Tarnished Dreams

by Jeanette Lukowski

  Two hours later, Allison and I were sitting in the waiting room of the doctor’s office. Allison had a one o’clock appointment. I leaned toward her and quietly said, “I’ve taken all of the candy out of my closet, now, so please stop looking for any more.”

  “Well, then you can just stop digging through my stuff, too.”

  “But it’s different, dear, because I’m the parent.”

  The best storytellers, it turns out, are pretty good manipulators—of both their audience and reality. Some stories are created to cover up an ugly truth we feel unable to face, some are woven together in an attempt to heal something important that has been torn from the very seams of our existence. Some stories are told to patch a spot worn through from overuse, while others are told to build a bridge of peace and healing after the path becomes too worn down or a foundation crumbles into dust.

  Should we stop telling stories? Or, is the problem located within the kinds of stories we tell, when we tell them, why we tell them, and to whom we tell them?

  Allison believes herself to be a masterfully skilled storyteller. Equipped with an almost uncanny ability to alter her own reality through words, which version of her history will you trust? The profile contained within her school’s “permanent file,” the sealed court documents only a handful of people are allowed to see because she was a minor at the time it all took place, the memories her mother retains, or the sentences she forms for you in her texts, emails, and telephone calls? She figured out the power of tears when she was very young, and uses them now to get what she wants—even if the only thing she wants is for you to believe her latest story.

  May 11th, I filled out the rest of Allison’s financial aid paperwork. Would she go to college in the fall? Would she get a job soon? Would she move out the day after graduation?

  I decided to lightly snoop through Allison’s bedroom again. I still hadn’t located the last bag of Easter candy that disappeared from my bedroom closet, and was curious about her new hiding place. What I didn’t expect to find were two prescription pill bottles next to the opened bag of Easter candy.

  Both prescription bottles were for the same person—but not a name I recognized. One bottle had one pill; the other had five or six of what appeared to be the same pills, but the medication names on the labels were different.

  I was once again traumatized by my conflicting thoughts.

  1) I wanted to get rid of the pill bottles, and their contents, but knew that simple removal wouldn’t put an end to anything—just as removing the vibrators didn’t automatically end the sending of photographs.

  2) I wanted to take my bag of candy out, so Allison knew I had found her hiding spot, but felt it would be irresponsible to leave the bottles with someone else’s prescription medication behind.

  3) I wanted to confront Allison with the bottles, or at least my knowledge of them, but suspected she would just make up another lie about what they were and why she had them.

  4) I knew I didn’t want to get too involved anymore, because I was still trying to get over the shame of Allison’s earlier crimes.

  5) I knew I needed time to think.

  Allison came out of school first, claiming the front passenger seat. Tommy was forced into the back seat, as usual. Driving away from the school, Tommy began talking about an argument he was having with one of his better friends. “I don’t understand what his problem is,” Tommy groaned.

  “Well, I talked to him like just a minute ago,” Allison began, “and he said . . .”

  Tommy’s anger was re-ignited by Allison’s comments, and launched into a re-telling of the entire encounter. Tommy thought he was safe, talking in the car to his mom and sister. Tommy didn’t see Allison furiously texting someone each time Tommy finished a sentence.

  Tommy hadn’t learned after the fight with Claire—but I was too worried about the pill issue to remind him.

  Separating the kids was the best plan, at that point. I dropped Allison off at home, then told Tommy to get back in the car with me. He reluctantly obeyed, not understanding it was in his best interest. We drove around town for a bit, talked, and Tommy calmed down. Eventually, I dropped him off at a friend’s house, to play video games and hang out with other boys for a while.

  Allison was swinging in the back yard when I got home. I quietly walked down to her room, and removed the prescription bottles.

  By May 12th, the two-weeks-until-Allison’s-graduation-party clock started up, so the kids and I took the three-hour drive to a big city. During the drive, I worked through menu-planning while Allison took notes and made shopping lists. She also made plans to visit Brent.

  On our drive back home, Allison updated me. “Brent said he’s going to mail my purse on Monday.”

  “Oh,” was all I allowed myself to say.

  “Yeah, he said he knows I won’t stop bugging him about it until I get it, and I told him he’s right.”

  The next morning was Mother’s Day. I admit I have pretty low expectations for Mother’s Day. Most years, I listened to the kids rattle around in the kitchen, fighting about who was making what for my Mother’s Day special breakfast. Most years, I got breakfast, a homemade card, and a special necklace or other craft project they created in school.

  Allison got out of bed for church pretty quickly that morning. I was surprised, because we only got home after eleven the night before, and she hadn’t gotten up for church in more than a month—but our church was having a special senior recognition service for the high schoolers of the congregation, and Allison loved attention.

  Tommy, on the other hand, wouldn’t get out of bed. He was so angry at Allison all the time, he wanted no part of the service.

  As we were walking out of church, Allison said, “I was going to make you something special for Mother’s Day last night, but we got home so late. Should I make you some scrambled eggs when we get home?”

  “No, I’m not really in the mood for breakfast. You could make me lunch!”

