Tarnished Dreams

by Jeanette Lukowski

  Allison finally broke away from the staring contest, and I woke Tommy up for school.

  Allison asked for the doctor’s phone number at 12:30 p.m. I wanted to ask what she needed to speak with the doctor about, but didn’t think I’d get a straight answer. Like the fabled boy who cried wolf, Allison’s reputation for story-telling could no longer be denied. I sent a text message back with the doctor’s phone number an hour later—when I read the text message requesting it.

  The first time someone labeled Allison a story-teller, I was sitting in the back of the courtroom. I had been subpoenaed to testify as a witness for both the prosecution and the defense in Allison’s first court case: Gregory’s father was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

  Based on testimony Allison gave to Officer Richards April 25, 2009, Gregory’s father provided Allison with both a ride to the bus station in town, and twenty-five dollars traveling money. The police officer who questioned Gregory’s father was testifying. We got to hear a tape recording of the conversation the officer had with Gregory’s father. “She’s always telling stories. Everyone knows it! Greg knows it, Kale knows it—everyone knows it.”

  If you knew she was such a storyteller, I wanted to scream, why in the hell did you believe the line she fed you?

  I wanted to scream, but the district attorney handling the case advised Allison and me to remain stoic if we were going to sit in the courtroom. I did what the district attorney said. For two days of court proceedings, I kept my head down. I listened to a tape recording of a grown man who didn’t question a fifteen-year-old girl’s statement about being in the witness protection program—a fifteen-year-old girl who left school in the middle of the day, on a Friday in April, spent two hours watching a movie with his son, in the boy’s bedroom, then needed a ride another four miles to the commercial bus station in town. If Allison were really in witness protection, wouldn’t the police have picked her up from the school themselves? Wouldn’t the police have kept her in protective custody until she left town? Wouldn’t her mother be leaving with her?

  I couldn’t scream across the court room, but I screamed onto the yellow pad of paper I carried into court with me each morning. Every lie Gregory told to the jury, every accusation the defense attorney made about how “the mother knew about Allison’s Internet behavior, the mother knew about . . . the mother paid for the cell phone Allison used to . . . ,” every time a juror looked at me with a scowl of disapproval.

  No one in court room knew me, as we had only been living in town a little more than a year, but they were all willing to pass judgment on me as a mother. Allison was cute, standing just a bit taller than five feet, and spoke with a soft, demure little voice.

  I received a text message from Allison at 2:12 p.m. “Hi, Allison’s mom,” the text message began. I raced through the rest of the message. I wanted to know who had her phone, and why. “This is Katie. I am wondering if I can drop friends off at your house. After school for a bit while I work out. And if you can excuse Allison from choir. She fell in the bathroom and landed on her knee and is in extreme pain—she is screaming and crying so I’m gonna [sic] bring her home so she can nap. I’ll have her home before 3:30.”

  Rather than deal with Katie, I pressed the “Call” option on my phone.

  Allison wouldn’t answer. She was forcing me to send a text message reply. “Just bring her to the house.”

  “We’re already out at my house,” the reply read.

  With gritted teeth and shaking hands, I sent a terse response. “Then give me directions please.”

  Katie called and gave me directions to her house. By the time she called, I was already in the car, out of the garage, and pulling away from my driveway. I was going to take Allison straight to the doctor. I wanted the game to end. Rather than a general practitioner, we were going to a bone and joint specialist.

  In the doctor’s office, the performance escalated.

  “Allison,” the doctor began, “point and show me where it hurts.”

  She pointed.

  “Allison, how does it feel when I do thi—”

  “Ooooowww,” the howl of pain began. A second later, the tears appeared as well.

  “It hurts when I do that?” the doctor asked in disbelief.

  “Yeeeeees,” she moaned from the table.

  “Okay, how about if I touch it he—”

  “Ooooowww” again, in response to the doctor’s touch.

  “Okay, Allison, I want you to step down and walk for me, please.”

  “I can’t,” she moaned.

  “I need you to, Allison. Just from here to the door. That’s not very far.”

  “I caaaaaan’t.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  Allison hobbled the three feet, turned around, and hobbled back.

  “Okay, now I want you to squat as far as you can.”

  “I caaaaaan’t.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  Whether she could or couldn’t, she wouldn’t.

  “How did you say you hurt your knee again?”

  “I was walking, and then went running.”

  “Why would you run if your knee was already hurting from walking?”

  Allison shrugged her shoulders.

  Finally, the doctor turned to me. “I think this has gone to a level where there is more pain being generated (pointing to the side of his head) than is actually due to the injury.

  “I recommend physical therapy, to loosen the muscle stretching across the front of the knee. We could do an M.R.I., but it’s not really going to show us anything, so I don’t see a point. It’s up to you, though, if you want an M.R.I. or not.”

