RE: Trailer Trash 8 pt 6

   “Are you okay?” Mrs. Williams asked for what felt like the umpteenth time. “Talk to me, dearie. Was that—was that—”

   Lisa? Linda? Whatever deadbeat aunt of yours that you brought up back before? Mrs. Williams felt furious with herself for not nagging her husband to investigate back then. It’s one thing for the woman to be belligerent and screaming— but she was also completely naked there in the doorway, like some kind of stark raving lunatic!

   “It was my Aunt,” Tabitha confirmed in a small voice.

   The poor thing still looked shell-shocked. Tiny and vulnerable, clutching a natty old purse against herself in the passenger’s seat. The situation was grave, serious enough that Mrs. Williams didn’t even have her Beatles hits playing. Her Ford Taurus was only ever this quiet when she was about to give her son a stern talking to, or when she needed to illustrate to her husband how furious she was over something without having to actually spell it out.

   “Well, you’re safe now, no matter what,” Mrs. Williams assured the girl. “Do you need anything? Do you have enough clothes and toiletries in your bag there for an overnight stay while we figure everything out?”

   The streets of Springton were silent and still this far past midnight. As a small Kentucky town, there was no nightlife to speak of—all of the shops, businesses, and restaurants shut down before ten o’clock, save for a gas station or two. As a self-professed people person, Karen Williams always found the late night empty storefronts and dark streets disquieting and eerie.

   “Oh, um,” Tabitha seemed to snap out of her daze. “No, I don’t. I don’t have anything. This isn’t my bag—this is my Aunt’s purse. That woman that was screaming at us.”

   “Your Aunt’s purse?” Mrs. Williams did a double take. “...Why do you have your Aunt’s purse?”

   “I… I was afraid to tell you specifics over the phone because I wasn’t completely sure yet,” Tabitha admitted in her quiet voice. “My Dad wouldn’t believe me, and my mother, she… she can’t do anything about it. I think even if my Dad did believe me, he would cover for her, or try to help her, and just try to take everything on because… she’s family.”

   That last word spoke entire volumes, because there Tabitha’s normally soft tone was laced with pain and anger, so suffused with frustration and helplessness that Karen took her eyes off the road for a moment to give the girl a glance. The teen’s eyes were wet, but she wasn’t crying. Instead, her jaw was set like she was gritting her teeth, and her face was hard, a mask of bitterness that in her opinion had no rightful place being on a dainty young woman.

   “What specifics?” Mrs. Williams gently prompted, eyeing the purse Tabitha held with trepidation now.

   “Heroin,” Tabitha said, visibly uncomfortable at the admission. “She was shooting up in our bathroom— I broke in once I heard she’d moved into the shower and had the water running. I have all the… well, the evidence, here.”

   “Heroin?!” Mrs. Moore was so stunned she hit the brakes.

   It was night and she was already distracted, so she hadn’t been driving particularly fast, but still the sudden lurch to a stop felt like it took the breath out of her. It was past midnight and Springton’s streets were deserted, allowing her to let the car sit there in the middle of the road for a moment while she processed the dreadful thing she’d just heard. Heroin.

   Heroin use had no place in a nice little town like her Springton—heroin was the domain of awful, wretched big city places like Lexington. This wasn’t pot or shrooms, this was heroin! The fact that substance abuse of this severity had crept into their one little low-income neighborhood was another alarming wake-up call, just like the shooting had been. It was so easy to blind herself with Springton’s charming daytime veneer and just never look too closely at the little dark corners. She was a valued member of just about every community organization of importance, well-connected to all kinds of gossip, and had always felt like she knew Springton better than anyone else.

   If someone from her usual circles had mentioned people doing heroin in Springton, she wasn’t sure she’d have believed it.

   “Heroin,” Mrs. Williams repeated in a daze. “You’re sure?”

   “No,” Tabitha was candid with her. “I’m not sure. If I had more confidence, I’d have called the police directly. I, um, I don’t have any way of verifying that it’s heroin myself. Just, there’s a mark at the vein in her arm. Puncture mark. There was a thermos full of… well, something. A syringe, a lighter, and a blackened spoon, like she was heating up something in it with the lighter.”

   “Well, it certainly does sound like drugs of some sort,” Mrs. Williams still felt floored. “And, you have it right in there? In that purse?”

   “Yes. I-it wasn’t easy to get,” Tabitha blurted out. “She wouldn’t let it out of her sight. She even slept on it, with it tucked under her. To me, it’s definitely heroin, but I, I need that confirmed. Confirmed by people who can do something about it. I need her away from my family. Away from her children. She’s—she struck her eight-year-old son across the face, in the middle of our… our early Thanksgiving dinner, we had our family Thanksgiving today. That made up my mind. I-I had to do something.”

   “Your parents didn’t say anything about all this?” Mrs. Williams was aghast.

   “My parents…” Tabitha trailed off, her expression full of grievance. “My father has a big heart. He’s… more than willing to let people around him take advantage of him, if they’re family.”

   Again, Mrs. Williams noticed that the word family was issued out of the girl’s mouth like a swear word. It put her on edge, and certainly soured what little impression she had of the times she’d met Tabitha’s parents. She was getting angry just seeing Tabitha in a fluster here, though, and she wasn’t sure now was the time to speak her mind on the matter.

