April 13, 2013
Allison came directly to the house when she got into town; she and the young man who “rescued” her stayed for an hour and a half.
As they were leaving, Allison said, “Dad said you failed in your mission.”
“What mission is that?”
“The mission behind why you sent me to Chicago.”
“Oh, I don’t think I failed. For one thing, you finally got to know who your dad really is.
“You also figured out your own way back from Chicago. Sometimes a girl has got to figure out an escape route . . . Er, I mean, make travel plans.”
Two hours after she left my house, a text message from Allison: “Are my sunglasses there?”
Yep, the daughter I know and love so well.
21. The Power of Books
I am an avid reader. I started voraciously reading when I was young, but lost concentration for reading when I was married. Although I was able to read quite a bit when we lived in West Germany, it was mostly an activity I participated in while Frank was away on “maneuvers” for a month at a time. My energy and desire for reading were renewed again after the divorce.
When I was young, I read to escape my reality. My dad was mean—constantly yelling at me, my mom, or my sister about something. I learned to muffle the sound by shutting my bedroom door and losing myself within the pages of a book.
I also learned how reading helps pass the time. When he was around, my dad was pretty controlling; we had to drop off and pick up my mom from her part-time job at the bank every Saturday, rather than let her take public transportation or the family car. I always sat on the left side of the back seat, behind my dad, and my sister sat on the right side, behind our mom. I was too young to tally the hours I spent waiting for my mom to get done balancing her cash drawer every Saturday. I was too engaged in whatever book I had brought along, trying to stay quietly invisible the way my dad liked us to be.
My favorite books were Nancy Drew mysteries. Nancy Drew’s dad loved her, her friends thought she was great, she was pretty, and she was smart. No one could get away with telling Nancy Drew lies, because she’d always figure them out for what they were. Nancy Drew was my idol.
So why did someone give me Trixie Belden books for my tenth birthday? I wanted Nancy Drew books. No one ever bought me those. I had to check Nancy Drew books out from the library.
My sister and I walked to the library every Saturday the weather permitted. We would drop my mom off at work, go back home with my dad, then walk to the library together before returning home. We had to hurry, no dawdling allowed, because we had to get home in time to drive back over to pick my mom up from work.
The library we went to most often was just under a mile. I think it took us close to an hour to walk there and back with our arm load of books. By the time I was thirteen, I had read just about every mystery book on their shelves worth reading, and half of the books on the other shelves. I remember enjoying the biography of Amelia Erhart, but got too frustrated with Helter Skelter to finish it. The cabinet full of plays was fun, because reading plays stimulated my imagination more than other genres, but plays were harder to read when trapped in the car with my dad.
Occasionally, my sister and I would change our routine and head for the other library. Just over a mile walk, the route to the second library took us through some very wealthy neighborhoods. Pretty to look at, but harder to feel a connection with the families inside.
Those Saturday morning walks to the library were very important to me, though, because they provided both a break from my father and his unpredictable temper—and a means to tune him out if I wasn’t the focus of his angry yelling.
Books became my best friends, essentially. Unlike kids today, who can vent their frustrations to friends through text messages, I was alone in that apartment, or that car, with my dad and his foul mood. Books were my escape.
I lost interest in books when I was married, partly because I felt the books I had been reading as a child filled my head with lies. Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, and the Hardy Boys all had money for the cutest clothes, money to travel to great places, money to eat in “swell” restaurants. They had family who loved them, and friends who were always there when they needed help. They received accolades from adults, because they solved the mystery once again. Everything turned out great in the end for those kids. My reality was so much different.
General fiction books were no better. People who had drug or alcohol problems in the beginning of the book managed to find sobriety—and love—by the end of the book. Mysteries were good when I was young, but then I got bored when I was able to figure out a Who-Done-It plot by page 100 or 150. Romances still annoy me, because they are voyeuristic reminders of what I no longer have as a single mom.
I used to turn to books for an escape from my reality. Unfortunately, I grew up and discovered there is no escape for me.
And then I found the genre currently labeled memoir in graduate school. “Happy endings” are not required for memoirs. In fact, there aren’t even “endings” in many. Memoirs are stories of strength—and survival. Memoirs are stories of surviving great odds, surviving horrific experiences, and healing from the pain of one’s past.
