Bebe Moore Campbell (24 page)

21

WE STAYED WITH JEAN AND EDDIE FOR A WEEK OF WHAT I suppose was a kind of orientation. Whether I was becoming oriented was hard to tell. Institutionalized was more like it. After the first two days of waking up when we pleased, a 7 a.m. bell suddenly rang out on the third day. And it kept on ringing, despite Trina’s groans and Angelica’s slow rise from the bed. The honeymoon was over. We were now expected to help prepare all meals under the supervision of Jean, the cooking machine, who instructed us in low-fat, low-cal methods. Cleanup was shared as well. And, of course, we shelled sunflowers.

I hadn’t expected that cracking open tiny seeds for hours at a time would be rewarding, and initially it wasn’t. That first day, my fingertips were cut; my neck ached from bending over the table, and Angelica’s constant muttering got to me. But on the second day things seemed to flow well. After a while, the work became soothing; by the third day I was looking forward to sitting at the table.

The girls seemed to be responding well to the program. Angelica muttered and stared and dug at her flesh and Trina continued to accuse Jean of trying to poison her, but not as often and not nearly as vehemently as before. Healing in mental illness comes in stages and degrees. Both daughters were taking their medication. Most significant of all, the stretches of normalcy, or what might be normalcy for either of them, began to lengthen.

“When she gets that blank stare and her foot starts tapping, Miss Angelica is getting ready to go off,” I said to Bethany, who nodded her head in agreement.

I didn’t make any attempts to calm Angelica; I left that to Jean and Brad. But once or twice, when I saw wildness in her eyes, I patted her hand and rubbed her arm, and that seemed to soothe her. After a while, I began to watch her for signs of trouble. A couple of times while we were working, I got up from the table and massaged her neck and shoulders. The smile she gave me—well, I could tell what God meant for her to be.

After a few days passed, Trina’s coherent periods began lasting for at least fifteen or twenty minutes at a stretch. During those times, anyone eavesdropping on her conversation might have thought her colorful as opposed to crazy. She took her medication without protest. She and Jean bonded over long walks, yoga, and Scrabble games.

“I see progress,” Bethany said. We were standing out back, looking at the mountains.

“You can feel it. They’re getting better.”

It was as though we were looking at the entire world through gauze. Our daughters’ responses to medication, good food, exercise, and the lack of controlled substances softened everything for us. As they became more normal, we became more relaxed. Smiled more. Laughed more. Trusted that we’d made the right choice, that everything would come out okay.

When I finally called Orlando, we hadn’t spoken in days. He answered his cell phone on the second ring.

“Baby, where you been?” he asked.

“I—”

“I’ve been calling and calling. What’s going on?”

The suspicion in his voice flowed right through the cell phone.

“I’m doing some traveling. Visiting. I needed to get away.”

“What is it that you don’t want to lie to me about?”

“I’m not with anybody.”

“I didn’t mean it that way, and you know it.”

“Well . . .” Damn his intuition. I wanted to tell Orlando what was going on. Of all people, he would keep his mouth shut. But I couldn’t. “I needed to be by myself, just to clear my head. I’m not out here partying. And you have your play.”

“So why didn’t you just tell me you needed to be alone instead of having me wondering and worrying about you? I’ve been calling you all week long. You can’t drop off the face of the earth, girl. There are people who care about you.”

“I’m sorry, Orlando. I’m with Trina, looking into the best treatment for her.”

“Oh.”

“Jabari and PJ doing okay?”

“Girl, these rehearsals have been—”

Irritation sliced my throat as I swallowed. I thought of PJ’s troubled face, the secret he felt he needed to harbor. “Orlando, please talk with—”

I heard someone calling Orlando’s name. “Places, everybody.”

“Listen, I have to go. Call me when you get a chance. And say a prayer for me. I love you, baby.”

He hung up before I had a chance to respond.

ANGELICA WOKE UP SCREAMING THAT NIGHT. NIGHTMARES are a fixture in the lives of the brain-disordered. Trina and Angelica had been moaning in their sleep the entire week we’d been at Jean’s.

Brad rushed to Angelica and immediately put his hand over her mouth.

“You have to stop yelling now. Do you understand me?” he said.

