“We’re just going for a drive,” Allison explained. “I should be home by ten, or ten fifteen.”
“Ten would be appreciated,” I replied.
“Do you know what Matt did, though?” Allison said before heading out the door. “We were by his car, and he grabbed me real tight, and said I can’t leave him this summer. But, how can I stick around here, on the possibility that he’ll eventually ask me out?”
“That’s what some people do, honey. They wait on a possibility.”
“But, I don’t want to stick around and pay rent to live here, Mom. And I won’t have enough money to rent a place of my own. Matt’s not going to move out until he finishes school, and that’s just like Daniel all over again. Besides, there’s nothing I want to do around here anyway.”
“You could go to school too, dear.”
Allison didn’t respond to that.
While Allison was out with Aaron, Lindsey sent me an update on Carl. “Had in today’s paper that Allison’s boy was found not guilty by a jury trial.”
That’s not what Allison told me. Allison said Carl’s charges were dismissed, for lack of evidence.
Is Carl lying to Allison? Or, is Allison lying to me?
Lindsey’s second text message had the details from the newspaper’s Blotter section. “Carl . . . was found not guilty of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor by a jury.”
I have no idea how young or old the “minor” was, or what specifically qualifies as second-degree sexual abuse in Wyoming. I don’t think I would want to be dating—let alone marrying—someone who I knew had been to court on charges of rape, though.
Should I feel sorry for Allison? Or should I feel sorry for the many boys I believe she manipulates?
March 19th, Allison sent me a text message she was forwarding from Matt: “OMG! Your mom is my teacher next year!!”
I sent back what I thought was a cute reply: “Hope he doesn’t think it’s a bad thing.”
(In April, his name disappeared from my class roster.)
After school, Allison asked to go over to a friend’s house. “You remember how to get over to Kevin’s house, don’t you?”
“Kevin? Who’s he?”
“Kevin, from school, Mom. He’s on the football team. You took me over there before Christmas. Remember, I fell coming down the front stairs?”
“Oh, that’s right.”
I wanted to ask what Kevin’s sudden interest was about, but knew I wouldn’t get a straight answer.
I clung to the hope Allison was really trying to make friends.
Two hours after I dropped her off, Allison sent me a text message to pick her up.
When Allison got in the car, she simply said, “Kevin was starting to annoy me, so I sent you that ‘Okay’ text, pretending you had sent me a first one to remind me of my 6:45 appointment.”
Didn’t I tell you not to use me as an excuse with boys twenty-four hours ago?
March 20th, I received a text message from a number I didn’t recognize. Sent at 1:15 p.m., it simply said, “Hey, it’s Jake.”
I ignored the text.
At 7:27 p.m., I got another text from the mysterious Jake. “Hey, Allison.”
I sent a reply, “No—wrong number.”
“It’s Jake,” he sent right back.
How had Jake gotten my number, if he was really trying to get hold of my daughter? Rather than ask Allison, I erased his messages and hoped that was the end.
The morning of March 22nd Allison told me she sent Brent a text message the night before, asking why he didn’t show up on the sixteenth like he planned. “He said, ‘First my car broke down, then my phone broke.’ Too coincidental, if you ask me.”
I wanted to ask Allison why she bothered asking Brent for an excuse, but chose to focus on the feeling of vindication the conversation gave me instead. Allison was finally getting a taste of the lies she was constantly giving me. Would it change her behavior?
The text message from Allison at 11:30 a.m. suggested no. “Ron Johnson wants to hang out after I go tanning. And I’ve got to stay after to help Katie finish her Chem Lab. ’Cause yesterday we didn’t get done ’til 4:50, and she had to figure out equations to figure out how much ammonia she needed so we need to go in after school to finish—and I’m going in to help because I have a little higher knowledge of how to do things than she does in this situation.”
Who is Ron Johnson, and how do you have money for tanning, Allison?
Allison came upstairs at 10:55 p.m. on March 24th with a question on her lips. “Can I spend the night over at Katie’s? Jeremy just called, and he’s in the neighborhood—he would pick me up, and hang out with me until Katie’s done at the dance.”
“We have church tomorrow.”
“He said I’ll be home by nine.”
“Church starts at eight-thirty. And what do you mean he said you’ll be home by nine?” I strongly believed I caught her actually telling the truth: I believed she was planning on spending the night with Jeremy, not Katie.
“I’m talking about two different people,” Allison said in a tired tone of voice. “I just got confused.”
I gave her my verdict with a steely, no nonsense tone. “No.”
“But Tommy’s out . . .”
Ten minutes later, while I was pulling clothes out of the dryer, Allison called out, “Bye, Mom,” from the living room, and shut the front door behind her. She hadn’t been asking my permission to go; she just needed me to leave the room.
I dropped the clothes, ran to the front door—and saw Allison’s blond head in the passenger seat of the car leaving my driveway.
As I headed back to the laundry, I once again saw the pile of white paper and box of markers resting on the ledge in the living room, the ledge separating the downstairs flight of stairs from the living room. When I had asked Allison about the papers earlier in the evening, she dismissed them with the comment, “They’re for a flip-show Katie and I made.”
