Christopher Shulgan at his Toronto home with his kids.
I almost threw out the rocks. Well, no. There was an impulse to throw them out. But this would be the last time; there had to be a last time. From the upstairs bedroom I went to the basement, stopping only for the baby monitor. I went back upstairs because I needed the scissors to cut a little hairball from the steel wool. I grabbed a butcher's knife to cut up three equal chunks of the $20 rock. I went back downstairs. The baby monitor shushed as I exhaled the white smoke. The second rock went some minutes later. And the third rock, my last rock, the one I promised myself would be my last one ever, because I missed it, right, that was why I had to get up to this, I missed it, this was my last time, the third rock was my last rock. And then: I couldn't find it. I looked in the folded cuffs of my jeans. Everywhere around the desk in my basement office. I went around the kitchen. The counter, the utensil drawer, the stove, the sink? Nothing. I was on my hands and knees going over the floor when Myron cooed. I heard it through the monitor. I froze. Then silence. I returned to my search.
Excerpted from Superdad: A Memoir of Rebellion, Drugs and Fatherhood. Copyright 2010 Key Porter.