RE: Trailer Trash 8 pt 7

   Though he was tired and bewildered by everything going on, Mr. Moore jumped to answer the landline when the phone began to ring. It had been a hell of trying day, he and his wife both needed answers, and between the tension of waking up to hollering and screeching out of nowhere and the sensation of terror at realizing their baby girl had run out into the night for some baffling reason, they had no idea what to think! He snatched the phone from it’s cradle and issued a brisk “Moore residence” into it while holding a hand up to forestall any interruption from his wife.

   “Hello, this is Karen Williams,” A woman introduced herself in a brisk tone. “We’ve met before.”

   “Yes, I—” Mr. Moore frowned.

   “Tabitha is safe and sound,” Mrs. Williams revealed. “She’s here with me right now.”

   “Oh, thank God,” Mr. Moore sagged down to slump against the kitchen counter in relief. “We woke up to all this screaming, and—”

   “There was a woman named Lisa staying there in the mobile home with you?” Mrs. Williams asked.

   “Yeah, yeah,” Mr. Moore said. “My sister-in-law, she’s staying with us right now. For Thanksgiving.”

   “Were you aware of any substance abuse problems there might have been around this Lisa character?” Mrs. Williams pressed. “Anything like that you might remember? Anything at all?”

   “No, no no no, nothing like that at all,” Mr. Moore quickly assured her. “Lisa’s not into anything like that.”

   “You’re sure?” Mrs. Williams asked again.

   “Absolutely,” Mr. Moore answered without hesitation. “Lisa would never get into any of that stuff.”

   Good lord, He felt a massive headache coming on. What in the hell is Tabby TELLING them? That’s the family of a police officer, for Christ’s sake! It’s one thing to say that to ME when she’s a little too angry to think straight, but to go around implicating stuff like that to other people when poor Lisa’s—

   “Because Tabitha brought some woman’s purse along with her, she says it’s her Aunt Lisa’s, and it’s full of heroin,” Mrs. Williams explained in an irritated tone. “So, you don’t have any idea where it came from?”

   “Heroin?” Mr. Moore repeated, his features scrunching up in disbelief. “That doesn’t make any sense, there—there has to be some kind of mistake, or misunderstanding or something here. Tabitha’s telling you that there’s drugs in a purse somewhere?”

   “Tabitha had a purse with her,” Mrs. Williams growled. “When I picked her up. It’s here now with us. Tabitha said she thought there was heroin inside of it. We opened it. There was heroin inside of it. Just what are we meant to be misunderstanding, here?”

   “That’s impossible,” Mr. Moore put a hand to his forehead in confusion. “Where would Tabitha have gotten her hands on something like…? You said heroin? That, that just doesn’t make any sense.”

   “Well, it was in this Lisa woman’s purse, so maybe, just maybe it belonged to this Lisa woman!” Mrs. Williams yelled through the phone, furious now. “Where is this woman now?”

   “She’s not, she—” Mr. Moore looked around the trailer helplessly, knowing she was already gone. “She took off looking for Tabitha, ‘cause we’re here all worried about what the hell’s going on. But, there’s definitely no way Lisa would ever get into drugs or anyth—”

   “Good Lord, it’s like I’m talking to a damned wall,” Mrs. Williams hissed. “Is there anyone there with a lick of sense there I can talk to? Let me speak to your wife, put her on right this instant!”

   “She, she wants to—” Mr. Moore had turned to his wife and had lowered the cordless phone handset for a only moment before she snatched it out of his hands.

   “Hello? Is Tabitha safe?” Mrs. Moore demanded.

   “Tabitha’s here safe and sound,” Mrs. Williams assured her. “She called me earlier and asked me to pick her up. Now what the hell is going on over there?”

   “My sister-in-law woke us up screaming and shrieking and hollering about who-knows-what, Tabitha’s gone missing, she says Tabitha stole her purse and ran off with it,” Mrs. Moore tried to explain everything all at once. “Lisa— my sister-in-law, she was staying with us for Thanksgiving, I think. I know our Tabby wouldn’t steal anything from her, though, and, and—she shouldn’t be out and about running around either, Doctor Conners said she needs to be careful and take it easy and she has been, I don’t, I don’t—”

   “Okay, okay calm down and breathe,” Mrs. Williams told her. “You’re workin’ yourself up into a panic attack. Tabitha is safe and sound here and perfectly fine, and I’ll let you speak with her in a moment. First of all; where is this Lisa woman right now?”

