Bebe Moore Campbell (15 page)

After the officer, the same officer who’d been answering all night, said, “Lady, you need to calm down,” after he firmly and convincingly told me there was nothing that he could do or that any other officer could do until the proper time had elapsed, after I’d hung up and hadn’t dialed the police or the boy for fifteen minutes and the last little time capsule kicked in, I had a moment of clarity. I went to the computer and checked my e-mail.

[email protected].
The address wasn’t familiar, but the tone of the message was:

I hate you. If you try to find me, I’ll kill myself.

I had never imagined Trina in a place with a computer. Her deranged wildness sharing space with technology seemed incongruent. I stared at the message for a moment, then pressed KEEP.

She’s eighteen. I can’t make her do anything.
My head started shaking of its own accord, as though agreeing with the words in my mind.

There was another e-mail, from Rona. She’d forwarded information about her Spelman reunion and added a personal note:

I’ve been feeling a lot better since you massaged me. I’ll call for another appointment soon. You have gifted hands. I thank you, and great-great-great-grandmother Harriet thanks you! Rona.

What would Harriet do with this? No time to plan. Nowhere to run. But the same imperative, the same need to cross the border. To save herself. To save another.

10

I FELL ASLEEP AROUND 3 A.M., AND THAT’S WHEN THE phone started ringing. Music blared from the receiver into my ear. Glass broke in the background, crashing against loud, angry voices. There was yelling and shrieking, lots of shrieking. Of course, she didn’t say anything. Just screamed and hung up.

And called again. And again. For two hours. Trina’s psychotic tease: I’m alive, but maybe I’m in pain.

“Trina, come home!”
My voice echoed against a blast of music, more yelling, and then a dial tone.

After the eighth time, I took the phone off the hook.

A week on meds, and she would apologize. A good night’s rest would make a world of difference. But she wasn’t ready to come down. I had to stay alive while she was up there, whirling in the sky, a sparrow on speed.

A child’s death isn’t always necessary for a mother to grieve.

Ma Missy mourned her baby girl for years. My mother. Emma. Such a beautiful alcoholic. She reserved weekends for her binges, sitting by the window after work on Fridays, sipping scotch and milk or scotch and soda. Sometimes she drank gin, Tanqueray, or wine. Ma Missy would watch her ominously, waiting for fireworks or tears, which were always preceded by voluptuous laughter. There was a tipping point. One extra swallow could turn a good time into something too ugly for a kid to see. Ma Missy knew the timing. Maybe it was something in my mother’s eyes that alerted her, the curl of her bottom lip. One minute Emma was chuckling and the next a snarl would break from her pretty mouth, and my grandmother would snatch me away, direct me upstairs, where I would creep to the landing and listen to Ma Missy, pleading with her daughter to stop drinking, to get herself together, to change her life.

I can’t remember how long Ma Missy begged, but I do remember that there came a point where she simply stopped, accompanied me upstairs on Friday and Saturday nights, closed her bedroom door, and watched television with me. With my brain clouded, I wondered why she had given up and how many years had passed before she did. Maybe there was some sort of epiphany. Maybe it was just precise arithmetic: subtraction. Years to go from years lived. Or maybe her craving for peace of mind overcame her maternal instinct.

After one Saturday night not too much different from the others, she lifted my chin in her hands and spoke directly.
I won’t give her my life,
and I won’t give her yours.

“Keri will stay with me,” Ma Missy told Emma.

“She’s my child,” my mother said, her voice trump-card sure and petulant.

“If you want to fight me,” Ma Missy said, “one of us will not be alive when it’s over.”

My mother packed her bags the next day.

I remember the shock in Emma’s eyes and the pain and rage in my heart, because, drunk or sober, I wanted her around. If she was around, I could tell myself that she loved me more than the bottle. It took a long time for me to understand Ma Missy, let alone forgive her. Maybe I was forgiving her now.

THE NEXT TWENTY-FOUR HOURS WERE ENDLESS. THE Y segued into semicomatose afternoons and evenings. Orlando provided respite. I didn’t hear from Clyde, except on the radio.

