Chapter 10: The Point of No Return
After our conversation, my mom finally agreed to go to the local hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.
My dad did not react well to her decision.
He did not want her to miss Christmas and continued to argue that the children were part of the reason she
should stay.
I couldn’t understand it.
He had just been trying to make her leave the house. Now that she had agreed to seek help, he was angry
about her leaving.
The argument escalated.
I went downstairs to check on my son, who had been alone listening to everything from the bottom of the
stairs.
When I returned upstairs, my parents were still fighting.
My mom was standing in the kitchen when I heard her ask whether she needed to go get her gun.
I cannot say what she intended by saying this. I didn’t know whether she was afraid, trying to shock my dad,
or meant something else entirely.
My dad responded by going into the bedroom and retrieving his handgun.
He returned with the gun and racked it.
At that moment, my son appeared behind me in the doorway.
He was scared and confused by all the noise.
Then my parents began struggling over the gun, my mom trying to pull it from my dad’s hands.
I rushed my son downstairs and away from them.
I told him to stay downstairs and not come back up.
I then grabbed my own handgun and put it into my pocket.
My hands were shaking with adrenaline.
I had no intention of using it. I was frightened, I did not know what either of my parents might do, and in
that moment I believed I needed to be able to protect myself and my family.
Looking back, I also think about what my son must have seen.
His grandfather had a gun. His grandparents were fighting over it. His father rushed him downstairs, told him
to stay there, and then grabbed another gun before going back upstairs.
I can only imagine how frightening and confusing that must have been for him.
When I returned upstairs, my dad’s gun had been put away, but my parents were still yelling at each other.
I focused on getting my mom and my son out of the house.
Once we were outside, we called 911.
I was concerned about leaving my dad alone in the house with access to a firearm because of the things he
had previously said about harming himself.
The conflict continued from inside the house as my dad yelled out to us. More angry words passed between
us.
I was furious that a gun had been brought into the confrontation and that my son had witnessed it.
Eventually, I got my mom and son into my mom’s car, and we left.
We waited for the police in the parking lot of a local school.
The police arrived about ten minutes later and spoke with us.
My dad was taken for a mental-health evaluation. I took my mom for an evaluation as well, making sure they
went to different hospitals.
For a little while, our home was quiet.
It was a kind of quiet I had desperately missed.
My mom was released that same night, shortly after midnight.
I was shocked.
She told me the hospital would not admit her because she was not considered a danger to herself.
I did not know exactly what had happened during her evaluation or what she had told them. I only knew that
I had taken her there believing she desperately needed help, and within hours, she was coming home.
My already shaken confidence in the mental-health system took another blow.
My dad, meanwhile, voluntarily admitted himself to a local mental-health facility, where he remained for a few
days.