I could have ruined an innocent man’s life, all in the name of loving my daughter.
I would have ruined an innocent man’s life, all because I would be honoring the code of believing whatever my daughter tells me.
Has Allison ever been molested?
Part Two: Senior Year
8. To What Lengths . . .
Two days before she finished her junior year of high school, Allison sent me a text message saying she wanted to move again. Allison told me she was fed up with the name-calling and harassment she encountered every day at the high school, and the only solution she could think of was to start all over again somewhere new. She wouldn’t take responsibility for creating those problems, though.
It’s hard to say if I would have moved again; teaching doesn’t allow for quick changes the way other careers might. For college teachers, the hiring season for full-time, tenure-track positions typically begins in October, and ends in March or April of the following year when offers are made and accepted. Because Allison didn’t introduce the topic until the beginning of June, the only teaching jobs I might have been able to get would have been of a temporary, non-benefit-earning semester-long variety.
Not to mention the logistics of selling our current house, so I could buy—or rent—another place to live in the new town.
Additionally, there was the tiny matter of the promise I had made Allison and Tommy when we moved to this town from Wyoming. “I promise I won’t move you again until you are both out of high school.” Tommy was just starting to get comfortable in the high school, as he thought about being a sophomore rather than a freshman. He was just starting to get involved with extra-curricular activities he liked and needed to be comfortable knowing he wouldn’t be starting all over again somewhere else. Allison needed to understand how committed I am when I make a promise.
Instead of moving, I talked to the psychiatrist Allison had been seeing off-and-on (she was diagnosed with ADHD-Combined Type as a child). I asked him to set the ADHD diagnosis aside and run Allison through a new battery of diagnostic tests. After testing in the ninetieth percentile for depression, Allison began a double-pronged regimen of anti-depressant medication and talk-therapy. I spent the summer fighting with Allison about returning to the high school for her senior year rather than going to live with her boyfriend and his family in another town (to be “taken care of” by another family and attend a different high school). I spent the summer driving her from doctor appointment to doctor appointment. I spent the summer trying to enjoy the individuals my seventeen-year-old daughter and fifteen-year-old son had become. I spent the summer bracing myself for the last moments I had to educate and empower my teenage daughter who already had one foot out the door.
Allison wasn’t happy about it, but in August she finally accepted the fact she would be heading back to one last year of high school in our town while living in my house. At seventeen, she was frustrated by the amount of control she felt I had over her life—but wouldn’t get a job, a normal step towards independence.
In the middle of her senior year, Allison celebrated her eighteenth birthday. Being deemed a legal adult changed everything for—and with—Allison. I was unprepared for how hard she was going to push the boundaries. I was shocked and saddened to discover what Allison’s priorities were.
I also learned most of Allison’s communications were by text message, rather than actual, face-to-face conversations.
9. September—Suspended?
I remember Allison’s very first day of school. She was dressed in a pretty pink jumper, a white short-sleeved shirt underneath, white bobby socks, black patent-leather Mary Jane shoes, pigtails—and a nearly empty pink backpack on her shoulders.
I didn’t cry on Allison’s first day of school—and she didn’t either. Both of us were too excited for the adventure of school to begin. Both of us were ready for her to spread her wings, make new friends, and learn about the world.
I nearly cried the first day of her senior year, though. My little girl had grown up into a beautiful young woman, had survived in spite of the odds she seemed to like playing against, and was going to be flying from the nest when the school year ended.
Allison sent me a text message at 1:40 p.m. on September 12, 2011: “I got suspended for the rest of the day. I’m going to have someone take me home.”
At 1:51 p.m., another text message: “I can’t leave without them knowing you said yes.”
When I finally viewed these two messages at two, and called Allison back, she had already left the high school. “Bobby is giving me a ride home,” she reported.
“Okay,” I replied. “I will open the garage door for you.”
“Oh, you’re home?” Allison asked with surprise. “Can I hang out with Bobby for a while? I just need to calm down,” she continued.
“Just come home,” I said with as much patience as I could muster. “I have to go back to work in a few minutes.”
“Well, Bobby just told me he has horses. I want to go see them. Just leave the back door unlocked. I’ll come home after I see his horses.”
I didn’t like this arrangement, but needed to remain calm. I had to go back to work and teach one more class for the day. I had also been working on keeping my blood pressure down. I was trying to keep myself from getting sucked into the drama Allison daily creates.
I headed to the garage, and called the high school principal.
“Hi, it’s Jeanette Lukowski. Can I—”
“Hello! How are you,” the principal cheerily asked.
“Oh, I’m . . .” what? What was I? Frazzled? Frustrated? Fed up? “Allison just called and said she was suspended because of a backpack violation. Can we meet tomorrow morning, the three of us, to figure this out?”
