As a teenager, Danielle, a straight-A student, has the chance to live with her mom, a wild spirit with a dangerous streak who has disappeared into the Witness Protection Program. Danielle searches for a bond that has been missing in her life in a whirlwind six months that changes their lives forever.

Said I don’t know if I’ve ever been good enough
I’m a little bit rusty, and I think my head is cavin’ in
And I don’t know if I’ve ever been really loved
By a hand that’s touched me
And I feel like something’s gonna give

I stared out the car window at the unfamiliar scenery as the other cars whizzed by, all seeming to know exactly where they were headed. It was just over a month after my highschool graduation, and my grandma had planned this road trip for me and my sister, who was 14. In a matter of weeks, I would be turning 18 and starting college. My future was coming, though it seemed to exist on a far off horizon I couldn’t quite glimpse. As we drove, I was lost in the too-loud music pumping through the headphones of my Discman.

“Girls,” grandma said, getting our attention. She said she had something important to tell us, so I jammed the pause button and took out my headphones. “Danielle, I know I told you this trip was just a road trip before you start college. But we have a surprise! We are going to go see your mom.”

Those words sent a shock throughout my entire body. Our father had been out of the picture for years. When I was in middle school, my mother entered the Witness Protection Program and, as it was explained to us, it was considered too dangerous and difficult in her case to bring two children. She had already gradually grown removed from the daily aspects of parenting, and overnight she became a stranger. We didn’t know where she was living, and she had a new name that I would never recognize. My mother had vanished not just from the world but from her children.

Highschool came, as did my first dance, my first date and the new millennium—all without my mother. Over time, I was convinced I’d never see her again.

With my grandma’s bombshell, excitement filled the car, our previously unknown destination transformed into somewhere remarkable, almost fantastical. Now, watching the scenery outside my window, my mind filled with questions about my mother. What kind of new life had she created for herself? What did her house look like? Who was she now?

We reached a fairly nondescript hotel in the middle of nowhere Montana. I stared out the hotel window looking for my mom’s car to pull up. I had stared out of so many windows watching for her throughout my life. I tried to contain my excitement over seeing her, wrestling with the fear that she wouldn’t actually come. But the scratchy floral colored bedspreads I sat on in the hotel room felt real, as did the cold glass of the window against my forehead. Finally, a big white work van pulled into the parking spot, and my mom stepped out.

We could see her making her way to the elevator from the window. She looked so different from the last time I had seen her. My mother had been a dancer as a child. She had always been lithe and strikingly beautiful. Now, she was months shy of 40 years old, her hair graying and she had gained weight. She was almost unrecognizable but still exuded an undeniable aura of confidence.

In a state of shock, we hugged and wept, reconnecting until we were all exhausted. We slept in that hotel room together for the night. The next morning, we drove a few hours to my mother’s place, which she shared with my stepfather. It was a cute house by the lake. The top floor had been converted to a master bedroom, while on the main floor there were two more bedrooms as well as a living room, kitchen and dining room. The house also had a basement with another living room, a laundry room and two bonus rooms. It even had an outdoor hot tub. It was the kind of house I had always imagined living in with my family.

I felt a sense of joy and completeness, a rightness that envelops a reunited mother and child. My mom and I talked about highschool and the things she had missed. Then we got on the subject of college. I filled her in on my plans to go to the University of South Florida and major in communications.

She looked at me and said the words that would change my life: “You know there is a college 10 minutes from the house that has an equestrian program.” 

When I believed in Santa, I always asked for the same two things: my mom to stop running off and being away from me, and to have a pony. Now I didn’t need Santa. This was my chance to have both of those things. 

Torn, I said, “I was supposed to start college and live with my best friend on campus.” My life was supposed to be set. But we would figure that out, my mom promised, we would figure everything out.

After so many years of dealing with the consequences of my mom’s risky choices, my grandma had developed draconian expectations for my obedience to her. When she heard the plan, she fumed. She insisted that if I stayed behind with my mom, it would be only with what I had brought with me. She would not send anything else along, including money I had saved up that I kept at her house. My mom told her we didn’t need any of those things. My grandma got in her car with my sister, too young to decide for herself where to live, and drove away.

