Bebe Moore Campbell (33 page)

“Something might happen to her. She could get hurt. People die in places like that,” Clyde said.

“Look at me.” When he did, I said, “Trina may die
if she doesn’t get
help.
”

WHEN ADRIANA HADN’T COME IN BY TWO O’CLOCK, I assumed she wouldn’t make it at all. According to Frances, this was her fourth day of not showing up. A crowd of shoppers arriving around noon kept the two of us hopping. After most of the people had left, I turned to Frances. “Maybe I need to hire someone else.”

In my office, I dialed Adriana’s home number and then her cell. I left the same message on both. “I need you. Please come in tomorrow.”

The green pantsuit hanging on the rack seemed to reproach me. No matter what else I was supposed to be doing, it caught my eye. I spent a lot of time staring at the spot, trying to judge how noticeable it was.

WHEN I DROVE UP TO ORLANDO’S THEATER THAT NIGHT, there was a line outside and a throng of happy people milling about on the sidewalk. Some of them were recognizable: television faces from shows that either were in syndication or had gone on to sitcom heaven. As I stepped up to the will-call window, I could hear scattered conversations. The words
agent, casting, callback,
and
for the producers
were used frequently. These were Orlando’s colleagues and costars, and some hadn’t worked in quite a while. They’d come out both to support him and to do themselves some good just in case a big-time producer really did show up. Many of these actors greeted me; they’d met me often enough through the years.

Orlando’s name was prominently displayed on the marquee. One of the continuing perks of having been in a hit sitcom is name recognition. He might not be on Broadway, but in a cast of unknowns he was the clear draw. The theater was a ninety-nine-seater that didn’t pay union scale, but at least it was full. That had to make Orlando feel good.

I slipped into my unreserved seat about five minutes before curtain. The lights were still up. I scanned the audience quickly and heard my name. By the time I figured out where the sound came from, PJ was sliding into the seat next to mine. I had just enough time to give him a quick greeting before the lights dimmed.

Orlando had called it right. The play wasn’t good—an implausible story that went on way too long—and he was right about his performance. From the moment he walked onstage until the curtain came down, he took command. He enjoyed himself so much when he was performing. It took so little to make him happy, just a few folks clapping with their eyes on him. I wanted more for him than that.

“So what did you think?” I asked PJ after the last bit of applause had faded. People were beginning to file out, but we sat back down.

“Dad was great, but the play needs work, as they say.”

“I agree.”

“I saw it last night. They already changed a couple of things,” he said.

“Oh, PJ. You came two nights in a row? That’s so sweet.”

“I kind of like theater,” he said.

“Oh, no. Not another one.” We both laughed.

PJ seemed settled in a way I’d never known him to be. Since the last time I’d seen him, he seemed to have matured.

“So how are things?” I asked.

He smiled. “I told them.”

“And they didn’t disown you?” I smiled.

“No. Actually, they were pretty cool about the whole thing. I mean—well, my mom was upset and everything, but my dad was fine. He knows a lot of gay people.”

“Just be safe. That’s all we care about. Be safe.”

By the time Orlando came out, PJ and I were alone in the theater. I offered to treat the three of us to dinner, but Orlando said he was more tired than hungry and still had to take PJ home.

“Do you want to come over?” I whispered in his ear.

“I’m tired, Keri,” he said.

“Is something wrong?”

“No.”

At home I felt edgy and restless. A glass of wine didn’t settle me or block out the thoughts that were bombarding me. Bethany and Angelica. Where were they now? Had I been too hasty in leaving the program? They were probably at the main site by now. Maybe it had been a mistake, not sticking with them.

Or maybe they were all in jail. I’d been so busy with the conservatorship and the store that I hadn’t taken time to ponder the possible outcome of Jean’s little dilemma. No one had called me. If something had gone wrong, surely Brad would have contacted me. Or maybe not. Being stoic suited him. Not giving out names, taking the bamboo beneath his fingernails without flinching, not being afraid of the dogs yelping at his ankles: that’s how he liked to think of himself.