“What do you mean she’s suspended?” he asked. “Did Ms. Winters explain why?”
“No, Allison’s the one who called and told me.”
“Oh, that’s not our policy at all,” Mr. Stewart said. “Let me check with Ms. Winters about what happened, and give you a call back. Is this a good number for you?”
Six minutes later, my phone rang. “Hi, Jeanette, this is Ms. Winters. Allison isn’t suspended. We, in fact, had a really nice talk. She came in crying, was able to calm down, and left the office.”
No one was aware Allison had already left the building.
The first day of the second week of school, and I was already stressing out about Allison’s behavior. How in the world was I going to get through the rest of the school year if this was how it started?
Of equal importance, though, how did Allison leave the building without anyone knowing?
When I was in high school, we had what was called a closed campus. There were two main entrance doors to the school, one at the front, and the other on nearly the opposite end of the school. Both were unlocked in the morning so students could enter. Once the school day began, though, the only door to remain unlocked from the outside was the door near the main office. If students were to enter after school started, they had to stop in the office for an admission slip. If students were to leave the school before the end of the day, they had to stop in the office to sign out. There was one hundred percent accountability for every student, every day, as far as I ever knew. No one could sneak out of the numerous other exit doors without sounding an alarm. They were emergency-exit doors, and they were well monitored.
Is the difference between my high school’s level of security and accountability and Allison’s high school’s apparent lack of security and accountability simply the difference between a high school in Chicago and one in the north woods of Minnesota?
Angry because Allison was able to leave the high school building so easily, and without anyone’s knowledge, I also knew I couldn’t blame the school administrators or staff. Allison was the one I needed to hold accountable.
; 10. October—A New Best Friend
I walked downstairs at 7:00 a.m. to wake Allison up for school the morning of October 26th.
“I have such a huge migraine,” she whispered from her bed. “I was up all night, and only got two hours of sleep.”
“Why were you up all night?” I asked, remaining as calm as I could.
“Daniel called. He wanted to talk, and then I cried for a while.”
Daniel and Allison had been dating for over a year. Allison claimed to have initiated a break-up the week before, but Daniel wouldn’t accept it.
I walked back upstairs, simmering with anger because Allison wouldn’t get out of bed. I had to drive Tommy to school, though, because he had an extra curricular activity for an hour before school.
While Tommy got out of the car at school at 7:25 a.m., I sent a text message to Allison. “I think it’s important for you to go to school the last day of the week.” Even though it was only Wednesday, the kids were going to be home from school Thursday and Friday, due to some district-wide activity slated for the teachers.
Allison’s reply came two minutes later. “So I have to go to school?”
I wanted to throttle her through the phone. Instead, I drove home, and continued getting ready for work. While I didn’t bother going downstairs to try and motivate Allison out of bed anymore, I also didn’t tiptoe through the house.
At 8:15 a.m., I left the still-quiet house for work.
Allison sent me a text message at 10:26 a.m., but I wouldn’t see it until I finished my 11:00 a.m. class. “When is your class over?”
“Which?” I send back to Allison as I walked to the car in the parking lot. In addition to my full-time teaching job, I had another part-time teaching job across town. That class began at 12:30 p.m.
“I don’t know,” her reply began. “I thought I was going to go to school.”
“I thought you were too.”
“I don’t know how to get there?”
Allison began driving with a permit soon after she passed the written test when she was fifteen. I felt it was my duty to provide the children with the money for the classroom instruction portion of driving school, but didn’t want to pay for the mandatory behind-the-wheel instruction needed for anyone seeking their license between sixteen and eighteen. Since we only had the one car—a used 1993 Mitsubishi Expo—Allison could drive with me whenever she asked, but she would never be taking it out alone. Getting their own car, separate auto insurance, and driver’s license before they turned eighteen would be each child’s individual responsibility. One of the many difficult decisions every parent—especially a single parent living without child support—must make for him/herself. Allison wouldn’t get a job, though. Instead, Allison relied on me, and a wide variety of high school friends, to give her rides to and from school.
Just before I left the parking lot, I sent Allison a reply. “Call one of the many people who give you rides home, I guess.”
“No one can come over now, because they are all in class.”
“I am too,” I replied angrily. “On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, this semester.”
Feeling vindicated, as a mother, I resumed the conversation with Allison at 1:25 p.m., when my 12:30 p.m. class was over. “So now I’m free ’til 2:25 p.m.”
I was surprised by Allison’s response a minute later. “I’d still go to school.”
Really? Why? The school day is nearly over.
Or, was Allison only bluffing? Rather than try to figure it out, I sent a reply right away. “Ready then?”
Three minutes later, Allison replied with a simple “Yes.”
“Okay,” I sent back before starting the car. “Grab me an apple, please, and I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
I dropped Allison off at the high school at about 2:00 p.m., and headed back across town to teach one more class at 2:30 p.m.
