There was a third possibility, of course. Perhaps I just became desensitized to Allison’s behavior. I think I learned to detach myself emotionally, over time, as a way to protect myself. Allison had worn me down, tired me out. Worrying wasn’t going to make her change. I didn’t want her to end up dead, like could have happened when she ran away from home to meet the predator in 2009, but I had to acknowledge the fact that Allison wasn’t turning out to be the person I dreamed my daughter would be.
Giving up on her has never been an option, though.
6. Prom
Before I found the mysterious envelope in the mailbox in February, and before the nightmare of house arrest began, Allison and Daniel had made plans to attend Allison’s high school’s prom together. I never went to my own high school prom, nor got married in a church with a pretty wedding dress, so Allison’s prom morphed into something more important every day. It represented my success as a single parent, being able to purchase a pretty prom dress from the store for my daughter. It represented a chance for me to tangentially experience the magical night of dress-up little girls started looking forward to when they’re young, a chance to reclaim some of Allison’s innocence, youth, and normality of the American right-of-passage known as high school.
Thankfully, prom was in May. Allison and Daniel began making plans to attend prom in February, but were then forced into the no-contact zone of house arrest for forty-three days.
I have to admit I learned to respect Daniel quite a bit during those forty-three days of house arrest. Although he lived 200 miles away, and Allison could never really be sure how faithful he remained to the long-distance relationship he and Allison had together, he waited. I couldn’t imagine any of the other boys Allison dated doing the same.
Finally, the day came when I could return Allison’s cell phone. I smiled as I handed it over. I smiled as I watched her run down the stairs to her bedroom to call Daniel.
Allison was smiling when she finally re-surfaced from the basement. She also had a question. “Mom, Daniel wants to know if he can come prom dress shopping with us.”
I had envisioned prom dress shopping as a special day between Allison and me, a real mother-daughter bonding event. Now Allison was asking if Daniel could horn in on my special day.
On the other hand, Daniel stuck with Allison during her forty-three days of house arrest. How many young men would willingly endure that for a seventeen-year-old girl? Joining us for a day of prom dress shopping could be my way of honoring his commitment to Allison. Besides, I still had wedding dress shopping with Allison to look forward to. Shopping for a prom dress together might be equally important to them.
During her forty-three-day ordeal of house arrest, Allison began receiving prom dress catalogs. Allison mooned over the pages of prom dresses in the catalogues. If this hadn’t been my first-ever prom, I might have been smarter than to buy into the hype of having to drive to specialty bridal shops for a prom dress. I nearly kicked myself a year later when I saw comparable prom dresses at retailers like J.C. Penney and Herberger’s. I nearly fell over when I saw the price difference. But, life is all about lessons learned.
My mother raised me to be consciously aware of every penny spent. Over the years, I have tried to understand what her life was like growing up, but I still get angry when I realize my issues with money are a direct outcome of her issues with money.
Growing up, my mother taught me how to sew. People who don’t sew tell me this is a wonderful skill to have mastered. What I can’t explain is my love-hate relationship with sewing. My mother’s objective for teaching my sister and me: we were always to sew our own clothes. The uniforms for school were purchased (I went to a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade parochial school—red polyester skirt, navy blue polyester vest, white cotton shirt), but everything else was homemade. I perfected my top-stitching so shirts were harder to recognize as homemade, but there was no such miracle for transforming the simple A-line cotton skirt.
Anything we would purchase, like winter jackets or blue jeans, were to be selected off the clearance racks in the basement of the department store where my mother had a credit card. No other options existed with my mother.
I’ll never forget the light-brown suede-leather vest I bought with my retail store commission in high school, or the months it took me to buy a leather jacket with lay-a-way payments.
The only church wedding I ever participated in, I made a simple off-the-shoulder pink satiny dress. The bride and I met because we worked together in a fabric store. It was a small wedding. I was her only attendant.
I remember the day Allison showed me the picture of her favorite prom dress from one of the catalogues. “Wow, that is a really pretty dress,” I said. “How much is it, sweetie?”
“I don’t know.”
Of course she didn’t know. Unlike the old Sears catalogue, these kept the price a secret. The purpose was to draw you into a specific store, for a specific dress. Like a bee to honey, or a moth to the light, it’s too late when you hear the snap of the trap. “Isn’t that dress lovely?” the store clerk will tell you with her sweetest smile. “It’s only $750.00. But your daughter looks so elegant in it! She’ll be the belle of the ball.”
Instead of falling for the trap, I told Allison to call the store. “Just ask them how much prom dresses run, sweetie.”
“I don’t want to, Mom,” she whined, almost like she already knew.
“Well, at least call and find out their store hours. If Daniel’s going to join us, we want to make sure we plan to go when they’re open.”
The following weekend, Allison, Tommy, Daniel, and I walked into the first, and only, dress shop we needed for Allison’s lovely—and expensive—prom dress.
We entered the wedding dress store, and immediately had to remove our shoes.
