Tarnished Dreams

by Jeanette Lukowski

  January 23, 2013

  Allison sent a text message asking me to mail her birth certificate.

  “Why?” I sent back.

  “I need it to get a job. Dad is taking me to the Polish American Association—that’s how he got the job he has now.”

  Frank was adopted. We are only Polish by his adoptive father’s last name.

  February 7, 2013

  “I almost got attacked. Glad I have my pepper spray in my pocket. I used it,” Allison’s text message read.

  Was Frank no longer paying enough attention to her?

  February 14, 2013

  A call from Frank at 5:10 p.m., complaining about Allison.

  Why are you calling from Allison’s phone, though?

  A text message from Allison at 8:08 p.m.: “I’m okay, by the way.”

  Are reminding me you’re there, because I didn’t insist on speaking with you when your father called me from your cell phone?

  February 19, 2013

  A text from Frank at 10:49 a.m.: “Call a.s.a.p.—problem with Allison.”

  When I called back, Frank opened with the simple statement, “Well, your daughter got herself committed.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I just can’t believe how stupid your daughter is. She said something to someone, and now she’s stuck in there until they decide to let her go.”

  For Allison’s sake, I listened. Frank said mean things, like, “I left her in your hands because I thought you would do a good job,” “she has the mentality of a thirteen-year-old,” and “it’s the looney bin!” but also shared information. “Do you want the phone number for this place?” “I sent her to a place that helps women regain their lives,” and “Skokie police already did a well-check on her the other day, now she makes me have to leave work again, for this!”

  When Frank told me to have my insurance reject the hospital stay, though, I got angry.

  Shouldn’t we be doing whatever we can to help Allison? If someone thinks it’s important for her to stay there, I want her to stay.

  As soon as I got off the phone with Frank, I called the number he had given me. When no one answered, I left a message explaining who I was, and left both my home and cell phone numbers.

  Someone from the hospital called the house the next day, a Wednesday, at 11:00 a.m., and left a number I was to call. I called at 3:30 p.m.—got a machine—and left my information.

  An hour later, I tried calling again. Like last time, I got the machine; like last time, I left my information.

  At 5:36 p.m., I sent a text message to my friends Lindsey and Sara. “It’s just getting kind of creepy how much she and her dad are alike!”

  Lindsey sent a text message back right away, asking if Frank had any more information.

  “He claims he doesn’t know,” I replied. “They won’t disclose information to him because she’s nineteen. He claims he’s getting a lawyer—but he didn’t even get one for our divorce.”

  Sara’s reply came a bit later. “Do you think they clash?”

  “Frank makes it sound like they are getting along great, but they must clash, because the competition thing is so important—they both always have to ‘best’ everyone else, which is how he made me nuts last night. He argued that it was impossible for her to top his naughty teenage behavior!”

  Another message from the hospital on the home phone at 11:00 a.m. on Thursday. Another attempt to return the call when I got home in the afternoon.

  The silence nearly killed me.

  February 24, 2013

  Finally, a text message from Allison’s phone at 5:19 p.m. Since Frank had been using it often—and full time while Allison was hospitalized—it took me a minute to recognize the message’s sender. “Just passed your and dad’s first apartment ever.”

  So this is how I find out you’re out of the hospital? Thanks.

  February 25, 2013

  I was still in shock by the way Allison and Frank treated me, so decided to do something a bit more proactive for a change. “Maybe we need a defined timeline for you to sever your phone line from my account,” I sent to Allison’s phone at 10:59 a.m.

  “Once I can afford my own phone line, yes,” Allison’s reply began. “I’m working hard on it.”

  February 27, 2013

  Allison sent me a text message this afternoon, telling me about the pregnancy of one of her high school friends.

  “When I saw that, I just wanted to bang my head on the key­board. Haven’t these young girls figured it out yet? Having unprotected sex leads to babies. And having babies doesn’t instantly make your life better. It doesn’t solve everything. It makes things way more complicated. Yeah, it’s wonderful, but it closes a lot of doors at this age. And the father usually doesn’t stick around. Bunch of dummies. That’s what they are.”

  Wow. Some of the very words I’ve said to you when I feared you were having unprotected sex—but what a hypocrite you are, calling them a bunch of dummies.

  March 6, 2013

  I was watching a television show about out-of-control thirteen-year-old girls after work, when something reminded me of a question Allison asked the week before. So I picked up the phone and sent her a text message. “When you got out of the hospital, you asked if I was surprised by what happened. Why was that important?”

  “I’m not sure,” Allison replied.

  “And why didn’t you let me know you were out for so long?”

  “Because I didn’t think you cared.”

  Really?! After all I’ve said and done your entire life, you really think I didn’t care? Fuck your manipulative shit.

  Rather than take Allison’s bait, I calmly responded, “That makes me sad. Why do you think that?”

  “Because you sent me away in the first place.”

