Evolution

The changes in her son weren't sudden. She wondered, though, if they had something to do with a traumatic experience they both went through a couple of years ago.

She tried not to press when some of the changes began to appear to what appeared to be an all-american boy just a few years back.

Playing war, little league baseball, soccer, tree climbing. Those were just a few of the activities she was used to from her pride and joy that some of her friends called Dennis the Menace.

Some of the changes could easily be shrugged off as changes a child goes through when they reach middle school. He has an obsession with video games, but what kid his age isn't. His style of music, that was evolving. Screamo music, that was something she'd never heard of.

She would poke fun at him because of it.

"I think you actually have to sing for it to be called singing," she joked with him once, although he didn't think it was all too funny.

"You just don't understand my music," he said in a matter-of-fact kind of way.

She had always been what she considered to be an open-minded parent. Her own parents considered her to be too lenient.

"That boy needs to cut his hair," her father once told her.

She defended her son. She actually liked how the long hair looked on him. Boys had long hair. And it didn't look too girly, as some would suggest.

She wondered if some of the changes were because of his almost recent change of friends. They weren't bad kids, just different. There were four of them, two boys, two girls. They were, as a friend described them, a little punkish.

Jacob insisted his friends "weren't goth."

"Nor are we vampires, in case you're asking," Jacob told his mother. "The Twilight, the whole vampire thing really sucks."

"Jacob, you know I don't like you using that kind of language," she chided her son.

They wore dark clothes. Four out of the five, including one of the two boys, Paul, started wearing dark eyeliner. The other boy in the group, who was the oldest, Spencer, actually had a red mohawk.

"Don't even think about getting a mohawk," She once told her son.

"Oh come on, Mom, mohawks aren't me," he said.

Jacob assured his mother he wasn't "Emo" even though he'd started wearing the eyeliner, too. She carefully confided in their therapist when Jacob a couple of months ago started wearing black lipstick. In their group of five, the girls, Raven and Kat (short for Katrina) also started wearing black lipstick. But the other two boys did not. She didn't even protest when her son insisted on getting his ears pierced. He got gender neutral black stones.

"Liz, I wish I could tell you he's going through a phase," their therapist, Joan Carter, told her. "But it's hard to get him to open up."

That, she understood all too well. She tried to open up to their therapist about all of her feelings about what happened to them. But there were parts even she kept hidden.

May 7, 2010 was a day that changed everything for her and her son.

Before that troubled day, she was the hip soccer mom who worked her way through school after getting pregnant her senior year of high school. Her boyfriend, Jacob's father, bailed on her before Jacob was even born. She was an accountant and sometime artist who loved to paint.

And Jacob was her sometimes nerdy, sometimes preppy little sidekick even at age 11.

They had a flat on the side of the road. Of all the people to come along was a sexual predator. What seemed like a nice man coming to their request turned out to be a fugitive from the law, a prison escapee, who took them to an old abandoned shed, tied them up and kept them captive for three days.

He didn't discriminate. He sexually assaulted them both during much of their days in captivity. He threatened to kill them both, dismember them and bury them in the woods. In fact, that's what he said he was going to do when he no longer had any use for them.

He was pure evil, but not very smart. The car he was driving was stolen. He didn't ditch far enough away from the shed.

Thank God for a police K-9 unit. Thank God for a SWAT that found them in the middle of the night before the fugutve could do more harm to them.

They tried to put their shattered lives back together, which wasn't easily done. Going to the rape trauma center was hard enough for a woman. She couldn't imagine how hard it was for a preteen boy. Therapy sessions, group meetings, even medication played a role in their recovery

She tried to get her son to open up. He never would.

But they both seemed to be doing reasonably well in the effort to put their lives back together. Jacob's grades never dropped, and for a while, didn't seem to have the mood swings she did.

And he didn't change overnight. The changes were gradual.

She tried to pry a little as they ate breakfast on this particular Saturday morning. He wouldn't budge.

She noticed he now wore a light base of makeup to on his pale face to go along with the eyeliner. She also noticed the usually black lipstick had been replaced by a light pink.

"Well, you told me you didn't like black," he said sarcastically.

She chuckled for a second. Then she noticed her son wearing fingernail polish.

"You're not going to give me an explanation?" she asked.

"Raven thought it would match my lips," he said, pointing out it was the same color as his lipstick.

He then showed her his toes were painted as well. He was wearing sandals.

"I guess I should be relieved you're not wearing flats," she said.

She didn't even mention he was wearing a girl's top.

He was literally saved by the bell.

His friends were waiting at the door. They were going to the book store and then going to do some gaming.

She noticed the two other boys weren't wearing makeup or lipstick. But Raven and Cat were. Same color as her son.

"Come on," Raven said. "Show us the ring he gave you."

He looked back at his mother and pulled a ring out of his pocket and put it on his finger. It was a girl's ring with a small stone.

"It's really pretty," Cat said as they admired his hand before they slowly walked out the door.

"Bye, Mom, we'll be back after while, love you," he said as he pulled the door shut.

As they were leaving, his mother heard his friend Raven say "I hope your mom wasn't upset with how you look."

"Oh no, she's cool with it," she heard him say.

"Your mom is so cool, Jade," Raven said.

"Jade?" his mother thought. "He's going by Jade? And who is this 'he' that gave him the ring?"