Bebe Moore Campbell

by 72 Hour Hold

  Eight months earlier, when the Office of the Public Guardian’s representative had come to the support group meeting, Trina had just left the hospital and was beginning the partial program at Weitz Center. The night that Herbert Swanson gave his presentation was the first evening I’d left Trina alone in the house since she’d come home. I was a little distracted, listening to him outline the legal remedy for the mentally ill who were out of control. I remembered leaving early that evening and rushing back home to find my daughter calmly watching television in my bed. I snuggled in beside her, grateful that I would never need the card I’d taken, because my bad times, Trina’s bad times, were behind me. Now every molecule in my body was paying attention to Mr. Swanson.

  “Where is your daughter now?” he asked when I’d finished.

  “I don’t know. We were on our way to the hospital last night and she jumped out of my car. I haven’t heard from her since.”

  He made a noise that meant Wow! or Good Lord! or something like that. “And you want to go for LPS conservatorship?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s a pretty difficult proposition without your daughter being on a hold.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “First of all, she must be evaluated by a psychiatrist who is on staff at a designated hospital. I can send you a form to give to the doctor. Once it’s filled out, you mail it to my office with a request for an LPS conservatorship. The court will then give you a hearing date. Your daughter will have to be personally served with the papers, because she has to be present in court.”

  So simple, so straightforward. So impossible.

  “Mrs. Whitmore, if I were you, I’d try to get her placed on a hold. Once your daughter is in the hospital, everything will be a lot easier. The psychiatrist there can do the paperwork.”

  “What do you think I’ve been trying to do for the last month and a half? Every time I call SMART or the police, they refuse to take her. Somehow she manages to pull herself together when they arrive, so she doesn’t fit the criteria.”

  “You’re going to have to lower your voice, Mrs. Whitmore.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Mrs. Whitmore, if your child is as sick as you say she is, there will come a day when she won’t be able to control herself. Really, it’s easier to get an LPS if your daughter is in the hospital on a hold.”

  “But how—”

  “If your daughter has a psychiatrist who is on staff at one of our hospitals, talk with him about supporting you in getting a conservatorship. Establish a relationship with the SMART people. Be persistent. When you finally make the call, tell them where you wish to have your daughter taken. When she gets to the hospital, call us. You’ll get a court hearing. And then it’s up to the judge. I wish I could speak with you further about this, but I’m late for a meeting. I want to warn you, Mrs. Whitmore. There’s no such thing as miracles. Mental illnesses can transform people. You may not be able to get back the daughter you have. You may, as the saying goes, have to learn to love a stranger. Good luck.”

  RONA WAS WAITING FOR ME WHEN I PULLED INTO MY DRIVE way that evening. She was seated inside her car, reading a magazine. The night before, she had called to remind me of the appointment she’d made a month earlier. She’d lost more weight, enough for the skin around her mouth to fall slack, enough to remind me that other people had problems even more urgent than my own.

  “Trina,” I called as soon as I stepped inside. No answer.

  Rona had trouble getting onto the table. Her left arm was swollen, and her legs seemed to be stiff. When she was settled, I ran my hand over her shoulders; she flinched, which told me that she expected pain. My touch became lighter and lighter. After a while, her skin seemed to loosen beneath my hands, and her breathing regulated into an almost silent purring. Midway through the session, she fell asleep, waking up moments after I’d finished.

  “Girl, I feel so much better. Chemo is a bitch.” She laughed, struggling to sit up. “Did you send in your reservation?”

  “My reservation?”

  “For the reunion in October. I’m going,” she said in her soft, wispy voice. “I’m definitely going.”

  “My life is a little up in the air right now,” I said.

  Rona looked at me for a few seconds, then started laughing. Miniature rusty wheels began rolling in her throat. The sound clanked and cranked its way to the surface. Tiny, joyful spasms erupted from her. Such unexpected happiness from a shaking bag of bones.

  “I can relate to that,” she said, and laughed some more.

