Tarnished Dreams

by Jeanette Lukowski

  “And finally,” the judge continued, “you cannot contact any of the people mentioned to the police yesterday, when they were questioning you. That includes Daniel.”

  Allison screamed, then burst into hysterical tears while sitting in her chair at the defendant’s table. Daniel was Allison’s boyfriend. They had been dating for nine months.

  “Allison, I need you to hear me about these rules. You are facing some really serious charges here, and I’m sending you home rather than sending you back to the detention center.”

  Allison’s gray-haired male public defender turned and harshly whispered at her to “Shut up, now. You’re getting to go home . . .” while I shoved her face into the side of my coat to muffle her cries. Through it all, I kept nodding to the judge while he spoke to Allison. I kept rubbing Allison’s back to get her to quiet down like I did during toddler-era temper-tantrums. I kept quietly “shhh”ing her and whis­per­ing, “It will be okay” in a soothing voice, hoping to calm her down.

  Allison’s ankle-shackles were removed, and we left the court room together. In alternating waves, I was happy, relieved, and tired.

  “Where’s the bathroom?” Allison asked as soon as we stepped into the hallway.

  I saw the sign further down the hall, pointed it out, and followed Allison into the small room with one sink, and one stall. Allison headed directly to the sink, rather than the stall, and asked me for the bag someone had handed me along the way.

  Ah, yes, her jewelry.

  Two sets of piercings in each ear had morphed into a set of gauges and a regular set of earring holes. She also had a nose ring, a lip piercing, and an eyebrow piercing.

  Once the jewelry was back in place, Allison headed into the stall to urinate. Then she asked about the Burger King stop she was denied twenty-two hours earlier.

  Really, dear? That’s all you care about—and in that order? Piercings, Burger King, and then television shows when we get home? How about an explanation? Or at the very least, an apology to your mom? Is that too much to ask?

  4. House Arrest

  No sooner had we gotten home, than Allison began expressing her concerns about Daniel. “Mom, I have to call Daniel and let him know what’s going on. He’s going to think I’m breaking up with him or something. We haven’t talked since you picked me up from school yesterday. Can I please just have my cell phone for that? Please?”

  I was angry Allison was more concerned about Daniel’s feelings than she seemed to be about mine. But, she’d heard me tell her my love is unconditional about a million times. Had she ever heard the same from Daniel?

  “If you just give me my phone,” Allison’s bargaining began, “I’ll just call him and tell him I’m all right, and . . .”

  “No, dear. You heard the judge. Letting you call Daniel on your cell phone would be two violations, right off the top. If they find out about it, you’ll be back in juvy before you can even ask why.”

  “But how will they find out about it, Mom?”

  “I don’t know, dear. I don’t know how this works. Are they going to check your cell phone usage? I don’t know. But, they might speak with Daniel, as part of the investigation. Would he be able to lie, and tell them he’s had no contact with you at all? I don’t want to do anything to risk losing you again.”

  “But I’ve got to tell him, Mom. He’s probably already freaking out because we haven’t talked for two days.”

  As an adult, it’s difficult to imagine what is so traumatic about not talking to each other for two days. But, these are kids, kids who have cell phones that can send pictures as well as text messages, kids who communicate with each other more times in a day than I com­municate with some friends or family in a month. For these kids, two days of not talking might signal a death—or a break-up.

  I decided on a compromise. I would call Daniel on my cell phone. I put the call on speaker, so Allison could hear everything Daniel said first-hand, but Allison was not allowed to speak to Daniel. Instead, Allison whispered her responses to me, and I relayed the messages to Daniel.

  “Hi, Daniel,” I began. “Allison is fine, but she’s in some trouble with the police and can’t talk to you while they do some investigation work.”

  “What do you mean she’s in trouble?” Daniel interrupted. “What kind of trouble?”

  “I can’t really tell you anything about it, Daniel, because they might want to talk to you as well.”

  “Talk to me? About what?”

  “Allison sent some pictures of herself over the Internet.”

  “I still don’t understand. What’s wrong with that?”

  “That’s really all I can tell you right now, Daniel. At some point, Allison will be able to explain it all to you herself, just not right now.”

  “Well, can I talk to her?”

  “Not right now, Daniel. Your name came up when she was talking about stuff with the police, so the conditions of her house arrest include not talking to you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Allison is here, with me, but she’s on house arrest. She can’t use her iPod, her digital camera, the Internet, or her cell phone until they tell her differently. The judge let her come home because she’s in school, and doing well academically, so he doesn’t want to disrupt that. But, she can only go to school. The rest of the time she has to be with me.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yep. But, we’re happy she can at least be home.”

  “How long will this take?”

  “I have no idea. We have another court date scheduled for next week, so hopefully we’ll know something more by then.”

  “You mean I can’t talk to Allison for a week?”

  “That’s right. Not until the judge says it’s okay again. But, she’ll call you again as soon as she can.”