   “She’s—” Mrs. Moore frowned. “Out looking for Tabitha. She said. Threw on her clothes in a hurry and left the shower running and everything! She took off in her car, uh, our car now I guess, she sold it to us back some month or so ago? We had the keys for it just in the little dish by the door, it—”

   “That Cutlass Supreme we talked about before?” Mrs. Williams asked. “One that was supposed to have a bad alternator?”

   “Yes—I mean, I think so,” Mrs. Moore tromped past where her husband was hovering over her, smacking and waving him back with her free hand, and peeked out past the curtains. “She got it started this time, at least? Lisa’s out there somewhere in it.”

   “I’ll call it in and have Springton PD looking for it,” Mrs. Williams said.

   “Looking for Lisa?” Mrs. Moore felt panic rising up within her all over again. “What did she do? What’s going on—”

   “This Lisa woman was shooting up heroin there in your bathroom,” Mrs. Williams said. “Your Tabitha knew something was up and called me beforehand, asked if I could pick her up. It’s—no you didn’t just SUSPECT, you DID know, Tabby Honey, and you were right— and anyhow she managed to grab the evidence and get away from there before that woman could stop her. I saw this Lisa woman myself! Buck naked and screaming at us in the doorway of your trailer like she was completely deranged! Good Lord, I’m glad your Tabby was smart enough to call on me so I could be there to get her the hell out of all that!”

   Lisa was doing HEROIN right here IN OUR BATHROOM?! Mrs. Moore was so livid she felt her eyes watering. And Tabitha took it on herself to take care of everything and actually DO SOMETHING about it. She had to. SHE HAD TO. What on Earth were WE doing about any of it?! Her useless fucking parents?!

   “Is, i-is, Tabitha, she’s okay?” Mrs. Moore choked up. “She’s okay?”

   Pangs of guilt and rage so strong they felt like they were folding her stomach in on itself nearly doubled her over. Her memory of being there across the table from Lisa when she backhanded her youngest son was still so sharp and vivid that it might as well have been cutting into her. Everyone but Tabitha had seemed to be frozen in indecision in response to that. Only Tabitha immediately got up and did something.

   “Tabitha’s safe and sound,” Mrs. Williams reiterated. “She’s okay.”

   She’d been terrified of Lisa’s overbearing attitude and shouting and how aggressive the woman was about everything, she’d been proud of her daughter for speaking up, and more than anything else felt the deep weight of shame in her guts for not being able to stand up and take action when it counted. Speaking up about it afterward, after Tabitha had already taken the poor boy off to the back room, it wasn’t enough. The moment to do something when it mattered had already passed, and all of the so-called adults sitting there watching the whole Lisa mess happening had missed it.

   “Can I, um,” Mrs. Moore tried not to sob. “Can I speak with her? If she wants to talk to us? Can you ask her?”

     *     *     *

   “Hi Momma,” Tabitha called weakly into the phone. “Sorry about… all this mess. I didn’t know what else to—”

   Mrs. Williams watched the teen pause in mid-sentence as the voice on the other end of the line interrupted her. The girl that was perched on the edge of one of the couch cushions looked awkward and exhausted, with her pretty red hair all frazzled and the dark circles beneath her eyes stark on account of how dreadfully pale she was. The entire bittersweet scene had Mrs. Williams getting riled up all over again—hadn’t this poor thing been through enough?!

   Just look at her! Mrs. Williams fumed. Look at her! She still has that dreadful cast on and everything! I’d hate to say it—I’d HATE TO SAY IT, but it’s that godawful neighborhood and those, those low income families! Her parents don’t seem to give a damn about anything going on around her at all! Bullied the whole way out of school by those wretched cretin kids, almost got goddamn KILLED—at my own Halloween party!—By some trashy girl out to get her, that everyone says should have been on MENTAL ILLNESS MEDICATION, and now Tabitha’s even run out of her home because some naked drug addict LUNATIC woman is holed up there?!