  I didn’t see the point in one either, just as I never saw the point for the extended wearing of the knee brace, or the use of crutches. The only reason we were visiting the doctor was because I wanted an answer: did Allison really hurt her knee, or was she milking a fake injury for attention?

  Before we left his office, the doctor gave me a sixteen-page packet of information describing “Patellofemoral Knee Pain.” The first page described what it was, symptoms, and treatment. The other fifteen pages were full of exercises and their corresponding illustrations. We were also referred to a physical therapy office for further treatment, and asked to set up a follow-up visit with him in two weeks.

  I injured my right knee in high school. I like to joke with students, telling them it is my old football-knee, but I really did hurt it playing football. Street football. With boys from my neighborhood.

  Days after I bashed my knee into the side of a parked car, it still hurt, and was red and swollen. I told the school nurse about it, but I don’t know if I mentioned it to my mom or not. She was always gone, working her three jobs, and visiting my dad in the nursing home. I didn’t want to add to her already heavy load.

  Besides, she wouldn’t have taken me to the doctor. I had been going to the doctor, and the dentist, pretty much since I was old enough to navigate my way there. Like when I chipped my front tooth in fourth grade; I walked the two blocks from the school to the dentist by myself, because my mom was working.

  We got home from the doctor’s office about four, and Allison slipped out the front door while I was starting a load of laundry. This time, Allison at least sent me a text message—from Katie’s car—explaining she would be home in an “hour, hour and a half.”

  As I got ready for bed, Allison came into my room and sat on the edge of my bed. “By the way, I’m not going to Wyoming anymore. Carl has been dating this girl for a while, and he won’t break up with her.”

  “Oh!” was all I could choke out without too much expression.

  “Yeah. But Brent’s going to get an apartment soon, so I’ll go there. It’s closer to you, and everything.”

  I kissed the top of her head, an
d walked to the bathroom to brush my teeth.

  Tommy is usually more forgiving of Allison’s behavior than I am, so I was surprised by his anger the morning of April 17th.

  “I’m going to kill Allison,” Tommy yelled as we drove home after school. “Do you know what she did today? She told Claire about all of the stuff I said to you last night, when Claire and I were fighting.”

  Why would Allison do that? Was Allison hoping to make Claire hate Tommy? Or, was Allison hoping to gain some dirt on Tommy she could bring back home to me? I’m not manipulative, so I don’t understand the intentions behind a manipulator’s actions.

  During the summer of 2013, I noticed the wedge Allison was trying to drive between Tommy and me. She was angry with me because I wouldn’t let her move back into the house, jealous of the attention Tommy was finally getting in her absence.

  “So Tommy is thinking about moving to California, huh?” she cooed one day in June, after talking with Tommy the day before. “What are you going to do then, Mom?”

  “I guess I’m going to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life, just like you and Tommy are doing.”

  State testing for Tommy the morning of April 18th. Allison was a senior, so she slept in.

  Just before eleven, Allison sent me a disturbing text message. “By the way, the bottle on the living room floor was found open downstairs. I forgot to dump it out and just remembered I left it in the living room by the stairs. I left in a rush this morning.”

  What bottle? Bottle of what? Did you bring more alcohol home, and you’re now trying to make up an excuse for it being in the house because I will be home before you can remove it?

  Allison purposely avoided answering any of my questions. I had to wait to see for myself when I got home.

  Her trail wasn’t hard to follow. Although fairly innocent, the bottle of sour cherry pop I had been hiding since our vacation to Montana a few years ago lay on the living room floor next to the remote. That bottle had been in the back of my bedroom closet in a brown paper clothing bag. The light was even still on in my bedroom—though it had been turned off when I left for work with Tommy.

  What in the world possessed Allison to go digging in my bedroom closet? She didn’t know about the hidden bottle of sour cherry pop. The two boxes of Girl Scout cookies are still there, the three bags of Easter candy I bought on sale are still there. What had she been after?

  Tommy was staying after school, to hang out with a friend, so I asked Allison when she got into the car. “So tell me, exactly where did you find the bottle?”

  “Downstairs.”

  “You already said that. But exactly where downstairs?”

  “By the piano. The piano was open.”

  Yes, Tommy had been playing the piano for five minutes the night before, when his friend Danny stopped by. They were only downstairs for five minutes. Tommy wouldn’t have had time to dig through the back of my closet with Danny. Tommy wouldn’t have a reason to dig through a brown dress bag in the back of my closet. Tommy didn’t even like cherry-flavored things. And I couldn’t see Danny doing any of those things in the thirty minutes he stopped over to listen to music with Tommy in Tommy’s bedroom.

  Was this how violated Allison felt when I searched her bedroom? I didn’t enjoy searching the children’s rooms, but sometimes it felt necessary. I also conducted the searches as a parent, a parent trying to protect her underage children from themselves.

