My Niece, Part 3

My niece ‘T’ had been leaving me alone as I requested. I started feeling like something was about to happen; this was the longest period that she had been out of touch. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

One day the phone rang and the caller ID showed only “Wireless Caller”. I felt I had to answer. It was my niece. She said she had called to give me her cell phone number in case of emergency. Finally she got down to the real purpose; I had mentioned in a previous call that a couple of people had expressed interest in her car. She said she liked using public transportation and did not want the car because it held too many bad memories. She gave me permission to sell the car for the “blue book” value and send the money to her.

A couple of days later she called and practicality ordered me to sell the car. She kept talking about “blue book” value. That car is junk! The tires are rotted, the brakes are bad, it has not been started for over a year and the interior is full of mold because of the broken windows. ‘T’ has also conveniently forgotten that she still owes me over $6,000 on the car.

If she calls again, I think I will insist she sign the title for me (I’ll have to send it to her to be signed). Then I will call one of those places that say they buy junk cars. Any money I would get would be rightfully mine. I would be lucky to just have someone tow it away without my paying them to take it. I certainly need the money, but if I got anything for it, I may send her some just to shut her up.

I hope they are doing regular drug tests on her. She sounded like she was in one of her manic periods. That is when she begins self-medicating. I don’t know if the state is still providing the medication prescribed by the prison psychiatrist or at least giving her a break on the price. She just sounds like the same old ‘T’ that would steal from her mother without blinking an eye.

I Can't Seem to "Bury" My Sister

I am the executor of my sister’s estate. The bills were paid and the rest distributed a while ago. I have kept things going in case I was able to sue the doctor who performed ‘Z’s 2nd gastric bypass. I’ve had one attorney say it would be to tough to get any money and a second has never returned my calls so I am going to close this chapter of my life. The only problem is that it involves the probate court and my niece. I have to petition the court to release me from my duties as the executor. Part of the paperwork requires the signatures of all of ‘Z’s heirs. Even though she was disinherited, my niece is considered an heir.


I hate asking her for anything. She never responded when she was given notice of probate by the court. Things went through because her lack of response was considered to be an affirmative response. Those times the notices were sent by the court. This time, I am sending her a form to be signed. I’ve been procrastinating for days. Today I decided to get it over with. I wrote her a short note, included the form, $20 for notary fees and bus fare and a return envelope with postage attached. I just hope she takes care of business and gets the form back to me soon.


My fear is that she will see this as an invitation to contact me. She does not understand that I want her to prove she can be a responsible adult. She thinks that serving 14 months in the county jail and a state prison should be enough. I need to see that she can support herself without leeching off someone else. My sister never stopped supporting ‘T’, so she did not learn how to do it on her own and I’ll be damned if I am going to take over my sister’s role. It would hurt my niece more than it would ever help her.


Well, I had to make one more try at the malpractice attorney. The second one has never returned a phone call so I called them to give them a nudge. I just want them to tell me to forget it or that it may be worth pursuing. I have a picture I took of my sister’s incision on 12/28/2004. It is awful, not only are there open areas along the incision, there are open holes where the surgeon placed drains when he did surgery to clean out the infection and fluid build-up. I need to get rid of these images. They haunt me. I feel like I should have tried to stop her from having that surgery. I felt that the outcome was not going to be good and never told ‘Z’ about my concern. She haunts me and I have to learn to let her go or she will haunt me the rest of my life.

What a Chump!!

I keep forgetting that my niece called about 10 days ago. I ignored the first call, but the second she made from a phone that I did not recognize on caller ID, so I answered. She asked me to do her tax return for her! Apparently she had a job in prison that actually paid a salary. She has never prepared her own taxes. Either her mother did it or I did. She said she felt like she could ask me to do it since she would not get the refund anyway. When she went to school for medical assistant, she incurred a student loan debt which she has never even tried to pay. Both the state and federal tax authorities confiscate refunds when there are student loans outstanding. She may get her loan paid off by the time she is 65.

Anyway, I gave in an agreed to prepare her tax return. I am such a chump!