Surrounded by silence, I picked up the stack of papers.
There were seventy-three sheets of paper, each with a portion of a sentence, or a single word. Each page was written in a different color marker. What was the purpose behind the effort?
Allison came home at 9:45—the next night.
She had been gone for twenty-three hours.
Perhaps this wouldn’t bother every parent of an eighteen-year-old, but it bothered me. I had been down similar roads with both my father and her father.
When I was a child, my father would disappear for nearly a month at a time. I don’t think my dad ever gave my mom advance warning to his disappearances. I just remember the days we would return to an empty apartment after school, and my mom would groan when she saw the bank savings account booklet on the empty kitchen table.
When Frank and I were dating, Frank would disappear for two or three days at a time. In the days and weeks that followed one of these jags, I would hear about the extensive drug use that took place during his absences.
After Frank and I were married, his disappearances slowed to only a day at a time.
How would I be able to parent Tommy in light of Allison’s behavior of the past several years? I really didn’t like the way Allison was disrespecting me, but didn’t see a solution.
Allison made herself a doctor’s appointment for March 26th. She chose a time of day I was not free. I still had to call the school, though, to get her released. I didn’t know who drove her from the school to the clinic. I didn’t know if or when she got back to the school. I didn’t know what she discussed with the doctor. All I got were text messages from Allison. The one at 10:37 a.m. said, “the $27 co-pay will be on the bill, by the way,” the one at 11:16 a.m. said, “there are two prescriptions at the store needing to be picked up,” for “migraine and
overactive acid,” and the one at 11:30 a.m. said she had “a torn ligament in the knee. Got an x-ray—they’ll call with results.”
The insurance for all of this was through my employer, but I was no longer consulted about any of the procedures because Allison was eighteen. I’m the parent, who will have to pay the bills (Allison doesn’t have a job), but I no longer get the opportunity to veto any of the procedures before they take place.
Allison made an eye doctor appointment for herself March 27th. Just like the doctor appointment, Allison chose a time I could not join her. Once again, I had to call the school to get her released. Once again, I had no idea who was driving her to the eye doctor. I had no way of knowing if she would go back to school after the appointment.
I learned my lesson, though. During my lunch break, I drove to the eye doctor’s office—to set the limits. “She’s only authorized to get clear contacts, no colors. And she can’t get new glasses. I’m considering just replacing the lenses in her current pair. If you want to set a box of contacts for her off to the side, I’ll come back later to pay for them, thank you.”
At 12:46 p.m., Allison sent me a text message I wouldn’t see for another three hours: “Yeah, so I need a ride to the eye doctor. Katie sprained her calf. However that works. So, she’s at home.”
At 1:15 p.m., Allison sent another text message: “Never mind.”
A third message at 1:35 p.m.: “So, um, I think I need crutches. I just hurt it worse walking. Insurance should pay at medical supply store by clinic.”
When I read all three messages at 3:46 p.m., I was confused. Had Allison gone to the eye doctor? Was she waiting for me to pick her up from school? To clear up my confusion, I sent the message, “Where are you?”
“With Charlene,” Allison replied. “I’m fine for a while.”
The doctor’s office called the house at 4:15 p.m. I grabbed the phone, knowing they were calling with the results from Allison’s x-ray.
“Hi, may I speak to Allison, please?” the voice on the phone asked.
“I’m sorry, she’s not here right now—but this is her mother.”
“Okay. Would you please have her call us back as soon as possible?”
I was so angry. The doctor’s office used to tell me what the test results showed, but now that Allison had reached the mystical age of eighteen, it no longer mattered who I was. I just paid the bills.
Suspecting Allison wouldn’t come home until close to ten, I sent her a text message. “Call the doctor’s office. They wouldn’t leave the information with me.”
“Okay,” she replied. “What’s the number?”
Allison called me back at 4:22 p.m., with the results. “They say I have a joint disfusion. The doctor says I need to stay off of it for two to three weeks, use crutches if I need to, and come back for an M.R.I. in two to three weeks if it’s not better. So, would you go buy me some crutches?”
“It’s called what?”
“Joint something or other. I don’t know. She just said . . .” and back she went to the land of crutches, M.R.I.s, and excuses about why she couldn’t get a job to pay for any of the stuff. Translation: “Me, it’s all about Me, pay money for things for Me, in turn bringing more attention to Me.”
“If you don’t get me crutches, Mom, I’ll need surgery on my knee. Surgery will cost way more than crutches. Do you want that?”
What I wanted was to slap the attitude right out of the sentence—and out of her body. But, I took a deep breath instead, and let the silence echo through the phone back to Allison.
“So, are you going to call the insurance to find out if they’ll pay for the crutches, or am I?” Allison continued in her snooty voice.
I was tired of the game. “You can.”
“What’s the number?”
“It’s on the back of the card.”
“What card?”
“Your insurance card.”