It all felt like it was meant to be. I would finally be where I belonged, even though it meant stepping into a life built within the secretive Witness Protection Program that was intended to be invisible. In a way, it seemed like the perfect formula for us to both start over. My fractured family life had always cast a shadow over me. This would be my chance to find myself, once and for all, even as my mother was trying to shake her old identity with help from the United States government. 

In the next six months with my mom—my last six months with my mom—I would experience the promise of a shiny new life crumble around me. 

Plans shaped up quickly and in thrilling fashion. My mom, who was Joanne, was now called Melissa. And, to my eye, she seemed to have really changed beyond the new name. She had a steady job maintaining vending machines, which involved driving across Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas, filling the machines and collecting the money.

For my part, I had just uprooted my life plans, which should have been terrifying—I was an A-student who always followed the rules and did what was expected. The opposite of my mom, who never let societal expectations or laws, for that matter, stop her from trying things. At one point, she had owned her own deli in New York, and at a later point she became an exotic dancer.  Anything was possible for her, and that dreamlike reality was infectious. One of the first things we did was go see the private university that housed the equestrian program she had spoken of.  

I had loved horses all my life, but I had only ridden on trail rides when my grandparents took us on vacations. The lure of life with horses and with my mother felt right to me. We toured the school together. To an outsider, we were just like any other mother and daughter pair. Then we sat with the admissions officer. My mother beamed with pride as the woman reviewed my excellent transcripts. 

My mom and I continued catching up almost around the clock, a condensed attempt to share with her all my teenage years that she had missed. When she found out I never had more than a sip of my grandpa’s wine, she laughed, blaming her mother’s outdated beliefs and parenting. “Well, we can fix that now!” She rolled up a joint and poured me a rum and coke. A seductive feeling of rebellious freedom crept up inside me.  

Soon after moving in, I turned 18 and my mom took me on my first visit to a casino. In this part of Montana, there seemed to be one on every corner, filled with video Keno and poker machines. Despite their prevalence, my mother had a few to which she was loyal. She frequented them daily and couldn’t wait to introduce her daughter to her ‘friends.’ She knew all the employees by name and always had an air of confidence to her.

She taught me how to play poker and showed me all her favorite Keno games to play. Like every good gambler she had “a system” that included playing favorite numbers. She sipped a few complimentary rum and Diet Cokes, while I had a plain Diet Coke. A lot of the casinos also offered pub food and that day we had lunch together while we reminisced.

We actually won money that night, which could be a bad thing. Once you win, no matter how many times you’d lose in the future, you believed it was just a matter of time before you could win again.

Meanwhile, I scored a spot in the equestrian program. After dreaming of having a horse for so long, I finally had one of my own. Technically, my sorrel American Quarter Horse, Tabasco, belonged to the school. Still, he was mine to care for and ride for the duration of the program. There was a barn full of horses, some owned by the school like mine but some were brought by students. There were gorgeous and strong specimens of Arabians, American Quarter Horses, Thoroughbreds and a Tennessee Walking Horse.  

Mom didn’t like horses, but that made it all the more meaningful that she supported my new endeavor. She would occasionally come to the stables to watch me ride. Once, she even agreed to let me try and teach her to ride. At first she refused, but I was learning there were parts of me that were my mother’s daughter after all–I finally wore her down. She insisted Tabasco was too big for her, so we saddled up my friend's tiny Arabian for her. I tried explaining to my mom how the size of the horse didn’t actually matter, and that Arabians could be testy. 

She hoisted herself onto the equally short horse. We started out side by side while I instructed her where to place her feet and how to hold the reins. We laughed and chatted as we walked around the oval arena. Suddenly, my mom’s horse took off in a gallop. Her body literally bent back and forth with every step. After some effort, I caught up and grabbed the reins to bring her horse to a stop. My mom looked at me and said, “Why hasn’t someone sent this crazy animal to the glue factory!” 

Our mother-daughter casino outings continued through the fall of 2001. She always seemed to know everybody, either through her vending machine routes or her frequent visits. On one of these outings, I met a guy who worked there and we hit it off. Of course, my mother already knew him. He asked me on a date and said he’d pick me up on his sportbike motorcycle–a vehicle not respected by serious bikers. My mother laughed and told him, “a crotch-rocket is not a motorcycle,” with this gleam in her eye that revealed to him she was much more of an expert than she appeared.

