I don’t know when I realized Allison moved out—she had been staying at Katie’s house so much of January, threatening me with moving out every time I said something she didn’t like, and sending me text messages I didn’t always understand, like the one about not being able to stay at Charlene’s anymore—but by the morning of February 8th I began reconciling myself to Allison’s behavior. The text message I sent to my two closest friends read: “Maybe her moving out is a good sign, as it means she can’t manipulate me.”
My subconscious recognized the manipulation before my conscious was willing to accept it, because I remember the word coming out of my mouth while speaking to Officer Richards in April of 2009. I wanted to dismiss the possibility, because no parent wants to believe their own child is capable, much less willing to intentionally manipulate them. By this point, though, I realized I needed to love myself as much as I loved Allison. If Allison was so willing to hurt me, I needed to protect myself from her attacks to my emotions and fears. If Allison wanted to live somewhere else, I needed to let her go.
My friend Sara sent back the quickest response. “So true,” her message began. “Though I think she will forever manipulate you and anyone around her. That’s part of who she is.”
Part of who she is. In her D.N.A. Hard-wired, not learned. Nature, not Nurture. Allison got this part from her dad. Frank is a master manipulator. That’s why I was convinced to marry him so many years ago, how he was able to trick the system into giving him a reduction in child support every time he asked—money he never intends to pay—why he’d been bouncing from apartment to apartment (and roommate to roommate) since he moved out of our home in 1997. It was all just part of who Allison was.
Lindsey’s reply came next. “I think that would be a positive thing if she couldn’t manipulate you. She also needed to know what moving out and not having mom to pick up the pieces and buy things is like.”
On the drive to the high school that morning, I told Tommy how important he would be to me in the later years, “when we’re all old.”
“It will be important for you to point out things, like when you think Allison is manipulating me, because she will. It will be, ‘Mom, I need some money for . . . ,’ or ‘Mom, I really need somewhere to stay . . . ,’ ‘Mom, if only you could co-sign for . . . ,’ or ‘Mom, we just need to borrow . . .’ I’ll need you to point out those things, because I’ll want to help her. I’ll want to think this time it’ll be different. I’ll end up getting sucked back in, because I love her. So, you’ll be there to tell me things, to remind me of how many other times, to take care of me, just like I’m now taking care of Grandma, okay?”
Tommy sat in silence until we got to the high school. “I love you, Mom,” he said as he got out of the car.
I didn’t mean to burden my sixteen-year-old son so early in the morning, but I was feeling too alone and vulnerable again.
Two hours after I dropped Tommy off at school, Lindsey sent another text: “Hang tough, my friend.”
“Thanks,” I sent back. “It’s obviously hard. I walk around like a zombie most days—and function even less than that on non-work days.”
“Time to focus on you,” came Lindsey’s response.
Great advice, but how? How do I focus on me, all of the sudden, when the past fifteen years of my life have been almost exclusively focused on my role as a single mother, and taking care of my two children? I lost track of myself along the way.
After work, I headed home. The house was empty. Tommy had another after-school practice. I decided I needed a project on which to focus my time and energy. But, what kind of project?
I could work on my taxes . . .
I decided to tackle Allison’s room instead. Before she came home again, and started packing up or throwing everything out, I wanted to look for clues to help me figure out what she was doing, and how she was thinking. Clues I found in her room helped so much when she ran away in 2009.
Once again, I found more than I wanted to see. First, there was the empty pop can in the back of her closet. All of the times she told me Tommy was stealing my pop, it might have been Allison. Once I removed the pop can, I spotted the empty alcohol bottle. Another one of the hard lemonades I suspected were missing from the six-pack container above the refrigerator. Another of Allison’s lies. She claimed Tommy was stealing those as well.
The information in her discarded notebooks was more difficult, though. One was from Wyoming, and revealed the sexually focused thoughts she had about two different boys she went to school with. Allison had been friends with each boy’s sister. She had questioned the bi-sexuality of one boy, and contemplated the penis size of the other. These were not thoughts I remember having as a twelve- or thirteen-year-old girl. For reasons I may never understand, Allison was already focused on sex as a “tween.”
I wanted to cry.
I wanted to throw up.
I went back upstairs.
I remember being called a prude when I was a teenager. Boys in the neighborhood wanted to find dark corners in alleys. Kissing them was fine, but when they wanted more . . . I heard the taunts as I walked away.
I heard the taunts repeatedly, for days and weeks after, until I learned to re-route the paths I took to the store, home from school, or to the bus stop.
I couldn’t understand why “saving yourself” was viewed in such opposite ways. My Lutheran school upbringing told us to reserve it for the sanctity of marriage. My dad called me a slut because he caught me kissing my boyfriend good-bye on the back porch one day. Kids in my neighborhood called me a prude because I wouldn’t let them touch me anywhere under my clothes.
February 11th, I woke up to discover a text Allison sent me after I turned off my phone the night before. “Can I come by tomorrow for my towel?”
“Which towel?” I sent back after reading the message. “Want me to put it out for you, in case we are running errands?”
