Tomiekia Johnson

A United Mom and Daughter Divide

My mom was never my God. I never felt like she would run into a burning building to save me with a hero’s cape billowing behind her. That would be my dad, and he wouldn’t need to bother with a cape; he’d rush right in. My mom and I just never had that type of bond. I always felt a stale distance from her love. It was partially because she parented my brother ostensibly differently. There was a leniency toward him growing up. She expected me to be more responsible, like a surrogate, intermediate guardian to my brother. I would drag my little self to the shelf of mom’s parental priorities and navigate the lonely world while she helicoptered over the needs of her little guy. “My 12,” she called him. She didn’t have a nickname for me.

When I was 21, my mom recruited me to work with her for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD). She brought me into her world of job security—one with a good, steady income, health benefits, and retirement. We worked at the lowest level, first point of contact, together for more than two years. Suddenly, we had more in common; we could bond in conversations about our on-the-job experiences. Although I was still on the fence about an employment choice that wasn’t mine, my mom and I had a new closeness, and I secured the job of her dreams: 911 operator/dispatcher. Eventually, I went my own way and became a California Highway Patrol Officer. I don’t remember my mom being distinctively proud.

Many people believe successful, strong, career-oriented women like myself couldn’t possibly be victims of domestic abuse. I wish this were true. My husband’s violence escalated relatively quickly. One night, I drove to my parent’s home, hysterically crying. My dad bent away into a less complicated corner of the house to let my mom be the intercessor this time. I gave her a quick rundown of the chain of events leading to that evening and asked if I could spend the night.

She looked at me, expressionless, and said, “You need to go home to your husband.”

Her cold breeze blew me out the door and back to my abuser. When I drove the long green mile home that night, barely able to see the delineations in the street through the tears pooling in my eyes, I made the hopeless agreement only broken people make with themselves: I will continue trying to make this marriage work.

Fast forward, the gun my husband once threatened to shoot himself with, the gun he once tried to kill me with, the gun my mom sent me back home to face, accidentally discharged.

Detectives called my husband’s death an accident themselves. Yet, two years later, I was arrested by LASD, my mom’s employer. When the frame-up investigation started looking more nefarious, she didn’t lift an eyebrow, finger, or phone to ask the department to treat me with justice. After I was harshly over-sentenced to 50-Life, I expected her to at least make a phone call to the Sheriff’s Department Union demanding I be treated with fairness so they could see one of their own was attempting to hold them accountable. She didn’t. She struggled to tell me why through a series of ugly cries, 15-minute prison-monitored phone calls, letters, and in-person visits.

One time, I asked her not to visit me. She showed up anyway, looking like a lost puppy dog. I nearly turned around to go back to my housing unit, but a sense of familial responsibility convinced me to stay. We sat at the wide, round table in the visiting room. Often, we would sit next to each other, but this day, she sat across from me, prepared for war. We finally had a showdown.

I said something to the effect of, “Your department arrested me two years after the accident with a SWAT team! How come you didn’t step in to do something?” Crickets. I tried a different approach: “Can’t you see they exploited our pain, and turned everyone against each other to convict me?” Nothing. I brought up the time she was on the elevator at the Sheriff’s Office with her top boss, Sheriff Lee Baca. She had his undivided attention and still didn’t make a move to tell him my story. She sat with this faraway look—smug in her right to remain silent. My tummy turned and ached. I had no one to comfort me, seeing how the most likely person to do so was seated right across from me, an arm’s length, yet an expanse, away.

Finally, maybe an hour later, she gave me an explanation. She said she respected her workplace even though she knew that they didn’t always operate with integrity, then corrected herself. “Okay, most of the time they aren’t fair, and what they did to you was wrong.” Already knowing she felt that way, I still needed her to say it again.

Then came the sick disappointment I could never fully brace myself for: she looked away, averting my painful gaze, and said, “That’s my job and I’m close to retirement. I don’t want to rock the boat or make any waves about this.” My mom had worked for the Sheriff’s Department too long to throw away her retirement. My soul was depleted, head hung low. All I could think was, I would never do my daughter like this. I would crawl through the pits of Hell with Lucifer chomping at my heels to rescue my daughter from all his little minions attempting to wrongly incarcerate her.

That day, I had to accept that my mom chose job security over me. That gnawing reality has stayed with me, and I have come to realize that we are cut from extremely different cloths. In the deep recesses of my mind, I have finally stopped asking myself the question: “Why won’t my mom wear a billowing cape for me?”