“Are you kidding?” I groaned quietly under my breath. I don’t like walking around barefoot—or in this case, in stocking feet—in places that aren’t my home. I’m not quite a germ-a-phobe, but I just have a thing about sharing other people’s feet sweat.
It was also still snowy in our area, so I had worn my winter boots. I was worried about stepping into wet spots on the rug, which would result in wet socks for the rest of the day. I was worried about the odor that might linger in the air near my boots. I was worried about having chosen socks that morning with near-holes in the toes and heels.
A well-dressed sales clerk in her mid-twenties greeted us each with a smile, flipping her attention from me to Allison. “Can I help you?”
“Hi,” Allison began with a grin spreading across her face from ear to ear. “I’m looking for this dress.” Allison held up the page she ripped out of the catalogue, and showed it to the sales clerk.
“Uhm, let me check and see if we carry this one,” the clerk began. “Can I take this for a minute?” she continued, taking the page Allison handed her.
As soon as the clerk turned away, Allison turned to me—with the look—the same look she’d been giving me since she was old enough to figure out how to bargain, the look that said, “Please, Mom, make it so.”
I tried to prepare Allison for the worst. “Wow, there sure are lots of pretty dresses in here, Allison! Do you want to look around a little bit before you commit to one?”
“No, Mom, I want the one I showed you.”
I turned away from Allison rather than getting drawn into the fight I knew was about to start. “Oh, wow, this one is really pretty!” I said in Allison’s direction.
Allison cuddled up to Daniel while she waited for the clerk to come back.
When the clerk re-appeared, she wasn’t alone. “Hi, I brought my manager over, so she can explain.”
The manager gave us a quick lesson about the prom dress cataloguing industry. “They send out these catalogues to everyone, even though the individual stores decide which specific d
resses to carry. We don’t have that dress, but we do have lots of other designs and colors!”
Allison was crushed. She had dreamed of herself in that dress so long, she couldn’t get the image of it out of her head—or keep the devastation from her face. The tears came quickly. She buried her face in Daniel’s shoulder as the stream accelerated.
“I’m so sorry,” the manager said before she artfully handed us back to the sales clerk. “If you have any questions about the dresses we do have here in the store, Cathy will be more than happy to answer them.”
I thanked the manager for her help, then signaled the sales clerk my next move: I was going to look through the racks, giving Allison time to calm down with Daniel.
Five minutes later, Allison was willing to answer questions the sales clerk asked. “What about that particular dress did you like the most?” “What color were you thinking about for a dress?” “Would you like to try a couple on, just to see how they look?” “And what is the price range you’re trying to stay within, Mom?”
Finally, Allison found the dress she liked the most. It was more expensive than I had hoped, but the $300.00 price was better than some of the others in the store.
“And this is for the prom here in town?” the sales clerk asked while Allison and I negotiated about the price tag.
“No, we’re from . . .”
“I ask,” the clerk continued, “because we make sure not to sell the same dress, in the same color, to anyone else from the same town as you. It would be horrible to end up at prom with someone else wearing the same dress, after you’ve spent so much money for it!”
I knew Allison well enough to know she would leave the prom, no matter what, if she saw another girl in the same dress. Rather than have something like that happen, I made the decision to buy the dress—and pay for it somehow.
Prom day. Daniel arrived shortly after noon, and I took some “Before” pictures of Allison and Daniel in their street clothes. I never had a big night like this; I wanted Allison to be able to look back fondly on every second of the day and night.
Allison and Daniel changed into their prom clothes about five, and sat on the couch next to each other, watching television, until it was time to go. I snapped some more photographs of them in the house, outside of the front door, and getting into Daniel’s car, before heading off in my own car. Grand March was being held at the high school before the kids enjoyed their starlit night of dress-up and dancing at another location in town.
I sat alone in the high school auditorium. Tommy opted to stay at home rather than join me. I sat with my camera in my lap, waiting to hear Allison’s and Daniel’s names announced. I watched each couple promenade across the stage—thrilled knowing Allison was a part of it—and would have the memories forever.
Allison and Daniel were home before eleven, even though the prom was scheduled to last until midnight. Rather than question the early return, Tommy and I continued watching the movie we rented from the video store while Allison and Daniel headed downstairs to watch television before bedtime. (Daniel was to bunk with Tommy.)
I went to bed happy, knowing I had given Allison a night of beauty, fun, and being a teenager—just like everyone else at the prom.
7. A Mother’s Duty
Life wasn’t so beautiful for me, though. I was storing a ton of secrets, and had to pass up a number of opportunities. Legally, I wondered, could I even talk to people about what was going on? If I could, which people would I even want to tell? Having no husband or boyfriend, my mother was next in line for close, familial support. But tell my mother everything? I was afraid revealing the truth about Allison would erode my self-esteem further. My mother raised her two daughters all alone, and we never got into trouble. I must be a failure, I rationalized, if my daughter was in serious legal trouble for the second time in her young life.