At another time of my life, I would have recoiled. In highschool, the closest things I did that even came close to a date were playing pool, which I had learned how to play in a biker clubhouse at the age of 8, in the college recreation center and watching a movie. I had grown up reading novels like Jane Eyre about destined love. I was the hopeless romantic who once wrote that boy I had loved for years a letter all about how I wished I had the guts to kiss him. Instead, I let him read the letter; he broke my heart and dated my best friend.

This was different, now I had a fearless ally by my side. Feeding off my mom’s energy, I found myself agreeing to the new experiences. 

Our casino adventures had a dark side. As our trips became more routine, I realized what were special occasions to me were part of her everyday life. The more she gambled, the deeper she fell into debt. She would remind me she had a system and that losing was part of the game but so was hitting it big. She was sure she would. Dangerous behavior, thrill seeking, escaping the consequences and beating the odds were the story of her life. It had become a cycle and she wasn’t breaking it.

Years earlier, she became a fixture among shady people, many of whom were involved in criminal activities. There was the job at the strip club which had ended up feeding her drug addictions. That was where she met her first biker boyfriend who brought her into contact with the dangerous biker gang, the Outlaws. 

As a beautiful, charismatic and conniving woman, she became an asset to the men in her orbit and to the Outlaws as an organization. She could charm anyone and loved to take risks. After marrying my stepfather, an Outlaw member, my mom abetted the organization on many fronts. When the FBI raided Outlaw clubhouses throughout the state, they nabbed my mom, too. 

Her charges included aiding and abetting, identity theft and drugs. She and my stepfather spent a year or so in jail before he agreed to testify in exchange for their release and safety. Their testimony was essential against the people the government really wanted to send away.

That’s when she had disappeared into the Witness Protection Program, when I thought I might never see her again. I could remember hearing the news while sitting in my grandma’s kitchen, staring at the pool through the sliding glass door, hardly understanding what it all meant. The pool vacuum just kept making its rhythmic “click, click, click” sounds, drowning out my thoughts. This development would keep my mom out of jail and protect her from danger. She would survive, but it still felt like once again her decisions had separated us. In my mind, she couldn’t love me enough to stay out of trouble, and the trouble just seemed to get bigger. Once again, she turned her back on me to live a life that didn’t include being my mom.

Now, thanks to WitSec, as the program was known, she had been reborn with a new identity and credit score, which let her and my stepfather get the house by the lake. But even given a clean slate, mom’s habit of finding trouble couldn’t be tamed. The drinking and gambling to excess at the casinos were signs that she needed a source of danger to feel complete. Losing all her money at the Keno machines was just one part of our financial peril.

It turned out my equestrian program at the college was very expensive, particularly the specialized clothing and tack. At first, my clothing was ill-fitting, which led me at one point to fall off of Tabasco. I was lucky to escape with contusions and a few cactus needles to the face. But proper attire and equipment was no small matter; in my first week, a classmate fell and was dragged by her horse that temporarily landed her in a wheelchair. I knew enough about my mom’s finances to know she didn’t have enough money to get what I needed to continue riding. “We’ll figure it out,” she would tell me, flashing a signature smile that always got people to see things her way.

The casinos continued to be a constant theme in our lives. To contribute more to our expenses, I got a job at one of the local casinos. In the meantime, a new credit card had arrived in the mailbox. It had a ridiculously high limit. Mom took the card and bought the tack I needed for school, which was a relief. 

My social life at college kicked into gear. I started going to some college parties and making friends, mostly with the other girls at the barn. In a way though, I was in WitSec, too, or at least an agent for its secrecy, as I had to be careful what I’d say to classmates and instructors. I didn’t tell my new friends that I hadn’t grown up with my mother, or much about my life before I moved to Montana. I got to pretend I was just a regular kid for the first time in my life. When I introduced my friends to my mom, I had to be careful not to use her real name.

I also had my date with the casino worker with the motorcycle. I didn’t know what to wear, so my mom swooped in. From her closet, she dug out a pair of leather chaps from God knows where. She loaned me a pair of her thigh high boots, the chaps and a leather jacket. She did my hair and makeup for me while we both giggled in front of her giant mirror. I wore what she might have worn for a night out–I could see the resemblance between my mom and me for the first time in my life. 