  “Oh, okay,” Allison proceeded, undaunted. “What would you like for lunch?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s see what we have when we get home.”

  “I’ll make you a grilled cheese sandwich,” Allison said, as though she hadn’t heard my wait-and-see comment.

  “All right, grilled cheese on the rye bread we bought yesterday.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Allison said cheerily.

  Allison made me a card and a grilled cheese sandwich.

  Two hours later, I discovered she posted an update to her social networking site: “Made my mom a card, and a grilled cheese sandwich—I’m awesome!”

  By dinnertime, I was the only one still honoring the day. I made a standard meat, starch, and vegetable dinner, with a fresh rhubarb crisp from the oven for dessert, and set the table. Sadly, no one had washed the dishes from breakfast or lunch. We had to use fancier-than-normal dishes for dinner, because they were the only ones clean.

  No one spoke a single word at the table. Tommy’s cell phone sat on the table, to the right of his spot, and he looked up at me when it vibrated with an inbound text message. He let it sit there, on the table, until Allison began reading—and responding to—text messages on her phone.

  When Tommy was done eating, he jumped up from the table and returned to the living room to watch television. Allison sat at the table until I told her she could go—but she didn’t clear her plate or glass either.

  I cleared the table, loaded the dishwasher, and headed to my bedroom to read a book.

  About nine, I heard the sound of Allison’s voice coming from the front of the house. Walking over to my bedroom window, I saw her talking to someone in a car. Although it was too dark to see a person, I recognized the car as the one John drove from time to time.

  Allison came in the house fifteen minutes later. I heard her s
ay “Now?” to someone, then heard her go back out the door at 9:22 p.m. This time, I didn’t recognize the truck parked in the driveway. Allison didn’t come back in until 10:42 p.m.

  Happy fucking Mother’s Day.

  Getting ready for school the next morning, I asked Allison about her visitors from the night before. “So, that was John and then Josh last night?”

  “No, John and Ryan,” Allison explained. “John came to get his invitation,” but no explanation was offered for why Ryan came—or stayed so late.

  After school, Allison came home with Tommy and me, stayed home all afternoon, and even invited me to join her for a walk just before six. During the walk, Allison did most of the talking. Her comments ranged from, “My friend was telling me she has my invitation hung up on her refrigerator, and her mom said how pretty I am!” to “I’m sure I’ll be able to make friends at college” to “Grandma lit into me about getting a job the other day.” Allison even talked about a silly conversation she and Ryan had had the night before, in his truck, and explained that he was letting her use his phone to text Josh.

  “Oh, your number is still blocked?”

  “Yeah. His mom said he could hang out with me, but she hasn’t unblocked his phone yet. I guess she’s waiting for him to ask her to unblock it.

  “It was so funny, though,” Allison continued. “While we were sitting in his truck, Ryan totally freaked out about a bug that was sitting on his windshield. It didn’t help that he had the inside light on the whole time. He didn’t want you to think we were doing anything.

  “Anyway, we were sitting there talking, when he noticed this really big moth and started . . .”

  I didn’t find the story as funny as Allison, but enjoyed the company.

  “Then he found a wood tick on his neck,” Allison continued.

  “Wow—good thing it wasn’t a deer tick.”

  “I had a deer tick on me once,” Allison said, turning to watch my facial reaction. “I felt it, though, and was able to get it off in time.”

  I don’t think anyone feels a deer tick, which is what makes them so dangerous. A wood tick, yes, if you’re sensitive to touch. But a deer tick? And, why was this the first time I was hearing about it? If it were true, Allison would have been telling me about it, and showing me both the tick and the spot on her skin for at least a week after she discovered it. This had all the markings of another story.

  Fortunately, several blocks from home, Allison got distracted with a text message from a boy whose house we had just passed. Apparently he had been sitting on his couch, watching television, when he spotted us walking past. “What a creeper!” Allison chuckled. “Benjamin just sent me a text saying, ‘Enjoying your walk? Ha ha ha.’”

  I remembered the name Benjamin, but it had been a while. He graduated from the high school the year before, and attended a college about two hundred miles away. I think Allison visited with him there once—the weekend of the prom dress fight.

  A block later, Allison said, “I told him to come over, but he said it would be awkward, ‘because your mom’s there.’”

  What will be awkward? And if you’re such good friends, and he lives so close, how come I’ve only ever heard of him once before?

  “It would only be awkward if he makes it awkward,” I replied.

  We were only home from our walk for an hour when Allison came bounding up the stairs from the basement. “Benjamin is coming over! I’m so awesome.”

  She went outside to greet him, then brought him in through the front door. The two of them headed downstairs almost immediately.

  An hour and a half later, I sent Allison a text message. “Weather is over—” my shorthand for, “Your friend has to go home now.”

  I was thrilled to see Allison staying home for a second day in a row, but my curiosity as to why was aroused. Rather than ask any questions, I proceeded with my normal routine. When I walked down to her bedroom, though, to ask Allison if she was interested in eating dinner with us, I found her sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bed, listening to the noises coming from her cell phone lying on the bed next to her.

  “It’s not a good time,” she whispered.

