The cat war is over and now we have moved on to other worries.

The evening I posted the cat wars post, Paul and I made a trip over to Will’s apartment to get Arabella’s big items, such as her couch, because she just got out of jail earlier in the week. While we were there, Will said he would give Arabella her cat back on two conditions. The first that she would not lock the cat up in her room and the second that she would allow him places to hide. I called Arabella right away and she said she would agree with the conditions.

After the break up, Paul and I tried to have a non-adversarial relationship with Will. I think this really helped the cat situation. Although, I believed the cat should just stay where he was at for the cat, I believe it was in my daughter’s best interest to get the cat back. Will still had some compassion for her. My daughter’s mood improved drastically. We felt more secure about leaving Arabella at home without us to go on our annual sailing trip with friends. I was willing to stay back if I needed to. But after she got the cat back, I felt she was more stable.

While we were gone, I told Arabella I did not want her to bring any new friends we haven’t met to the house. After we got back, we met her first jail friend. This woman was rough. She told me she first got in trouble at age 14 when she stabbed her dad who was abusing her. She made it clear she did not kill him but that did not make me feel much better.

After she was released from juvie, she was homeless and lived on the streets. Although this woman was as small as a child of 10, I wouldn’t want to mess with her. She has the glean of insanity in her eyes along with a shaved head and multiple tattoos. I took an interest in her tattoos and asked her who the face belonged to of the person tattooed on her arm. She said it was a tattoo of Hannibal Lector. Sickening! Idolizing a sadistic serial killer. I didn’t know what to say. I was feeling more apprehensive by the minute. Only 24 with a decade in the system. I told her it was not too late to turn her life around. But who am I kidding, she doesn’t have much of a chance.

To think at one time I thought the psych ward friends were bad. However, the girl was over the top polite. Told me she protected my daughter from fights although she was over half her size. She helped my daughter unpack her belongings and was helpful. But she still made everyone uneasy because there was something not quite right about her. It was Labor Day. The weather was perfect for one last summer hurrah. My son had a couple friends over and so did we. My best friend brought her 13 year-old son who wanted to hang out with the girls. This really stressed me out. The girl was really sketchy and was wearing an ankle bracelet. Was she under house arrest? Was she breaking rules by being at our house? Would the police show up? Where they talking to my friend’s kid about jail or inappropriate topics?

Perhaps I made a mistake. But could I tell my daughter everyone can have friends over but you. Should we have new boundaries? No felons in the house? My daughter is facing 3 felony charges. Maybe we should have bailed her out of jail earlier. The should’ve would’ve started creeping in. We thought she would be a shoe in for mental health treatment court. No one lead us to believe otherwise, but we were wrong. We are treading in new waters once again. I wish someone would’ve wrote a book about what to expect when your kid gets out of jail.

My daughter told me her friend was on the bracelet for a DUI. But I don’t believe anything I hear anymore. I did a little investigative work on my own. The criminal records in our state are public record. My daughter’s friend has a long list of criminal records. She is 24 years old and most recently has drug charges involving meth and narcotics along with the DUI. She has battery charges as well. She has a history of being a violent felon with hard drug charges. I found out she is also a mother, but I am assuming her child has been taken from her.

What is my responsibility here? Will she introduce my daughter to hard drugs? Would I rather have her friend hang out here where I can keep an eye on things or have my daughter hang out with her wherever that may be? Our initial reaction was to kick her friend out. But she didn’t do anything wrong at our house as far as we could tell. As of right now, we are closely monitoring the situation. Arabella doesn’t make good choices and all her friends are pretty messed up. She just doesn’t attract the nice quiet church girls. Most of her friends make us uncomfortable. I knew this was going to happen, but I don’t have any good answers on what to do about it.