  THE NEXT DAY, I REPLAYED IN MY MIND MR. SWANSON’S marching orders for LPS conservatorship and tried to reach Trina’s psychiatrist. Dr. Bellows wasn’t at his office, and we played phone tag nearly all day before I finally faxed him a quick note describing Trina’s situation and asking for his cooperation on my decision to get conservatorship. Around four o’clock, I drove to his office, where he was in practice with two other psychiatrists and two psychologists. At the sign-in window, a young Latina handed me a clipboard and asked me to add my name to what was a very long list. Every non-Latino physician in Los Angeles had a Latina working in his office. The object was for her to bring in her family and friends, thus expanding the practice to a population that might not have been reachable otherwise. In Dr. Bellows’s office, there wasn’t one seat available in the reception area.

  From time to time, other doctors appeared behind the window, but I didn’t see Dr. Bellows until two hours had passed. That’s when I glimpsed him through the partially opened door that led from the waiting room to the treatment areas.

  “Hey, just a moment, ma’am,” the receptionist called, when she saw me going toward the doctor.

  Dr. Bellows looked startled when he saw me. With so many faces in his life, so many names and sad stories, mine didn’t register immediately.

  “Keri Whitmore, Trina’s mom.”

  He nodded.

  I spoke quickly, filling him in on what had been going on with Trina. Thirty seconds, max. “I’ve been calling. Did you receive my fax. Will you support me on conservatorship?”

  He hesitated. Looked in another direction. The receptionist appeared behind him.

  I spoke even faster. “Because if you aren’t willing, I need to know.”

  “Miss—”

  When I looked at her, the receptionist stepped back.

  “You need to calm down,” Dr. Bellows said. To me.

  “I’m calm,” I said, facing the doctor. I turned to the receptionist. “I’m calm.”

  “Miss—”

  “Whitmore!” I heard myself in the absolute silence that followed. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to scream. So sorry.”

  The assistant eyed Dr. Bellows. Everything around me seemed to slow down. Dr. Bellows whispered that he remembered Trina. He promised to fill out the papers whenever I got them to him and to testify on my behalf in court. He apologized for taking so long. He asked me if I’d heard of my support group, and I told him I was a member and attended the meetings from time to time.

  “We all need a little help sometimes,” he said. “Take care of yourself.”

  The doctor glanced at the receptionist, who took my arm in a firm grip and led me back into the waiting room, where people sat up straight and alert, averting their eyes when I passed.

  MY HOUSE WAS QUIET WHEN I GOT HOME, BUT THERE was evidence of chaos wherever I looked. Pieces of a broken cup lay shattered on the kitchen floor. The refrigerator door was flung open. Waste floated in the guest bathroom toilet while water ran in the sink. Somebody was speaking loudly, rapidly behind a closed door. The phone line in Trina’s room was lit up.

  I flushed the toilet, turned off the water, closed the refrigerator door, and began picking up the broken pieces but then stopped. My fingers felt cramped and sore. My back hurt.

  I called Clyde. “She’s back,” I said.

  “How is she?”

  “The same.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Sor
ry about the way I am. It’s only that if I stop moving—”

  “I know,” I said.

  In my bathroom, soaking in the tub, door locked, I reviewed my to-do list: The countdown for conservatorship was on. I had a psychiatrist who would sign the papers whenever Trina was brought in. All I needed was another seventy-two-hour hold.

  Standing outside Trina’s door, I could hear her talking on the telephone to someone. Her words were racing. Stay inside tonight, I thought. Call people, talk fast, scream sometimes. Be safe.

  A long time ago, one of the speakers at the support group told us we shouldn’t let our relative’s illness become our lives. But Trina was my life, and I didn’t want to learn to love a stranger.

  14

  THE GRADUATION CARDS HAD BEGUN ARRIVING IN LATE May. High school. College. The children of my friends were growing up, moving on. Their proud parents trumpeted the news.

  I crumpled the announcement cards in my hands. Piercing paper points stabbed my palms. Sharp edges cut my fingers. Another reason to cry. Everybody’s damn kid was graduating. I mailed check after check. At the bottom of my cards I wrote “Congratulations,” followed by gay exclamation points.

