Chapter 29 Lorna Is Twenty-Two
Lorna was still in college when mom sold nana’s house and moved them into a small, two-bedroom garage apartment.
Lorna didn’t want her to sell, but Mom said it was the only way she could afford to get Kristen out of jail and into long-term treatment.
This time, when Kristen was arrested for petty theft, she was found with cocaine in her possession.
Seeking treatment was part of her release agreement.
“Insurance only covers so much,” her mother said wearily.
There was no money for anything. Lorna was working two jobs to help with the bills and her college expenses, which made her college career a longer slog than it should have been.
“She’s twenty-six,” Lorna argued. “Let her suffer the consequences, Mom. She’s making the choice to steal and use drugs.”
“So you think I should let my daughter end up on the street? She’s not thinking clearly, Lorna. Have some compassion.”
Compassion? Lorna has been asked to have compassion so many times she ought to get an award for it. But at what point does compassion give way to hard truths?
When Kristen is released from nine months of treatment, Mom brings her home to live with them in the tiny apartment.
Kristen is her old self—funny, easy to be with.
Supportive of Lorna. She registers for general education classes at a local community college (that Mom pays for).
She gets a job as a cashier in a grocery store.
“I knew she would eventually turn it around,” Mom says proudly. “Not everyone is as goal oriented as you, Lolo. Sometimes people need time to find their way.”
Lorna does not consider herself particularly goal oriented. But she has been desperate to get out of the house the last few years. And as for people finding their own way, well... Kristen has found her own way. But her way is steadily destroying her.
Still, in this new phase, Kristen is never surly.
Lorna has learned over the years that surliness is the first sign she’s using again.
The two sisters spend their free time talking about everything: life, their parents, how much they miss Nana and Nana’s house, what they want to be and where they want to go.
They play their superlative game again, assigning titles to people Kristen works with.
Kristen encourages Lorna to finish her last semester of school. “You could be the one to break free of this family,” she says.
Kristen is full of ambition and hope now that she is sober. She’s going to get a degree, she says. “I’m going to go into fashion design. You can be my model.”
Lorna laughs. “I don’t think anyone wants to look at this.”
“Are you kidding?” Kristen says. “You have a perfect figure. And we’ll figure out what to do with your hair.” They laugh.
Kristen advises Lorna about what to wear when she goes out.
She’s always shaking her head at whatever Lorna picks, then rearranging the clothing pieces and accessories in a way that makes Lorna look so much better.
She doesn’t know how Kristen does it, but she is eternally grateful that she does.
Having Kristen home is nice. It’s more than nice—Lorna is happier than she’s been in a while.
While Kristen and Lorna are hanging out, Mom is with their landlord, Peggy Shane.
They have become the best of friends. They sit on the back patio with their wine and cackle about Lord only knows what.
Peggy strikes Lorna as a lonely soul; it’s a blessing that her mother is too.
She wants to believe the two women found each other when they needed each other most.
Lorna studies for class and Kristen keeps the apartment clean.
Lorna believes Kristen when she says she feels great and that she is never using drugs again.
She believes that Kristen has grown up, that months in treatment have worked.
“Look what drugs did to my life,” Kristen says, wincing.
“Look at what they did to me. I have a lot of catching up to do.”
“And you look so much better now,” Lorna adds. “Beautiful.” Kristen is beautiful. Her skin and hair are revitalized and she’s at a healthy weight.
“Thank you,” Kristen says. “It’s amazing how much happier I am now.”
When Lorna graduates from college, Mom, Kristen, and Peggy come to watch her walk.
Dad comes, too, with his wife and two preteen daughters.
They sit on opposite ends of the stadium.
After the ceremony, Dad hugs Lorna and then hands her an envelope full of cash.
“I didn’t know what to get you, but I’m so proud of you.
” Not proud enough to put aside his differences with Mom and go to dinner with them.
But proud enough to hand her twenty-five hundred dollars.
“Use it to start your life,” he advises.
“Twenty-five hundred dollars?” Kristen says sourly when they get home. “Wow. I guess he’s not as broke as he’s been telling me.”
Something tickles Lorna’s brain. Kristen has been talking to Dad about money? She feels a little sick, but she pushes the feeling off, tucks it away. This is her day and she’s not going to worry about something she probably misunderstood.
That weekend, Lorna prepares to go to a graduation party. She is trying to decide what to wear when Kristen asks if she can go too. “Come on, Lolo, I’m so bored. I’m always by myself. And I’ve been good—you can’t deny that I have. I deserve this. I promise I won’t drink.”
Kristen has been good, but her insistence that she has seems off. Something doesn’t feel right again.
“You think I’m going to get drugs, don’t you?” Kristen asks. Her eyes well with tears. “How long are you going to punish me?”
Lorna gapes with surprise. “I’m punishing you?”
“Yes! It’s on your face every day. I can see it in your eyes. You don’t trust me. You will never trust me. I could be Mother Teresa, and you wouldn’t trust me.”
“That’s not true,” Lorna insists. But deep down, she thinks maybe it is true. She has believed Kristen’s claim of sobriety, but in the back of her mind, she knows she can’t fully trust her.
