Chevy Stevens - Always Watching

“You looking for someone?”

I held out the photo. “Yes, my daughter, her name is—”

“Lisa.” He nodded. “We’ve hung out a few times. She’s cool.”

“Do you know where she might be?” I held my breath. Please, God.

He squinted back at his group of friends, who were starting down the road. “Last time I saw her was a couple of nights ago—she showed up down the alley, said she was going to crash at the Monkey House.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s down on Caledonia. The big white house. Careful how you go in there, though. You don’t want them to think you’re a social worker or a cop.”

“Thanks. Why’s it called the Monkey House?”

“Because everyone in there has a monkey on their back. Good luck, lady.” He started to walk away.

If Lisa was there, did that mean she was using drugs again? I called out, “A couple of nights ago, she overdosed. Did you know that?”

He turned around. “Last I heard she was clean.” He shrugged. Just another day on the streets . Then he dropped his board and skated off to join his friends. So he thought she was clean too. Was Lisa telling the truth?

I drove down to the house on Caledonia and sat outside, wondering if I should’ve asked Kevin to join me. The problem was if Lisa saw him, she’d know something was up and would be gone in a heartbeat. I walked up to the house, took a deep breath, and pushed the door open. I was hit immediately with the scent of unwashed bodies, chemicals burning, and cigarette smoke. I made my way down a dark hallway, trying not to panic in the enclosed space. I faltered in one section, where someone had piled garbage outside a door, making the hallway a tight squeeze. Don’t think about it, just focus on finding Lisa. I counted my breaths until my heart rate settled, then pushed on. I noticed that most of the rooms had only a bare mattress, where people were sleeping, or sitting up with glazed eyes. Garbage covered the wood floors. One woman glared at me, her face and arms covered with open, weeping sores. I quickly glanced away. In the next room a young First Nations woman, decorated in homemade tattoos, looked up and said, “Who you looking for, sister?”

“My daughter, Lisa Lavoie.”

She narrowed her eyes, like she was thinking. “There’s a Lisa at the end of the hall. She’s cute.” She grinned.

I hurried the rest of the way, nearly gagging on all the odors. The room at the end had a door. I debated whether I should knock, and then just pushed it open. Lisa sat huddled on an old mattress with no sheets, the cover stained. Old wallpaper hung down in big strips, and a cold wind pushed through the cracked window, the sill dark with rot and mold. Empty pizza boxes and take-out containers littered the room. She was wearing the clothes she’d left my house in: faded black jeans and a gray sweatshirt, the hood pulled over her head. With her coat wrapped around her for a blanket, she leaned against the wall, with her eyes closed and her packsack in her lap. Her face was so pale that I caught my breath, until she muttered something and shifted her body.

I said, “Lisa?”

She started awake, staring at me. Her pupils were dilated, and she grabbed at her packsack and pulled it close, her jaw working and her gaze zipping around the room. She was high as a kite. I fought the urge to drag her out by the scruff of her neck and lock her in a room at home. Underneath my anger, I could taste my fear for her, my sorrow and despair. How could she do this to herself?

She said, “What’re you doing here?”

“I wanted to talk to you about the brochure you left at my house—the one for The River of Life. How did you get it?”

She avoided my gaze, just rubbed her arms, her body, jerky movements, scratching at her legs.

“These people aren’t what they seem. You don’t know how they can—”

“You’re unbelievable,” she snapped. “You’re always trying to get me into a treatment center—now I’m trying to get help, and you’re still not happy.”

She was right. I’d been pushing Lisa for years to get help for her addiction, but I’d never expected that she’d seek it from the center. I had to be careful here, had to make my point subtly. “Lisa, I knew the leader when I was a child. They start off saying they want to help you, but in the end they hurt people. Especially girls. Their leader—”

“You want me off drugs, don’t you? They helped some other kids I know from the street. Why can’t you ever let me do things my way?” Her voice broke. She stared down at her knees, her face flushed and angry. She’d always hated crying in front of anyone. When she was little, I was the only one allowed to hold her when she was sobbing. She’d push everyone else away.

I knelt on the floor in front of her. “Lisa, I want to support your decisions. But I also want you to know everything about these people first.”

“ Now you want to protect me. Where were you before?”

“I’ve always been here—”

She started laughing, a high-pitched sound. “You were so busy learning how to help all those other people, you didn’t notice—you didn’t protect me. ”

My blood whooshed in my ears, everything slowing down, her words coming at me from a distance. My psyche was already bracing itself, sensing I was about to hear something that was going to hurt.

“Protect you from what?”

“Someone screwed around with me, Mom. God, are you really that blind?”

I sat back hard on my heels. My mind trying to wrap around what she had just said. Did she mean someone molested her? I met her eyes, her belligerent glare daring me to deny it, and saw the shame and hurt underneath her angry words. It was true. I tried to speak, to say something, but my pulse was beating hard and fast, my thoughts crashing together. Finally, I grabbed at one, my breath coming out in a rush as I said, “When? When did this happen?”

“Little late to pretend to care now. I’m too far gone in case you haven’t noticed.” She dropped her head back, her laugh bordering on hysteria.

My heart thrummed in my chest. Who’d hurt my baby? I was almost in tears, near to panicking, but I grasped at some control. “How did… Was it one of your teachers?” Her expression was blank, resigned. She’d already decided I was going to fail her. I thought back to all the times she’d stayed late at school, the weekend camps with friends and their fathers. Then I got it.

“Did a counselor hurt you at the treatment center?”

She shook her head but then stared down at her packsack, zipping and unzipping one of the pockets. As a child, whenever she was hiding something, she’d always played with her zippers. I was right. Everything fit.

She said, “Doesn’t matter now.”

“It does matter—of course it matters.”

She looked at me. “Get out, Mom. Just go home.”

“I’m not leaving you now—”

“You okay, Lisa?” A large man, with tattoos up and down his arms and long, dark hair in frenzied curls, stood at the door. His eyes had a wild look that signaled he was also high on something.

“My mom’s just going.”

I turned to look at Lisa and wondered who’d replaced my daughter, because I didn’t know the angry woman staring back at me with hatred.

She said, “I don’t want to see you again. Get the fuck out of here.”

I heard the hurt in my voice as I said, “Lisa—”

The man stepped toward me. “She doesn’t want you here, bitch. You better get out of here fast, or I’ll help you out.”

I stood up. “Don’t threaten me. I’m talking to my daughter.” He took another step toward me. I looked back at Lisa, wondering if she’d call him off. But her head was lolling back, her shoulders twitching. She was already gone.