A Day at the Dog Park

Boy, I am pooped! I woke up in pain this morning and barely made it up the stairs to the bathroom. I spent most of the morning reading and taking it easy. Later my daughter-in-law suggested taking some of the dogs to the dog park in Atlanta. I’ve never been there so I decided I would go along. My dog, Raina, has never been to the dog park, so I packed her 20-ft leash so I could keep her under control. The walk from the parking lot to the pet enclosure is pretty long so I got some exercise. Raina did OK until we got inside. I kept her on the long leash, but changed back to the 6-ft leash when she got very aggressive with a Doberman. When we got our dogs alone, they were doing fine. But as soon as another dog came around, Raina went nuts. Hamburger and Penny had a great time. Penny found a Jack Russell terrier to play with. Hamburger liked one dog so well that she almost left with its owners. I had taken my camera along, but forgot to take any pictures.

We stopped for a little shopping at a Petsmart in Atlanta and then grabbed lunch at the Varsity. When we got home, it was time for pain meds and a short rest. Then we went out for flea medication, new coats for three of the dogs and some groceries. We ran short of Frontline and all of the dogs have fleas. That’s not too good when some of them sleep in our beds. Four of the dogs have vet appointments tomorrow, so we wanted to treat them for the fleas tonight.

I felt badly that I had forgotten to feed and water my finches before we left for the dog park. The poor things had no food by the time I got to them and the Society finches were completely out of water. They started screeching in unison when I walked in the door. All is quiet now.

I am such a chump. My niece called the other day and I let it go to voice mail. She changed locations and called again. My son picked up and then buzzed me on the intercom. I spoke to her reluctantly. She wanted me to prepare her tax return. I tried to convince her it was easy to do by touch-tone phone, but she has never done a tax return. I told her to send me copies of her W2s and I’ll take care of it. I should have just said no. Next year for sure, she can figure it out on her own.

My Niece, Part 2

There are moments when I wonder why I am bothering to document all of this. As soon as I think I have finished with my memories, I remember something else like the day my niece’s boyfriend was hiding in my house. There just seem to be so many stories. It seems like there was trouble with ‘T’ all of her life. The earliest story I have been told about was the day that 4-year old ‘T’ tried to run over a neighbor child with her battery powered motorcycle. When the child’s father told my niece to go home, she told him to “hit the bricks”. The expression came from my dad. My brother-in-law took ‘T’ to the offended neighbor and made her apologize. I heard that she cried, but not because of shame for behaving badly, but because she had her motorcycle taken away.

When she started school, the kindergarten teacher had so much trouble with her that the school refused to allow her to return unless she was medicated. Her behavior in third grade was so bad that the teacher moved ‘T’s desk to the front of the room. I mean right in front of the blackboard, not just the front row. I saw it myself, so I know it is true. School continued to be a problem with her. In middle school she showed up one day high on marijuana. The school system transferred her to a special school with behavioral problems. My sister always seemed to believe the fault was the school, not her daughter. I always felt sorry for my brother-in-law. He seemed to be trying to be a responsible parent, but my sister would always back up ‘T’ and ignore his input. When she was 13, ‘T’ was hospitalized in the psychiatric ward. I don’t know what precipitated it, but it was around the time that she was diagnosed as bipolar. She got a furlough to come home for Christmas. My son and I were spending that Christmas with my sister’s family. I was napping on Christmas Eve when I was awakened by my niece crying hysterically. What had happened was that ‘T’ was playing with my son who was 5 at the time, he fell, she fell on him and he had a large cut on the back of his head. It is not fun to be in the ER on Christmas Eve. By the next morning, ‘T’ had reworked the story so that my son was at fault for getting injured and her bad judgment had nothing to do with it.

As I said in Part 1, my niece had been given 7 years probation for the forgery conviction. She managed 3 years of reasonable behavior. Things began to really degrade when she moved in with the abusive boyfriend. Then when she left him and moved back in with her mother and me, and brought the friend who was also on probation. Her behavior was bad enough while she was with us, but it went downhill after I told her to leave my house. She stopped reporting to her probation officer and was involved with drug dealers.