  I was back on familiar ground. This was full-blown Allison manipulation. My response took a few minutes—and four separate messages.

  1)“I gave you everything I had for nineteen years, dear—but you always wanted your dad.”

  2)“So now you get to know your other parent, and you get to grow your confidence as the great young woman you are capable of being—all in the sunshine of no longer living in my shadow.”

  3)“I love you, sweetie, unconditionally. I hope that some day you understand what that means—and can find a partner who loves you for who you are rather than the manipulator who only ‘loves’ you if you do what he/she wants you to do.”

  4)“I’m trying to heal from a lifetime—hope you start your own healing process at a younger age than me.”

  Allison remained silent for three and a half hours, then sent, “If I could gift wrap the globe, I’d give you the world.”

  Did I win that round?

  March 9, 2013

  “Do you need a credit card to start a new phone contract?” Allison asked via text message at 1:38 p.m.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t know either. I need to change my number a.s.a.p. because the wrong person has my number.”

  Same stuff, different day.

  “Dad doesn’t want me to sign a contract, anyway.”

  “Then I guess you get a pay-as-you-go phone like he has, or you become the independent young woman I’ve always wanted you to be.”

  “I could do it behind his back. He doesn’t know how much money I have, and I’m not planning on telling him. The money I have, over half is going to be saved, and the rest is going towards a phone. And then the money I have from a job will be split between three piles. Saving, rent, and phone.”

  How do you have money your dad doesn’t know about? Do you have a job he doesn’t know about, as well?

  March 10, 2013

  “Would I need your social security number to get off yo
ur account?”

  This was not the first attempt Allison had made to get my social security number. She has also bragged a number of times, and to a number of people, about how she thinks our handwriting looks so much alike.

  March 12, 2013

  “Guess who has a job!”

  Finally! Perhaps you are finally figuring it out.

  “Yay! Where? Doing what? Starting when?”

  March 13, 2013

  I sent Allison information about an upcoming trip Tommy and I were making to Chicago. His team had a competition, and I invited Frank and Allison to join me in the cheering section.

  “Okay, I can stay for a little bit,” Allison’s reply began, “but I have to leave for work at dinner. I got a second job.”

  A second job? You, who has avoided getting a job like it were the plague, suddenly has two jobs? I must have really underestimated your dad’s influence over you.

  “Where? Doing what?” I sent back.

  “Working at a bar.”

  A bar? In Chicago? But you’re only nineteen. Are you working in the back, washing dishes or something?

  March 14, 2013

  “I need to talk to you,” Allison’s text at 4:02 p.m. began. “But you can’t say any of it to Dad, okay? You have to give me your word.”

  Are you going to tell me you’re pregnant? Was the lengthy text the other day about “stupid girls” just a way to test my reaction?

  “You can talk to me, dear, but we are forever both of your parents. I can’t make a promise not to talk to him about something concerning my children.”

  “He already knows,” her reply ten minutes later read. “I just don’t want you yelling at him. I want us as adults to figure out what to do.”

  I wanted to laugh about her use of “us as adults.” Most days, I felt like the only adult amongst us. I was typing a response when Allison called.

  “Stan kicked me out. Dad’s going to a shelter, and I’m staying at a friend’s house, sleeping on the couch.

  “Stan didn’t like me coming in at four in the morning. You see, I got a job dancing. It’s a nicer place, though. I don’t get completely naked. I get to stay in my bra and panties. It’s run by women. It’s better than the place where Dad said I should go.”

  “You mean your dad told you to get this job?”

  “No, but he’s such a hypocrite. He yells at me to get a job, and then yells at me because this is what I got. Then he said, ‘Well, if you’re going to strip, you should at least go the Admiral. You’ll get lots of money there.’

  “I just don’t know how else to get enough money, quickly, to get out of here. They told me I could make like $500 a night. And Fred’s a nice guy. He’s getting ten percent of what I make, because he’s giving me a ride out there and everything. He’s like my bodyguard.”

  You mean, he’s like your pimp?

  The horror didn’t stop there, though. Allison kept talking.

  “But I had to get out of there. Did I tell you that Stan touches me? He even asks me to give him a blow job.”

  I’d heard accusations like this before. Only the names change.

  About six months after Allison and Daniel broke up, for instance, she told me he raped her.

  “He constantly wanted sex, Mom. Even when I told him I didn’t want to, he would force me to. He basically raped me.”

  Was this just another of Allison’s justifications for having sex? She and Daniel dated for over a year. Five or six times during that year, Daniel spent the night at our house. Three or four times, Allison spent the weekend at Daniel’s family’s place at the lake; twenty-five or thirty times, Allison spent the weekend at Daniel’s house. Would a girl voluntarily spend all that time with a boy who was raping her?

  Would Stan do something like that, though? He was Frank’s best friend. He was Allison’s godfather.