  “What?” I whispered back.

  “It’s not a good time. Mandy’s drinking,” she explained, while tipping her right hand up in the way she only does when describing someone drinking alcohol.

  I quietly walked out of Allison’s bedroom, pulled the door shut like I had found it, and walked back upstairs wondering who Mandy was, and why she was drinking on a Tuesday at six.

  Twenty minutes later, Allison came upstairs. “Sorry about that, Mom. Mandy is Josh’s ex-, so I sent him a text message to tell him about her drinking.”

  If Mandy was Josh’s ex-, then why was she on the phone with Allison? Had Allison called Mandy, or had Mandy called Allison? And, just how old was Mandy? Allison was eighteen, Josh was sixteen, and the legal drinking age was twenty-one.

  May 18th was Senior Skip Day. I didn’t expect Allison to wake up, and come upstairs as early as she did—only a little after nine-thirty. When she asked if I knew where her bikini was, though, I lost my cheery attitude. “You know, there are lots of chores that need to be done—” if we’re going to have someone’s graduation party was the rest of the sentence, but I never got the chance to finish.

  “Oh, hush up, Mom,” Allison said in her snippiest voice.

  I did hush up—right out to the garden, where I continued weeding the flower bed I started weeding the day before.

  I stepped back into the house at eleven, to tell her something I thought about while weeding, but the sound of my voice echoed off the empty walls. Walking through the house, I spotted a little white pill on the hallway carpet, next to Allison’s discarded denim shorts. Where did it come from, and what was it for?

  Then I noticed the front door was hanging open. I walked over to shut it, and saw Allison—sitting in the driveway, in Ryan’s truck.

  I threw the mystery pill away. No point in asking Allison in front of Ryan, they would both claim it was his.

  Five minutes later, Josh pulled in next to Ryan. The three kids sat and talked to each other through the open windows of their vehicles for about fifteen minutes, then left to go bridge-jumping. I told her I wished she wouldn’t. I told her she didn’t need to break a leg days before graduation.

  She went bridge-jumping anyway.

  I grew up in Chicago. For me, bridge-jumping means committing suicide.

  For kids who live near bodies of water which bridges traverse, bridge-jumping is apparently a fun part of summer. From what I understand, the kids jump off the ledge of the bridge, landing in the water below, then climb up the bank next to the bridge—to repeat the cycle until exhausted.

  I’d dropped the kids off to bridge-jump, I’d picked the kids up after bridge-jumping. I’d never stayed to watch.

  Saturday, May 19th. A week until the high school graduation ceremony. And after the ceremony, I was going to have a party at my house—with lots of family, and who knew how many of Allison’s friends. My mother had been to our house in this particular town a million times, my sister had been able to make the trip up from Chicago several times, but a graduation party was a new event for me. I’d heard stories from people, about how they had prepared for a graduation party (painting rooms, re-painting the exterior of the house, having carpets cleaned, landscaping the yard), but I couldn’t take on those kinds of projects. I could only cook—and clean.

  I needed to clean the house as though we were getting ready to sell and move.

  I tried to get the children to help me clean, but Allison disappeared while Tommy and I ran to the store for more supplies.

  I spent the day cleaning—by myself.

  Allison complained whenever I found her alcohol and cigarettes, but she would never understand
I mostly found them while doing chores she should have been doing.

  Sunday, May 20th. No one got up to go to church with me.

  I was amazed when I returned home, though. Clean dishes were air-drying in the dish rack, grocery bags with canned goods for the party were neatly lined up against the cabinets (they had been haphazardly unloaded from the trunk the night before). The hanging basket of flowers I brought home right before Mother’s Day was the only thing sitting on the dining room table, and I could hear the sound of both the clothes washer and dryer running.

  I walked down the hall, trying to figure out which child was suddenly so industrious—and discovered Tommy folding clean clothes in my bedroom.

  “Allison’s not up yet,” he said with a smile. “But are you happy with what I’ve done?”

  Happy was an understatement. Thrilled was a bit more accurate, but still felt inadequate. Ecstatic? Too much, perhaps. Ecstatic seemed to suggest “formerly considered impossible.”

  Tommy was waiting for an answer. “Oh, yes, dear,” I simply replied while moving in for a hug. “I’m totally happy. Thank you!”

  Allison came upstairs shortly after ten. Tommy immediately handed her an envelope he unearthed during his cleaning frenzy. Sent from a distant family member, I had been saving the envelope until the graduation party. I suspected it contained money, and had wanted to talk with Allison about money management before I gave it to her. My timeline was sped up thanks to Tommy’s thorough cleaning.

  “Well, Allison, I’m sure you are aware you’re going to be getting a lot of money for graduation, so I suggest you save a lot of it. Even though you pulled all of your money out of your savings account, it’s still open, and you can—”

  “So what,” Allison began in an angry tone of voice. “It’s not like I can just cash this,” she said, holding up the check.

  “No, but you can put it into the bank, and after the check clears, you can pull some out. I suggest you hang onto a lot of it, though, because you’re going to have to buy textbooks and . . .”