She called one day in late February 2005 saying she had taken a job and needed to come by the house to get some clothes for work. My sister had paid for clothing for ‘T’s many different jobs, so there was a selection stored in the basement. ‘T’ showed up with a woman I did not know and carrying a puppy. She opened the refrigerator for this woman and told her to help herself since, as ‘T’ said, “This is my (‘T’s) house, my real house”. I bristled at this statement, but decided to address it later when the woman was gone. After pouring soft drinks, ‘T’ went to her mother’s bedroom and dropped the puppy on the bed. My sister exploded! She was allergic to flea bites and we didn’t know anything about this puppy. ‘Z’ yelled at ‘T’ to remove the pup from the bed. ‘T’ started shouting back and everything fell apart. My sister was extremely ill by then and did not need to be upset .I told ‘T’ to leave immediately. I was so angry by then that in front of ‘T’s companion I reminded ‘T’ that this was not her home and she had no right to offer the hospitality of my home to anyone. It ended up being one of those yelling matches where everyone’s trying to out-shout the other. She finally left when I picked up the phone to call the sheriff.

Later that day, ‘T’ called on my phone line. She apologized at first and then got angry with me because, according to her, I had embarrassed her in front of her friend. I wanted to hang up but she insisted she had to apologize to her mother. I reluctantly gave the phone to ‘Z’. From the end I was able to hear, they were arguing at first, but then I heard my sister give ‘T’ permission to return. When the call was over, ‘Z’ told me she had allowed ‘T’ to come back to get her clothes. Since she had been ordered out earlier, she had not looked for her clothes. She showed up alone some time after dark. I remember her spending some time in the basement and then she said she wanted some private time with her mother. After about 20 minutes, I found her in the ‘office’ in the dark talking on the phone. I told her she was supposed to be with her mother, not in the office. She did go to her mother’s room after that and then left shortly thereafter.

The next day, I answered a call on my sister’s phone line. She was really feeling awful that day and asked me to take care of the call. It was her bank. They had called to get approval to cash a check for ‘T’. I asked ‘Z’ if she had given ‘T’ a check. No. 'T' must have stolen the check the night before. My sister kept her blank checks in a desk drawer. I asked how much the check was written for. The teller said it was for $1,550.00. I told the teller to call the police immediately, the check was a forgery. They tried to delay ‘T’, but she figured out that something was wrong and left. The police chased her in her car. The story she told me later was that she ended up in a cul-de-sac, grabbed her puppy and ran through to woods to elude the police. She supposedly lost the puppy while she was running. The police lost her.

I called her probation officer to report the incident. I found out she had been assigned to a new probation officer and he was in the process of obtaining a warrant for her arrest for probation violation. Even though I put the probation officer in touch with the detective handling the new forgery, she was never prosecuted for it. Also probation violation is not considered a high priority by the police unless the person has a history of violence, so she went free for a while.

In April my sister was back in the hospital. By then ‘T’ had contacted her probation officer to try to talk him out of punishing her. They made arrangements for her to surrender to him on a specific date. It was decided that my sister needed to be transferred to a nursing home for rehabilitation since she had not been able to walk since January. ‘T’ did help me with the transfer. We had to take ‘Z’s personal stuff to the nursing home. 'T' told me she was supposed to surrender on Thursday of that week. She was also telling her mother that the surrender was delayed because she was helping the police with a drug sting. My sister asked me to stay out of it, but by Wednesday, I called the probation officer to find out what was going on. I told him about the drug sting story and he said it was a total fabrication. The sheriff’s office could not use her in a sting without his permission. Plus she would have had to have been arrested already and there was not record of it. He also said she was supposed to have surrendered herself on Tuesday, so she was late in meeting with him. When I faced her with the truth (in her mother’s room at the nursing home), she told me to stay out of her business and left. She was finally arrested in early May and had a crack pipe in her possession at the time. Between the county jail and the state prison, she served 14 months. During that time, I had to have her sign papers to have my sister cremated because my sister was comatose by then and it had to be signed by the next of kin. The last time ‘T’ saw her mother was the day I called her out on her lies.

Cell phones saved my sanity during my sister’s illness. I felt I had to have the phone so that my sister’s doctor could reach me at any time. I never gave ‘T’ the number to my cell phone. I unplugged my sister’s phone at home, but left the answering machine attached. I turned off the ringer on my line; I had voice mail. I checked the machine and the voice mail at least once a day. Many times the messages were from ‘T’. She would scream obscenities and threaten me. Better that she did that to a machine than to me. The people who needed to reach me had the cell number. When my sister went into the nursing home, I got her a cell phone. The nursing home would allow installation of a hard-line or use of a cell phone. We never gave ‘T’ the number.