The guy from the casino picked me up at the door with his friend who was also on his bike. The last time I was on the back of a motorcycle I was about 8 years old. We zoomed around the streets for a while, and the wind blowing in my hair felt exhilarating. Then, the road opened up in a straight stretch, and the guys decided to race one another. They didn’t see the road curve in time to stop, barely having enough time to slow down. Suddenly, the bikes hit the curb of the road and we were airborne. I was oddly excited as the bike left the ground with us on it. He managed to land it on two wheels initially, before we toppled over and skidded into the ditch for a few feet. No one was seriously hurt, but I decided to call it a night.

When I walked in and told my mom what happened, she ranted and raved about idiots on motorcycles. The chaps were scuffed and my jeans had a few tears in them. Once we got everything off, I realized I had a few spots of road rash. “Shit, Danielle, there is some dirt in these. I’m going to have to scrub it out.” She grabbed some peroxide and a soft bristle baby brush and proceeded to scrub the cuts. It hurt like hell, but I tried not to scream. At least my mom was taking care of me, instead of telling me “I would live” like she used to when I was a kid.

“Aren’t you glad you wore the chaps?” she said. “Otherwise, we might have had to go to the hospital to fix you up!”

Mom continued to use the new credit card on her shopping sprees, insisting that I stay outside the store. I put together her pattern. She purchased expensive things and then returned them for cash or sold them privately. As it turned out, the card was in the name of the elderly lady my mom had bought the house from. 

We argued about this. “Mom, this isn’t right! What about the old lady?”

Despite my reservations, there was a part of me that was tempted to let it happen. Rationalizations abounded. Was she really hurting anyone? Would the woman ever even know or ever have repercussions? It felt like part of a larger bonding experience with my mom that had brought us closer than we had ever been in my life; she started calling the two of us Thelma and Louise. Going along with her seemed to reward me with her approval.

My mom disliked my manager at the casino I was working at because of a few denied scheduling requests. The final straw happened when she wanted me to ride with her on one of her jobs, and they denied me my night off. I was getting ready to go to work, and my mom was angry. “You should just not show up,” she yelled. I didn’t ever like when people were angry with me, and I knew doing that would anger my manager. However, not doing it infuriated my mom. She ended up driving me to work, and she went inside when we got there. My manager never stood a chance. After a thorough tongue lashing, my mom grabbed my arm and yelled: “She quits!” She dragged me out the front door.

As with my employment, when my mom intruded deeper into my social life, things spiraled quickly. At one point, my mom became fixated on the fact that I was a virgin. Her reaction made me feel like I had a problem, a missing spark for adventure on which she thrived. She jumped into action. She helped me tame my curly hair, applied far too much make-up, and picked the ‘perfect’ outfit–something that my grandma would have never let me leave the house wearing. It was the kind of scene I used to wish for. But deep down, I knew it was wrong.

“Don’t worry, it will all be fine,” she said. “You’re going to have fun.” 

My mother’s attention felt so nice, dazzling me into thinking I could be like her. That night was a blur: a western bar, my heart racing, music, lights, people dancing, drinking and more drinking. All rules and even laws were thrown out the window—I lied about my age to the bartender to drink and then again to men we met so they wouldn’t realize I was a teenager. My mom artfully steered me into a conversation with a thirty something year old man. She told him I was too old to be a virgin and I had come there to have sex that night. In my drunken state, it was easy to forget the real me, the person who often felt pathetic, unloveable and leavable. Suddenly, I could be fun, daring and everything that my mother wanted.

I ended up at the man’s house, doing what my mom had set out for me to do. For a brief moment, I basked in a feeling of liberation. I felt grown-up and independent for the first time. But as reality kicked in: I said “no” at literally the very last opportunity. I remember being shushed gently and reassured by him. I fell asleep with tears in my eyes.

At the college parties, I started drinking and smoking pot even without my mom’s encouragement and hand-holding. One night, I had invited some of my friends from school over to the house to enjoy the hot tub. We had been drinking and having a great time when my mom came outside. She had seemed increasingly stressed these last few weeks. She was drinking more, which led to intense arguments.

