Bebe Moore Campbell (19 page)

I rummaged around in the cabinet. Felt the hidden bottles with careful fingertips. There. Right there. My hand grasped the slender neck of the bottle. Chivas. Jesus. I remembered Ma Missy handing it to me. Not a gift, a warning.
Don’t ever open it; don’t be like her.

I placed the scotch carefully on the kitchen counter and then, just when I was about to walk up the stairs, changed my mind and put it on the desk in my office. My child was smart enough to recognize bait when she saw it, even if she couldn’t refuse it. When it was all over, I didn’t want her to feel stupid on top of everything else.

It took three days for Trina to find the bottle. But once she did, it didn’t take long for her to empty it. It was hard to imagine her drinking scotch, one of my mother’s drinks. It was so old school, so East Coast and wintery.

The days of scotch passed quietly. By the third day, when it was all gone and she’d begun to crave the flavor and depend upon the way the alcohol temporarily stilled her mind, she was roaring, a typhoon unleashed upon dry land. Upstairs in her room, she frantically dialed number after number, slamming down the phone again and again. I waited.

On the fourth morning, I woke up feeling chilled. When I checked Trina’s room, she wasn’t there. She wasn’t downstairs either. But the front door was wide open.

I heard her before I saw her. Beyond the driveway, she was walking up the street, her feet bare, a towel wrapped around her.

My instinct was to rush toward her, gently guide her back into the house. Instead, I went inside, picked up the phone, and called SMART. When Hilda Griffin appeared with the police, I heard them ask Trina the date. She stared at them and began reciting the months of the year.

“How old are you, sweetheart?” Hilda Griffin asked.

“I’m sixteen,” Trina said.

Thirty minutes later, a subdued Trina was in the back of their car, and I was following them in mine. She was gravely disabled, the social worker declared. She had met the criteria. The seventy-two-hour hold was about to begin, and I knew it would be extended to two weeks. I called Herbert Swanson at the office of the public guardian, and he promised that he would send someone to interview Trina immediately. Breathe easy, I told myself. A court date will be set. Relax. Dr. Bellows will testify.

I called Clyde. “I’m going for conservatorship, and don’t you dare try to stop me.”

He sighed. When he spoke, he sounded weary. “We have to talk about this,” he said.

I knew him well enough not to push it any further, to leave Clyde with a psychological victory or at least with no clear-cut win for me. When I hung up, my mind felt peaceful.

And now the nightmare will end.

Only it didn’t quite go like that. Dr. Bellows was at a week-long seminar in Toronto. Trina was a model patient. She took her meds, actually swallowed them—the Haldol, the mood stabilizer, the antipsychotic—and calmed down almost immediately. She made three bracelets for me in arts and crafts and attended groups each day. My newly medicated daughter had great insights that she shared in a well-modulated voice. Her treating psychiatrist was a resident from Bombay, who wore bright green sneakers with his lab coat. He was impressed with Trina’s articulation, her beauty, her obvious intellect. He wouldn’t give me Dr. Bellows’s number in Toronto. No one would.

One morning, the resident said to me, “Mrs. Whitmore, I don’t know that I can justify keeping her here any longer than two weeks.”

I had tracked him down while he was making his rounds, waited for him outside the doors of the locked facility. When the nurse buzzed him out, I was there.

“She needs help. Please. I’m trying to become her conservator. Dr. Bellows said that he’d support me.”

“The locked facilities are awful. I’m sure you don’t want your daughter going to one of those places. You probably couldn’t live with yourself if you sent her there.”

“You don’t know what I’m living with now. You have to keep her here. You have to help me.”

“We’ll see, but the way it’s going, she will probably be out in two days. I have to go now, Mrs. Whitmore.” He started walking away from me.

One hour, one joint, and she’d be right back where she was before.

“This isn’t working,” I told Bethany that night. “I can feel it slipping out of my hands. They’re going to let her out of the hospital.”

“You haven’t been listening to me at all,” she said.

“I’m listening now.”