I was the last one to leave the shop on Tuesday night. Maybe I lagged behind because I didn’t want to go home, to call the police and remind them that seventy-two hours had passed and they could officially begin looking for my lost kid. Suppose they didn’t find her? Most of the cars in the parking lot were gone. The night was clear and scented with jasmine. It was dark and quiet until a white Ford suddenly turned in from the street, picking up speed as it drove straight toward me. Somebody was leaning on the horn. There was no time to be afraid, to cry out, to move. The car stopped inches from my feet. The horn faded away and horrible laughter split the air.

Trina jumped out of the car. Boy Man remained in the passenger’s seat. Reefer scented the air as the door opened.

Trina swaggered toward me. “Been looking for me?”

She had on the same T-shirt and jeans she’d been wearing when I’d last seen her, only now the T was torn, a deliberate tear to create cleavage. Trina’s breasts swelled above her shirt.

I spoke very carefully. “Trina, I want you to come home.”

“If I come home, you’ll call the cops and get me locked up.”

“No. Just come home and start taking your medication again.”

“I’ve been taking it.”

“Trina—”

“Trina what?”

Her voice rose, and she stepped closer to me. It was too dark to see the pupils of her eyes, but I didn’t have to.

“Come home with me.”

“Fuck you!” Her rage splattered the air. “Are you my mother? Tell me the truth. Are you my mother?”

“Trina, what are you talking about? Of course, I’m your mother.”

“No, you’re not.” She turned to the boy in the car. “She’s not even my real mother!” she screamed. She turned back to me. “Bitch, you stole me from my real mother, and now you want to lock me up!”

“Trina, calm down.”

She was so far beyond any possibility of tranquillity. Trina raised her hands. The blows were rapid, like a sparring boxer’s:
bap, bap, bap.
Too quick for pain. No sound except retreating footsteps, a slammed car door, a fast getaway. She left behind air that dripped with perfume.

“Trina!”

I stood in the parking lot, rubbed my shoulder, picked up my purse, turned around toward a rustling sound. My body buckled toward the woman standing in the doorway, clutching a briefcase, watching me. What was on her face that wasn’t discernible in the shadows, horror? Disgust? Did she feel anything as she stood in the dark, judging my life? Rage and shame fought for space in my mind. The woman was still standing in the doorway, looking straight ahead as I drove away.

When we spoke by conference call that evening, Gloria and Mattie assured me that Trina would come home. We talked strategy. Milton got on the phone and said I should alert the Systemwide Mental Assessment Response Team, SMART, the county department of mental health’s mobile response unit, even before Trina returned, so that if she showed up within the next few hours I could use the attack as a criterion for another seventy-two-hour hold. I asked about Wellington and Nona. I don’t remember what they said. After we hung up, I realized that the roles had switched. They were fanning flies in the big house; I was sweating in the field. At least for now, they were the lucky ones.

The lucky ones are never a comfort.

I looked up Bethany’s name on the support group’s roster. When she answered the telephone, her voice sounded as though the mouth it was coming out of was bruised. A swollen slash, not a mouth. Each word a unique wound, painful to hear. Did I sound like that?

We didn’t talk long, not more than a few minutes. Really, we were just checking in with each other, the way the poorest Africans in Zimbabwe do. They ask in their language,
How are you?
and the answer is always,
I am suffering peacefully.

Bethany’s renegade spirit surged forward right before she said good-bye. “I will not live like this,” she said.

TRINA ARRIVED AT MY DOOR LATE THAT NIGHT. THE WILDness in her eyes was a tide that hadn’t ebbed.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Mommee. Let me come home. I just want to come home.” She threw herself against me. Her head against my chest felt warm, familiar. My fingers were in her hair before I even closed the door. She pulled away, stepped back, and the light from the ceiling highlighted the fresh bruises on her face. Trina must have liked my look of horror. She began smiling.

“Mommee, that boy I was with started hitting me for no reason.”

This was probably a lie, at least the no-reason part. In the kitchen, Trina couldn’t sit still long enough for me to press ice against her eye, against her forehead. She squirmed after about ten seconds and then got up.

“You have to go to the hospital.”

She clung to me, her hands around my waist. “No, Mommee. Let me stay here. I’ll get back on the meds, I promise.”

She was manic and high. None of her words meant anything.

“I’ll go back to the program tomorrow,” she said.