On the evening of the hot tub gathering, one of our arguments led me to snipe, “I wish I had just gone home with grandma.” This set my mom off. While I was with my friends, she stormed up to the hot tub. Without hesitation, she dunked my head under the water and held it there. From underneath the water, I could see my friends scrambling out of the hot tub, fleeing the house. She finally let go, as I spit and gasped for air.

The next day she apologized, trying hard to make things go back to normal, or her definition of it. She wanted to go to lunch at our favorite spot after my morning classes. I had begun to realize I had underestimated my mother. She was a master manipulator. She used her charisma and sharp brain, her innate sense of what people around her wanted, to get what she wanted. She lulled people around her into complacency before they realized they were on a path toward disaster. 

We would end up taking in two puppies, another item from my childhood wish list. However, cracks in our lifestyle were getting bigger, deeper. It was like the set of a movie or TV show that seemed real until you walked through another door that revealed it was only a facade, ready to be broken down once it outlived its usefulness. My mom had almost maxed out the credit card. If her fraudulent use got flagged by the police causing, her status in WitSec could potentially be in jeopardy. She announced it was time to get rid of it. I asked if she would cut it up. She laughed at me. “Just wait and see!”

We loaded up her work van and drove across state lines. We stopped at a small town, where she found a bar filled with motorcycles in the parking lot. I was terrified. She was supposed to be avoiding places where people might recognize her, and instead we were going right into the heart of danger. She thrived on walking the precipice. The risks of coming here were far worse than using the credit card in the first place. If someone she had turned against when joining WitSec heard she was spotted, her new identity and location could be traced back to our house. As usual, she promised it would be fine; she said that she was over 2,000 miles away from the people in the motorcycle club who knew her. She sauntered in, then hurried out just a few minutes later.

“What happened?” I asked.

She explained that she had pretended to drop the card in the bathroom stall when she heard someone else come inside. She was absolutely convinced this woman would pick up the card and start using it. It never occurred to her that the woman might do the right thing and call the number on the back to report a lost card.

“If anyone gets caught using it,” she said, “it will be her.” 

Back at the house and school, I stopped partying and drinking. I remembered a promise to myself that I had made long ago: I would not grow up to be my mother. 

As Thanksgiving approached, I was driving the puppy to the vet one day, when suddenly I felt uncomfortable. The car behind me seemed to be following too close, and I knew something was wrong. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I felt afraid. I kept driving, then turned; he took the same turn I did. Paranoia? It had to be. I took the next random turn, but the car followed me again. I started driving downtown to the police station. I turned into the parking lot and the car behind me kept going straight. I waited for a while before going home. We never made it to the vet.

When I told my mom about it, she laughed. “Oh Danielle, you’re just being crazy! I’m sure it was nothing.” 

If someone had found her, we could both be in danger. I also discovered that my mom and stepdad were fighting over the debt caused by taking loans and gambling, both of which could attract even more attention that could lead her enemies right to her.

When I didn’t have class or barn duty, I rode with her on her vending collection routes. On one of these trips, we ended up at a small town bar. She got wasted while I tried to watch over her. At last call, my mom got onto the bar and started stripping for the owner and his son. Embarrassed, I finally managed to get her down and into the car. I drove us to the hotel and put her to bed. It reminded me of when I was little and would have to wake her up in the morning. Now, I understood what those nights before had looked like. The next morning, we drove home in weird silence.

By this point, I had met a sweet guy named Josh in my swim class. We started spending time together in the pool after class, playing water basketball and chilling in the hot tub. Josh was my type, not my mom’s idea of what my type should be. No motorcycles. He was smart, funny and attentive. He joined us for Thanksgiving. I could not recall my mom ever cooking me anything before. I remember making my own eggs at four years old. She’d tell me dinner was a cheese and mustard sandwich, and that if I was hungry I would eat it. Yet, at this moment Joanne really seemed to be replaced by a new woman named Melissa; she cooked a traditional meal and made incredible stuffed artichokes—my grandma's recipe. She asked Josh to bring a bottle of wine and he did, presenting a standard sized bottle. “Next time you bring wine,” my mom laughingly reprimanded him, “bring the big bottle!”

