She Wanted It All - Kathryn Casey [132]
Over the days following Jennifer’s and Kristina’s refusal to return home, the calls became increasingly desperate. Celeste ranted and raved. She called Justin, Justin’s parents, Christopher, Christopher’s family, the twins’ friends, Anita, and everyone she could for help, but no one would tell her where the girls had gone. One afternoon Celeste pounded on the Grimms’ front door, pleading with Justin’s father to let her in. He told Celeste to leave. Inside the house, Kristina cried. The ties that bound her to her mother were strong.
“I’m not going to have my life run by a nineteen-year-old who thinks she knows everything in the goddamned fucking world,” Celeste raged during her next call. “I am your mother. You are not going to tell me what to do … I’m telling you this. If you choose to stay at the Grimms’, you’ll be sorry. I will get a restraining order first thing in the morning. You will not be allowed at my house, ever.”
Celeste tried to elicit Kristina’s sympathy, talking about her abuse, ranting about the horrors of her life. When that didn’t work, she argued that Kristina wasn’t acting as an adult. “If you had a problem, you should’ve said, ‘Mom, I don’t want to do this,’ instead of holding all this resentment and hatred inside of you … That’s the adult way … All you want to do is hurt me,” Celeste cried.
“That’s not true,” Kristina said, her voice heavy with sadness.
Hour after hour Jennifer’s and Kristina’s cell phones rang. When they didn’t answer, Celeste left long messages on their voice mails, or Justin’s, his parents’, or Christopher’s.
“I like how everybody’s avoiding my phone calls, Kristina. You’re just making it worse on yourself.”
On Justin’s cell phone, Celeste left a message saying, “Kristina stole Kaci, which is valued over five hundred dollars, so it’s a felony … I do not want to do this to my children, because I love them and Mother’s Day is coming up, but they’re leaving me no choice… The other thing to tell the girls is if—if, um, they don’t come here at five tonight, I’m not psycho or anything, I’m as calm as can be, but I will report them for stealing the keys to the house and everything else, since they don’t live here anymore. I will hire a private detective and track them down, because they were stupid enough to charge on the gas card. And I know, I know the area of town that they’re in, and I know where they go to school … If they don’t do it tonight at five, they will be sorry.
“I’ve disconnected both girls’ phones, and neither one have car insurance … please make sure you tell the girls that I love them, but I will have them arrested at school, because they’ve hurt me, and I think it’s only fair that they get humiliated.”
The days were torment for the twins. They were afraid, of both staying away and going home. Celeste accused them of stealing money and jewelry. At times they talked with their mother and agreed to meet her, but they never showed up at the Toro Canyon house. And always, Celeste called again.
It was the last conversation she had with her mother that finally convinced Kristina that Celeste wasn’t just abusive, she was evil.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Celeste said.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Kristina answered.
“You don’t care about me at all?”
“Yes, I do care about you.”
“Then, why don’t you come home? Why? Why don’t you come down and talk to me?”
“‘Cause I don’t want you to throw a scene.”
“I wasn’t going to hurt myself, Kris. What the hell do you think I went to the hospital for? I’m not gonna hurt myself anymore. I’m not gonna throw a scene anymore … Do you think that I’m worse than my father?”
“When you call me names, like ‘you little bitch,’ and you always say that I’m worthless and selfish. When all I ever do is do everything for you,” Kristina said.
“I just want you to know that I do not appreciate you butting into my business when I asked you not to,” Celeste warned. “And I was gonna, when you come home, I was gonna tell you exactly why, exactly what Donna has on me.”
“What does she