“Well, I made a little list,” Allison replied. “Like I need my towel, and a dishcloth to wash dishes with, and body wash.”
“Run over now?” I offered.
“Okay. It’ll have to be a kind of quick drop in, because the car doesn’t have heat.”
Oh, my goodness. What kind of life have you created for yourself, Allison? You are with someone who drives a car without heat, and you are coming home to get supplies for living somewhere else? I just don’t understand.
When I opened the door, I discovered a disheveled, yet-to-shower young woman who faintly resembled my daughter. The smell of stale cigarette smoke had become a part of her clothing and hair.
Allison introduced Kaleb, “one of the roommates,” and then proceeded to run through all of the things they were missing in “their” apartment. I kind of felt like I had walked into a movie halfway through the screening—but just listened, and tried to act supportive of Allison’s new phase of rebellion. I was confused by their relationship, though. Allison kept explaining how Kaleb was just one of her two roommates, but he kept calling her “babe.” According to Allison, the other roommate was someone who worked in North Dakota’s oil industry during the week, only returning to the apartment on weekends. The oil worker was the one whose name was on the lease—Kaleb the other official tenant—and Allison was Kaleb’s free-loading, live-in girlfriend?
In spite of how I felt about the situation, I was polite to the young man. When he first walked in the house, and Allison introduced him, I stuck my right hand out for a handshake before he did. Then, when he complimented me for having “a nice house,” I said something about how it had been a difficult road, and thanked him. Small talk with a stranger is difficult enough for me; small talk with my teenage daughter’s less-than-impressive new friend was even more challenging. But I did it for Allison’s sake. I wanted her to be pleased with my efforts, if nothing else.
The day Frank moved out of ou
r home to his apartment across town, he had friends from work come to help him load the truck. I would have left with the kids for the day, but needed to make sure Frank and his friends didn’t take more than Frank and I had agreed he was taking.
My mom told me to be nice and friendly to Frank’s friends that day. I didn’t think it mattered how I acted.
“Well, you don’t know what Frank has been saying about you,” my mother explained. “Show them you’re nice and friendly. Show them the stuff Frank says about you isn’t true.”
After seeing the way Allison looked, seeing Kaleb and his car without heat, and hearing about the apartment Allison was sharing with two guys, my steely resolve melted. By the time they left, I had packed: 1) the framed picture of Allison, Tommy, and me Allison had requested several days earlier, 2) two bath towels, two hand towels, and two washcloths, 3) several bottles of shower gels from the AVON stock I had in the basement, 4) several dishcloths, 5) four frozen pizzas from the freezer, 5) ten plastic garbage bags and twist ties, 6) two kitchen towels, 7) Allison’s blanket, 8) an old kitchen sink dish drying rack from the basement, 9) a pair of scissors, 10) Allison’s boxes of contact lenses from the linen closet, 11) some of her movies from the living room, since they didn’t have cable, 12) half a gallon of milk from the refrigerator, and both the chocolate and strawberry Quik canisters from the cupboard, and 13) a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a jar of jelly. The additional food items were my suggestion, after Allison moaned about not having anything to eat—and having no money to buy any food until “Monday?” she asked Kaleb.
The afternoon brought more text messages, asking for more things: a cookie sheet for cooking the pizzas, a dust pan for sweeping up the kitchen floor mess. Part of me wanted to give Allison things to help her survive. Another part of me, though, knew I shouldn’t make moving out too easy for her. Helping a child set up a first apartment after college, great. Helping a child set up a first apartment after high school graduation, rather than going to college and living in the dorm, all right. But help her set up an apartment she’s run to in the middle of her senior year in high school, because she’s mad at me? The idea seemed preposterous.
I also wanted to be cautious about the items I let Allison take with her—because I figured they would get left behind when she changed her mind.
After Frank and I eloped, we lived in a weird in-between-ness.
The first two nights, I was house-sitting for my boss. She and her husband were gone on a trip somewhere, and they had a brand new puppy in the basement. It was like our honeymoon, living in someone else’s house together that weekend.
I remember going back to my mom’s apartment, but she wouldn’t let Frank stay. She was angry about our elopement. I didn’t understand it at the time, but I also couldn’t imagine welcoming Allison and a husband into my house with open arms any more than my mother was willing to embrace Frank as her son-in-law.
Frank’s dad let us stay together in his house. We slept in the living room, on the sofa sleeper for a week, until Frank shipped out to basic training.
I returned to my mother’s apartment when Frank went to Texas—then Oklahoma—then West Germany.
Allison sent me a text message at 6:30 p.m. on February 13th: “What is the correct way to say, ‘He won’t know. Not if I tell him.’”
“If I don’t tell,” was all I sent back.
Who is she talking to? And what doesn’t she want to tell whom?
When she and Kaleb had been over, she asked to see her broken phone; she wanted to get Carl’s phone number out. She managed to get Carl’s sister’s number, but not Carl’s before the phone died again.
Has Allison been talking to Carl’s sister, and now wants to keep the details of her new living situation from Carl?