15

STEAL AWAY, STEAL, AWAY, STEAL AWAY HOME. I AIN’T GOT
long to stay here. Gabriel Prosser. Denmark Vesey. Nat Turner. Harriet
Tubman. Did they all begin with secret meetings and whispered plans?
Did they change their minds more than once? To steal away home was
more than a notion.

Halfway to the restaurant, I turned my car around and headed home. What was I doing, speeding down Wilshire to meet a woman I knew to be operating more on rage than common sense? But then I thought about those bright green sneakers, walking away from me in such a big hurry, and turned around again. Whatever Bethany had to offer, at least it wouldn’t involve being at the mercy of people who just didn’t give a damn.

This time the meeting was in the back booth of a coffee shop on Wilshire, down the street from the behemoth that housed Children’s Services. Four o’clock was an odd time to go to a restaurant, but I hadn’t eaten since my breakfast muffin, so I was hungry. Bethany was there with a tall pale man named Brad. She introduced me as Keri. When he said hello, his voice was low, a strong voice. His handshake was dry and warm, his grip filled with steady pressure. He had sandy hair and darker eyebrows, elegantly arched. He looked clean and honest, a bit boyish. His chin jutted forward a little.

We ordered food—appetizers, entrees, coffee, and desserts—as if we were coworkers having a friendly dinner, perhaps celebrating someone’s promotion. We chatted about the headlines and the weather, about movie stars and the Lakers. Brad didn’t clink a glass with a spoon or clear his throat, but I felt the moment that defined our purpose. He put his two hands on the table. They were large hands, with clean, square fingernails and no rings.

His voice was just above a whisper. “We are a group of psychologists and psychiatrists who believe that the mental health system in this country is a sad joke,” Brad said. “All the members of our group have worked in hospitals and in a variety of mental health institutions; we’ve experienced firsthand the wasted opportunities for people to recover.” He leaned in. “Recovery is possible for people when the right conditions are present. We assist the relatives, mostly the parents, of people who need an intervention but are too sick to accept help. We forgo the nine-one-one, the SMART people, the conservatorship. We transport the ill person to a safe place:
our
safe place. Once the patient is there, the relative leaves and we take over.”

“What do you—”

Brad held up his hand, his face suddenly stern.

“What we do is illegal. We could all go to jail. Kidnapping is involved at times. It is not for the faint of heart, and there are no guarantees.”

The longer he talked, the more alive he became. I tried to read his face. Committed man on a mission? Kook ready to spontaneously combust? Reincarnation of John Brown? How would Clyde have reacted to him? Would he consider him a tool of the Left or the Right?

Why should I trust him?

“But we have helped people begin the healing process. We have turned some lives around. I think you have met one of the people we helped. Continue?”

He and Bethany looked at me.

“Yes,” I said.

“We have a facility in a remote area. A small staff runs the place. We’re completely self-sufficient. We work with no more than sixteen patients at a time. Our patient-to-staff ratio is four to one. That’s a lot of care. We are expensive: twelve thousand dollars a month. The average stay is six months to a year.”

I think I must have gasped, because Brad stopped speaking, and he and Bethany looked at me. Maybe he was just a salesman, a hope huckster without a Bible. At $12,000, hope was high. Was this a con? I looked at Bethany.

“Anyone who comes to the facility must be prepared to make a commitment,” Brad said.

“I’m not rich.”

“Most people aren’t.”

Brad signaled the waitress, then handed her a credit card. When the woman disappeared, he turned to me. “We have two openings now. Can’t guarantee how long those slots will be available.”

“Where is this place?”

Brad shook his head. “If you decide that we’re the right group for you and your loved one, you’ll find out that kind of information on a need-to-know basis.”

“You do use medications?”

Brad nodded. “Of course. Medication compliance is what we instill in our patients. For most, it’s the key to leading a productive life. But we try to prescribe the lowest dosage possible, in order to minimize weight gain and other side effects. We incorporate an array of nontraditional methods as well, including acupuncture, homeopathy, exercise, meditation, and proper nutrition.”

“My daughter drinks. She smokes marijuana, and maybe—”

“Most people with brain diseases self-medicate. It’s to be expected. We have very strong substance abuse counselors.”

The waitress returned and handed Brad his card and receipt. He stood up.