‘T’ was paroled October 31, 2006. She is living in transitional housing in Atlanta. She called me for her birth certificate since I am still storing some of her stuff and the personal things of her mother’s I am keeping for her. I paid $32 to order her a new one over the Internet. She needed it to get a job. She says she is working. She seems to think the family should welcome her back like she had been away at summer camp. I laid down my conditions in a letter I wrote to her during her incarceration. I want her to finish her obligations to the state of Georgia, get a job and support herself for five years and then we can talk. She has never truly supported herself or taken full responsibility for her actions. My sister would either give ‘T’ what she wanted or ‘T’ would take it. I am not my sister and I will not step into the role she played in her daughter’s life.

A Tale of Two Kitties

I have two cats. I am also allergic to cats. Why would someone with cat allergies live with two cats? Get comfortable, it’s a long story.

Remember my niece ‘T’? About three years ago while she was living with a boyfriend, she would come to my house, supposedly to see her mother, but spent the entire time on the telephone. I knew something was up because she would close herself into my sister’s bedroom or the office so we could not hear her talking. This was one of the danger signals with her. She is the type you hate to be around when she is on a cell phone in public. You hear every word of her end of the conversation. She thinks she is just that important that everyone would care. So when she made phone calls privately, something was up. I insisted she tell her mother and me what was going on. After much yelling and screaming about her privacy, she admitted she was calling about a kitten. Obviously she had not told her boyfriend since the calls were being made where he could not possibly hear.

My heart sunk. She couldn’t even take care of herself, how was she going to be responsible for a kitten? I had already taken in her dog in 1994 because she would not take care of it and my sister had sold her house and didn’t have anywhere for the dog. I just knew that if she got a kitten, I would end up caring for it.

She assured us that she was just considering getting the kitten, there was nothing definite. Two days later she walked in the door with a calico kitten. The boyfriend still didn’t know about it. He was going to find out that day when he got home from work. This is the guy she had been living with for months giving her mother and me a phony name for him. She didn’t want us to know he was the same man who had blackened her eye and broke her glasses two years before. I guess he was as thrilled about the cat as I was since ‘T’ started bringing the cat to my house every day before she went to work so that the cat was not alone with the boyfriend. Then it progressed to us babysitting the cat on weekends. I wasn’t having much difficulty with the cat dander, but I did develop hives if Patches scratched me. My sister also had a mild cat allergy, so we kept the cat out of her bedroom.

When I realized that Patches was becoming a permanent fixture, I decided to get her a playmate so that I didn’t have to take Benedryl constantly. I went to the local shelter and found a tortoiseshell cat. She seemed very friendly and so Eliot became a member of the household. Within 48 hours, Eliot was in heat! I don’t know how people can stand having female cats that are not fixed. They are obnoxious when they are in the mood for love. She even offered herself to my old dog. Since I had gotten her from the shelter, her surgery was prepaid and I set it up as soon as possible.