“You have to take your medication right now,” I said.

“Okay.”

While I was getting the medicine, I called SMART. In twelve minutes they had arrived, with two officers from the sheriff’s department. The counselors, a man and a woman, asked me a few questions as we stood in the entryway. Had Trina tried to hurt herself? Had she tried to hurt anyone else? I told them about the attack in the parking lot. The officers appraised me silently.

No blood. Damn.

“Well, ma’am, there’s no evidence that she hurt you. Did anyone see her hitting you?”

The woman’s face flitted across my mind. “No. But she’s been fighting with someone else. When she gets manic, she’ll pick fights.”

“Did you see her fighting?” the woman asked.

“Her face is bruised. I saw her a few hours ago, and she didn’t look like that.”

“Is there the possibility that someone beat her up?”

“She probably started the fight.”

“But you didn’t see her fighting?”

“Look, my daughter just got out of the psych ward three days ago. They should have kept her. She’s supposed to take medication, and she hasn’t been taking it. She needs to—”

“Ma’am,” the man said, “where is your daughter now?”

Their expressions revealed nothing. I was afraid of what they were thinking.

When Trina saw the police officers and the pair from SMART, she glared at me. Mom had betrayed her again. One of the counselors asked how she was feeling, and she didn’t respond. She knew they needed a reason to send her back to the hospital, and the quieter she was the less likely they’d find one. But silence can’t live where mania resides.

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Trina said finally, her words hot and loud. “She just calls you guys for attention.”

“What happened to your face? Were you fighting today, Trina?”

“My mother pushed me, and I fell.”

“Trina, ” I said, “that’s not true.”

“Yes, it is. Ever since I was a little girl, she’s been hitting me. She hates me. That’s why she’s always trying to send me away.”

“Do you want to hurt yourself, Trina?” the man asked.

“No. My mother hurts me. She hurts me all the time. Why don’t you lock her up?”

“Trina—” I began, and then stopped.

The woman from SMART closed the notebook she’d been using. “Ma’am,” she said, “may we have a word with you?”

As we walked to the front door, she placed a card in my hand. “I can see that she’s ill,” the woman said. “If she decompensates further, please give us a call. Take care of yourself. I’m sorry we can’t help you now, but our hands are tied.”

“Fucking bitch!” Trina screamed as soon as the door closed.

It was useless to protest the tone, the language, the disrespect. I didn’t have the energy. Too busy drowning in what-ifs: What if she hits me? What if she takes the car in the middle of the night? What if her mania kills us both?

“You have to take your medication if you want to stay here,” I said during the first lull.

“Fuck you!” Her eyes dared me to respond. The strong desire to draw blood was in her eyes. “You’re not my mother. You killed my mother, and you killed my dad.”

“Right. You need to get out of my house. Go back where you stayed last night.”

Her eyes moved fast, from corner to corner, settled on mine, then looked away again.

“I don’t have to go anywhere.”

“Yes, you do.” My head started throbbing, which was how I knew that I was shouting. “This is my house, and you’re eighteen. Get out.”

She walked away from me, climbed the back stairs to her room, and slammed the door.

An hour later I offered her a glass of water and three tablets. “Take this or you have to go,” I said when I opened the bedroom door.

She measured my will with her eyes and then took the pills from my hand. But Trina wasn’t hollering uncle. I watched her put the medicine in her mouth and take a swallow of water. The antipsychotic was a knockout punch and I’d given Trina a double dose, but by 3 a.m. she was still awake. Noise from the television and her CD player drifted throughout the house. The light on the telephone didn’t go off. Trina stayed awake all that night, talking, laughing, singing, dancing, smoking cigarettes and weed. I was awake too: locking up the wine and champagne, hiding the sharp knives, writing my things-to-do list:

Turn off long-distance service.

Turn off DIRECTV service.

Make sure batteries in fire detectors are working.

I was busy. Listening. Anticipating.
This will go on and on and on.