I took my second glass of wine out to the hot tub, feeling very much alone. As the whirlpool jets began bubbling, I started crying for Trina, Orlando, Clyde, Adriana, and me. All the lost people. When the portable phone that was lying on the edge of the tub began to ring, I had just run out of tears.

“Keri? It’s your mother. Please, please don’t hang up. Please talk to me. Please.”

I listened to Emma call my name over and over. I let her beg. Hang up, I told myself. Hang up right now.

“What do you want?” I said.

“I just want to talk with you. How have you been?”

“What do you care how I’ve been?”

“I do care, Keri.”

“No, you don’t. You never did. You’re just calling me because you’re old and lonely. You’re probably wondering who’s going to take care of you if things get really bad. Well, it won’t be me.”

Her voice was very soft. “You have a right to be angry with me.”

“I have a right to hate you. And I do.”

“I’m sorry. Please, let me try to make amends.”

“I don’t want you in my life.” I was shouting.

“All right, all right.” She paused. “How’s Trina?”

I wanted to tell her that Trina was at Brown University pulling a 4.0 because I’d been a great mother, not some drunk who didn’t accept her responsibilities. If only I could have flung those proud words in her face. But I began sputtering and then crying.

“Keri, what’s wrong?”

I hung up.

BY THE END OF THE FIRST WEEK, TRINA SEEMED MORE SUBdued, her psychosis not as evident, except when she asked me if I was her mother and tilted her head and narrowed her eyes when I said that I was. I always thought of Emma when she said that, even though I didn’t want to think about her. “Where’s my real mother?” she asked me, over and over again.

A fixed false belief. It came with the territory. In her mind I wasn’t her mother, but at least she wasn’t calling me the devil. I was grateful for any small bit of progress.

Clyde and I visited together at lunchtime each day, and at night I’d return to visit alone. The afternoons were almost fun, like Family Day at college. Trina appeared to enjoy us. We played Scrabble and brought puzzles and ate fruit. Trina talked a lot and laughed when her father teased her. At night she was more subdued. I usually arrived at eight, and by the time I got there she’d already had her evening meds, including a tranquilizer. She didn’t talk much, but she seemed happy to see me and listened as I chattered on about the shop. We did girly things at night. I gave her a pedicure. I curled her hair with electric curlers, which brought out an appreciative audience. And, of course, I massaged her.

I started with her fingers toward the end of the first week. She let me hold her hand without pulling away. My thumb brushed against her palm, back and forth, back and forth. She didn’t resist. Every day I rubbed her a little more. She grew limp and relaxed under my touch. I soothed her.

I was doing reflexology one night, pressing against the balls of her feet. Her eyes were closed. She opened them and looked at me. “What it is,” she said, “is that I start flying. It feels like flying. I’m going up, up, up, and I can’t come back down. So I just go with it. Everything whizzes by so fast. There’s the sky and the trees and the people, and I pass them so fast. Nobody can make me stop.”

I kept rubbing.

“Do you want to stop, Trina?”

“I was supposed to go to Brown, wasn’t I?”

I nodded.

“In September.”

I nodded.

“But I can’t go to school if I’m flying, Mom. All the letters on the page come together and the numbers are jumbled. Nothing makes sense when I’m flying. And I don’t know when I’ll take off again.”

“Take the medicine and you won’t fly,” I said.

“I can’t smoke weed, Mommy.”

“No.”

“I can’t smoke weed and I can’t take Ecstasy and I can’t drink. All that stuff used to make me feel normal. Now they all make me fly so fast. Too fast. That’s what Elton and Thaddeus told me.”

“Who are they?”

“They took me to the other hospital. They were nice to me.”

“How did you meet them?”

“I hitched a ride with them. They could tell I was flying.”

“At the hospital, they told me you were very sad. Did you tell the men that you wanted to die?”

She averted her eyes. “I want to go to Brown. I studied so hard. I passed all the tests, and now I’m not smart anymore.”

“Yes, you are.”

She shook her head. “I’m so slow, Mom. When I try to think, everything is so slow. I can’t remember things I used to know.”

“That’s just temporary. You’ve been under a lot of stress.”