  All I can do anymore is love the child. Allison was nineteen years old when I put her on the bus to Chicago. She could easily have gotten a job at a fast food place in town, like Tommy did, and lived at home with us—but she wouldn’t.

  Allison had to hit her own rock-bottom before she would change.

  While I absorbed the shock of the latest word-bomb, Allison rambled on. My head was on the table for much of it. I later remembered fragments. “I just want to come home,” “I miss you and Tommy so much,” “I need to see a counselor,” “I really need to get to the dentist.”

  And then Allison asked the most provocative question. “I bet you always knew I was going to do something like this, didn’t you? I bet you saw it coming.”

  Fear, Allison. It’s more accurate to say I feared something like this was coming. Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do about it—I have a seventeen-year-old son to finish raising, and this is the kind of stuff I can’t have going on in my house.

  Is this my fault? Did I do something to make this happen?

  The pain intensified two hours later. Lindsey sent a text message asking, “Is she really working as an exotic dancer?”

  Oh. No. Allison has posted the information on her social networking site. She’s friends with family members. My private shame is now public fodder.

  “This is not you, your choices, or life,” Lindsey’s next message read. “This is hers. She has chosen it.”

  March 15, 2013

  An innocent, unrelated conversation with a co-worker brought information about a center designed to help young women get out of trouble. I nearly ran on the way back to my office, found the center’s website online, then sent the information to Allison. “If you’re ready to make a change, check out this online information.”

  “What is it?” Allison asked an hour later.

  “I was told it’s a place that cares. Check it out. If you’re serious.”

  “I will.”

  “I love you either way.”

  I received no further reply from Allison.

  March 17, 2013

  Frank sent a text at 1:35 p.m.: “I just picked up your daughter. I’m going to put her in a youth program here. Stan doesn’t want us to stay there anymore. I’m going to give her all the tools . . . I want her with me.”

  Just after 6:30 p.m., Allison sent a text message: “Brent found me a place for $200 a month, and jobs within walking distance. Something to consider?”

  During her senior year of high school, Brent talked about coming to the house to visit a number of times, promised Allison a very expensive purse, and even suggested they live together—none of which ever panned out. Should I believe he really had a place for her?

  Beyond that, I couldn’t figure out why Allison kept believing Brent.

  But, Brent’s offer was much better than how Allison was living at the time.

  “Well,” Allison announced before I could figure out a response to send, “I’m going to stay here for a month and go to N.A. (Narcotics Anonymous) first, but then I’ll go there.”

  Do you need N.A., or are you just trying to scam me into letting you come home?

  March 19, 2013

  “Got job offer at the zoo,” Allison sent at 1:49 p.m.

  I called Allison, to cheer. “Excellent!”

  “Yeah, I go in Friday for an interview, and then . . . I had to quit both of my other jobs because I couldn’t get a ride. I just want to go back home.”

  March 27, 2013

  Frank had finally gotten a taste of what I’d been dealing with for years—and didn’t seem to like it.

  “She just won’t change until she hits the bottom,” Frank said, as though he was telling me something I didn’t already know.

  “So what made you change?” I asked.

  “What? I’ve never changed, Jeanette,” Frank said with a laugh. “I bet you’ve been waiting a long time to hear that,
haven’t you?”

  Yes, and that you’re sorry.

  March 30, 2013

  I was surprised when I received a text message from Frank at 4:39 p.m.. Unfortunately, I was not as surprised by the information. “Got my debit card stolen/used by someone she was with at the shelter, and she loses a twenty-eight-dollar bus card, all today.”

  Another text from Frank, an hour later: “Oh, and she goes and buys twenty dollars worth of clothes while I’m at the bank about my card. Got to love her.”

  Did Allison lose it, Frank—or did she sell it to someone?

  April 5, 2013

  Frank called, to rage. During the thirty minute, mostly one-sided call, he yelled, “She won’t do anything I tell her to do!” and “She only does what she wants to do, and makes up excuses why she can’t do the other stuff!”

  April 9, 2013

  Another text message from Frank: “This is why I can’t help her. I have been waiting two days to hear from her, and she refuses help when offered.”

  I didn’t understand what he was talking about, but I didn’t ask either. I was five hundred miles away, Allison was nineteen years old, and there is a deep history of Frank’s manipulation scarred into my body.

  Five hours later, Frank sent me another text message. “She got kicked out of the shelter for fighting. Now she’s on the street. She also never called them back like she was told to, so they won’t let her back in. And she turned her phone off AGAIN, so I am done. NO MORE! She doesn’t want me, or my help.”

  April 12, 2013

  The text message Allison sent at 9:12 p.m. kind of blind-sided me: “On the bus!”

  “Then I ride in a car the rest of the way,” she explained in the next text message, an hour later.

  Unlike Allison’s trip to Chicago in January, no one gave me a heads-up call.

  Who is giving you a ride, Allison? Where are you going to stay? Living in my house means full-time job, rent and/or chores, and adherence to my house-rules.