   “Okay. I know. I know. I’ll… I’ll talk to him,” Tabitha spoke into the phone, beginning to hunch her shoulders with apparent reluctance. “...Hi Dad. Sorry about all the big commotion tonight, I—”

   When does someone put their foot down and say enough is enough? Mrs. Williams pursed her lips so as not to display the scowl that wanted to appear. Her father especially, what an IDIOT! If I had a daughter half as nice as Tabitha, I’d be personally laying down the law with each and every one of these problems— and putting myself between her and anyone who dared look at her funny!

   “No, I—Dad, no,” Tabitha hissed into the phone. “I, I don’t care if you believe it or not! She was shooting up heroin, in our bathroom. We—I’m not letting her near any of the boys if she’s going to be—”

   Indignant outrage was welling up within her and Mrs. Williams realized her hands had risen up as if she needed to do something about this, but found she had no idea what to do. She wanted to snatch the phone away from this poor girl and scream obscenities through it and then hang up on that lout. This wasn’t her family issue to stick her nose into, but she wanted to, and with Tabitha’s phone call for help earlier, she felt like some intangible line had been crossed and now invitation was open for her to start doing something about all this nonsense!

   “Dad, stop,” Tabitha interrupted whatever her father was saying over the phone. “Stop, stop—I don’t care. I don’t care, an-and, and it doesn’t matter. Let’s just, can we just let the police deal with this? Let them decide? She’s not getting any sympathy from me. I’m sorry. She’s not. Sorry. She’s not. Not after—”

   Despite her every attempt at self control, Karen Williams bit her lip and was forced to take a step forward as Tabitha rose from her seat and stood, increasingly vexed by whatever that man was trying to say to her.

   “She’s not!” Tabitha’s voice broke this time. “And—and even if she was family, that isn’t a free pass! This isn’t about her being white trash, and she IS white trash, it’s about her actions! LOOK AT WHAT SHE’S DONE, look at the way she—no, no. NO. Dad, I don’t care! I—”

   She couldn’t hear Mr. Moore’s side of the conversation, but Mrs. Williams didn’t need to at this point. Being able to see Tabitha’s falling expression, how completely lost the young girl looked was absolutely heartbreaking enough.

   “I… wish you weren’t like this,” Tabitha finally sobbed into the receiver. “With Lisa. With us. Mom being the way she was for so long, me becoming so, so—wretched, and hating everything about myself, and you j-just, just not doing anything about it. I-I know it’s not really your fault, an-and I know I can’t put all of that on you and just blame you for everything we’ve gone through, but, but—but at the same time, you just, just kept letting it all happen!

   “I know you have a huge heart, and I know you’re, you’re just blind to all the bad in people, somehow, and I love you for that because I’m a stupid fucking thirteen year old girl! A-and, I’m terrified of you ever changing, o-of you ever being someone else or, or being different. But I, I just—I just—Dad… I can’t deal with this anymore!”

   Covering her face with her good hand and her forearm in a cast both, Tabitha broke into tears, no longer caring to hold the phone to her ear. Stepping forward in a rush, Mrs. Williams put her arms around the distraught girl as if to try to shield the poor thing from everything. The rage and sympathy and pure consternation she felt at having witnessed this sorry scene had her own eyes growing wet, and Mrs. Williams took the cordless handset from her Tabitha and decisively thumbed the call button on it to hang up.

   Then she flung the phone aside towards the couch in an angry toss.

   Tabitha’s staying with us, or living with the Macintires from now on—I don’t know, we’ll figure something out. No matter what, she definitely doesn’t need to go back THERE until they clean up and figure out their goddamned priorities. GOOD HEAVENS, what a mess.

/// May or may not make sense, a fair section of her meeting the visiting Moore relatives and them talking about what they find in the purse got partially subsumed in rewriting these sections. I at the very least just want to get some of these difficult scenes out of my head for now.

I WANT to be writing AnimeCon, but my head's not in the right place for it and writing playful or sexy or cheery fun bits feels super stilted and fake. Off to a rough start with the new year, fair bit of depression weighing down for no reason and just feel TIRED. Like low energy, wake up exhausted. Definitely sick, but doesn't seem to be the covid. Maybe just normal cold time of year sick, I've got snow drifts of snot tissues forming beside my desk here and the awful temperatures / winter weather aren't helping a ton either. Rereading Tori Transmigrated and settling in with soup tonight. Hope all of you are doing better than I am.