She sat straight up. “You put me under stress.” Her voice began to rise. “You made me go with those people and sleep in the room with a strange man. You stressed me out. I didn’t want to go with them. You made me. And now you want to lock me up.” The last was a shriek that filled the visiting room. A nurse rushed over.

“You’re going to have to keep your voice down or your mother will have to leave,” she said.

“I want her to leave. Make her go right now,” Trina said.

“Trina, I did what I thought was best.”

“You’re not my mother, bitch.”

It’s going to take a while; that’s what the nurse told me. That’s what I kept telling myself as I drove home. My driveway was dark; the automatic lights hadn’t come on. When I hit the remote control for the garage door to open, nothing happened. I looked up and down the block. The streetlights were out and all the houses were black.

“Damn!” I said, with more vehemence than was warranted. I got out of the car, took my keys out, and headed for the front door. When I got to the top of the steps, something moved.

“Keri.”

I jumped, and then I looked. “Adriana, where have you been?”

“Keri, I need, uh—” She giggled.

It wasn’t so dark I couldn’t see that she was thinner, that she was trembling, that something was wrong.

“I cashed a check today, and I was on my way to my car and some dude snatched my bag so now I need some money, and I was wondering—”

“Don’t come to me with that bullshit,” I said, feeling anger replace my fear. “Just don’t. You’ve been using drugs again. That’s why you haven’t been to work. I can tell by looking at you.”

“No. No, Keri. I’m not on any drugs. The reason I didn’t come to work was I’ve been sick. I had the flu. I meant to call, but I was too sick. And then, as soon as I left the house, I got jacked.”

She spoke rapidly, moving from foot to foot.

“Get out of here. And don’t come back,” I said.

“Why are you gonna do me like that?” she said.

“If you want to get back in rehab, I’ve got your back. If you want to call your sponsor and start going to meetings, I’ve got your back. But if you’re going to be a whore and a junkie, you’re on your own. Don’t come here, and don’t come back to the store until you’re ready to get some help.”

“I don’t need any fucking help from you, bitch.”

It was instinctive. One bitch too many. Past my quota. I grabbed Adriana by her shoulder and slammed her into the door. And then I started yelling.

“You come to me, and I give you a job, get your ass in school, try to show you how to have a decent life. And then you fuck up, get back with your lowlife friends who just want to bring you down, and
I’m
the bitch?”

She was more shocked than hurt, although I couldn’t swear that she wouldn’t be black-and-blue in the morning. But the shock kept her still, forced her to listen. Listening, of course, didn’t mean a damn thing, not with every cell in her body wanting drugs.

“I’m so sick of you goddam kids. If you want to wreck your life, do it.”

I unlocked my door and slammed it in her face. The phone was ringing when I got inside, but by the time I answered it the caller had hung up. Maybe it was Clyde, I thought. He’d told me earlier that he’d be going out of town for two weeks. So much for fatherly commitment. It was better to miss the call, better to realize that I was alone, that I had no backup, that Trina was going to be in and out of sanity for the rest of her life and I’d just have to deal with it. Ma Missy had learned that lesson a long time ago. Why couldn’t I? Why did I keep holding out for rescues and miracles and perfect endings? The program had tried to disabuse me of that notion. Jean and Eddie, Pete and Cecilia, Margaret—even Celestine, Melody’s mother, frying hamburgers for three grandchildren and holding her breath until her daughter made it home at night—they’d all learned acceptance. Things could be worse. Much worse.

I went into the kitchen, got the bottle of Merlot that was in the cabinet above the refrigerator, and poured myself a glass. I was sipping it and my tears had tapered off when the phone rang for the second time. The area code of the number that was revealed was unfamiliar. But the voice wasn’t.

“It’s okay. Everything is okay. They went back and worked everything out.”

“Bethany!”

“Yeah.”

As we talked I could feel myself missing her and maybe missing the dream I’d let go of.

“Tell Brad I said that the hype on Harriet Tubman—the “never run my train off de track, and I ain’t never lost a passenger” thing—that had to be PR spin. She must have lost
somebody.
”

But maybe not forever.