Fifteen minutes later, Allison sent a text message: “Twenty percent coinsurance. No deductible.”
“They only pay twenty percent, or we do?” I sent back.
“We only pay twenty percent,” was Allison’s text message reply.
Allison got home just before nine. I wanted to talk to her about how the insurance worked, but she wasn’t in the mood. When she yelled, “Just shut up, Mom!” I yelled back.
“What would you do if I yelled ‘shut up’ to you?”
“Why don’t you find out.”
I resisted the urge to get up to slap her face. Instead, I let her have the last word. She went downstairs for a while, came back up to make some food, and headed back down again. Thirty minutes later, she was back up, brushed her teeth, said, “I’m going downstairs now,” which meant I’m-going-to-bed-now-so-you-can-come-and-tuck-me-in-for-the-night-with-a-kiss-like-you-do-every-night, and headed to bed.
I couldn’t motivate myself to go down.
On March 28th, my cell phone started ringing at 12:02 p.m. The caller ID feature identified the number as the high school. Suspecting it was just the school nurse calling to tell me Allison was in her office, complaining about her knee hurting, and asking to go home for the rest of the day, I ignored the call. I have always had a hard time saying “No” to a school nurse.
When I checked the voicemail the caller left behind, I found out it was the attendance office calling. Allison had been in with a note excusing her from her study hall for the rest of the year. The signatures apparently looked similar for both student and parent. “I was just checking if this was okay with you . . .” the message said.
I called right back.
“Thanks for calling! No, I never saw that form.”
“Is it okay with you, though? The policy is that the students cannot be on school grounds during that particular class period, if you sign the consent form.”
Allison wants to leave the school in the middle of the day, every day, and will supposedly return for choir, her last class of the day. Riiiiiight.
“No, it’s really not okay with me,” I replied.
“Okay, thank you. I’ll mark this as rejected, and talk to her tomorrow. I think she already left for the day.”
Noon. Allison is out of school for the day, and it’s only noon. Wonderful. Where is she, then? What is she doing?
While I was talking with the woman from the high school, Allison sent me a text message. “Want to meet at the walk-in clinic after school?”
I wanted to tell Allison I knew she was no longer at school, but didn’t want to hear another excuse. Instead, I composed my calm response. “When you asked to come back home a month ago, I outlined the terms—school being the choice over getting a job. If you’re not doing the one, you need to do the other.”
Allison’s reply wasn’t as calm. “Mom, all I would be doing is sitting there staring at the wall. There is no need to do that. It’s bullshit.”
I read the message, put my phone away, and walked back to the office.
Just after one o’clock, Allison started again. “So I’ll meet you at the walk in clinic at like 3:00,” her text message read.
I didn’t respond.
At 1:45 p.m., while clearing out old text messages from my phone, I ran across the one about Katie spraining her calf. Knowing how competitive Allison is, I had a clearer picture of the sudden interest in crutches.
Was the injury phony as well?
My Internet search produced only one entry for joint disfusion: a question someone sent to a medical site Q & A column, with a reply explaining how the term is actually “joint effusion.”
After reading up about joint effusion—nicknamed “water on the knee”—I sent Allison a follow up text message. “Was the doctor saying your knee is squishy?”
“She said she can feel fluid and feel it creaking.”
“Yep—welcome to the family knee. You, me, Uncle Dave. It’s called joint effusion, a form of arthritis.”
Allison called two minutes later. “Are you home? I want to stop by really quick, and get some stuff, and Katie needs to go to the bathroom.”
“Now? School’s not out yet, dear.”
“Mom, are we going to go through this again? I already told you . . .”
“Anyway, there’s nothing you can do about your knee, except wait until you’re Uncle Dave’s age, and get the full knee replacement surgery like he just did. But those only have like a ten- or fifteen-year life, so in the meantime, you just learn how to walk the right way, don’t twist it too much, get an elastic knee thing like I used to have . . . Getting crutches and all that won’t really help. It’s just something that’s always with you, and it tends to hurt a bit more when the barometric pressure changes dramatically.”
“Whatever. I’ll be home in a little bit.”
March 29th, I found out the purpose of Allison’s flip-show.
“She posted you kicked her to the curb on her social networking site,” Lindsey’s text message began. “I emailed you her video.”
“A video with flip pages I bet,” I sent to Lindsey. “I saw them the day after she made them, because she left them in plain sight—as opposed to the alcohol bottles I have to dig for. She says in there she’s a liar—so which part will her friends believe?”
“Anything for attention,” Lindsey replied.
A student giving a class presentation in December 2011 showed us a video she had found online. It was a depressed young man, talking about how sad and alone he was. The topic of my student’s presentation was Teen Suicide.
Allison made a video of her own, modeling the style of that young man’s video. She didn’t speak at all, but had a sad song playing softly in the background. I think the song was Johnny Cash singing “You Are My Sunshine.”
Allison began and ended the video the same way: with a little Mona-Lisa type smile, followed by a little wave. The pages she revealed one by one contain the details of her “story.”
Tarnished Dreams Page 16