   “He didn’t believe me when I warned him that Aunt Lisa might be on drugs,” Tabitha continued in a weary voice. “I-I was also upset though, so. I don’t know? Maybe he didn’t take me seriously. Maybe it’s better that he didn’t believe me. I think, I think more and more that if he thought she was getting into drugs, he’d take it upon himself, take it upon us to shoulder the burden and make sure she got all the support she needed, got into rehab. Since she’s family. Maybe that’s the right choice, even. I, I just, I just—I don’t trust her. I can’t trust her! In my heart, she didn’t come back for her children. She only came back to us because she heard about settlement money. I don’t trust her. I don’t trust her.”

   “Okay, okay,” Mrs. Williams patted Tabitha’s shoulder. “We’re gonna be okay, and everything’s going to be sorted out. Everything’s going to be okay. You did the right thing calling me, I’m proud of you.”

   “Th-thank you,” Tabitha looked emotional. “And—I’m so sorry again.”

   “Don’t you dare be sorry,” Mrs. Williams insisted, starting the car forward again to resume her trip home. “You did the right thing. Let’s get you safe, and I’ll call my husband right away.”

   “Is he on duty this late?” Tabitha asked.

   “Putting in extra time now, so he can be off a bit longer throughout the holidays,” Mrs. Williams explained in an exasperated tone. “He’ll sleep in tomorrow ‘till just before football starts, while all the rest of us’ll have been slaving away getting Thanksgiving dinner ready for everyone. And, I say putting in extra time now, but all that really means is he’s goofing off with his dumb cop friends at the station. Darren Macintire got released, and the boys’ve all been getting together to see him.”

   “That’s good,” Tabitha remarked. “I was worried he wouldn’t be out of the hospital for Thanksgiving. That’s actually why we had our Thanksgiving a day early—Mrs. Macintire wanted us to get together with them, for their Thanksgiving.”

   “They’ll be thrilled to have you,” Mrs. Williams smiled. “Hannah talks about you all the time, wants to know when she can come over and ‘babysit’ with you.”

   “I—I don’t know what to do about tomorrow,” Tabitha admitted in embarrassment, letting her face drop down into her hand. “What to do about my parents. Having to turn to you about all of this, because they’re… well. Incapable of acting against my Aunt. We, um, we just… drove off.”

   “I’ll call them and explain,” Mrs. Williams harrumphed. “Or, maybe they’ll have explaining to do to me! If they’re any kind of parents at all, that big ruckus your Aunt was throwing was commotion enough for them to realize something was obviously terribly wrong! You’re just going to be spending the night at a friend’s house, because of that. I’d certainly like to hear their thoughts on all of it! Seems to me like they’re due for a nice long chat while we get my husband to look through that purse.”

   “I just… I shouldn’t have had to do this,” Tabitha’s voice was small and sad enough that Mrs. Williams felt her own throat hitching up. “I just… I really can’t thank you enough for coming to pick me up. For trusting me, without me even telling you what was going on. It’s even so late at night, and—”

   “Oh, hush,” Mrs. Williams waved away her concerns. “You wouldn’t have called and asked for help if it wasn’t serious, and this sounds terribly serious. It’s the same thing I’ve told my son—if something’s happened and he needs me to pick him up, it doesn’t matter what it is. I’m a mother! He just has to get a hold of me, and I’ll be there, no questions or dilly-dallying or any of that machismo you’re on your own bullshit my husband tried pulling with him. If you’ll excuse my language.

   “Any of that nonsense, any figuring out what’s wrong, or who’s to blame, or whatever issues it was, that all can be figured out afterward, once you’re safe,” Mrs. Williams clarified her position on the matter with a helpless shrug and shake of her head. “I know it’s not really my place to say, Tabitha Honey, but you living in that trailer park—I don’t like it. You being in these situations. It just breaks my heart! Please believe me when I say that heroin has no place around children, and nor do people who use heroin. End of story! There’s nothing else to it.”

   “I agree,” Tabitha sighed. “It’s why I called. I can’t let her remain around my family, my four little cousins. They need away from her. For good, forever. I can’t stand the thought of h-her, of her worming her way back into our family because of the settlement money— and the way she treats them, the way she doesn’t even care, it’s… it’s… I can’t. I can’t. I can’t let anything happen to them.

   “How to actually make that happen, when I’m just the angsty teenage daughter, I-I don’t know,” Tabitha said. “But, I thought, if you could help—Mrs. Williams, you’re a somebody. People will listen to you, you’ll make them listen to you.”

   “You’re damn right I will,” Karen Williams swore, feeling herself get worked up all over again. “Don’t go and call me Mrs. Williams, though—if you trust me enough to call me when you need help, I’m Momma Williams to you, alright?”

( 37, Thanksgiving with Family | RE: Trailer Trash | Next: To be Continued... )

/// For AH readers, the AMA panel is almost done. There's just a few last questions to tackle that I want to make sure aren't boring to read answers for. Want to be able to give it a sort of good energy and make all the responses interesting and like you're all actually sitting at a panel with all the characters there.