I write my memoir(s) for myself, because I need to process through the experiences I have endured.
I write my memoir(s) for my family, so they can hopefully understand why I made the choices I did—if I’m no longer able to tell them myself.
I write my memoir(s) for you, my reader, in hopes I can help even one other person understand, forgive, and heal—because I’ve been very fortunate to read other people’s memoirs when I needed them the most.
Before Allison was arrested for sending pictures of herself over the Internet, and before she ran away from home, I used to watch news stories about young people getting into trouble. I used to watch the stories—and wondered where the parents were.
I would sit in my ivory tower, and pass judgment. “Wow, were those parents ever out of touch!”
Out of touch with their kids.
Out of touch with reality.
I sat in my ivory tower, and patted myself on the back for doing such a good job keeping my own children close.
I sat in my ivory tower, and told myself my kids were safe.
Now, I watch those news stories about young people getting into trouble, and I am sad. I’m sad for the parents, sad for the kids, for the siblings of the young people who are in trouble, or who died.
I’m sad, but I no longer judge. How can I? My daughter was one of those young people in trouble. My daughter was one of the lucky ones. She lived through the nightmare, and had a chance at a future. But my daughter and I have been judged.
We lived in a small town. I felt it everywhere I went.
Some days, I couldn’t even leave the house. I didn’t want to hear what they were saying.
April 2009
A story about Allison’s running away made it into the big city news program the day after the on-line predator was apprehended. We lived about 300 miles away.
The news program posted many of their featured stories on their web site, and readers were able to leave comments. One reader wrote, “The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. Wonder what the girl’s parents are like.”
I wanted to write back with my rebuttal. I wanted to tell the reader how hurtful the statement was.
Instead, I shut my office door and cried.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
I ran into a neighbor as I walked out to my mailbox, to retrieve the newspaper.
“How’s it going?” she asked.
“Oh, it’s been a long summer.”
“You still have a job, don’t you?”
“Yes. It’s just Allison—”
“Yeah,” the neighbor repli
ed. “I keep wondering when she’s going to show up pregnant. Sorry.”
Sorry you said it to me? Sorry you think so low of Allison? Or, sorry for the way my daughter was turning out?
I’m here, but I’m isolating even more than before.
I’m here, but loving Allison is getting harder.
I’m here.
I hear.
Allison stayed with the boy who picked her up from the bus in Minneapolis through June 2013.
I will probably never forget a comment the young man made one of the times they stopped over to the house in mid-May, though. I had sent Allison a text message about some cookies I had made for a church fundraiser, and asked her if she wanted to try a few before they were all gone. When she was downstairs, sifting through her collection of abandoned clothes I was still holding onto for her, the boy asked, “Can you just take her back for a couple of days? I really need a break.”
After that, Allison made many attempts to return to my house. “The landlord found out I was staying there. If I don’t get a job in the next week, he’s going to kick us out.” Two weeks later, it was “If I don’t leave, the landlord said he’s going to . . .”
The excuses changed, but Allison continued to live there a month or two after the threats allegedly started.
In July 2013, Allison began “couch-surfing.”
Basically, she stayed with various friends around town until they kicked her out.
I never asked too many questions, like how they were so willing to let her stay, or what she did to compensate them for letting her stay at their place and eat their food, because I was afraid to get sucked back into the role of Allison’s caretaker. I still paid for her cell phone, I still paid for her medical and dental insurance, I still invited her over to the house for meals. I just never let her stay the night.
When Allison told me she had registered for two classes at the college for fall 2013 semester, I was thrilled.
As a teacher at the college, I was able to request a tuition waiver for the courses themselves, but I made it clear to Allison that I couldn’t pay the additional fees, or buy her the required textbooks for the courses.
A week before classes started in August, Allison said she was going to withdraw again. “I don’t have the money,” she whined.
Ultimately, she had hoped to postpone her student loan re-payments from fall 2012 semester by enrolling in college this fall semester.
But she also hadn’t gotten a job since returning to town in April.
Allison joined me for a drive during June 2013. I was researching a location for a novel I planned to start writing. We were in a Dairy Queen in a small town when Allison seemed to brag about having someone’s credit card. “I’m not using it, though, because I think that’s borderline illegal.”
