On Sunday my sister is flying to London. This was not the plan. She and C-, her husband, were supposed to spend the long weekend in Boston with our father. C- has another round of job interviews at the beginning of the week, in preparation for their planned move there this summer.

Instead, M- is going to London. This week her daughter is being brought up on charges of attempted murder. O- will be in jail until her trial in the Fall, and though her barrister believes it's unlikely she'll be convicted on the attempted murder charge, she is likely to be convicted of a lesser offence. Two years of jail, at least, is the guess.

My niece is a junkie. A lovely, smart, talented 31-year-old woman whose body and mind have been terribly eroded by heroin, cocaine, ecstacy, and god only knows what else. Her childhood was difficult, as my sister M- was also a person with serious troubles. She did her best as a single parent, but it was stormy and hard for both of them. O-'s self-esteem is probably negligible, although she guarded her dignity so fiercely that for years the family has tiptoed around her ~ never criticizing, or even commenting, for fear of her anger or, worse, excommunication.

Early in the year, O- called M- and told her that a young man (very young, early 20s at most) whom she'd been seeing had been nearly fatally burned in the car where he was sleeping. She was terribly upset. She had another falling-out with her mother, whom she accused of being insufficiently empathetic. As always, she asked for money. M- has learned that she musn't send money ~ although it's hideously difficult for her to say no to her daughter. She has been wracked with guilt and constantly worried about O-, who has been essentially homeless ever since returning to England last year ~ drifting from squat to squat, on the Dole, getting money for drugs in ways we'd rather not think about.

My worst fear for her was that she would end up prostituting herself. She already has hepatitis C.

Instead, I'm writing the kind of paragraph that you see on the back page of section 1 of your daily newspaper. Short paragraphs full of pain and mayhem that are always about people you don't know, people you can't imagine knowing or being.

It seems that the night the young man was burned, he and O- had a big fight. O- went to where he was sleeping in a car, she says, to deliver an angry note she had written. She may or may not, she says, have flicked a cigarette in his general direction as she left. She swears she had no intention of doing him harm. No doubt she was high at the time.

He has been in intensive care in a hospital for months now. He has only recently been able to speak.

Now my worst fear is that my sister will be confronted in London by evidence that will destroy her last core belief about her daughter. My sister's hard-won health and stability are at risk.

This story isn't about me. But I take it personally anyway. Could we have done something? I feel my sister's anguish intensely. And I wonder where I've failed.

It's maddening that there's nothing concrete I can do. I pray. I listen. I offer practical suggestions when asked. I express my own sorrow and frustration.

O- says she wants to go to jail. If she was responsibile, she feels she should pay. And I think she is tired of struggling.

I try to suggest to M- that maybe this is bottom. Maybe O- will take this situation and choose to use it to change her life. Maybe she will take advantage of the rehab available at Holloway. Maybe she will get clean. Maybe she will open her heart to the healing and love that are waiting for her. M- will at least know where she is, that she is safe, that she is eating, that she is getting medical care.

I also know that for plenty of people jail is just another step in the downward spiral. I think O's better off in England than she would be here in the US. But still.

It feels very strange to be going off this weekend for my first actual vacation in ages. I'm going to the beach. How could I be going to the beach? How is it that I'm not a plane with my sister? (Not that I think it would actually help to have me there.)

There's really nothing good about this story.

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