Eliot’s surgery just reminded me of another incident involving my niece. I had trouble fixing the timing in mind, but the cat was part of it and it helped me to remember. My sister owned two timeshare weeks in Florida that usually started the Saturday after Thanksgiving. She and I would go and just relax, maybe spent a couple of days at Disney World and do some Christmas shopping. Eliot would be coming home from the vet after my sister and I had left for Florida. We entrusted ‘T’ with the care of the dog and cat while we were gone. One condition we had set up was that the boyfriend was not to set foot in our house. By then, we knew his real identity. ‘Z’ and I had a good time and as usual we were ready to go home before the full two weeks had ended. We drove straight home on Thursday instead of Saturday. When we arrived, ‘T’s car was there and mine was gone. I didn’t think too much about it since I did allow her to use my car for work sometimes. ‘Z’ and I unloaded the most important stuff and started sorting the mail. The living room television was on. That wasn’t so strange since we sometimes left Animal Planet on to entertain the dog. It was on ESPN, but I thought perhaps ‘T’ had been watching some NASCAR related show and just forgot to change channels. I tried to find the remote, but it was nowhere around. The missing remote didn’t leave my mind, but I still had the mail, some laundry and the dirty dishes ‘T’ had left in the kitchen. I was also looking for Eliot. She was still new to the household and I had left her with the vet and then wasn’t even there when she returned home, so I kept looking for her. I searched almost the entire upstairs and then started on the basement while I was working on the laundry. We even called ‘T’ on her cell phone to make sure that the cat had been in the house that morning. After 2 or 3 hours I got a little frantic. By then I was upset about the cat, pissed about the missing remote and very unhappy about the dirty dishes. I started another search upstairs (it is a ranch house with a full basement) for the cat. I had never checked the coat closet in the living room since it had been a mild winter and we hadn’t been wearing coats. When ‘T’ arrived to pick up her car, I questioned her about the cat and the remote. Finally in exasperation, I checked that closet for the cat. My heart nearly stopped when I opened the door. There stood ‘T’s boyfriend, all 6 feet 4 inches of him, with the television remote in his hand. I exploded! I should have called the police. That man had been hiding in the closet the entire time that my sister and I had been home and never made a sound. I didn’t ask him how and when he planned to leave without us knowing. I ordered him out and told him to never come back. I guess it was foolish of me not to call the police. This man had been violent with my niece and was on probation for domestic violence with his ex-wife. My niece should not have even been with him. It was a violation of her probation to associate with another person on probation. As far as her probation officer knew, she still lived with her mother and me. My dad is right; you can tell ‘T’ is lying because her lips are moving. (I did finally find the cat. She was hiding so far under my bed, that I needed a flashlight to find her. She came out after I had been home for a day.)

I got off on a tangent, duh. Back to the two kitties; not long after Eliot had been fixed, Patches came into heat. ‘T’ of course had no plans about having her fixed and the cat hadn’t even had her shots yet. ‘T’ knew her mother would take care of it; her mother took care of all of her messes. I called around for the most economical spaying price and made an appointment for Patches. That taken care of, the cat became a permanent fixture after we found out that the boyfriend did not like the cat and was mean to her. Now I had a 13-year old Bichon Frise dog and two cats.

I continued to allow the false impression that Patches belonged to ‘T’. After my sister’s surgery and she became so ill, the only time we ever saw ‘T’, it was when she wanted money or a private telephone for one of her schemes. I decided that the cat was mine. I fed her, cleaned up after her and played with her. So I changed her name to Harley which is short for Harlequin (she has diamond markings on her face). ‘T’ was livid! Too bad.

In early 2005, my now daughter-in-law moved in with her dog. I had to have the Bichon put to sleep in December 2004. He was old and very ill. The cats were accustomed to having a dog around, but an old dog, not a pup. They adjusted to Jack the dog. Eliot would hide all day and come out at night when the dog was in her crate. Harley just went about her day as usual. No dog was going to make her change her habits. When my sister passed away, I started feeling the loss of my dog. I found a Lab mix at the shelter that was about the same size and age as Jack and named her Jill. Then my son got a dachshund mix, a female named Reggie (our vet thinks we have weird names for our animals!). Eliot became a little more withdrawn and Harley began playing with the dogs! Poor Eliot, she just tried to stay out of the way of the dogs, but they are natural hunters and chases would happen. I became concerned when I noticed that Eliot used her claws to fend off the dogs. She also used her claws on me a lot which meant ingesting Benedryl. Even though I don’t believe in de-clawing cats, I had the procedure done on Eliot. I was worried about injury to the dogs and I could not continue to take the antihistamine every day. I think she misses her claws. She bites more now and looks frustrated sometimes when she plays with her toys.

