I thought the driving was helping—until the night I went downstairs to ask Allison a question and discovered her holding a washcloth over her left arm, tears running down her face. When I finally got her to show me what was happening under the washcloth, I practically screamed. Tears of my own started welling up in my eyes. She was one letter away from finishing carving “Life Sucks” into her arm. The blood on the washcloth was evidence as to the amount of time it had taken to get that far. I sat down next to her on her bed, hugged her in the tightest embrace I could manage, and begged her over and over to stop hurting herself that way. We rocked and cried together.
Another piece of me died that night. Though Allison never said the words out loud the way her brother did, I felt totally responsible for the damage she was doing to herself.
* * *
As that first school year came to a close, the kids and I began discussing the cross-country move back to Minnesota. Tommy hated Wyoming, and was constantly being picked on because he liked things that the other boys didn’t. Taunts like, “You like choir? You’re gay,” “You’re reading Yu-Gi-Oh books? You’re gay,” and “Your pants are too short—tell your momma to buy you some new ones, gay-boy” followed him everywhere he went. No teacher stopped one boy from choking Tommy on the playground when they were dismissed from school one Friday afternoon—I did. No teacher did anything about the girl who shoved Allison’s head into the brick wall at school during passing period—I did. No teacher broke up the fight I witnessed between two boys at the junior high one mid-winter afternoon—I did. Unfortunately, it would take another school year to get us out of that Wyoming town.
* * *
In October of 2007, I noticed that Allison was spending more and more time talking with someone on the telephone.
“Who are you talking to, honey?”
I don’t recall how many times I had to ask her before she gave me his name. Finally, she said she was talking to a guy named Jamie.
“How did you meet him?” I continued.
“At the skate park.”
It seemed reasonable. She and her friend Hailey had often reported being at the skate park in town, trying to catch the eye of any good-looking teenage boy who might happen to be there. Without the benefit of caller ID, I trusted her. These hours-long phone calls continued for about a month before I got the first itemized phone bill revealing the long-distance phone number.
After that, one Saturday afternoon while Allison was at Hailey’s house, I went hunting through all of Allison’s stuff. When I found her diary, I knew what an invasion of privacy it was, but I had to figure out what was going on with my twelve-year-old daughter. I opened the diary and started reading.
The very first page was completely covered with printed and cursive versions of “Mrs. Allison Renee Samuelson” and the initials “ARS.” Twenty-one lines of seventh-grade mooning . . . something that I remembered doing myself, with this or that crush I had when I was her age. On the reverse side of the page, she had twenty-one lines of “Jamie Carl Samuelson” and the initials “JCS” to match her own page.
On the next page, she had drawn a large circle in the middle of the page, with “Jamie Carl Samuelson + Allison Renee” inside the circle. Above the circle were the words, “If you love someone, write their name in a circle,” and below the circle, the chant continued. “Not a heart, because a heart can be broken but a circle goes on forever.”
Her diary’s first entry, dated October 26, 2007, began:
I don’t know what it is about Jamie. But I love him so much. It’s like I can’t be without him for even a minute, or else I feel like the world is coming to an end. Maybe it’s Love that I’m feeling. If I feel sad or sick or mad, all I have to do is just think of Jamie and it all just goes away. I get this warm sensation every time I talk to him. People always ask me why I Love him and I just say I don’t know. I can’t explain it, but I get this feeling that he is the one I want to be with for the rest of my life. If for any reason he breaks my heart, I’m going to kill myself. I mean he’s my entire life and I can’t live without him. I mean we’ve gone through so much together and I can’t even imagine having that torn away from me. He is the only reason why I am alive. I’m not alive for my friends, because they can live without me. Not for my family, because they will eventually forget about me. I don’t even stay alive for myself. I do it for Jamie, and Jamie alone. I just love him so much. I mean, I can feel his pain, agony, and sorrow. I can’t explain it but he is just my life. And if anyone asks me to explain why I love Jamie, I will simply say this, that is just for me and Jamie to know.
I was horrified and bewildered by what I had read. I was also enraged by the kind of brainwashing Jamie had been doing to my daughter. She actually believed that her family would forget about her?!
I was afraid to get mad at Allison, though. I was afraid she would see that as justification of what she already thought and would head out the door to Jamie—if that was his real name. The journal entry showed me how carefully I would have to proceed with Allison.
I started asking Allison more probing questions, such as, “Who is Jamie again? How did you two meet?” and “Where does he live?” I was able to ascertain that he was supposedly sixteen or seventeen years old, living with his mother, and waiting to marry Allison when she was old enough. According to her diary, though, she didn’t want to wait that long. In a journal entry dated January 4, 2008, she wrote: “OMG! Jamie is the best thing I could ever have wished for. He is out of the hospital and is ready to pick me up so we can run away together. [. . .] His mom loves me so much. She is so excited that I am coming to live with her. I still can’t believe that out of so many people, he chose me, when he could have so may beautiful women.”
