Someone else's daughter.

J and her little sister used to ring my doorbell at least once a week, their friendly faces peering through the screen door. Apparently, they used to stop by and chat with the previous owners. On their first visit two years ago, when I was pregnant and unpacking, they told me all about the history of the house, who lived here and for how long, who lived in each house on the block and whether they were friendly.

At first, they stayed for just a few minutes due to the terrifying presence of Sweet Dog (who was a fluffy, grinning puppy at the time but still apparently terrifying, especially to J's sister.). This was fine by me as I didn't know them and I was pregnant and tired and wary.

Eventually, their visits lengthened. I put Sweet Dog in the backyard. I took them through the house, gave them cookies, and fed them lunch a few times when they came by as I was sitting down to eat. Sometimes, I hid in the back of the house and pretended to be napping to avoid the inevitably hour-long visit.

J was quiet so I mostly heard about how J's sister did well in school and wanted to be a "OG...a OBN... you know, a doctor who delivers babies". They told me they liked our house with its funky colored walls, new appliances and big TV. They oohed and ahhed over my belly and, later, even more so over my baby.

I bought tins of chalky, chocolate-covered peanuts and packages of gift wrap from J's sister for her school trips and projects. At Halloween, they told me that my farmer costume was lame but that our handout of tiny Snickers bars was the best on the block.

I never met their mother.

One day this past summer, J came by alone. She was upset and wanted to use the phone to call her grandmother. I let her in and pretended not to listen as she ranted about her mother, her social worker and "crazy lies" and then she ran out when she heard the siren of a police car coming down our street. I peered out from behind my curtains and saw a woman- her mother?- on the sidewalk yelling, the police holding her back from lunging toward J. My heart was beating fast but my feet stood still and I closed the curtain.

A few days later, J was back.

She wanted to use the phone to call her social worker. After she hung up, she bounced Z on her knee as she told me all about her father who is in jail and her "lying, crazy" mother who threw away her stuff and called the police over little transgressions, telling them that J had "pulled a knife on her". It was "all lies". Her mother was the one that hit HER and she just wanted out; she wanted to get emancipated. To do what? To go where? I asked. She didn't have an answer.

I asked about her future, about school and was there anywhere else she could go, any other family she could stay with? She told me she was about to enter her junior year in high school, wanted to go to college, and she wanted to be an "OBN. You know, deliver babies.". When I asked about her grades and favorite subjects, she wouldn't meet my eyes and admitted she wasn't enrolled yet for the school year that started in two days.

I told her that medical school was after 4 years of studying pre-med in college and she needed to do well in a rigorous schedule of math and science classes. I told her she was going to have to get herself enrolled in school if her mother refused to do it. I told her education was her key to success. I told her it was her life and she would have to take charge and make it what she wanted it to be. She continued to study the grout in the tiles of our kitchen floor as my self-help, Oprah-style platitudes dissipated in the air around her.

Her visits to use the phone and vent became more frequent; her compliments of our house, more pointed. "You have a guest room?!", "Wow, look at that dishwasher!", "What kind of TV is that?", "I've never seen a washer-dryer like that!", and always back to "You have a guest room?!"

(Do I need to tell you that J is black and I am white? That her mother rents their place and that we bought our house for a ridiculous California-is-criZAZY-and-we-live-in-a-gentrifying-neighborhood price? Do these specifics matter? Do they explain the gaps in understanding and communication between J and me?)

(Why does even writing those sentences make me feel queasy, probably for all the wrong, white-liberal-guilt reasons?)

I finally had to tell her she couldn't stay with us. She already knew that but after weeks of hinting had asked point-blank anyway.

I kept asking about her aunt, the one her mother "wouldn't let her stay with". Or what about her grandmother, who she said was "too old to take care" of her? I wanted to say that she was 16 and old enough to be taking care of her grandmother in exchange for a safe place to stay. I wanted to say that whatever the true story was, her home was emotionally toxic and she would need to find a safe and calm place to stay if she wanted to finish high school and go to college.

I wanted to say that she could stay with us. But I didn't. She couldn't.

Right?

Not long after our final discussion of the often-empty guest room, she stopped coming by.

I asked a neighbor if she had heard anything about J and she told me J was sent to juvenile hall. There had been one too many calls to the police.

Had J lied to me? Did she really pull knives on her mother? Would she have been a danger to us, to Z?

Or was she an abused teen who was looking for help, for someone to notice, do something? Care?

I know she's not my daughter. I have a daughter who needs me to look out for her, which includes not bringing questionable people into our home. But J clearly needed some help and she was clearly asking me to provide it. That I didn't (couldn't?) do more than listen feels like a failure of my commitment to my community, to motherhood.

Who's responsible to catch other mothers' daughters who are falling through the cracks? Is motherhood just about mothering my own daughter or about some larger responsibility to daughters (and sons) everywhere? What has motherhood taught me if not the importance of feeling safe, the necessity of supportive community, and the primacy of unconditional love?

How much can I give when I'm just a neighbor?

Will I ever be able to accept, to go about my business even while knowing, that while Z is lucky enough to go to sleep at night in a safe, loving home (with an often-empty guest room, no less), J is in Juvie?


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It's been a few months since I last saw J. I saw her sister on a scooter on our street a few days ago and I asked where J was, even though I knew the answer. She shrugged, looking at the ground: "I don't know." I said: "Say hi for me if you hear from her" and sighed at how lame and insufficient it sounded as she scooted away.