How many lies is Allison creating for herself, and how many people is she hurting with those lies along the way?
Three hours later, a lengthier text from Allison—totally out of the blue. “Vic Richards was busted for drugs and alcohol last year. That’s why he was working the court house last year, ’cause he was on probation and wasn’t allowed to drive his police car. His daughter is in Georgia ’cause her step dad was molesting her.”
Vic Richards was the policeman I developed a crush for when Allison ran away in April 2009. I had only seen him once since then: March 1st, the day Allison was arraigned on felony charges.
I stared at the message.
I paced through the house.
I read the message again.
I knew I had to respond to Allison but didn’t know what to say.
My first thought was, Damn, Allison, how did you hear this shit? Do you just ask everyone for any information about him, or what?
My second was, Damn, Allison, why are you bringing him up now? I haven’t talked to you about him in a long time.
My third, Damn, Allison. Why do you want to hurt me? Here I’ve been so nice to you, giving you all this stuff out of my house, and this is how you repay my kindness?
My fourth, Happy fucking Valentine’s Day to you, too, Allison! Damn. You’re quite the . . .
After ten minutes of riding the emotional waves coursing through my body, I sent back a simple, “Whoa!” in reply.
Then I walked down the hall to Tommy’s bedroom, to show him the text message. Holding back the tears threatening to spill out, I simply approached him lying on his bed playing his video game, handed him my phone, and left the room.
Tommy sent Allison a text message from his phone. I never saw it, but he told me enough about it to make me feel bad for Allison. I hadn’t meant for Tommy to lash back at Allison. I had wanted a hug. I had wanted someone to comfort me for another broken dream.
Five minutes later, I reached out to my girlfriends. I should have started with them, rather than Tommy, but didn’t want people making fun of me for foolishly hanging onto a fantasy so long. “Okay, totally out of the blue,” my text message began, “Allison sends me a text message I’m going to forward. Tommy says it’s bullshit. I’m stunned either way.”
Stunned if it was true, stunned if it was just a story my daughter made up to torment me.
Ever focused Lindsey responded within two minutes. “If he was busted, it should be public record.”
“What the fuck is her motive, though?” I sent back to Lindsey. “She’s out,” as in, I had let her go. She didn’t need to torment me for saying “No” to her anymore, since she had already left my house and was free of my rules.
Allison sent me another text, fifty minutes after the one about Officer Richards. “You taught my friend Jake Weber.”
It took me a few minutes to adjust to the whiplash change in focus.
How was she friends with guys five minutes after meeting them? And why were none of these new friends ever girls?
I think I hung onto the fantasy of Vic Richards because it felt better to have something than nothing. Popular songs abound with the lyrics like, “I’d rather feel pain than nothing at all,” so I knew the feeling was not uniquely mine.
But did I want to delve into his private life—even if the details were public record? My mom drilled the concept of privacy into my head on a daily basis. I spent much of my life in silence, becoming an easy victim to anyone who chose to manipulate my fears of exposure. If Allison was indeed reporting facts, she knew it would kill the dream in my head. My children knew I couldn’t be involved with a drug addict again, considering what Frank dragged me through. So, what was Allison hoping to gain?
February 19th, Allison sent a text asking to do laundry.
I sent the reply, “Tommy is showering, then I drop him off. Should I swing by and pick you up after that?”
Allison sent a quick “Sure” back.
I was going to see where she was living. Although she told me the directions once before, she called m
e on my cell phone while I was dropping Tommy off. I appreciated the gesture, and let her explain it all to me as though it was the first time.
When I got there, I sent a simple “Here?” text message. Allison came out of one of the building’s many doors, laughing at my nervousness, carrying a plastic garbage bag of dirty clothes.
“You’re so funny,” Allison said by way of a greeting as she climbed into the car.
“Well, I wasn’t sure I was at the right door” I said brightly, in my defense.
I pulled into the garage at home, and Allison jumped out of the car—leaving her bag of laundry in the car—the same way she has jumped out of the car her whole life.
“Uhm, don’t forget your laundry,” I said, grabbing the bag of water softener salt I had purchased on my way to pick up Allison.
She giggled, and followed me into the house.
We ate while the clothes washed. That’s also when Allison pulled out the photo albums.
Allison: “I will want to get copies of some of these when I go, like away, like, to another state.”
Me: “What do you mean? What state? What are your long term plans?”
Allison: “Oh, I don’t know. Wyoming, or Texas, or great-grandma’s town.”
Me: “Ah. Just going by yourself, then?”
Allison: “Well, if I go to Wyoming, I’ll stay with Carl. But the other places . . . I don’t know.”
Me: “Mmmm.”
Allison: “Oh, guess who called the other day?”
Me: “I don’t know, dear. Who?”
Allison: “Dad.”
Me: “Oh!”
Allison: “Yeah. The first thing he said was, ‘So, you’re not living at home anymore, huh?’”
Me: “I wonder how he even heard. It’s not like it’s a big secret or anything, but I haven’t even told anyone.”
Tarnished Dreams Page 13