I was afraid nothing I did or said would keep Allison from being in love with Jamie—instead, I got the authorities involved. The TV was constantly airing public service announcement commercials about the dangers of online predators, providing me with a direction to follow. Having no Internet access at home, I waited until I was at work to fill out a report form on CyterTipline.com, and had an officer calling me at work several days later, following up on my report.
“Good afternoon, ma’am,” the officer started. “I’m calling about the report you made on the missing and exploited children website?”
He and his partner set up a time to meet me at work the next day, to discuss the particulars face-to-face.
I didn’t tell Allison about making the report or meeting with the federal agents, because I didn’t want to scare her with my suspicions that she was dealing with a predator. Or was it because I didn’t want her hating me for taking away another love of her life? Some of the propaganda about children of divorce claim that children harbor resentful thoughts toward their same-sex parent, believing that he/she drove the other parent away out of jealousy. By not telling Allison that I had contacted the authorities, I was hoping to avoid her reaction to what she would view as my “interfering” in her life again.
“Jamie” faked his own death when the authorities began sniffing around. We had just returned from one of our Saturday drives, and Allison ran to check the answering machine before I even had a chance to close the front door. While I made my way up the stairs to the living room, I heard the voice of Samantha, Allison’s best friend from Minnesota. Moments later, a panic-stricken Allison was at my side, asking if she could call Samantha back. (Allison didn’t have a cell phone of her own yet, and had to ask permission before making a long-distance phone call from the home phone.) When I asked her why she needed to talk to Samantha at that moment, instead of waiting until after 9:00 p.m. (when the call would be cheaper), Allison replayed the message on the answering machine. “Allison, you have to call me back right away,” Samantha’s distraught voice rose from the answering machine. “It’s about Jamie.”
While Allison was dialing Samantha’s number, I tri
ed to figure out the connection between Jamie and Samantha. Did the police follow a trail that ended up at her house? Had Allison lied to me about meeting Jamie in the skate park in Wyoming, but met him through Samantha somehow? I was so confused. Rather than tell me what was going on, Allison had instead asked if she could call Samantha back right away, and I had acquiesced.
The telephone call to Samantha got as far as, “Hey, it’s Allison,” before she went silent to listen—and then she burst into tears.
“What? What is it?” I asked.
“Jamie’s dead,” was all she could choke out, before collapsing into a twenty-four-hour crying session.
I knew that this phony death was just part of the scam Jamie had been running on Allison the entire time, but I couldn’t get her to see it. According to her journal, he had set-up this escape plan from the very beginning, almost:
December 6, 2007—What hurts the most is to know that Jamie is being put through this. He hasn’t done anything to deserve this punishment. [. . .] It makes me cry so hard though, when he denies he is dying, because he doesn’t want to give up and let me suffer.”
December 7, 2007—Jamie still never knows what day it is. When I talked to him today he was so excited because he got to drink a Dr. Pepper. Also the nurses made his bed recline up so he was sitting up. [. . .] Well at least he still remembers my name and who I am. Even though he can’t remember anything else.”
December 10, 2007—Every second of the day there is a clump of thoughts that go through my head. [. . .] These are my questions: I wonder if Jamie will die in his sleep. Or if he will cry. If there will be some kind of nurse who gives him something for the pain. I envision my fiancé dying, while he is happy and giggling on the phone with me. I have only known Jamie for four months now.”
January 4, 2008—He is out of the hospital and ready to pick me up so we can run away together. He had a chest and stomach x-ray yesterday. The doctor says his cancer is staying dormant for now.”
It took lots and lots of work for me to convince Allison that Jamie was a predator, and not the love of her life she had been dreaming of marrying. She listened to the sound of his voice over and over and over again from a tape-recorded snippet of conversation she had made of him at some previous point, then compared it to the voice of the person who identified itself as being Jamie’s sister on the telephone before Allison could admit I was telling her the truth about the voices belonging to the same person. She asked to call his number one last time. “For closure, Mom,” she explained.
We sat side-by-side on the family room floor for that 11:30 p.m. phone call.
“This is Allison, Jamie, and I know exactly what kind of liar you are,” she said in her most steely-voice. “You are such a fucking jerk . . . and don’t you dare ever call me again!” Then she slammed the phone hand-set back down onto its base, looked at me with her wide, tear-filled eyes, and smiled before hugging me tightly.
I was so proud of Allison that night. I also let myself believe that she had evolved into a strong young woman.