“It’s totally illegal, dear. Why don’t you give it back?”
“I’m mad at him.”
“Then mail it back to the company, dear.”
“Nah.”
Mid-July 2013, Allison told me she had applied for admission to another college, for spring semester, but needed me to pay the application fee.
“It’s only thirty-five dollars,” she whined.
I wanted to tell her I wasn’t about to be paying for applications to any more colleges if she wasn’t willing to get a job, but didn’t want to spoil the visit. Instead, I asked her if she even knew where in the state the college was. I was surprised she wanted to go even further north and west of the town we lived in.
Three days later, she told me she was going to apply to a different college for spring semester.
Late-July 2013, I got a bill in the mail from the hospital in Chicago. The bill was addressed to me, not Allison. So I called the phone number on the bill.
“Why did you send this to me? It’s for my daughter.”
“Well, you’re the responsible party on the insurance card, ma’am.”
Yes, I’m always the responsible party.
Rather than argue with the young woman, I explained that Allison didn’t live with me. “I live in Minnesota.”
“Oh. So should I send it to the address in the file? The address she gave us at check-in?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Good luck with that.
August 3, 2013
Seventeen-year-old Tommy and I were fighting about his behavior the night before. “You know,” he yelled at me, “I’m beginning to think Allison is right.”
“What do you mean?”
“The stuff she says about you yelling at her all the time—you’re doing it to me now.”
I tried to tell him he was wrong, but then he dropped his own word-bomb.
“Allison said when we got to Chicago, you know, when she ran away from home, that you told her she was stupid, that she should be dead, that you didn’t love her anymore.”
I broke down into hysterical tears that night. I’ve always hoped Tommy discovered the truth from my reaction to Allison’s words.
But why would Allison say such hurtful things?
Why does Allison seem to hate me so much?
At times when I have felt my weakest, I think about a movie I love to watch over and over: Evan Almighty, with Steve Carell and Morgan Freeman.
Released in 2007, the movie takes a modern spin at the Bible story of Noah and the Ark. Steve Carell becomes a “Modern Day Noah,” and Morgan Freeman plays God. Disguised as the waiter, Al Mighty, Freeman’s character tells Carell’s wife something along the lines of, “If you pray for courage, do you think God gives you courage, or the chance to be courageous?”
After my divorce, I would often pray to God, asking Him to send me someone who would love me—just for being me.
Perhaps my children prayed for that same thing.
September 6, 2013
Allison sent me a text message, asking to stop by the house to organize her clothes. “Carl is driving up from Wyoming,” the message continued. “He’s going to let me stay with him.”
Really? Or is this just another lie designed to make me let you come back to the house?
September 7, 2013
Allison sent a text message at 7:34 p.m., asking for directions from Wyoming.
Really? He’s really coming? No one ever comes, Allison.
Is he lying to you, or are you lying to me?
September 8, 2013
Allison walked into my living room—followed by Carl.
I never really met him, as he was just a twelve-, then a thirteen-year-old kid when we lived in Wyoming.
I smiled, shook his hand, then helped Allison load up his car with her bags of clothes she had packed from various storage places in my house.
Then I took a picture of Allison and Carl together, in front of my house. They stood in the same spot Allison and Daniel had for the prom pictures in 2011.
Since it was a Sunday, Tommy, Allison, Carl, and I went out for brunch in town.
I pulled out three maps for Allison while we stood in the restaurant parking lot after eating. I showed her the route from Minnesota to North Dakota, across North Dakota, through a portion of South Dakota, and into Wyoming.
“Can you write it down, Mom?”
I wrote it down, in fewer details, then handed it to Allison.
Allison and I hugged for as long as she wanted, then I kissed her forehead and said, “I love you.”
I think I surprised Carl a little bit when I moved in to hug him as well. (He was a twenty-year-old kid, after all.) I think my comment, “Good luck!” surprised him even more, though.
Ten minutes after Tommy and I got home, Allison called. “I think we got on the wrong highway. What should we do now?”
Good luck, Carl.
I love you, Allison.
Jeanette Lukowski, Tarnished Dreams
Tarnished Dreams Page 23