By the time that my son and his girlfriend married, the household had grown to 7 dogs and the two cats. Harley was still very cool about the dogs and just acted as if they weren’t there. I had shelves on the wall in my bedroom. I ended up clearing most of the bottom shelf for Eliot to use as her safe haven from the dogs. Now the cats and I have a bedroom/sitting room in the basement. The only dog that comes down here is my Yorkshire Terrier. She is smaller than Eliot, so the cat does not seem intimidated by Raina. Now the cats play together again and not just at night. Harley has adopted a small cardboard box as her own. I need to post a picture of her in that box. I guess only a cat could find it comfortable. Harley also climbs the exposed ductwork in the room where I keep my refrigerator. The first couple of times she got up there, I heard a lot of yowling from her when she could not figure out how to get down. I made the mistake twice of ‘helping’ her and got clawed for my efforts. She figured it out on her own. Eliot has become an accomplished climber of the containers. She has even managed to get on top of the wardrobe. She isn’t adventurous enough to make the jump from the wardrobe to the bed, but Harley has (and startled the crap out of me when she did it when I was in bed). I received a pair of Zebra finches for Mother’s day last year and found out they are a gift that keeps on giving. I now have 3 cages of birds which the cats love. While we were still upstairs, I had to fasten the cages down with bungee cords. Luckily we have only had one incident of a cat upsetting a cage since moving downstairs and I solved that problem with a little furniture shifting. Twice I have had birds escape and Harley has helped me capture them. I have no illusions about Harley’s intentions. If I had not been there to take the birds away from her, they would have been lunch. She is much better at catching them than I am and the birds were not injured luckily.

I enjoy having my own living area separate from my son and daughter-in-law (I just need a bathroom down here!). I did not realize how much it would enrich the lives of these two cats that I shouldn’t really have, but would miss horribly if they were gone.

The story of my niece, part 1

I am having one of those days when all of the joints in my hands and my knees feel like they are rubbing bone on bone. I know that I am particularly bitchy on these days, but it is difficult to be pleasant when a mere touch to my hands feels like a hit with a baseball bat.

Christmas was lovely. I spent the day visiting my daughter-in-law’s family. They have always been very warm and welcoming to me and I appreciate it greatly.

My niece ‘T’ got an excuse to call me thanks to my actions. Mail for her is still delivered to my address and I resent it. I had requested a change of address for her with the Post Office. She received a letter notifying her of the change and that, she felt, gave her permission to call me. I told her about 2 ½ years ago that this is not her home and will not be her home in the future. The amount of mail had dwindled over time, but last spring it began to pick up again. Not just bills and such, but junk mail too. I even called the prison to see if she had Internet access that would allow her to sign up on mailing lists. They claimed she did not have the Internet available to her, but I still suspect she was behind the resurgence in the junk mail.

Backing up slightly, my niece 'T' had moved in with me in April 1994. She had quit high school, had no job skills and no job. 'Z' called me in tears, asking me to take 'T' in because she was homeless and my parents would not have her in their home and she would not go to a shelter. My parents would not allow 'T' in their home because she had been stealing from them for several years. They had owned a convenience store and had chalked up the money discrepancies over the years to math errors. The truth came out when 'T' took $600 in one chunk. I put up with her laziness for a short time, and then told my sister we needed to do something. 'Z' came up with the idea of getting her daughter into Job Corps training. We took 'T' to Gainesville, Florida in July 1994. It got her out of our hair for a year, but that was about the extent. When she was getting close to graduation, 'T' told her mother she was going to remain Florida to be with a man she had met at Job Corps. 'Z' didn't want her to stay there, so I played the good guy and suggested she move in with us. I was feeling really good about myself although having 'T' move in was the last thing I wanted. I set up all sorts of conditions like being employed and being respectful of the other people in the house, but 'T' was still the same: lazy, deceitful and a thief.

Living with my sister and my niece was like living with two bad tempered cats in a bag. It was awful to listen to them argue constantly. They would call each other ‘stupid’ and each was very critical of the other’s actions. In my niece’s defense, my sister was never encouraging to her. I have to attribute this to my sister not feeling good about herself. ‘Z’ was openly critical of strangers. I found it embarrassing. ‘T’ was a copy of her mother. She would lose jobs by telling her supervisors that they were stupid and incompetent.

It took me a while to admit to myself that I was seeing drug abuse in ‘T’s behavior. I would ignore it because of my “go along to get along” attitude. She was very secretive about her activities and would never give us any more than a first name for her friends. She had been forging checks on her mother’s checking account for more than a month before ‘Z’ would admit it to me. I insisted that ‘Z’ report it to the police. ‘T’ eventually turned herself in and my sister bailed her out immediately. When the district attorney’s office did not proceed as quickly as my sister wanted, she dropped her complaint. I was unaware of it and did not find out until the day ‘T’s trial was supposed to begin. I was livid, but did not make a big deal of it. What a chump! Of course ‘T’ swore it would never happen again.

