Always Watching

House?”
    “Because everyone in there has a monkey on their back. Good luck, lady.” He started to walk away.
    If Lisa was there, did that mean she was using drugs again? I called out, “A couple of nights ago, she overdosed. Did you know that?”
    He turned around. “Last I heard she was clean.” He shrugged. Just another day on the streets . Then he dropped his board and skated off to join his friends. So he thought she was clean too. Was Lisa telling the truth?
    I drove down to the house on Caledonia and sat outside, wondering if I should’ve asked Kevin to join me. The problem was if Lisa saw him, she’d know something was up and would be gone in a heartbeat. I walked up to the house, took a deep breath, and pushed the door open. I was hit immediately with the scent of unwashed bodies, chemicals burning, and cigarette smoke. I made my way down a dark hallway, trying not to panic in the enclosed space. I faltered in one section, where someone had piled garbage outside a door, making the hallway a tight squeeze. Don’t think about it, just focus on finding Lisa. I counted my breaths until my heart rate settled, then pushed on. I noticed that most of the rooms had only a bare mattress, where people were sleeping, or sitting up with glazed eyes. Garbage covered the wood floors. One woman glared at me, her face and arms covered with open, weeping sores. I quickly glanced away. In the next room a young First Nations woman, decorated in homemade tattoos, looked up and said, “Who you looking for, sister?”
    “My daughter, Lisa Lavoie.”
    She narrowed her eyes, like she was thinking. “There’s a Lisa at the end of the hall. She’s cute.” She grinned.
    I hurried the rest of the way, nearly gagging on all the odors. The room at the end had a door. I debated whether I should knock, and then just pushed it open. Lisa sat huddled on an old mattress with no sheets, the cover stained. Old wallpaper hung down in big strips, and a cold wind pushed through the cracked window, the sill dark with rot and mold. Empty pizza boxes and take-out containers littered the room. She was wearing the clothes she’d left my house in: faded black jeans and a gray sweatshirt, the hood pulled over her head. With her coat wrapped around her for a blanket, she leaned against the wall, with her eyes closed and her packsack in her lap. Her face was so pale that I caught my breath, until she muttered something and shifted her body.
    I said, “Lisa?”
    She started awake, staring at me. Her pupils were dilated, and she grabbed at her packsack and pulled it close, her jaw working and her gaze zipping around the room. She was high as a kite. I fought the urge to drag her out by the scruff of her neck and lock her in a room at home. Underneath my anger, I could taste my fear for her, my sorrow and despair. How could she do this to herself?
    She said, “What’re you doing here?”
    “I wanted to talk to you about the brochure you left at my house—the one for The River of Life. How did you get it?”
    She avoided my gaze, just rubbed her arms, her body, jerky movements, scratching at her legs.
    “These people aren’t what they seem. You don’t know how they can—”
    “You’re unbelievable,” she snapped. “You’re always trying to get me into a treatment center—now I’m trying to get help, and you’re still not happy.”
    She was right. I’d been pushing Lisa for years to get help for her addiction, but I’d never expected that she’d seek it from the center. I had to be careful here, had to make my point subtly. “Lisa, I knew the leader when I was a child. They start off saying they want to help you, but in the end they hurt people. Especially girls. Their leader—”
    “You want me off drugs, don’t you? They helped some other kids I know from the street. Why can’t you ever let me do things my way?” Her voice broke. She stared down at her knees, her face flushed and angry. She’d always hated crying in front of anyone. When she was little, I was the only one allowed to hold her when she was sobbing. She’d push everyone else away.
    I knelt on the floor in front of her. “Lisa, I want to support your decisions. But I also want you to know everything about these people first.”
    “ Now you want to protect me. Where were you before?”
    “I’ve always been here—”
    She started laughing, a high-pitched sound. “You were so busy learning how to help all those other people, you didn’t notice—you