“You have a lot of questions,” he said once the waitress had left. “I don’t want to answer them just yet. It might be better if you meet some more parents and speak with them. Would you like that?”

“When?” I was multiplying twelve thousand dollars times six months in my head, calculating the equity in my home, the balance in my savings account, the value of my stock portfolio, and the little apartment building I owned in Atlanta. How fast could I liquidate?

Brad extended his hand. “Time is short. Stay here for a while. Some other people will come to speak with you. Good meeting you.”

“How did you find out about this place?” I asked Bethany as Brad walked away.

“A friend,” she said.

“Have you seen any of the people they’ve helped?”

“They’ve helped me already. Some of their people are the ones who watch Angelica for me.”

“I don’t have that kind of money.”

“Talk to some of the other parents.”

“But if I don’t have the money—”

“Just talk to—” Bethany stopped as a colorfully dressed woman slid into the booth beside her.

“My name is Carleen. Brad said you might want to speak with me.”

Bethany didn’t appear surprised, but I was taken aback at seeing someone so soon. I didn’t know whether I wanted to speak with Carleen. A part of me felt angry and violated that Brad had all the control and things were happening so fast. All I knew about him was his first name. Maybe he was who he said he was, and maybe he was some crackpot who was trying to suck me in.

But I smiled at Carleen as she sat down. She was tiny, with a little thin nose and almost no lips. Her hands seemed to flutter as she spoke, mostly about her twin boys. They had been difficult children, even when they were very young. At eight years old, they started taking Ritalin. For a while they were better, almost controllable, but then they hit puberty and discovered weed, liquor, and Ecstasy. They were diagnosed with bipolar disorder at age seventeen. By that time their family life had become complete chaos. By twenty-one, they’d both been in and out of both hospitals and jails. At that time, she couldn’t imagine their lives improving. She said the program had saved her sons.

“Did you try to get conservatorship?” I asked.

“Sure. I have conservatorship now. They were in a locked facility for a year. They seemed better. I let them come out. Took them to another facility. No locks. They weren’t able to maintain their sobriety. They’d leave the premises and get high. After a while, they stopped taking the meds. Everything started all over again. A friend told me about Brad’s program. I made the arrangements, and it’s been five—no, six—years, and they are still medication-compliant and drug-free.”

For a minute I couldn’t speak. It was bewildering to think that conservatorship didn’t bring complete deliverance.

“What about failure rate? The group can’t possibly help everybody.”

“I don’t know about that,” Carleen said. “I only know about my case. I had no contact with any other parents or kids. The program is strictly anonymous.”

“What about when you visited?” I asked.

“I never visited the site. I’d meet my sons and the counselors somewhere that was neutral.”

“So I guess you think it was worth the twelve thousand a month?” I asked.

“I paid about thirty-five hundred,” she said.

Bethany’s expression didn’t change.

“They told me it cost twelve thousand dollars a month.”

“They told me that too in the beginning. It’s a test, to see your level of commitment. There’s a sliding scale. If you can pay, fine; they accept the money. But they have donors who finance them. Nobody is ever turned away because of money. I know that this is a lot to absorb. Would you like to talk with someone else?”

“Yes.”

Twenty minutes after Carleen waved good-bye, a Latino man— Francisco—appeared at our table and sat across from Bethany and me. Thirty minutes after he left, an older white couple showed up, Fleur and Larry. Their stories were similar to mine. Sick loved ones, a system that had failed them, nowhere to turn. And then suddenly a light. I was suspicious of the light.

Maybe I’m being brainwashed, I thought, when people kept coming. In my mind, all kinds of scenarios played out. Maybe the group was a cult. Suppose I took Trina there and they took out her organs and sold them. My mind was putting up a valiant effort, fighting with all it could muster the inevitable conclusion that came from feeling my back against the wall.

“What other choices do they give us?” Carleen had asked me before she left.

Harriet probably said that.

“THE BEST TIME TO DO IT WOULD BE TOMORROW NIGHT,” Bethany said when we were alone. “When you pick her up from the hospital, Angelica and I would meet you with Brad. We’d just keep going.”

“What do you mean, we’d travel together?”