It never really stopped. ‘Z’ would have her daughter do our grocery shopping claiming that neither of us was physically capable. ‘T’ would pad the grocery list and buy things for herself or her friends. It was easy to do since she was given access to my sister’s debit card to do the shopping. Sometimes my sister’s checking account statement would arrive with transactions at Wal-Mart or Target on the same day that she shopped at Kroger for us. Her spending $10 or $20 was bad enough, but at times it would be $200 or $300.

When she began forging checks again, she was living with a boyfriend. This was during the same time that my sister was suffering the affects of her first gastric bypass. ‘Z’ was disoriented most of the time and hallucinating a lot. ‘T’ had been coming to her mother’s apartment to give me breaks from caring for my sister. The day I returned and found a “roach” in an ashtray, I put a stop to ‘T’s visits. When ‘Z’ had her reversal surgery, I foolishly allowed ‘T’ to stay with me for a while at the Days Inn. One day she borrowed the car to go to my house to do laundry for us. She was gone much longer than was necessary. I discovered later that she had taken her boyfriend to my house which I had expressly forbidden. Shortly after I took ‘Z’ home, we both discovered that we had jewelry missing. The forged checks began appearing right after that. ‘Z’ again hid them from me at first, but when the amount was over $3,000 in one month she finally told me. I insisted on reporting it to the police again. This time I stayed close to the investigation and did everything I could to dissuade ‘Z’ from backing down. It took a long time since we had to wait for surveillance photos from the bank. When we had identified her in 5 pictures, a warrant was issued. Since it was not a violent crime, it was low priority. We were waiting for her to be arrested, not letting on what was happening and she was behaving the same as usual.

When ‘Z’ was reaching end of her patience, I suggested that she request restitution from the bank. They replaced the stolen money and so became a victim in the crimes. Now my sister could not back down on her complaint. To get ‘T’ arrested, we had to set a trap for her. We arranged with the city police and the county sheriff’s office to have the warrant served when we got ‘T’ to come to the house. My sister called her and told her that they needed to talk about the forged checks. The best time would be that morning since I had an appointment and would be out of the house. Actually I was in a neighbor’s house watching for ‘T’ and called the sheriff when she arrived. When it all came together, I felt relieved and yet sick to my stomach. I started smoking again that day after 13 years of not smoking.

My sister posted her bond (again). Then she had to be arrested again for 2 more checks. It took a while to get the photographs and the warrants for those checks could not be issued until she had been identified. This time we went to the magistrate’s court when she was formally charged. I foolishly agreed to speak on her behalf. I stood and told the judge that drugs and the boyfriend were a lot of the problem and that my sister and I were ready to take responsibility for her. The judge ordered a psychological evaluation and ordered me to take her! It really ended up being for nothing because both my sister and my niece decided that the psychologist was an idiot. While we were waiting for the trial, things continued has they had for years. At some point, ‘T’ moved out again. I don’t remember the specific incident because this played out so many times. It probably involved a lot of screaming and my calling the sheriff. I can’t even remember where she ended up living.

Since ‘T’ did not have any money, she was appointed a public defender who recommended that she plead guilty. The day she was to enter her plea, I found out my sister had never filed her victim impact statement. The district attorney uses this in recommending a sentence to the court. I grabbed someone from the DA’s office that morning and we sat down to talk about it. ‘T’ would get probation since this was her first offense (because my sister didn’t follow through the first time). I wanted some conditions imposed, such as anger management classes. I really wanted her to serve some of the time, but probation was the usual sentence. ‘T’ behaved terribly in court. The judge predicted that she would violate her probation and imposed a ‘no contact’ order so that ‘Z’ and I would be left in peace.

After about 10 months of relative peace (‘Z’ had been talking to her daughter by phone periodically which made her angry; my son and I suffered the fallout of her anger with ‘T’), my sister wanted to ask the court to lift the ‘no contact’ order. Again I did my “go along to get along” thing and even went to court with ‘Z’. Things continued the same as they had for years with ‘T’ stealing by using her mother’s debit card and being chronically unemployed. I did call her probation officer after a year and suggested to him that he drug test her. The secretive behavior and mysterious disappearances had started again. As a first time offender, she was required to submit to drug tests at any time. The probation officer had not done any testing during that first year. In fact, they never did. When she reported the next time, he asked her if she was using again and she admitted it. He put her in a diversion program for 10 weeks and that was the end of that.