11

THE CALLS BEGAN TO COME THE NEXT DAY AND CONTINUED unabated for nearly a week. Aunt Celia. Cousin Bobby. My gynecologist. A former neighbor. They could have formed their own little support group: Alliance of the Harassed. Brett, Marie’s daughter and Trina’s old friend, was among them. Hearing her plaintive “Mama Keri,” I raked my scalp with my fingernails until I drew blood. Brett and Trina had played together as girls, and the sound of my name in her mouth rendered me a trespasser in a world where I no longer belonged. I could lay claim to her cheerleader past, but the spirit of the fresh clean start in the world of adulthood that she evoked was something I could only covet. Her tentative tone, hesitant hello, and useless chitchat, her stammering tongue as she tried to ease into the reason for the call, made my shame as palpable as the trickle of blood dripping down my head, the stinging in its wake.

What she wanted—no, what she expected—was what they all expected: Mama magic. They might as well have said, “Make her stop.” They wanted protection from Trina’s ranting and raving and 4 a.m. calls. Listening to people describe—some with glee—the extent of my child’s madness gave me the sensation of being trapped in a tiny airless room. In a spate of twenty-four hours she’d cussed them out and threatened them. Make her stop! She had called dozens of times in one day. Make her stop! I was her mother, and they believed in the inherent and absolute power of a mother’s role. Brett gasped a little when I said, “There’s nothing I can do. She’s been very upset recently. I advise you to hang up on her and take your phone off the hook after midnight.”

Delivering my calm, rational statement, I felt as though I were speaking of someone in the abstract, not my child.

“Oh, Mama Keri, I’m going to pray for her,” Brett said.

It was what the old Trina would have said, the one who went to church, sang in the choir, and was kind and unfailingly polite to seniors and children.

Trina’s old boyfriend from high school called. With him, there had been no screaming, just pure seduction that had continued unabated. Telephone stalking. He’d heard that she was—well, kinda whacked-out. He’d seen her earlier in the day, acting real strange.

How strange was she?

Walking-down-the-street-telling-people-her-mother-was-a-demon strange. Wearing-enough-makeup-for-three-circuses strange.

He assured me that
he
could turn everything around. Trina was still a good person. Maybe if he hadn’t broken up with her the way he had, her mind would be okay. When I assured him that Trina’s recent troubles had nothing to do with his breaking up with her, he sounded dejected. In subsequent calls, his concern gave way to annoyance and then disgust as Trina stepped up her campaign. She wouldn’t leave him alone. Couldn’t I control her?

No.

After the fourth conversation, I asked him not to call again.

Practical measure against mania number one: No long distance! I switched to calling cards, which I kept in a secret place so Trina couldn’t dial people all over the country. She made the most of what was available locally. My friends, of course, were the most fun. I was her only topic: “Did you know my mother used to beat me? Did you know she hates me? All she cares about is her shop. She’s not really my mother. She slept with all my boyfriends.”

I was afraid to leave Trina alone when I went to work but more afraid to take her with me. She plucked those fears like a reincarnation of Jimi Hendrix, wearing out his guitar strings with his agile fingers. “I’m taking my meds” became a daily refrain that she’d sing even when the scent of a noonday joint still hung in the air. When I came home at night and stepped over the dirty clothes she’d thrown on the stairs, when I wiped off the butter smeared on the kitchen table and counter, discovered that the chicken I’d set out for dinner had been doused with ammonia, when Trina yelled and menaced, slammed doors, blasted music, couldn’t sleep, cursed me, threatened my life, threatened suicide, wave after wave of fierce trembling would work its way up and down my body.

God, you must have me confused with somebody else. You couldn’t
possibly mean this for me.

“YOU CAN’T TAKE CARE OF TRINA ALL BY YOURSELF,” FRANCES told me one afternoon. Trina had been home for a week. “She’s wearing you out. I can see it in your eyes.” The store was empty. Adriana was at lunch, and we were standing by the register.

“I’ve told you I can’t find any place to put her. The hospital won’t take her. Her old program won’t take her. What am I supposed to do?”

“She has a father. Send her over there, at least for a while. Let him figure out something.”

At the thought of Trina living with Clyde, even temporarily, I instantly registered a veto. Who would supervise her medication, make sure she ate, didn’t have caffeine, didn’t sneak off at night? Only a mother’s vigilance could keep Trina’s demons at bay. Even though Trina’s behavior was beyond my control, the thought of her being with Clyde gave me a strange, empty feeling, as though I’d been thrown away. I wanted to take care of Trina. When she got better, I wanted it to be on my watch.