31

THE CIRCLE OF CHAIRS IN THE BASEMENT OF THE PRESBYterian church was tight and close. Summer was traditionally a slow time for the support group, a season when attendance was sparse. Those who came regularly, if they were able, took off on vacations designed to relieve them of the stress of taking care of mentally ill relatives. Of course, in many cases, those relatives accompanied the caretakers, in which case the word
vacation
was a misnomer. It would be more accurate to say that those people went on a trip.

Mattie, Gloria, Milton, and I were not on vacation. It was Mattie who had reminded me of the regularly scheduled meeting. She’d been calling me for prayer almost every morning since I’d returned. Now she held my hand as I sat beside her.

Right back where I started from. It seemed almost surreal for me to be sitting between Mattie and Gloria, to be surrounded by others with stories ranging from horrendous to unbearable and, of course, the one or two people whose loved ones could be filed under
Doing pretty well.
Not
Flourishing at Brown,
not
Taking the world by storm.
Just
Doing
pretty well.
Regular. Ordinary, as in “The kid no longer breaks windows.” As in “She takes a couple of classes at community college and volunteers at church.” The happy endings were when the Social Security disability checks came through before all the money ran out, when Medicare or Medi-Cal finally cranked up, when there was a vacancy at a decent residential treatment facility, when the shrink or the therapist knew what the hell she was talking about. When the kid took the medication on her own, without being prompted, because she knew she needed it. Listening in the tight little circle, I realized there were many people who were holding steady on the seesaw of mental illness. The
pretty well
stories had been attenuated in my mind because I’d been looking for another ending.

I am not alone, I thought, looking around the circle. Not everyone here is sad.

“Your turn,” Mattie whispered, and nudged me.

I felt suddenly tongue-tied and foolish. Milton gave me a nod and a smile. “I’ve been going . . . my daughter and I have been going through a tough time recently. If you recall, she has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Up until a few months ago, she was taking her medication regularly and was talking about going to college in the fall. She was— uh, she was accepted at Brown. But then I think someone gave her a joint, which led to her smoking some more joints, and the next thing I knew—”

“You were starting all over again,” one woman said.

I nodded. “You got it. She got very hostile. I’ll spare you the details. So now she’s in the hospital and I’m waiting for a conservatorship trial, which should be coming up in the next few weeks.”

“Try not to go on a Thursday. Judge Boch is there on Thursdays, and he’s a horrible man,” another woman said.

Several others volunteered bits of information about their own trial experiences. Don’t be late. Don’t expect too much; just because you have a conservatorship doesn’t mean everything will get better.

“I feel as though my whole life is crashing. My kid is in the hospital again. My ex-husband, who promised to support me through this, took off for two weeks on some work-related assignment. My trusted and beloved assistant is on drugs after being clean for a long while, so on top of everything else I’m short-staffed at my store. Oh, and my boyfriend is pulling away. Plus I haven’t a clue as to which of the institutes for mental diseases I should place my daughter in.”

“Not Havenbrook,” someone volunteered.

“Is that the place out in Pasadena?” I asked.

“Yes. My son was placed there, and his experience was terrible. Lots of fights. Lots of homeless people. He went there smoking a couple of cigarettes a day; he left smoking a pack and a half.”

“My nephew was there. It helped him a lot. He got stable there.”

“What about the Light House?” I asked.

Another woman shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know about that one.”

“My brother was there for about three years,” said a man. “It wasn’t a bad place. They took good care of them physically; they got their checkups, went to the dentist regularly. Their best doctor is Dr. Felix. How long would your daughter need to stay there?”

“I’m hoping no more than three months.”

“Give her condoms,” another woman said. “They can’t stop them from having sex in there. And not everybody is healthy, if you know what I mean.”

“Maybe you don’t need to place her in a locked facility. There are plenty of really good unlocked ones, and they’re so much better.”

“She’d go AWOL in a hot minute,” I said.

“Some of them are pretty far out. There’s one in Azusa, up in the mountains.”

“Forget it. The waiting list is around the corner.”