When I was done with the last class at 3:25 p.m., I sent Allison a text to let her know I was heading back over to the high school to pick her up.
“I’m at the store with Katie.”
For the second time in one day, I wanted to throttle Allison. How could she think it was okay to take off with Katie after school, when she had only been to school for the last hour? According to my parenting rules, Allison’s claim of a headache bad enough to make her miss school was the equivalent of staying home sick. If a child stayed home from school for a sick day, the child didn’t get to leave the house the rest of the day. So where, exactly, did a trip to the mall with her girlfriend fit into the equation? Rather than explode at Allison through the phone, I sent her a very simple text message at 3:30 p.m.: “Oh!”
“I talked to Mrs. Klein,” Allison sent at 3:35 p.m.
I guess I was supposed to forgive the trip to the mall because Allison talked to one of her many teachers in the hour she attended school.
On Halloween, the kids returned to school after their five-day weekend. I got done with class at 3:25 p.m., and sent Allison the daily text message about being on my way to pick her up from the high school.
When I got to the high school fifteen minutes later, and didn’t see Allison, I called her phone.
“Oh,” Allison answered, focusing her reply to the message of my text. “Katie and I are going to get some food, and then hang out at the mall. I should be home at like 6:00 p.m.”
I was hearing about Katie for the second time in five days. I realized Katie must have a car. Katie must be Allison’s new best friend.
By 6:35 p.m., when Allison still wasn’t home from school, I called her again. “Oh, we’re over at the college, passing out Halloween candy. I’ll be home around nine,” Allison coolly purred into the phone.
I didn’t like the inconsiderate way Allison was treating me. I didn’t like the fact she was once again missing dinner. Tommy, Allison, and I might be a small family, but having dinner together as a family had always been important to me.
I was also annoyed because Allison had said she didn’t want to go to college next year—yet she was spending so much time over there hanging out, using the Internet in the campus library, and now passing out candy to trick-or-treaters. Instead of going to college next year, Allison was planning to move back to the town in Wyoming she (and Tommy) talked me into moving away from between her eighth and ninth grades. She planned on living with Carl, the first boy she kissed at twelve. Carl was the first boy she tells people she had sex with at thirteen, the young man of nineteen who had a child by another young woman a year or two earlier. According to Allison, Carl was going to let her live in his home and give her a car to drive around, in exchange for cooking and cleaning.
My mother pushed me to go to college. I turned eighteen a few weeks before I was dropped off at a small Lutheran college in southern Minnesota. It was a long drive, but I agreed to it because I didn’t see any difference between an empty apartment in Chicago and a college dorm in Minnesota.
The only time my dad ever said he was proud of me, it was written in a letter my mother sent to me at that college. One line, added to the end of a letter my mother had written to me, and then carried with her to the nursing home. One line, received too late in my life.
Before cell phones, I couldn’t afford long distance phone calls to friends for support, so I withered.
Without a constant flow of return letters from Hans, addressing any of the topics I had written to him about, I shriveled.
Without any place in town to walk to after six o’clock at night, I died.
I spent one semester at the school in southern Minnesota before I returned home. My mom had me attending a community college downtown days later.
A similar pattern occurred the next year, but this time it was my sister’s Alma Mater in southern South Dakota. A bigger school, I had hope—until my roommate hated me. Was it because I had a job at t
he campus library, mandating I be an early-riser compared to her night-owl nature? Or was it because I wasn’t the same type of person she had heard my sister was?
Once again, I was headed back to the downtown college in Chicago after a January return home.
I finally got my mom to hear me say I didn’t want her running my life when I got married to Frank. We eloped to city hall two days after my twenty-first birthday—and spent the first several years of our marriage tied to a military base in northwestern West Germany.
I didn’t return to college until after we moved to Minnesota in 1991. I paid a bit more money for tuition, but I was fully committed to the effort a college education demands. And I went on to earn three different degrees by 2011.
I wanted Allison to go to college, but I knew better than to push her. But, to go back to Wyoming to live with Carl?
11. November—Wedding Talk
I was excited when Allison sent me a mid-day text message from school that said: “December 6 is cap and gown ordering day.”
Hours later, I was cringing.
Allison and I were home together watching something on television when a commercial came on for a new collection of wedding rings at a jewelry store.
“Oh, I love that ring!” Allison gushed.
I wanted to tell her there would be plenty of other rings on television commercials before she needed to be picking one out, but wisely kept the thought to myself.
Shortly after eight-thirty, out of left field, Allison said, “So I told Carl about the wedding ring I saw. I told him that’s the one I want.”
Again, I held my tongue. How could she be thinking—and talking—about wedding rings with a boy she hadn’t seen in over three years?
Tarnished Dreams Page 7