Besides her year at Job Corps, ‘T’ had also attended school to be a medical assistant. (This was before her felony conviction and now the state of Georgia is trying to collect on her student loan. She also likes to try to impress people by referring to this as going to medical school.) She just would not apply herself to anything and could never stay employed. There were two jobs that gave us some hope. She managed to stay with one fast food place for 10 months. She was fired shortly after a robbery. I suspect that she was involved, but there was not sufficient evidence to charge her. Her next job lasted almost a year. In June 2002, she moved a friend of hers into my garage without my knowledge. He was here for three days before I knew anything. I never did know what he did for a bathroom for those three days. When I found out he was in my house, the story I was given was that he was homeless because of a fire and it would only be a week. ‘Z’ and I were cautioned by ‘T’ not to ask him questions because he was traumatized by the fire. Again what I chump I was! After 3 months of this guy sitting on his ass (on my old sofa) watching TV or sleeping, I suggested to him that he do some yard work in exchange for living in my house. The next thing I knew, ‘T’ had her mother in the bedroom, screaming at her that I bothered this young man. The next week ‘Z’ found a $470 ATM withdrawal from her checking account that she knew nothing about. I immediately went to ‘T’ and her friend and told them they had 1 hour to get out and 4 weeks to remove all of their stuff. (He had brought a pile of possessions with him.) A few weeks later I discovered the reason ‘T’ was being so secretive. A letter came for him from the probation office where he was required to report. With both of them on probation, they were both breaking the rules. I just wrote “Does not live at this address and never did” on the envelope and put it back in the mailbox. ‘T’ was livid (I had to tell her). I don’t know if he got in trouble and I don’t care.

I guess ‘T’ went to live with the ‘guy’ and his father. A few weeks later, ‘Z’ begged me to drive 50 miles in a storm to pick up ‘T’. They had kicked her out for not contributing to the household! I don’t remember where her car was. The episodes concerning her loosing temporary possession of her car were so numerous that they have run together in my memory. Her short-term ‘visits’ were also so numerous that they also run together.

When my sister decided to have the second gastric bypass, ‘T’ was supposed to go with us. The night before the surgery she changed her mind. When ‘Z’ started having complications, I only remember ‘T’ coming to visit twice during those 65 days immediately after. She did show up at my house in November, dropped her car insurance bill in my lap and told me it needed to be paid. I invited her to take her bill and leave my house. After my sister died, I found out that ‘Z’ had been paying her car insurance every month. (This was the year 2004 and my niece was 29 years old!)

I almost forgot about Christmas that year! ‘Z’ had been discharged from the hospital (this was after the 65 days) on December 23. She had always made a big deal of the holidays. So when she asked if ‘T’ could come and stay Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I gave in. ‘T’ arrived on the 24^th, stayed a couple of hours and then disappeared for 3 days. When she did reappear, she assumed she was welcome to stay through her mother’s birthday on the 31^st. I told her to leave and had to threaten to call the sheriff to get her to leave.

When my sister came home in December, she did improve. Then there was a drastic change. She had been able to get up with a walker and suddenly she had no strength. When she reached the point where she could not sit up unaided, I took her to the ER. She was admitted and remained almost a month while her GI specialist assessed her and tried several treatments. ‘T’ was dropped off at the hospital by one of her ‘friends’ and stayed for several days. The hospitals in this area have fold-out cots so that family members can stay and help with the patient’s care. ‘T’ would sleep very late (read that as ‘all day’) and be in the way of hospital personnel. ‘Z’s car was in the shop and I had not been able to get there to pick it up. Even though her mother had forbid it (and so did I) ‘T’ managed to get a ride to the dealership and took possession of ‘Z’s car. She disappeared for 2 days. When she did return, I took the keys away, told her to pack her bag and took her to some apartment she directed me to and left her there.

I am emotionally exhausted at this point. I have been typing this and revising it for several hours. I am far from finished. I do see my own failing in all of this. I should not have let my sister or my niece manipulate me. I guess I need to relive it all to be sure that I have allowed myself to heal enough that I don’t desperately need people to like me to the point that I give up my own will or make my own decisions. More later, maybe in a few days.