As we entered month six of our living together, my mom was preparing to go do one of her routes. I was supposed to come along. At the last minute, she changed her mind and told me I should stay. I had a horse show coming up and she didn’t want to risk me missing it if the road trip ran long. “I’m glad you moved here, Thelma,” she sighed and giggled at the nickname.

“Me too, Louise,” I responded halfheartedly.

She made an odd comment that Thelma would be fine without Louise. I didn’t give it much thought as she loaded up her van and drove away, waving out the driver’s side window.

My mom was supposed to call when she reached the hotel. She never did. The following morning, when I still hadn’t heard from her, I panicked. I called the hotel, and they said she never checked in. I checked with the hospitals and they said she wasn’t there. I called the highway patrol, and they said there had been no reports of an accident. 

A few hours later, I got a call from my stepdad, who had been working overnight, that my mom had crashed the van, going over the side of a mountain into an 80 foot ravine. I slid down to the floor, crying. 

There were two funerals. One was under Melissa, her Witness Protection name, in Montana, and the other one in Florida, under Joanne, her real name. It was as though both needed to be mourned separately. One for all the people who knew her as the witty, charming and hilarious vending lady with a bit of rebellious streak. The other for her mother, father, brother and both her children who knew her as the flawed, broken, daring spirit who refused to play by the rules her entire life. 

Even in death there were two versions of her. The woman who wanted to prove she could be my mother, could show me the way to new experiences; and the force of nature who could never be constrained by another person or even her own self-interests. But I had learned one did not exist without the other. Maybe we can never shed ourselves, no matter the resources at our disposal.

There were many realizations and revelations after her death. One, was that the explanation I had heard about why my mom didn’t bring us into WitSec was not accurate. The government had given her the option to take us with her and she declined. She thought we would be better off where we were. 

Nobody could ever say exactly what had happened on that isolated mountain road. There was no obvious cause. Maybe the criminal elements she had cooperated against had found her and forced her off the road. Maybe she spun the wheel, like watching to see where a roulette ball would land, ready to escape cycles of criminal activities, a decaying marriage and insurmountable debt. Had she asked me not to come because she knew she was in danger, or because she planned on suicide? Had both crossed her mind? My grandma wondered if my mom was overtired and trying to make it back in time for my horse show, essentially blaming me. She also wondered if my stepdad had engineered having her run off the road. 

Like so much related to my mom, a storm system of contradictory plans and goals and thoughts may have formed in those last moments. If those six months had seen my mom split into versions of herself, the same had happened for me. I had almost lost my identity in my desire to fit into her life. Not long after, I set off to find my father. 

After scouring the internet, I called him and he called me back. He told me about brothers and sisters I never knew about. I decided to find new family ties, however imperfect and complicated, even as I continued to come to terms with the ones I had to leave behind. Whatever had caught up with my mom could be lurking for me in every shadow, but with her loss, I grieved the mother I had and the mother I never had. I also found strength. I was now steering my way into the future, not being taken there by my grandma or mother.

In the months to come, I would connect again with Josh, even though we ended up in different parts of the country. The connection I first formed with him at a critical juncture of my six months with mom continued to grow. Of his brief time with my mom, Josh’s strongest memory of her is when he gave us a ride to pick up my car from getting an oil change. As I walked through the dealership, my mother looked over to him and said, “We will keep you, I think.” 

“When your mom first died,” Josh recalls, “you reminded me of a little kid that had just lost a balloon she had been clutching. It’s like the first time kids realize they can lose something and truly never get it back.” That hope I had clung to like a balloon string was truly gone. It took years for me to realize just how heavy the weight of that particular balloon really was, and to recognize that the choices that caused so much damage were her responsibility–not mine. Josh was a keen observer of what I had been through and would become a wonderful husband and father to our children. 

But that was all still to come.

As I boarded a bus to leave Montana to cross the country, 18-year-old me put my headphones back on and let the music take over. 

And I'm a little bit angry, well
This ain't over, no, not here
Not while I still need you around
You don't owe me, we might change, yeah
Yeah, we just might feel good

DANIELLE DAHL is a freelance writer, wife, and mom from Montana. She has several business degrees and recently decided to pursue a Ph.D. in Psychology.

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