“Hey!” I said. His hand across her mouth looked tight, like something that would leave a mark. I was already out of bed and moving toward them.

“We can’t have that here,” he said to her, to me. His voice was like the palm of his hand: hard, breathtaking. I didn’t take another step.

He removed his hand and what came out of Angelica’s mouth was a gagging sound and then a torrent of words.

“They were pulling my legs apart, trying to stick their dicks in me. Their hairy dicks. A lot of them. They smelled so bad,” she said, her voice rising to a wail. “They tried to stick everything inside of me: dirt and leaves and glass bottles. They were fucking me with glass bottles. Big old nasty monster men. They didn’t care. They didn’t care.”

The declaration subsided and the muttering began, Angelica’s own private conversation. Haldol couldn’t be far behind.

Bethany was next to Angelica by the time she began sobbing. I came to life too. “It’s all right. It’s all right,” she said, over and over, while I patted and rubbed and Trina sat up, her eyes half open, her sleep broken, and Brad stood there, his resolute chin thrust out.

Wilbur rushed in and I told him what had happened, including Brad’s response. He and Brad took Angelica from the barracks into another room, and Bethany followed them. When they brought her back she was subdued, her muttering mere whispers. Bethany shushed her with “Aw, honey. Aw, sweetie. It’s okay. Everything’s okay.” Jean and Eddie stood guard.

Outside the room, I heard Brad, his voice controlled, his deliberate words pitched against Wilbur’s angry criticism.

“She was jeopardizing all of us. You never know who is driving by, even this late at night. We’re not completely isolated.” I didn’t hear Wilbur’s response. But after a slight pause, Brad said, “I’ve made my decision.”

IMMEDIATELY AFTER DINNER THE NEXT EVENING, BRAD quietly instructed Bethany and me to get our things together. We would be leaving in an hour. We had been with Jean and Eddie for one week. Progress had been made. Two steps forward, one back. Better than I had expected. So I was hopeful about what lay ahead. I packed in silence next to Bethany, keeping my questions inside my head.

“Are we going home?” Trina asked me as we got into the car. “I’ll take my meds when we get back home.”

Her words were a siren’s song. But I’d been dashed against the rocks once too often. No, I was in for the full ride.

“We’re not going home just yet, Trina,” I said.

Her face grew dark, her eyes stormy. “Where are we going?”

Brad walked over. “Going to a place where you will get more help. Trina, I want you to relax. Be grateful.”

I could have told Brad that my child wasn’t grateful, not yet. But his chin jutted forward, an indication that he was in the fearless-leader zone. It was only when we were getting into Brad’s SUV that I learned that Jean would be traveling with us. The news pleased me. Even with her Earth Mother tendencies, Jean’s presence was welcome because of the continuity she provided for Trina.

We were about to pull off when I heard Eddie yelling. Brad rolled down the window.

“Back tire’s flat,” he said.

It was a miracle he saw it, as dark as it was. We all piled out and stared at the tire, as though looking at it would repair it.

“Take our car,” Eddie said. “You can’t go without a spare.”

Their car was an old Volvo station wagon. Brad, Trina, and I sat up front. Jean, Bethany, and Angelica sat in the back. Brad played one jazz CD after another. Highway 5 to Sacramento, the signs read. I paid attention for a while, until I fell asleep.

Around two-thirty, I woke with a start. The car had stopped. Angelica was screaming again. Amid the confusion, I heard Trina, her voice whiny and petulant. She needed to go to the bathroom.

We were now traveling along a two-lane highway; I could see a few lights in the distance. There were signs advertising gas and lodging ahead, but Brad drove right past the lighted area and didn’t turn off until several miles later, onto a pitch-black road with huge fields of low-growing plants on either side. The air was thick with the scent of citrus. Angelica’s conversation with her nighttime assailants continued.

Brad pulled over to the shoulder, stopped, and got out. There were no other cars on the road. He went around to the back and opened the trunk. When he reappeared, he was carrying a roll of toilet paper in his hand. He opened the door for Trina and waited for her to get out. Jean opened her door. Angelica’s keening split the air. Brad didn’t see Trina’s eyes when she realized that the toilet paper and the unlit highway were the only accommodations she would be afforded, but I did. I thought about her request to go home and reached out to grab her arm—my fingers grazed her skin—but before I could connect, Trina had hurled herself from her seat to the ground. She began running and screaming at the same time. It was startling, the sound she made: an eagle suddenly escaped from its cage in the zoo, a shriek of panic and euphoria as the freedom stung her face.