People called out other facilities where their loved ones had received good care. I took notes. After support group, people crowded around me, squeezing my hand, giving me more information and encouragement. Someone in the group asked me about my insurance coverage, if it was adequate. “It’s good insurance,” I said.

But not quite good enough, I learned when a hospital administrator called several days later. My insurance paid for only thirty days of mental health or drug and alcohol abuse care per calendar year. When all the hospitalizations were tallied, Trina was closing in on the twenty-fiveday mark. “Mrs. Whitmore, we are going to need to release your daughter,” a sincere young woman told me.

Release her to where? was my question. They told me that because of the temporary conservatorship, she could be placed in any IMD that would take her. The caveat was that I’d have to pay for it. The county wouldn’t pick up the tab until after the judge gave me complete conservatorship. The IMDs, flawed as they were, cost nearly $5,000 per month. My other alternative was to bring her home.

“The hospital has to keep her,” Herbert Swanson’s assistant told me. “They try to dump patients all the time.” There was disgust in his tone.

The hospital social worker didn’t agree. She restated their position: Trina would have to leave when her thirty days were used up. “You might want to think about taking her out today. She has only five more days left. If you use all those days and wind up not getting conservatorship, what will you do if she has to be hospitalized again?”

How about I bring her to your house?

I asked Mr. Swanson to call the hospital. Whatever he said worked. Trina was allowed to stay.

Then things began to fall into place. The shift in luck, the appearance of hope on the horizon, took me by surprise. Clyde returned, three days later than he said he would and feeling guilty enough to make a bargain. He agreed that Trina could go to the Light House for ninety days. The next day Trina received a court date.

I’d been visiting Trina twice a day in Clyde’s absence. Since her last outburst, she’d been more subdued. She didn’t talk with me much, but she didn’t ask me to leave either. Sometimes we’d watch television together or read magazines side by side. Several times entire visits passed in total silence. But she always let me rub her. My fingers on her skin was our way of communicating.

“You’ll be going to court in two days,” I told her when I visited her that afternoon.

“Why?”

“I’m trying to become your conservator.” It was the first time I’d broached the subject, and I could tell she was confused. I quickly explained that I was seeking the right to be able to force medical treatment on her.

“But I’m in a hospital now,” she said. “Why can’t I come home after that?”

“Trina, we tried that before. You stopped taking your medication and got sick again.”

“But I wouldn’t do that this time. I swear,” she added.

I didn’t say anything.

“I’m calm now. I won’t run away again.”

“Oh, Trina.”

“I wouldn’t. My thoughts aren’t jumbled the way they were then. I can think clearly now. I just want to come home.”

“I have to work; Frances is by herself, and I don’t want to leave you alone.”

“Where’s Adriana?”

“She left.”

“Why?”

“Adriana had some problems, Trina.”

“Drugs.”

I nodded.

“Did you fire her?”

“I told her she couldn’t work for me until she got clean and sober again.”

She was silent for a while. “I’ll get better,” she said.

Mental Health Court was way off my beaten path. Located near Cal State LA in a depressed industrial area, it was an hour away from Crenshaw in traffic. There was plenty of that. Cars were backed up on the 10E as Clyde and I made our way to the court. A hospital official would be bringing Trina. After we left the interstate, it took only five minutes before we were parking in the lot behind a square two-story building. The building overlooked an outdoor courtyard. There smokers congregated, puffing away the recesses as judges decided their fates. Inside, the waiting room was packed with LA’s stepped-over. From time to time, people would drift off to courtroom 95A or 95B, where their fates might be handed over to relatives or the state. There was no talk of greenlighting or taking a meeting with the producers within the walls of Mental Health Court. Here the stories were mostly sad and unfilmable, with a tendency toward running way too long.

We saw Trina enter with a tall, heavyset man who took her arm, the escort from the hospital. Her hair was combed in a ponytail. She was wearing black pants and a white blouse, which, over the course of her stay at the hospital, had become too tight. Her lips were bright red, and her cheeks appeared rouged. When she saw Clyde and me, she turned her head. Clyde went over to her, but she wouldn’t talk even to him. Later, I saw her go off with her court-appointed attorney, a good-looking, well-dressed Latino. How good was he? What was he saying to her?