“You make me feel so bad about myself,” Kristen says petulantly. “I’m sorry, okay? I am so sorry for using drugs, but I’m not using anymore. I swear to you, I won’t do anything at your party.”
Lorna is so confused. How has she made Kristen feel bad about herself? She thought they were getting along so well. “Okay,” Lorna says, because she feels guilty, like somehow she has become Kristen’s jailer. “Okay.”
Kristen squeals with delight, then takes forever to get ready.
But to the party they eventually go. Lorna with her hair in a low braid, wearing jeans that Kristen says make her ass look sexy and a cute top.
And her gorgeous, gregarious sister with loose blond hair, wearing a tube top that showcases her flat belly and jeans so tight that Lorna worries she’ll somehow manage to split them.
The house where the party is being held is packed.
The night turns into a blur. Lorna is in a celebratory mood and uncharacteristically drinks too much.
She loses track of Kristen, but that’s okay because the last she saw her, she was drinking water and laughing with a couple of guys.
And anyway, Kristen promised she wouldn’t do anything at this party.
And Lorna desperately needs to believe her.
It is close to midnight, Lorna thinks, when Kristen finds her and tells her she is leaving with two of Lorna’s college classmates. Nicole and Anna are together, laughing, loose-limbed, clumsy. They’ve been drinking, but Kristen looks as sober as a judge. “Where are you going?” Lorna asks.
“Don’t know,” Kristen says. “We’re just gonna ride around. Anna says she has a pool. We may go there.”
Lorna’s gaze darts to Nicole and Anna again. She has a bad feeling. Kristen grabs her arm and forces Lorna to look at her. “Why are you being like this? I’m fine. Everything is fine. We’re just going to hang out. You’re so like Mom sometimes,” she snaps.
It’s the surliness that ratchets Lorna’s fear.
But she doesn’t say anything to stop her friends or Kristen.
They are grown women, and Lorna is not her sister’s zookeeper.
And anyway, what would she say? My sister hasn’t had anything to drink, but she is a recovering addict, and we should not trust her?
Lorna doesn’t say it. She goes back to the party. She doesn’t even see them leave.
It is sometime early in the morning when her mother wakes up Lorna, panic-stricken. She says Kristen has been in an accident. Lorna dresses quickly and they drive to the hospital. Her heart thumps painfully the entire way.
Kristen is okay, just banged up. Anna has a broken leg and will have surgery later. Nicole, though...
Nicole.
Nicole didn’t make it.
Kristen talks wildly on the way home about how she was sitting in the back and didn’t see the car coming. She seems jittery and fearful, but then again, she’s just been in a terrible accident in which the driver lost her life.
Several days later, Lorna learns from her mother that Nicole had meth in her system. Meth? Lorna didn’t know Nicole that well, but she knows what a meth head is like. She looks at Kristen.
“What?” Kristen asks defiantly. Guiltily, to Lorna’s eye. “You think I had something to do with it?”
Of course she did. “Nicole didn’t use drugs,” Lorna says, her voice full of rage.
Kristen shrugs and averts her gaze. “I guess she did that night.” She walks out of the room.
In the days that follow, Kristen says over and over it wasn’t her fault.
But wasn’t it? Where else would Nicole have gotten meth?
Why did they leave the party, anyway? Why didn’t Lorna warn Nicole and Anna about hanging out with Kristen?
She tries to see Anna, but Anna is still in the hospital and is too distraught for visitors.
A few days after the funeral, Mom finds drugs in Kristen’s purse.
“Yes, I have some drugs, okay?” Kristen shouts at her mother. “I almost lost my life in a car accident, Mom! How am I supposed to cope with that?”
Lorna’s guilt at not having warned her classmates about Kristen is massive, pushing all the air from her lungs on a daily basis. She wishes she could somehow apologize to their families for her failure. She wishes she had never believed Kristen could or would change.
Lorna gets her first professional job at a tech company and is saving to move out.
Living with Mom is cheap, but living with Kristen is impossible.
Mom allows Kristen to come and go, even though she is using again.
Sometimes Kristen goes a few days without being high.
But then she’ll disappear for a few days.
Sometimes money and things of value go missing.
And then on rare occasions, when things are quiet and Kristen is clean, she will quietly admit she wishes she knew how to get out from under the rule of addiction. “Have you ever wished you were someone else?” she whispers to Lorna one night.
“All the time,” Lorna says flatly.
“Yeah,” Kristen says, and sighs wearily. “Me too. Just... anyone else.”
Lorna stays in that apartment another year because she feels responsible for her mother, who worries endlessly about Kristen.
She has always felt a crushing responsibility to be the good daughter, a role she took on at the age of six.
But she finally reaches her limit when Kristen brings home a guy who is obviously stoned, and Mom responds to Lorna’s complaints by saying, “At least she’s not out on the street. ”
Frankly, Lorna would rather be on the street than here.
She moves out soon after. She feels a true liberation from the roller coaster that was her life. She pours herself into work, trusting no one. Or maybe what she trusts is that any person she meets could take it all away from her.
Lorna knows she isolates herself and that it is happening with alarming frequency. But she tells herself that everything is probably fine.
But then Mom is diagnosed with cancer.