Once a Family

A defensive posture that was far too familiar to Sedona. She saw it a lot in her line of work.

“I didn’t think,” Tatum said. “At least, not about that part.”

“So tell me what you did think about.”

Tatum sat upright, her eyes glistening with tears. “I had to get away from him, Ms. Campbell. I was online this morning and read about The Lemonade Stand on someone’s Facebook page. I knew I’d probably only have one chance to get here, so I grabbed my purse and left. I didn’t even bring my retainer.”

She was watching and listening for the “tells” because she didn’t have much time.

“Had to get away from whom?”

“My brother. I was off school today and he was going to be out working so I thought it was my chance.”

“What about your parents? Have you talked to them about your brother? Won’t they help you?”

“Tanner’s my guardian. He’s my brother. Our mother took off when I was five. She gave Tanner custody of all three of us kids. He always said that was the one decent thing she did for us before she left. Otherwise, we’d have been split up.”

Okay. Unexpected. Sedona slowed her mind down, reassessing.

“What about your dad?”

“I have no idea who he is. My older sister, Talia, said he was a drug dealer, just like hers and our other brother, Thomas’s. Tanner wouldn’t say. I just know that we all four have different dads and none of them hung around. Tanner’s was pretty decent, I guess. He died when Tanner was little.”

“You have three older siblings?”

“Yeah.”

“And this Tanner, he’s the oldest?”

“Yeah.”

“You have a sister named Talia and that was the name on the ID you gave Lila when you first arrived.”

“Yeah. It was hers. I found it in some stuff she left behind.”

“So she’s gone, too?”

“She’s a stripper in Vegas and Tanner won’t let me see her. Like he’s afraid I’m going to get stripper cooties or something.”

A picture of a drowning man began to form in Sedona’s mind. A man desperate enough to use force to keep his youngest sibling in line as she tried to take control of her own life?

Right alongside that vision was a depiction of a young woman who was more alone than Sedona had ever been.

“So there’s you, Tanner and Talia. What about the fourth sibling?”

“Thomas. He’s in New York. Has some fancy job to do with money but I wouldn’t even recognize him if I saw him. He headed for college the fall after mom left and never came back. He had a scholarship to an Ivy League school back east.”

“How old were you then?”

The gorgeous teenager shrugged her slumped shoulders. “Maybe five.”

“Do you and Thomas ever talk?” Just how isolated was this girl?

“Sometimes. When Tanner makes me. I mean, I don’t really know the guy, you know? We had a druggie mother in common and that’s about it.”

“But Thomas calls?”

“Maybe like on Christmas or something. Mostly Tanner calls him. Sometimes he answers and sometimes he doesn’t. Tanner leaves messages. Thomas doesn’t return them.”

No hope of support there.

“Are any of your siblings married?”

Was there any family that could take this girl? To keep her out of the system?

“Nope. And if Tanner has his way, I won’t ever be married, either.”

Not liking the sound of that, Sedona made a mental note.

“So what makes Tanner angry with you?”

Tatum shrugged again.

“Tatum?” She waited for the girl to look at her. “I can’t help you if you aren’t honest with me.”

“That makes Tanner mad,” Tatum said. “When he thinks people are lying to him. But he lies all the time, you know? He says that he’s there for me, but he’s not. He’s always out in that precious vineyard of his, leaving me alone in that big old house. And when I try to find my own life, my own friends, and to be a part of their families, he gets mad and ruins everything.”

“Like what? Can you give me an example?”

“Like...I have a boyfriend.” Tatum’s entire countenance changed. The girl’s eyes brightened, her cheeks softened. “He loves me, Ms. Campbell. Me. He doesn’t care that I have druggie parents who took off. He doesn’t think I’m any less because of that.”

“And other kids do?”

Tatum’s eyes grew shadowed again. “Some do. They say things when they think I don’t know or can’t hear them. They did that to Thomas and Talia, too.”

“How do you know? I thought you and Thomas seldom speak?”

Maybe she spoke with her siblings more than she realized. Maybe they cared enough to step forward. Maybe Thomas had a significant other. Was part of a family Tatum could join.

“Talia told me. She said that I wasn’t supposed to listen to them. And that I wasn’t to let Tanner suffocate the life out of me, either.”

“She said that.”

“Yes.” Tatum nodded. “Exactly those words—not to suffocate the life out of me.”

It was tough to form a picture of a family, to get a realistic sense of the dynamics, in a half-hour conversation with a distressed teenager. And yet...she was hearing enough to know that Tatum’s problems were real.

“When did Talia tell you that?”