  From that point, the conversation got mushy. Allison wanted me to reassure Daniel she still loved him, and would stay faithful to him. Daniel reciprocated in kind.

  A week later, a similar telephone conversation took place. “Sorry, Daniel, there is no change. Allison’s public defender asked the judge if the limitation on you could be lifted, but the judge said no.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, Daniel. You’re part of the investigation, and they aren’t done with it yet. So, we have to wait, and go back in two weeks.”

  “Two weeks!”

  “I know. Allison and I feel the same way. But she says she loves you . . .”

  Standing in the court room on March 1st, I told the judge about Allison’s doing so well in school—and mentioned having conferences. After she ate her Burger King lunch, listened to the phone call to Daniel, and took a shower, Allison happily accompanied me to parent-teacher conferences.

  The first thing I noticed when we got to the high school was Allison’s attitude change—bravado replaced sullenness. “Yeah,” she told kids who approached, “I can’t text you because I’m on house arrest. I was in juvy yesterday and today. I’ve got to stick with my mom, now.”

  I was embarrassed by the past twenty-four hours, but Allison was using it to gain more attention from classmates.

  Talking with the teachers got even more awkward.

  “Well, this is odd!” they each said in their turn. “I can’t find her in my [computerized] grade-book. I just printed the master list this afternoon, in preparation for conferences. I don’t understand why she’s not on here!”

  By the time the third teacher echoed the confusion expressed by the first and second teacher, I decided the school had an automatic updating system in conjunction with the detention center. Part of the intake process, perhaps, converted children from the rolls of the high school to the rolls of the juvenile detention center for state accounta­bility purposes.

  Does everyone get to know—and judge?

/>   Eighteen days after Allison and I walked out of the court room together, I started to realize the level of punishment house arrest can be. My friend Sara sent me a text in the afternoon, saying “I think this should be called Mom arrest instead of house arrest.”

  I sent back a text message saying “Yep—or how-to-torture-the-single-mom-to-the-point-of-submission arrest.”

  The problem became the level of Allison’s anxiety. On March 1st, the judge took away three of Allison’s limbs: her iPod (a seventeen-year-old without her favorite music), her cell phone (teenagers don’t talk on phones anymore, they send text messages—which a house phone cannot do), and her eighteen-year-old boyfriend of nine months. Much like a toddler without his favorite binky, or a frightened child who is told she can no longer have her favorite stuffed animal at night, Allison struggled with the nightmare her life became. Instead of soldiering through, like I had to do, she reverted to the child she once was, and began sleeping with me (king-size bed) the night she came home from juvy.

  Daylight hours weren’t much better, unfortunately. Allison told me she was afraid to stay home alone, for fear the police would return—and take her from our home like they did the afternoon of February 28th.

  By March 2nd, Allison was my shadow. When not in school, Allison was with me. In the house, Allison followed me from room to room. Running to the store for an item or two, taking Tommy to his piano lesson, going to bed at night—Allison was with me. She even wanted to join me for my three-month periodontal cleaning with the dentist, but I assured her she would be fine, at home, with her fifteen-year-old brother for the hour I would be sitting in the dental chair.

  Leaving the courtroom on March 1st, we hoped the restrictions would only be short-term. Allison’s next court appearance was scheduled for the following week.

  March 8th. I walked towards the court house with Allison next to me, unlike the week before, but nearly froze in place on the sidewalk as I approached the glass doors. Officer Vic Richards was in charge of courthouse security screening for the day. Although I had thought about him a million times since we met on Saturday, April 25th, 2009, I hadn’t seen or spoken to him since I received the letter from the police chief in June of 2009, telling me to “cease and desist” after sending Vic a note of thanks and two boxes of Girl Scout cookies I thought he could share with the other staff in the lunch room. Knowing I was entering the courthouse because Allison was in trouble again was just too embarrassing. I wanted to run away and hide my shame in private somewhere.

  Sadly, I realized there was no way to avoid Officer Richards. There was no alternate entrance Allison and I could use. There was no way to re-schedule for another day, when he wouldn’t be working. There was no way for me to slip past him, sight unseen.

  Allison entered the building in front of me, and I noticed Officer Richards stand up when I walked through the second glass door. I couldn’t force my eyes to meet his, though. Head down, I fumbled with my purse, mittens, and notepad, placing them on the conveyor belt between Officer Richards and me while Allison pro-ceeded through the arch of the metal detector. Allison didn’t see my hands shaking horribly. She didn’t acknowledge Officer Richards with a greeting of familiarity.

  When we were safely in the elevator, alone, and the doors closed, I released the strangle-hold on my emotions. “Oh, my, oh, my, oh, my. Did you see who that was?”

  “No,” came Allison’s indifferent response.

  “It was Officer Richards!”

  “Oh! Why didn’t you say something to him? He looked like he wanted to say something to you, Mom.”