Brad, Jean, and I took off after her, yelling for her to stop. Of course, she just ran harder, zigzagging from one side of the road to the other like a wild bird trying to outrun a hatchet. We were still calling out when we saw headlights coming right toward us.

“Help! Help! Help! They’re trying to kill me! They’re trying to kill me!” Trina waved her arms and jumped up and down, racing toward the oncoming vehicle.

The car, which was about half a city block away, slowed down. Brad, Jean, and I all inhaled at the same time. Trina ran to the driver’s side, banging on the window. Behind her, Angelica wailed.

“They’re devils! They’re devils! Help me, please. Save me from the devils!”

I could see the driver now. Horror and fear stained the woman’s face like makeup. The vehicle stopped for a moment. I gasped. Just that quickly, the car accelerated and sped past Trina, coming straight toward us. Brad shouted something, and the three of us scattered as the car barreled down the road.

Trina was hysterical, screaming and running in the dark. Brad finally overtook her. He held her, his hands gripping the backs of her arms. She sat down on the ground, in the middle of the road, refusing to move, so we lifted her up and carried her back to the car.

“We’re trying to help you. Shh, shh, baby,” I said.

Brad’s mouth was tight and grim as he gave both Trina and Angelica shots of Haldol. Bethany was leaning over her daughter, her arms around her neck. Trina was mercifully still, resigned that her escape had been foiled. She whimpered for a while and then grew quiet. Brad’s face was tense, like a bank robber’s when the getaway car is missing.

Trina could have been killed, I thought. The car could have run right over her. Jean and Brad couldn’t have done a damn thing about it. They possessed ideals, not power. Suppose I had died? What would have happened to Trina?

The next time I looked at my watch it was 5 a.m. and the car had stopped in front of another farmhouse surrounded by a field.

“A friend with friends” I heard Brad say. A front door opened, and once again we were ushered in.

Jean offered to make sandwiches, but no one was hungry. A man who introduced himself as Pete led us through a dimly lit house to a bedroom where four single beds were lined up. Another barracks. He disappeared before I could get a good look at him. At the window, blackout shades were drawn.

Jean and I helped Trina change into her pajamas while Angelica and Bethany were in the bathroom. Trina didn’t want to brush her teeth or wash her face, but Jean succeeded in persuading her without raising her voice. Through the wall I could hear Brad filling Pete in on our backgrounds, carefully not mentioning that the wild child sleeping in one of his beds had just jeopardized the entire program. Pete didn’t say much. Maybe he was used to being given psychological profiles of strangers before dawn.

I met Brad at the door when he came into the room. “Trina could have been hurt,” I said, my voice low, my back to my daughter, who was lying down but not asleep. “That car could have hit her. Or suppose the woman had opened the door and driven off with her? I didn’t know it would be like this.”

Brad’s hand reached for me, pulled me away from Trina. “There is risk involved in what we do,” he said. “You knew that.”

“I didn’t know. I didn’t know that this—I want to go back,” I said.

“Back to what?” Brad asked.

“I just want to take her home. This isn’t working.”

“No,” Brad said.

“What do you mean, no? I’m taking her back home.”

Jean suddenly appeared at my side. “This is mental illness, Keri; the behavior is unpredictable. That’s part of it,” she said. “That will always be part of it, no matter where you go.”

“What do you think will happen if you take her home now?” Brad asked. “She has to get enough meds in her system before she’ll be willing to stay on them. She is still manic, still paranoid, still psychotic. If you take her home now, as angry as she’s feeling, she might call the police and tell them you kidnapped her.”

“She could do that anyway.”

“No one who completes the program has ever done that,” Jean said. “You take her home now, and you’ll have to go back to square one. Trina has a mental illness.”

“You keep telling me what I know.”

“Do you?” Brad asked. When I didn’t answer, he said, “It will never go away. Recovery for Trina will be ongoing for the rest of her life and the rest of yours. It will take years. Those years can be disappointing or painful for you or they can be productive, maybe even joyful. It depends on your attitude.”