4. The Practice Run
The move to Wyoming had been pretty traumatic for all of us, but I didn’t realize just how badly it affected the children until well after we moved back to Minnesota. In a Minnesota courtroom on April 30-31, 2010, the defense attorney used hindsight to divert the attention away from his client and aim it toward me, as he explained to the panel of jurors that Allison’s plan to run away that April day in 2009 had been practiced once before she put it into place—and that I should be held accountable for her success, rather than his client. On Friday, April 17, 2009, my world started to unravel in front of my very eyes, but my unconditional love and trust in my daughter kept me from seeing it in time to stop it.
* * *
As she headed down the driveway in the morning to catch the school bus that picked up the neighborhood kids at 7:35 a.m., I noticed that Allison was unusually loaded down by bags. She had a black, polka-dotted backpack on her back, looking fuller than normal, and a turquoise canvas bag that she had talked me into buying just the week before over her left arm. When we had been at the store, negotiating over the purchase of the new turquoise bag, Allison had used the argument that it was going to replace the backpack for school books. That morning, I was too busy hurrying her out the door to fully form the question as to why she was taking both bags to school.
After I kissed her goodbye and cheerfully called after her to have a good day, I opened the screen door one more time and jokingly asked the question, “Why do you need both bags? You aren’t planning on running away, are you?”
If only I could remember the look on her face when she turned around to answer. Had she laughed? Or had she wondered how I knew what she was secretly planning to do that afternoon?
At two that afternoon, I received an unidentified call on my cell phone. I considered not even answering it, which was normally how I handled such calls, but something compelled me to answer that day. Unfortunately, I was only half-listening, so the conversation sounded something like this:
“Hello, Ms. Lukowski. This is Mr. . . . (I didn’t catch his name.) I’m . . . (didn’t catch his title) from the high school. I’m calling because I found a note that Allison was passing with another student in class, and it talks about how Allison is going to leave school today at 1:00 p.m., get onto a bus which will be making three stops, and then end up in Massachusetts.”
“Oh, my,” was all I could manage to say.
“Are you aware of any of this?” he asked.
“Uh, no,” came out of my mouth.
“Well, I haven’t checked yet to see if she’s here or not, but I just wanted to let you know what was going on.”
“Thank you,” I managed to say. “It’s funny, because just this morning I joked with her about the look of her backpack, and asked her if she was planning on running away from home. I was joking. But her backpack looked so full, and she was carrying an extra bag and everything.”
Apparently, he didn’t find this humorous, because he resumed speaking in his clipped, professional manner. “So, we’re going to call her down to the office and visit with her a bit, if that’s okay with you.”
“Can I come for that?” I asked.
“How soon would you be able to get here?”
“I’ll be right there.”
I see my job as a parent as being an advocate for my children whenever possible. Although being a single parent makes that task a little more difficult, I have worked really hard to be both mother and father. For instance, when I received a call from the principal in Wyoming, about Allison’s having two cigarettes in her backpack, I was able to drive over in time to see the police officer issue her a ticket. Since I was done with classes on the day I received the call about the note, I decided to run over to the high school. I wanted the peace of mind of seeing Allison in school, where she belonged.
As I left work, the adrenaline rush started. I had seen some of the notes Allison and her friends had been passing to each other in Wyoming. While I didn’t like the content of many of the notes, I had learned that overreacting to them got us nowhere. Too many shouting fights had begun over trivial things like schoolgirl notes. But her behavior was now getting the attention of school administrators. I didn’t like that, either.
I walked into the high school, located the proper office, was announced, and joined my daughter in the assistant principal’s office.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Lukowski, I’m Mr. Stewart, and this is Officer Darlene. Thanks for coming,” the assistant principal said.
“Sure,” I mumbled.
Mr. Stewart began, “Now Allison, we’re here because we got an anonymous tip that you were planning on leaving school this afternoon, to get on a bus, and head off to meet someone you’ve met on the Internet. Is there anything you’d like to tell us about that?”
Allis
on replied, “No. What are you talking about?”
Allison denied any knowledge of the situation that the school administrator was describing, then turned to me. “Mom, how can you believe that I would do something like that?” The accusing tone, accompanied by the release of tears from her eyes, worked their magic to convince me that this was some alter-reality from the life we really lived. “I can’t even be in the grocery store aisle by myself,” she continued.
In all honesty, that was her most convincing argument. I had already complained numerous times about how I wished she would just lift her head up and away from her stupid cell phone when we got separated in the grocery store, rather than sending me a text message asking where I was after only thirty seconds or a minute of separation.
With tears streaming down her face, I once again saw the scared little six-year-old face of my daughter, before it blinked back to her fifteen-year-old face, matching the voice that continued, “I can’t believe you could even think that, Mom, after what happened with Jamie.”
Another arrow, straight to the heart of my fear.
I chose to believe my daughter was telling the truth.
The meeting with the school principal ended about five minutes before the official end of the school day. The principal offered that I could take Allison home with me, from his office, but she said she wanted to ride the bus home with her friends.
Heart Scars Page 4