“Clyde can’t handle Trina,” I said, with what I hoped was an air of authority. Frances just rolled her eyes.

We were both momentarily distracted by the sound of laughter. Adriana’s smile was so big she could barely fit through the door, and the man walking next to her seemed just as happy.

I looked at Frances.

“She met him at her meeting.”

I didn’t voice my sentiments, but Frances read them anyway. “Don’t get so excited.”

Adriana introduced me to her lunch date. The four of us chatted briefly. He was from Oklahoma, had served in the Gulf War, was renting an apartment in Mar Vista, and worked as a computer programmer. I thought my questions were subtle, but when he left Frances said, “Did you forget to ask him his blood type?”

“He’s just a friend,” Adriana said.

All that grinning? Just a friend?

“Seriously, I’ve known Jason ever since I started the program. He already has a girlfriend,” Adriana said.

“You want everything to be perfect, don’t you?” Frances said to me later.

A few hours later, just as we were closing up, we heard a tap at the window. Adriana had already left. When Frances unlocked the door, Orlando and his sons walked in.

The last time Orlando, his boys, and I had been together, we had all gone to see a movie and had dinner at my house. Jabari, PJ, and Trina had played games in the family room while Orlando and I argued quietly in the kitchen. We hadn’t raised our voices or changed the expressions on our faces. But as he and his boys were leaving, PJ gave both of us a penetrating stare. “Why aren’t you kissing good-bye?” he asked.

Orlando had rushed the boys out, but I could see sorrow in PJ’s eyes as he waved to me.

Now I kissed PJ’s cheek first and then Jabari’s.

“You look nice, Keri,” Jabari said.

“You’re taller,” I said to Jabari. Then I turned to PJ. “What’s all this?” I asked, brushing my finger across his faint mustache. He tried not to smile, to hold onto his impassive too-cool-to-care expression, but below the new growth a shadow of a grin emerged.

“Yeah, he thinks he’s a man now,” Orlando said, and he was grinning too. “I got two men, but nobody’s paying rent.”

Orlando stepped in front of everyone and launched into a monologue about manhood from a play or a movie no one had seen. The boys shifted their feet and rolled their eyes and tried to endure the two minutes their dad was onstage. When he was finished, Orlando, who had stepped away from the rest of us, turned to his sons. “Remember that?”

“Yeah, Dad,” Jabari said. PJ only grunted.

“That’s a very famous scene,” Orlando said. Then he shrugged. “Anyway.”

“You guys want some apple juice? I have some in the back,” I said.

“No, thank you,” Jabari said.

“How’s Trina?” PJ asked.

“Good-bye, everybody,” Frances said. She gave a little wave before she closed the door behind her.

I glanced at Orlando’s face, wondering how much he’d told the boys. They had always liked Trina.

“She’s not feeling well right now,” I said.

“We just popped in to say hello,” Orlando said. “We’re on our way to the mall. Real men need new athletic shoes.” He put his arm through mine and guided me a few steps away. “How
is
Trina doing?”

I shook my head.

“Bad?”

“
Really
bad.”

He gave me a quick hug. I was grateful he didn’t say that everything would be all right. “The boys wanted to see you,” he whispered. “I told them we were back together.” He studied my face. “So what’s the plan?”

“Get her back in the hospital long enough to make a difference.”

He squeezed my hand.

“So the sitcom audition went well?”

He recounted every detail, then repeated the lines that he remembered. Told me how much the producers had loved him, how he had nailed it.

I’d heard it all before, so I knew how to listen and not listen, how to make noises in my throat that passed for interest. In the years since we’d been together and not been together, I’d learned what Orlando hadn’t learned: not to get invested in an audition. There was no use in two of us getting bent out of shape because of a rejection we failed to see coming. Los Angeles was filled with hopefuls—and with the passed over. Sometimes I wondered how the city managed not to topple, not from earthquakes and mud slides but from the weight of all those hurt feelings, all the would-be stars who hadn’t gotten the part.

“Dad,” Jabari said.

“Okay, let’s go,” Orlando said. “I’ll call you tonight.”