  I have wanted to say something to Vic Richards for nearly two years. I’ve wanted to thank him for his help with Allison, to tell him how I appreciated his non-judgmental handling of our case in 2009, to ask him if I can buy him a cup of coffee, to ask him if he really meant it when he said I was “an amazing woman” the day we were alone, in the doorway of the police station, while Allison took a bathroom break after testifying about the predator who sent her the bus tickets to run away from home.

  But the shame of being back in the courthouse with Allison had become too much for me. Since 2009, I’ve constantly felt like I’m a failure as a mother, rather than an amazing woman. I can’t imagine someone with Vic Richards’ job ever being interested in a woman like me, a woman who can’t keep her teenage daughter on the straight-and-narrow.

  By the time the elevator doors opened on the second floor, I was once again composed and focused on Allison. I was preparing myself for what we were about to face.

  This time, a female judge was presiding. Allison’s public defender explained how she hadn’t had a chance to review the images from the computer yet. “We would like to re-visit one of the restrictions, though, if we could,” Allison’s public defender continued. “We would like to lift the restriction of having no contact with Daniel, Allison’s eighteen-year-old boyfriend.”

  The judge let Allison’s attorney voice the request. She allowed me to provide my position on the request, as well as explain the influence Daniel was having in Allison’s life. Sadly, the judge denied the request to lift the restriction. “The matter is still under investigation . . .”

  Allison’s tears were quieter this time, thankfully. I warned her about keeping the sound out of the outburst before we left the car. This time, she only sniffled while the tears streamed down her face.

  The judge scheduled Allison’s next court appearance for March 29th, then called a court officer forward. Allison had never been officially “Booked” (fingerprinted) for the crime. We had to do that before we could leave the building.

  Walking out of the building in plain view of Vic Richards again was hard. I wanted to stop and talk to him. I wanted to turn and at least smile. But, I had just witnessed my seventeen-year-old daughter get finger-printed. I couldn’t imagine anyone being romantically interested in the mother of a felon.

  March 29th passed, as did several other court dates. The public defender kept postponing the case because there was no news on the computer analysis, nor any images for the public defender to view.

  Publicly, Allison and I tried to continue with a “normal” teenage life. At 7:50 am Saturday, April 9th, I dropped Allison off to take her A.C.T. test. Sunday, after church, I drove the kids and one of Allison’s new girl friends to a mall 150 miles east of our home. As we prepared for bed that night, Allison said, “Today was the greatest day. I’ve never had so much fun shopping with a friend before! She even let me go to stores that I wanted to.” When Allison’s grade report for third term arrived in the home mailbox, I was thrilled to see two “A”s and two “B”s, in spite of all the stress.

  Our next court date was scheduled for Thursday, April 14th. I was nervous. I was sure Allison was nervous too, but there was nothing I could do or say to ease it. Monday night, the 11th, Allison broke. “I hope it’s just all over Thursday. Give me a misdemeanor, tell me what my punishment is, but just let me talk to Daniel.”

  I didn’t know what to say anymore. I wanted my bed back, my freedom back, my life back. But, how exactly would my life change after Thursday’s court date?

  If Allison were to be convicted of a felony . . .

  If Allison were to be charged with a misdemeanor . . .

  If Allison were to be released . . . I would get my bed back, she would return to her basement room where she talks to Daniel on the phone for hours at a time—but would Allison’s behavior change?

  April 12th. We had been on house arrest since March 1st. Day forty-three, Allison was still sleeping with me, she still couldn’t talk to her boyfriend Daniel, and she was swinging on her swing whenever the weather was clear.

  Two weekends before, we drove to the zoo two hundred miles to the south, celebrating the first fifty-degree weekend of the season. It was hard for Allison, being only fifty miles from Daniel’s home, and not being able to
see him or speak with him. She tried negotiating an “accidental” meeting with him at the zoo, which I wanted to grant—but I know I’m a bad liar. “What if we go back to court, dear, and they point blank ask me if you have had any contact with Daniel since February 28th? I won’t be able to pull it off.”

  Allison cried herself to sleep that night.

  I also wanted to cry, but couldn’t. My dad trained me not to cry.

  I constantly felt so empty, but then felt guilty about my own emptiness. It wasn’t like I had been diagnosed with cancer, my brain scolded, or like I’d lost someone close. All I had essentially lost was my freedom, and my peace of mind.

  So much pain inside, so much shame.

  I remember my sister always cried when we were young. My mother might have too, but I don’t remember. I remember my sister crying.

  My sister, three and a half years older than I, naturally became my role model for a lot of things. When my sister cried, my dad yelled.

  “You better stop crying,” he’d yell, “or I’ll give you something to cry about.”

  I thought he didn’t like her crying because her face got all scrunched up when she cried.

  I learned not to cry because my sister’s crying made my dad’s yelling get worse.

  I remember crying when a boy I liked at sixteen didn’t like me back. I remember being at a party or something with my best friend Hans, and then hiding in a dark corner in the basement of the house so I could cry. I felt ugly, crying—liquid streaming down my face, leaving black trails of mascara and eyeliner, liquid streaming from my nose, nearly running into my mouth.