It started when my husband died.
Christopher had a good job as an independent insurance salesman. He worked hard, loved our son and daughters, and desperately loved the outdoors. Malcolm was just a boy of eight. Jessica was fourteen. Barbara was sixteen. She took it the hardest. They used to go everywhere together. He’d invited her along on a hike that morning, but she turned him down for a boy. They found him days later. He’d fallen, couldn’t call for help. He died alone. She took all the blame upon herself. If only she’d gone with him. That was all she could think. Truth is, he was a fool for going it alone.
Barbara was in a dark place, deeply depressed. She changed. Jessica hardly recognized the girl who’d been her best friend all their lives. Malcolm hated him for leaving. I couldn’t hold the family together through my own sense of loss. We needed each other, but she just needed him.
I made every mistake.
She’d come home smelling of Patchouli, with alcohol on her breath. Abiding by rules didn’t matter. Nothing did. I gave her a lot of space because I knew she needed time to work through it, but I gave her too much space. I was losing her. School didn’t matter. Laws didn’t matter. Her reputation didn’t matter. I had to put my foot down while I still had any influence over her at all.
I punished her for her behavior. She was forbidden to see her boyfriend. I scoured her room, cleaning out any hint of paraphernalia. I put her into a counseling program and essentially locked her down until she could prove to me that her life was back on track for good.
Two days later, she snuck out her window, stole my car, went on a bender, and smashed into the back of a parked semi trailer on I-45 in south Texas. She and another girl she’d just met were killed instantly.
Jessica blamed me. I’d been so lenient with them, then suddenly so strict, stealing away every freedom. “Of course Barbara took off, what did you expect?!”
My whole entire world was collapsing, had collapsed, actually. First, Christopher, then Barbara, and Jessica wouldn’t speak to me. I needed help. We agreed to let Jessica stay with my parents until things got better, but things never got better. Malcolm and I lost yet another family member.
Over the next ten years, Jessica became an addict and got kicked out of her grandparents’ house. She came to me for a place to stay, money, food, clothes, everything. And I gave it to her. She stole money from Malcolm, took my ATM card once, and pawned everything that had value.
She went to rehab four times but quit and relapsed each time. Every time, she came back home to me. Malcolm left on the day he turned eighteen. I couldn’t blame him.
The worst of it came next.
She got involved with some people who thought it would be a good idea to rob a convenience store. One of them posed as a shopper while the others waited for his signal that the store was empty. He bought a bottle of Jack and looked around to make sure there were no other shoppers, then signaled the others as he walked outside.
They might have gotten away with it except that the store’s cameras saw them stop to pick him up at the street as they left with the money, and the idiot had used his father’s credit card to buy the whiskey because he was broke.
The other male in the group also thought it was a good idea to shoot the clerk. He lived, but it was a different set of circumstances at that point. I had to get a short term loan against the house to pay for a lawyer and post bail for my daughter.
It was a sobering situation. Jessica turned over a new leaf then and there. The lawyer said she’d probably have to do eighteen months, no matter what, but if she cleaned herself up, showed remorse, and proved she’d already begun to change her life around by seeking professional help, it would keep her from being sentenced to an even longer stay.
The day of her arraignment, she disappeared. They found her passed out in a coma behind a dumpster at a Taco Bell.
We lost everything. My parents steered clear of the whole thing, and I can’t fault them for it. She’d stolen from them and had put their foot down long before. They wouldn’t help me so long as I was helping her. I stayed with friends as long as I could, and it’s been nineteen months in this minivan so far. I can afford an apartment, but it would be all I can afford. Saving up during this time is the only way I can see to ever make a down payment on another home.
Jessica still hasn’t turned her life around. She did her time, thirty-eight months. Last I heard from her, she was shacking up with some guy. Mom and dad passed after COVID. Our relationship wasn’t bad, but I know it hurt them to see me like this. Tough love. It isn’t genetic, that’s for damn sure.
I’ll never retire. I’ve accepted that. Malcolm’s grown, has kids, and has a good thing going. He doesn’t speak to his sister and only recently renewed our relationship. I can only imagine the swell of pride he must feel when he tells his children that grandma lives in a minivan. I’d appreciate if you’d say a prayer for me if you’re the praying type. I know I’m looking at another twelve months in the van, fifteen if anything breaks.
I consider myself lucky since I’m not physically in the tunnel. I have a roof over my head, locking doors, and the ability to drive myself to the better parts of town to panhandle on my nights off from the warehouse. A lot of people don’t have it this good. It could just be the menopause talking, but I have a bit of a soft spot for some of these people.
It’s good to write this out. I’d been avoiding reliving it all, but sharing it with you is actually good for me. Maybe someone else can learn from my mistakes when we look back and read where I went wrong.
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