Utah

I'd forgotten that Utah was a desert. I flew in over the dusty brown clay and sand, with salty water collecting on top, teeming with algae and insects.

I was excited to see my parents and my brother with his children. But, as always, there is a concern that returning to a place will inevitably lead to returning to a former self. I suppose there is little risk of this now. If there is any resemblance to that doe-eyed sweet thing I used to be, it is that I still wear the same bra size now. Just better bras and less admirable breasts.

I was here to receive the first message that my sister sent out from the 2-year rehab facility. She's been on no-comms for the past two months. Now, she's allowed to send a letter. It wasn't good. She sent a coded message that 1) Something bad was happening and she needed intervention, and 2) she intended to "leave" (read: escape the facility or kill herself) by November 5.

When you receive an alert of this nature, you are obligated to act. I didn't have sufficient information, however, and the facility is 957 miles North of here. So it isn't exactly a "get in the car and drive" solution - not when I've traveled here to visit family that I probably won't see again any time soon. My nephews are 2 and 4 years old and I haven't spent any amount of time around them. They are adorable.

The real trouble is: Lee is an addict. And she may pull the cord to stop the train even if the emergency may not be an actual "emergency". So, is she being tortured by these people? Brainwashed? Are they truly evil and controlling? Does the danger come from others or from herself? Or is she simply ready to check out so she can continue down the ugly useless dark path she was on with drug use and abuse? If we intervene and pull her out of the program, there is nowhere else for her to go. We might as well phone her dealer and ask him to meet her at the airport.

My parents are fatigued. They are in their 60s and tired and sick. They've been dealing with trauma for the past fifteen years. I want to do what I can to help solve this particular problem, but I also desperately want to walk away from it. What reasonable person would want this dumped in their lap?

I called the director of the program, J. He sounds like a kid. He's younger than me and trying so hard to be the "big man" of the situation. He passed me off to his colleague, G, a woman who seemed to be looking to me for solutions. Apparently, they became alarmed last night and took Lee to the hospital where she was checked in and received a psychological evaluation. Of course, they were concerned about the cost (I am concerned, as well. This has drained my parents dry for nearly two decades). They wanted to make sure that someone would pick up the tab.

This is all so fraught and terrible.

In the meantime, my computer's hard drive has crashed so thoroughly that my brother is finding it impossible to retrieve any data. I bought the computer last March, so it seems unreasonable that the thing should have suddenly failed.
My brother said, "This is the most corrupted hard-drive I've ever seen. Either it was a faulty drive that failed on its own or it was a really nasty virus. If it failed on its own, you would have seen some warning signs. Did it behave strangely or shut down unexpectedly? Was it slow in operating?"
"No. It was fine. There were no problems. I was simply working on it one moment. I turned and walked away for a minute and when I returned, it was down."
"Viruses aren't usually designed to completely destroy like this," he contemplated. "People generally want to steal your information, not decimate it."
And the part of me who is so tired of the bullshit; who wishes I had never met Sjors or the bastards he works for; who knows how to fight and grab a man by the testicles and dig in fingernails; she doesn't even care to stand up for this one.
They've already taken their pound of flesh. They've already destroyed so much that was worth saving. I want this to have been a random failure: a faulty hard drive. I don't want any more mystery or intrigue or bastardly behavior. Leave me the fuck alone and let me rebuild the things you've destroyed. Because if you rile me again, you reap the whirlwind. You haven't even begun to see "pissed".