The option of telling my sister didn’t feel much better. Living two states away, and busy with a career, I couldn’t figure out a way to share my daily worries and frustrations over the telephone. Besides, in her role as the older sister, I was afraid she would take over again—like the time my car broke down on the way to a family funeral. Rather than drive the forty-five minutes to pick me and the kids up, my sister spent an hour locating a car-rental company, negotiating the rental (it was after-hours on a weekend) and a taxi service to shuttle me from my broken car to the car-rental office. The kids and I arrived at the funeral home for the wake five minutes before the end. The extra cost of the trip blew my budget for months.
My best option seemed to be my two best friends, Sara and Lindsey. Sara has three daughters, the oldest the same age as Allison. Sara and I met in a playgroup when the girls were about three years old. Although we don’t see each other often anymore, we have been able to keep in touch pretty regularly, first through email, then through text messaging. Lindsey also has a daughter—gained through marriage. The value of Lindsey’s input lies in the retrospective—Lindsey and her marriage have each survived, in spite of the many waves of traumatic behavior from her now married daughter. Lindsey lived further from me than Sara, though.
On the one hand, the distance from these women was nice. Text messaging people I rarely ever see brings a layer of honesty to the communication I might not have if they were sitting across the table. I wouldn’t see the lowered eyelids as they listened to my latest challenge with Allison, I wouldn’t see the disappointment for either me or Allison flash across their faces, I wouldn’t hear heavy sighs slip out from their bodies as they prepared themselves to offer a response. On the other hand, their hands couldn’t gently pat mine while I struggled to tell the story, their arms couldn’t encircle me with an understanding hug, their eyes couldn’t show how much of my pain they shared. All we had was the technological advance of text messaging, through which they both were accessible to me day and night—even if a reply came twenty-four hours later. Not advice, just a reply. Not advice, just encouragement that I’m a good mom. Not advice, just a virtual hug.
Not love that felt conditional, but love of friends who accept you just the way you are.
Loving support from my friends has helped me through some tough times, but it’s never been a cure-all. Traveling helps, because it provides me a chance to escape the house and its slowly closing walls. It gives me a change of scenery. Traveling helps even more when I am aware of every tiny sound out in the street or in my driveway. Were the police going to come for Allison today? Was the doorbell going to ring, only to discover a predator at the door? To what lengths would I have to go to keep Allison safe?
Allison, Tommy, and I were planning on taking a trip with my mother during spring vacation of 2011, to visit a cousin and her family in another state, but Allison was under house arrest. I didn’t know whether she could leave the state or not, and I was too afraid to ask. While asking the public defender seemed like a logical course of action, the legacy of a controlling marriage dictated another course of action. Rather than have someone tell me, “No,” and take away my freedom, I occasionally defer to a keeping-the-blinders-on course of action. If I made the decision to back out of the trip, I maintained the illusion of having some control over my life. If I asked the public defender and were told Allison could not leave the state for the trip, I would once again be the victim in my own life. Right or wrong, Tommy and my mother had to go without Allison and me. I have never asked my mother what explanation she gave the family, and she has never offered one. Again, I chose not to ask.
My cousin emailed pictures of the visit with Tommy. It’s still hard to see those pictures of Tommy enjoying that spring vacation without Allison and me.
Attending the spring choir concert the following year was also difficult. As I watched Allison sing, I couldn’t help but remember the concert the year before, the year Allison had been in police custody.
I still debate about who I can or can’t talk with about Allison�
��s legal issues. On the one hand, I’m embarrassed to admit my child has done things society deems so awful and illegal, though television sit-coms and made-for-TV-movies explore the many layers of sex and technology daily.
On the other hand, predators live in the shadows of society. Predators groom their victims—young people just like Allison—promising them love in exchange for little intimacies like pictures.
I’m ultimately afraid people will continue blaming me for Allison’s actions, without getting the full story. Single mothers have been portrayed as loose women by too many television shows and movies over the years, though I haven’t had a single date (or relations with anyone) since my divorce. When I turn on the television, or encounter some religious people in the context of my life, I’m left with the impression they still advocate a woman’s place as being in the home, raising the family, while the husband provides for his family’s needs. Would they think I’m bad, then, because I initiated the divorce that ended my marriage of twelve years? Would they call me an unfit mother because I’d gone out into the world to pursue a career, rather than focusing on finding a replacement husband?
Would they judge me, based solely on the actions of my daughter, or would they honor me for my hard work and tireless efforts to hold everything together?
“Has Allison ever been molested?” the police investigator asked me in March of 2011.
“That’s what she says,” I replied almost immediately.
By June of 2013, I realized Allison had accused nearly everyone but me, Tommy, my mother, and my sister of sexually molesting her. I’d only been accused of physically abusing her.
I guess my single-ness has been a God-send. What if I had gotten involved with a man, I began to wonder. Would Allison have accused him of sexually abusing her when she eventually got mad at him about something?
Tarnished Dreams Page 6