I nodded. “See you soon, guys,” I said to the boys. As they submitted to another hug apiece, I caught PJ’s eye and silently questioned him. He shook his head.

“Tell Trina I said hello,” PJ said.

I was walking them to the door when the ringing of the cell phone clipped to my waist startled me.

“Keri, it’s Dora. There’s some folks at your house, people I don’t think you’d approve of.”

“What?” Orlando asked.

“I have to go. That was my neighbor. There’s some strange people at the house.”

“I’ll follow you.”

There weren’t any cars parked outside when I drove into my driveway. That was a good sign. Even better, when I went inside, the house was in one piece. Trina was in her bed, under the covers. She answered me in short incoherent sentences.

“I don’t know,” I said to Orlando, who was standing in my living room. The boys were in the car. “Everything seems okay.”

The doorbell rang. When I opened it, my next-door neighbor was standing there. She told me she’d seen several strangers coming out of my house, “homeless-looking” people. Mrs. Winslow was in her early seventies but still quite chic, a jazzy oldhead mama who worked out and did yoga and had told me time and time again to call her Dora. She and her husband, Calvin, liked to get dressed up and go out. They gave card parties and barbecues. On weekends, their grandchildren came over. I think I must have swayed a little, because suddenly her arms were around me and she was patting my back, murmuring, “All right. All right now.” She sounded her real age then, not the one she liked to project.

Her fingers were soothing, a balm for my spirit. I wanted to breathe in the warmth of those pliant fingers, her take-charge thumbs. They hypnotized me a little, dulled my senses, muffled sounds.

“What?” Her voice was just above a whisper, for my ears only.

“I said, ‘You younger women had all those options. Walked out on your husbands because you wanted to be so much.’ I heard about your store. Might have worked out better if you’d stayed home and raised your kids.”

She spoke evenly, never stopped rubbing my back, and gave me an odd, surprised look when I pulled away. Mrs. Winslow stood in my entryway for a while before she finally closed the door behind her.

“What was that all about?” Orlando asked.

“You need to go,” I said. “I’ll be all right. I’ll call you later.”

“You go upstairs and talk to her. I’ll leave if everything is okay.”

“Nobody’s been here,” Trina said, her eyes jumping up and down, her hands flailing out and slapping against her thighs. She stormed out of her bedroom and into her bathroom. I heard her stomping around, talking loudly. I knew she was lying.

“It’s all right,” I said to Orlando minutes later. “You can go.”

FRANCES ASSURED ME THAT SHE AND ADRIANA COULD MANage things, so I stayed at home for a few days, babysitting Trina. Guard duty would be more accurate. Watching, waiting, trying to come up with a strategy. I called around to price private-duty nurses and security guards. Too expensive. All the residential treatment programs required a face-to-face interview to determine “if the prospective client will be a good fit.”

Thank you for your time.

During the weeks when Trina was still living under my roof, I called SMART at least half a dozen times. Each time they arrived in a timely manner and were unfailingly polite. Somehow, Trina was able to pull herself together in front of them. “Ma’am,” they’d say, “your daughter doesn’t meet the criteria.”

No slit wrists for her; no bullet wounds for me.

OF COURSE, THERE WERE QUIET SPELLS, DAYS WHEN TRINA’S madness was too much even for her and she’d take a double dose of antipsychotic and sleep for twenty-four hours straight. She didn’t leave her room to eat; she didn’t bathe. I didn’t coax her to do either. Even days when her body odor filled her room, I kept silent. The lure of peace was too seductive.

“I’m taking my meds again,” she announced one night, after two or three days of relative quiet. I’d just turned off the television in the family room and was about to go to sleep. Trina called to me from her room, which was at the top of the back stairs. Her door was partially opened, and she was lying across her bed. “Did you hear what I said, Mommy?”

“Yes, honey.”

“Come here, Mommy.”

I went into her room. Trina had picked up all the clothes that she’d dumped on the floor. The top of her bureau was neatly arranged: comb and brush here, perfume there. The air smelled fresh, soapy. Trina had bathed and combed her hair. She was wearing jeans and an ironed shirt. When I sat down on the edge of her bed, she threw her arms around me and kissed my cheek. “You’re a good mommee,” she said, resting her head against my chest.