  Ironically, most of the contraband I found over the years had been in rather plain sight: the alcohol bottles Allison left between her bed and the wall (discovered while straightening her bed), the bottles in her closet, right inside the door (discovered while hanging up clothes), or in dresser drawers (discovered while folding and putting away her clothes). Or the pack of cigarettes that fell out of a jacket pocket as I removed said jacket from the back of the dining room chair. The digital camera left on the corner of the living room coffee table the night before, and the chewing tobacco tin sitting on the top of her purse when it wasn’t visible in her left back blue jean’s pocket.

  I wanted to know what Allison was doing digging through my bedroom closet in the first place.

  I wondered if I would be able to trust her to stay at home by herself ever again.

  Allison got home from school about six-thirty, then asked to go out with Clint about eight. She left without her purse, and came home an hour later. I didn’t ask what only took an hour. I didn’t want to hear another lie.

  Allison came out of the bathroom the morning of April 20th, and gave me a glimmer of hope. “Matt’s just the nicest boy,” she said. “I really like him.”

  I kind of liked him too.

  “He said last night he’s kind of thinking about a relationship, but I’m so nervous. I mean, he’s got his whole life all planned out, and he’s so nice—I don’t want to drag him down.”

  Wow! Allison is finally putting someone else’s life and needs in front of her own? Can this be a genuine thought, or is she just setting up her next con?

  Allison came home about six-thirty. The boy who gave her a ride followed her to the front door but turned and headed back to his pick-up truck when he saw me through the glass. Guess I ruined his plans?

  “So I stopped and got another job application,” Allison an­nounced as she walked in the door.

  I was pleased with the effort of at least picking one up, and told her.

  Fifteen minutes later, Allison brought a plate of food to the dining room table where I was paying bills, and sat down to eat and talk.

  “By the way,” I cautiously began, “you got a piece of mail from the [local] college today. It’s marked ‘Urgent’ or some such—”

  Allison picked it up before I could finish the sentence.

  She pulled out the contents, unfolded the letter, and told me it was something about registering for fall classes. “Maybe I’ll take a class or two in fall,” she said.

  I almost fell off my chair, I was so surprised.

  “I could take a class or two,” Allison continued, “while I work, and stay here . . .” she drifted off.

  I was almost too nervous about saying the wrong thing that I couldn’t say anything at all.

  “Oh, but it requires a check for thirty dollars.” Allison set down the paperwork, and resumed eating.

  “I will be happy to pay for it.”

  “Oh! Okay.” Allison picked the paperwork back up, and began filling it out.

  At the beginning of the school year, Allison asked me to pick up an application for the local college. “Gwen is going to apply there.”

  “You could too, honey.”

  A few weeks later, Allison asked me to pick up an application for her as well.

  I paid the application fee for both the local college, and the college in Montana. Allison was accepted to both, but never committed to either.

  April 24th, I dropped Allison off at home after school, then drove Tommy over to the library for some Internet homework time. While I was gone, Allison did some housework.

  Allison did housework?

  I was pleasantly surprised when I got home and saw Allison washing the separate pieces from the top of the stove. “I found the de-greaser under the sink,” she announced when I stopped in the doorway between the garage and the kitchen. “It’s working really well on all of this built-up grease!”

  Walking through the kitchen, on my way to the dining room table to set down my purse and car keys, I noticed the vacuum cleaner sitting in the living room. “I vacuumed too,” Allison announced from the kitchen sink. “And when I get done with the dishes, we can work on the graduation announcements.”

  What came over Allison all of the sudden?

  More importantly, perhaps, what was Allison going to want as payback for all of her sudden help around the
house?

  April 27th, Allison and I attended the course registration day at the college. It came as a surprise, but I was thrilled Allison finally seemed to be focusing on her future in such a positive way. By the time we left the college, she had registered for three classes/nine college credits.

  Walking to the car, Allison asked to go to Josh’s baseball game.

  Who’s Josh? And why do you want to go to his game, when you never wanted to go to your brother’s games?

  On our drive home, she asked for “a couple of dollars, so Charlene and I can get a couple frozen pizzas tonight.”

  “Oh! Can I just buy you a couple of pizzas at the store?”

  “For me and Charlene? But, I’m not going there until after Josh’s game. Remember, I told you a couple of days ago I was going to spend the night with Charlene, because Katie isn’t talking to me anymore. She’s too busy with Ron lately.”

  I didn’t want to argue. I was so happy about her registering for college classes, I wanted to continue acknowledging the grown-up she bordered on being. I handed her a five-dollar bill as we pulled into the garage, watched her pack her weekend bag, drove her back over to Josh’s game, and watched her put her bag and extra boots into the back of Ryan’s pickup truck before climbing into the passenger seat herself.

  In hindsight, it’s easy to see the manipulation. At the time, I just saw my actions as being caring and supportive.