times, this book was hard to read. That’s because I wanted it to be real. I wanted to show what addiction is, and what it can do, without a filtered lens.
Through the ugliness, though, I also wanted to illustrate that while life is full of tragedy and loss, it is also full of hope and redemption.
Where there is life, there is hope. That is something I’ve learned, and it is something we should all remember.
If you or someone you love is in the midst of drug addiction, know this: You are worthy of hope. You are worthy of help. You are worthy of LIFE. Take the first step today and go to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. They can help you find a program to get you on your way to recovery.
I have also recently started a Facebook support group called The Anchor Room. In there, you have a safe place to share and listen, without judgment. Find it by searching for The Anchor Room in your Facebook search bar.
You may also call SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration). SAMHSA’s National Helpline, 1-800-662-HELP (4357), also known as the Treatment Referral Routing Service, is a confidential, free, twenty-four-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year information service in English and Spanish for individuals and family members facing mental and/or substance-use disorders. This service provides referrals to local treatment facilities, support groups, and community-based organizations. Callers can also order free publications and other information.
If you need help, please, please, please ask for it.
Then fight for it.
You are strong enough, and you are worth it.
Live one day at a time, one moment at a time.
Live fiercely.
A Gallery Books Reading Group Guide
Saving Beck
Courtney Cole
This readers group guide for Saving Beck includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
Introduction
When Natalie Kingsley’s husband, Matt, dies in a car crash on his way home from a college visit with their teenage son, their happy family life is irreparably damaged. One year later, she’s a widow still unmoored by grief, struggling to raise three grieving children who feel as if they have somehow lost both parents.
Her older son, Beck, helps Natalie with daily responsibilities that she can’t seem to manage alone. But in private, Beck agonizes over his role as driver of the car the night his father died. Unwilling to accept that a faulty seat belt is to blame, Beck turns to heroin to cope, and he quickly becomes addicted to the temporary escape it offers.
For Natalie and Beck, heroin threatens to endanger the fragile recovery that they have painstakingly achieved. Separately, and together, they must fight for their family’s survival.
Topics and Questions for Discussion
1. Describe Natalie Kingsley’s condition when she arrives at Mercy Hospital with her oldest son, Beck. What does Natalie’s heightened awareness of the private waiting area in the hospital—its sounds, smells, lighting, decor—reveal about her emotional state? How does her husband’s recent death intensify her perceptions?
2. “I feel my chest rise off the table, breaking rank from the rest of my body, and I feel myself thrashing against my will, yet it doesn’t hurt. . . . I don’t know why I’m able to think calmly when my body is out of control” (page 14). How does the author’s decision to incorporate Beck’s internal monologue into the novel’s narrative affect your understanding of his character and his motivations? How would you describe Beck’s awareness of his condition and his whereabouts?
3. Compare Beck’s relationship with his father, Matt, to his relationship with his mother, Natalie. With whom does he seem most able to express himself and why? In your discussion, consider examining his parents’ individual feelings about Beck’s athletic and academic pursuits, his future goals, his girlfriend, and his strengths and weaknesses as a person.
4. “Beck was the one who had been feeding the kids for me; he even paid the utility bill for me yesterday. . . . He couldn’t be that responsible and also smoke pot on the side” (pages 66–67). In the aftermath of Matt’s death, why does Beck assume the role of co-parent? In what respects do his self-medicating and use of illicit drugs reveal the impulsivity of a typical adolescent, the rebelliousness of one who cannot bear the new burdens imposed on him, or something altogether different?
5. Beck’s first experience with heroin leads him to seek out more drugs in a run-down Chicago building populated by drug users that he imagines as his “new family.” Why does Beck want to leave his family and the comforts of home? To what degree are Beck’s family and friends responsible for his drug use?
6. “It’s Kit, my husband’s best friend, and he’s filling the doorway with his giant shoulders. He’s a Great Dane in a sea of Labradors” (page 11). How would you characterize Natalie’s feelings for Kit? How does Kit’s changing role in the Kingsley family following the accident disrupt the stability Natalie has sought to reclaim?
7. How would you describe the sibling dynamic between Natalie and her younger sister, Sam LaRosa? In the aftermath of Matt’s accident, what substantive changes in Beck does Sam observe that Natalie is incapable or unwilling to acknowledge? To what extent are these changes visible to others close to Beck, like his girlfriend, Elin, and his younger siblings, Annabelle and Devin?
8. How do the present-tense and flashback narratives of Natalie and Beck provide a more comprehensive picture of their family’s experience? Which character’s voice or story did you find more compelling, and why? Why do you think the author chose to write the novel using these dual—and at times, dueling—perspectives?
9. Discuss the character of Angel and the role she plays in the novel. What does she represent to Beck? How did you react as a reader upon learning that Angel was a figment of Beck’s drug-addled imagination? To what extent does Beck’s interpretation of Angel—that she was the embodied spirit of Sarah Greene, the other driver, who perished in the car accident—seem persuasive to you? What are some other possible ways readers might understand Angel?
10. How does the premature death of Matt Kingsley impact each member of his immediate family? How does Natalie’s grief exacerbate Beck’s feelings of guilt for his role in his father’s death? If you were a therapist treating the Kingsley family, what would you encourage them to explore as they come to terms with their profound loss? To what extent do you think Natalie and Beck coul
d have taken more preventive measures to avoid Beck’s overdose?
11. “People on the outside looking in think that I should’ve been able to fix it. That if I FORCED him into getting help, he would’ve beat the addiction. That’s not the way it works” (Author’s Note, page 290). How did the author’s decision to relate her experiences as a mother dealing with her son’s drug addiction affect you as a reader? Why do you think she chose to do so at the end of the novel, rather than in a foreword?
12. Saving Beck touches on many complex social issues of our time—including illicit drug use, digital privacy, drug addiction, rehabilitation, adolescent/parent conflict, the consequences of extramarital sex, the death of a parent, distracted driving, vehicular homicide, grief, depression, and prescription drug abuse. Of the many issues the author highlights, which especially captured your imagination as a reader, and why?
Enhance Your Book Club
1. Imagine that Natalie is a cherished member of your book club. How might fellow club members support her as she mourns her husband and despairs over the emergency hospitalization of Beck? Members of your club may want to share stories of acts of compassion and kindness they have received during difficult moments in their own lives, or discuss what they wish had been said to or done for them.
2. Over the course of the novel, Beck and Natalie experience many different stages of grief. Have members of your club reflect on losses they and those they know well have experienced. What kinds of healthy activities enabled them to come through these painful moments intact? In what ways does the novel’s depiction of grief in the aftermath of the death of a loved one echo their own lived experiences?
3. In its depiction of a high-achieving student from a well-to-do family whose life is nearly destroyed by illegal drug use, Saving Beck upends commonly held perceptions that drug addiction happens to people in less stable circumstances. Have members of your club reflect on their own direct or indirect experiences with substance abuse and discuss as a group the current attitudes toward illicit drug use in their wider communities.