FACES OF AN EPIDEMIC: MOTHER LEFT TO RAISE SISTER'S YOUNG SON

SALEM - When Elena Sorrento died at 28 from a lethal overdose of heroin and
cocaine, she wasn't the only victim. There's her mother, who is still in a
deep depression three years later. There's her sister, Jennene, a single
mother who suddenly found herself with another child to raise. And there's
Nickolas, Elena's son. He was just 2 the morning of Aug. 25, 2001, when he
woke up in bed next to his dead mother. He may have tried to wake her - no
one knows for sure. At some point they do know Nickolas got out of bed and
found his father sleeping on a sofa. They made breakfast, thinking they
were letting Elena sleep in. But around 9:30, Jennene, who lived in the
apartment downstairs, heard her sister's boyfriend yelling, "Jennene, come
up here." "She was stiff and cold, and he's shaking," Jennene Sorrento
recalled. "I didn't know what to think." The toll heroin takes on its users
is only part of the story.

The drug devastates entire families. Troubles began early Growing up in
Salem, Jennene and her younger sister weren't all that close. Jennene was a
good student who often went straight from school to work. Elena was a
tomboy who began experimenting with drugs. Jennene was eager to distance
herself from her sister and moved to California after high school. "It
wasn't until I came back that I saw how bad she was." Jennene soon
discovered she could not keep her distance anymore.

And the reason was Nickolas. In 1998, after several rehab stays, Elena
became pregnant.

Nickolas was born premature on June 15, 1999, weighing just 5 pounds, 9 ounces.

He spent several weeks in the hospital, where doctors discovered cysts on
his brain. As a result, Nickolas is developmentally behind his peers.

As far as Jennene knows, no test was done to determine whether the baby had
been exposed to drugs in utero. To this day, Jennene still doesn't know
how many times her sister used heroin. Until her death, family members
assumed Elena's major problem was alcohol.

On the night before Elena's body was found, she and her boyfriend, Joe,
were back together and seemed happy, said Jennene. "For some reason, I felt
calm, I felt relieved," Jennene says. Then the next morning, around 9:30,
she heard Joe screaming. The aftermath The next few hours were chaotic: her
father, sick with cancer and filled with rage, threatened to kill the
boyfriend; Jennene's own daughter, then 5, tried to distract little
Nickolas by pointing out all the firetrucks on the street; a state
Department of Social Services caseworker showed up and told Jennene
she could take Nickolas. The police found cocaine and heroin in Elena's
purse, under her bed, and eventually, in her bloodstream. In the midst of
all of the chaos, Jennene recalls, there was an unexpected emotion: relief.
"We didn't have to worry anymore.

We were sad and angry, but we didn't have to worry." Jennene took over
raising Nickolas as the boy's father bounced in and out of rehab. "My life
completely changed, and nobody ever helped me," she says. She used every
dime available to her - cashed in her retirement account and took out a
loan - just to pay for the funeral. Last year, the father voluntarily gave
up his parental rights, freeing Nickolas, now 5, to be legally adopted by
Jennene. As she started the process, Jennene was asked how she would tell
him what happened to his mother. "I don't know," she says. She wonders
whether Nickolas remembers anything from that time. "Did he try to wake her
up?" Jennene asks, knowing that for a long time she had to rock him to
sleep at night and he wouldn't go into his mother's bedroom. In the months
after his mother's death, Nickolas would sometimes look at pictures of his
mother and say "That's my mom," and then say the same thing when he saw a
picture of Jennene. Now he calls his birth mother "Auntie Elena" and
Jennene his "Mom." Except for one morning. On the July day a Salem Juvenile
Court judge finalized his adoption, Jennene took Nickolas to visit Elena's
grave at St. Mary's Cemetery in Salem. They spent a few moments there,
placing flowers on the grave. As they turned to leave, Nickolas turned
back. "Bye, mom," he said, waving.