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From the New York Times and WBUR Boston, this is Modern Love.

Stories of Love, loss and redemption.

I'm your host, Megna Chakra Birdie.

When do you know if your child is ready to become an independent adult?

For Anne Bauer, that already difficult decision was made much harder by her son's problematic and mysterious diagnosis.

Jane Atkinson from Netflix's House of Cards reads Anne Bauer's essay, You Need to Take My Son to Jail.

My husband and I were sitting down to dinner when the police called.

It was a female dispatcher whose voice I recognized from previous incidents involving my 20-year-old son Andrew, who has autism.

In recent years, this police department has picked him up for shoplifting, taken reports from restaurants where he had dined and dashed, and once even brought him back from the airport after he tried to stay away on a plane.

Roughly half of the force has lectured me about keeping a closer eye on him, placing him in a secure facility and finding a better psychiatrist, while the other half has been sweet and apologetic, concerned about how I'm bearing up.

On this occasion, the dispatcher explained that my car, which I had earlier reported stolen, had been found on the side of the highway some 70 miles away in St. Cloud, Minnesota, scratched, filthy, and out of gas, but otherwise undamaged.

I would need to retrieve it from the impound lot.

My son, Unhurt, was waiting at the station. When would I be able to pick him up?

I swallowed a sip of kianti and recited the line I had been rehearsing all afternoon.

I want to press charges.

I told you the car is fine. Your son is fine. All you have to do is come and pick them both up.

I want to press charges. I said again, resolved to see this through.

Against your son, she asked incredulous. Let me speak to your supervisor.

I felt robotic like a wind-up toy, but all I could see was my first born child at two, his curly blonde hair and tiny hands.

The sergeant came on the line. I'll pick up the car tomorrow. My voice was firm, belying my doubt. But you need to take my son to jail.

We went over Andrew's stats, six foot three, two hundred and eighty pounds. He's a tournament chess player. I reminded the sergeant.

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