We waited for about an hour before our names were called. When we finally went into the court, the judge had just granted conservatorship of an elderly man in the throes of Alzheimer’s to his daughter.

When our case was announced, I could feel myself getting tense. Dr. Bellows, Trina’s psychiatrist, underwent about fifteen minutes of testimony. I had agreed to pay him for his time, including travel to and from the court: $450. But he was organized and eloquent, and his testimony about both the extent and the history of Trina’s illness lent a lot of weight to our petition. Clyde, of course, didn’t know who he was until I told him.

After Dr. Bellows spoke, the judge addressed his questions to Trina. “Trina, do you know why you’re here?” the judge asked.

“Yes.”

“And why is that?”

“My mother wants to send me away.”

“Trina, I think your parents feel that you need help. Do you know why?”

“I’m not crazy.”

“No one said you were.”

“Sometimes, things start speeding up in my mind, and then everything starts racing. I can’t slow down, and sometimes I do bad things.”

“Trina, would you be willing to let your parents take care of you and make decisions on your behalf?”

“I don’t want to go away. My mother already took me away. She put me in this car with Brad and Bethany and Angelica, and they drove Angelica and me far away. I didn’t want to go, and she made me. I’m eighteen. I’m an adult, but she made me.”

Every muscle in my body froze. I couldn’t feel my fingers. All I could do was stare at Judge Neulander, who was leaning forward, looking from Trina to me.

“They were going to lock us up,” Trina said.

I stopped breathing.

The judge stared at me for what seemed like a year. He cleared his throat and then settled back in his seat. “Would you be willing to trust your parents with your welfare?”

She looked at Clyde and me for a long time. “I don’t want to go away.”

Judge Neulander leaned forward again. “Trina, I think you need help, dear. Your parents want to help you, and I’m going to let them. Conservatorship granted.”

Clyde and I drove to a restaurant not far from the court. He seemed drained as he sat across from me. His face was haggard. I’d noticed his expression when Dr. Bellows was speaking. He looked as though he were watching a car crash. “You’ve really taken care of things,” he said. “You were always good at taking care of everything. I’m sorry I left you hanging.”

“I don’t think you can help it.”

He looked at me. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m selfish, always have been. Smart, selfish, greedy. Always wanted a lot. Always wanted more, more, more. You put up with a lot.”

“She’s my child.”

“I meant with me. Why the hell did I ever let you go?” Clyde said.

It was like kissing, the way he held my glance. The funny thing was, I could remember how Clyde kissed and how much I used to like it. When his eyes stayed on me, I remembered the rest, everything I’d been thinking about for years. I hadn’t forgotten. I’d always wondered what it would be like to be with Clyde again. I’d always wondered, but I realized that I never really wanted to know. I looked away first, and the taste of him grew fainter. Maybe I could forgive him for steering his life away from mine, for reaching toward a sun that burned my spirit, for leaving me while I still loved him. “You let me go because you couldn’t live with my grief.”

He stared at me and didn’t say anything. I felt myself smiling.

“I need you to pay for everything, Clyde, all the stuff not covered by the county and the insurance.”

“All right.”

THAT NIGHT I THOUGHT OF KISSES, THE ONES THAT lingered.

The phone rang just as I got into bed. The voice on the other end was raspy and thin. “I’m not going to disappear, Keri,” my mother said. “I’m just going to keep calling.”

“What do you want?”

“Is something wrong with Trina?”

“There was something wrong with me, Emma. My whole childhood was wrong.”

“I was sick then. I’m in recovery now. If something is wrong, I’d like to help.”

I sighed. “You can’t help, Emma.”

“Let me try. Please, tell me what’s wrong.”

I’ll never know why I told her, only that once the words started coming they wouldn’t stop.

After I finished speaking with my mother, I called Orlando. He answered on the first ring. I could tell he hadn’t been sleeping. “I’d like you to come over,” I said.