“There are two openings, yours and mine. How long do you think they’ll be there? We have to make a move now. ”

“I can’t do that.”

“Yes, you can. Just toss some clothes in a bag. A pair of jeans and some tops. The same for your daughter. They’ll give her pajamas and toiletries.”

“I have a business to run.”

“Leave someone in charge. You won’t be gone that long. Better sooner than later, Keri. At least now she has some meds in her system. A week from now that may not be the case.”

“I have to go,” I said, and stood up.

“If you leave her to the system, she will be lost.”

“Let me think.”

It was impossible to process everything I’d heard. Nothing was linking up in my mind. Clyde would have ripped Brad’s presentation to shreds. But I couldn’t even contact Clyde if I wanted to. He wasn’t answering his cell phone. I called Orlando on my way to the hospital. He was in rehearsal and couldn’t really talk, except to go on and on about what a good role he had. Hanging up, I felt frustrated. Ma Missy should have been with me. She could have read Brad, told me if he was for real or not. But Ma Missy wasn’t here, and I had no one to help me make the most important decision of my life.

TRINA WAS TAKING A SMOKE BREAK WHEN I GOT TO THE hospital. “I’m ready to go home,” she announced when I sat down with her in the television room. “There’s nothing wrong with me, and I don’t need to be here.”

“Trina, you have a mental illness—”

She waved her hand, as if shooing away a pesky fly. “No, I don’t. I just shouldn’t have smoked weed, that’s all. I think the guy who gave it to me laced it with something. Come early tomorrow; then we can go to IHOP. I’m fiending for pancakes.”

“Things are going to be different when you come home, Trina. You will have to take your meds, start seeing your therapist regularly, and there can’t be any cursing, violence, drugs, or drinking.”

Even I recognized that my words held no authority. I wasn’t telling her, I was pleading with her. Mother as supplicant.

“I know,” she said blandly.

“I’m going to type up a contract, and you’re going to sign it,” I said. “And if you break the contract, you’re going to have to find another place to live.”

“Okay.” She stood up. “So come get me early, so we can have some pancakes.” Trina licked her lips and rubbed her tummy. “Yum-yum.”

If she’d been eight years old, I would have laughed.

“So they are sending her home tomorrow,” Elijah said as I was leaving. He shook his head. “She’s not ready yet. So many times, when they send them away, they’re not ready. Then they just come back. On and on and on. In my country, we are not so developed. We don’t have special places, special medication for the ones with the mental illnesses.”

“What do you do with them?”

Elijah shrugged. “We just let them be. Sometimes, the less hope, the better.”

The testimonies of strangers formed a merry-go-round in my head. Richard. Carleen. Francisco. Fleur. Larry. They’d all ridden out the horrors of
before
and grabbed the brass ring of
after.
But what guarantees did I have that one day I’d count myself among them? Maybe I’d end up with the others whose first names had been withheld, the ones for whom the program had been just another failure.

Option number two was simpler: Start again. Go back to support group. Call the SMART people. Wait. Call them again. Hope that she meets the criteria, that she is swallowing the bottle of pills or punching me as they come through the door. Hope that she gets put on a seventy-two-hour hold. Hope that the hospital has a psych bed available and that the meds don’t work so fast that she’s totally lucid after three days, too lucid to stay longer. Pray that the hospital decides to extend her hold and that the patient’s rights advocate is lazy. Pray that Dr. Bellows will do all the paperwork, come to court, and testify on my behalf. Pray the judge will see things my way. Wait. Hope. Pray. Trust the system.

At home, I began cleaning. My drugs of choice: Windex, Pine-Sol, Murphy’s Oil Soap. The vacuum zigzagged all over the family room. I folded towels and put them away. I threw out old food in the refrigerator. My inner obsessive-compulsive was in charge, anxious to cross off everything in the cleanup to-do list. The goal was to keep moving until the ache had transferred from soul to muscles. The point was to change the focus.

Orlando rang the bell close to eleven. He was on a high, still in character, still spouting lines. We made love right on the family room couch. It felt different, the way he stroked me, the way he sucked my nipple and rubbed my ass. Then I realized that he was fucking me the way the man in the play would have done it.