  God, please, don’t let me be like this. Please take this envy from me.

  Meanwhile, Trina was relatively quiet. Behind her bedroom door she mumbled and shuffled back and forth. She played her CDs and the television, but the sounds emanating from her quarters were subdued. My shoulders shouldn’t have come down, but they did. I shouldn’t have mistaken a period of calm for healing. But I couldn’t help thinking: Maybe today is the day I’ll get her back.

  My birthday wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I received roses from Clyde and a bottle of perfume from Orlando, a bracelet from Adriana and cards from Frances, Mattie, and Gloria. Trina stayed in bed all day long, so at least the house was peaceful. At eight o’clock that night, I was putting away my dinner dishes when the doorbell rang. Moments later, PJ was standing in front of me, holding a bouquet of flowers.

  “Happy birthday,” he said after I let him in. He handed me the flowers.

  “Thank you, PJ. How did you get here?”

  “I walked.”

  “Does anyone know where you are?”

  He shook his head.

  “You hungry?”

  He sat down on one of the high chairs at the kitchen counter. I warmed up leftovers: chicken, rice, greens. PJ dug in as though he hadn’t eaten in a week. Watching him, I remembered all the times I’d cooked for him and his brother, all the times they’d gone to sleep in my guest room. Orlando’s sons and my daughter had laughed together over bowls of ice cream, over Monopoly boards, and while watching videos. Orlando and I used to marvel at how well they got along. Even when we weren’t together, the kids always managed to maintain their relationship. Just before Trina had gotten ill, she’d gone to the movies with the boys.

  “Is Trina crazy?”

  I was bent over the dishwasher, and that’s the position I froze in. “Who told you that?”

  PJ looked bewildered. He hadn’t expected questions. “I heard.”

  “Oh, really? From whom?” I straightened up slowly and walked over to PJ.

  He stared back at me, unsure of what to say.

  “Was it your dad?”

  He shook his head. “Jabari said he heard somebody say that.”

  I didn’t know I’d been holding my breath until I heard myself exhaling. “Trina’s going through something, PJ,” I said, hesitating, trying to pick the best words. “Her mind is kind of overloaded, and she’s not thinking clearly.”

  “Is she going to get better?”

  I hesitated again, this time to wait out the tears that were stinging my eyelids. “I think so.”

  PJ stared at me hard, perhaps sensing my unsureness, my helplessness.

  “So, PJ, what’s this I hear about a tattoo?”

  “Aw,” he said. His face registered a mixture of bravado and embarrassment.

  “So let’s see it.”

  He lifted his shirt and turned around. Written with a flourish across the small of his back were the words FUCK YOU, just as Orlando had described.

  “PJ, you want to tell me why you put that on your back?”

  His reasons weren’t coherent. Something about everybody did it. He mentioned several rappers. He sounded angry when he was talking. And then he sounded sad.

  “My dad was mad about it at first. But then, it was like, whatever. He’s got an audition, so whatever. He’s got to rehearse, so whatever. Anyway,” he said, after a moment of silence passed between us, “I might have it taken off when I get older and start working a regular job and stuff.”

  “I can’t wait for that day.”

  PJ looked at me, and a grin spread across his face. I hugged him, and he hugged me back.

  “Have you had that conversation yet?” I asked.

  He shook his head, then looked at me. “You don’t know how hard it is just to say it to myself. You’re the only person I’ve told. My brother doesn’t even know. People are going to start treating me differently. Everybody’s not like you. Can we not talk about this?”

  I nodded.

  “Is Trina home?” he asked.

  I sighed and let him go. “She’s sleeping right now.” Before he could ask me any more questions, I said, “Let me take you home.”

  “I HAVE SEEN THE TATTOO,” I TOLD ORLANDO LATER THAT night, when we spoke on the telephone.

  “PJ’s tattoo?”

  “The very same. He came over tonight. He walked.”

  “Really. He misses you.”

  “Yeah. I miss him and Jabari too. So I fed your hungry boy and then I asked to see his tattoo. He said he might have it taken off when he’s older. So I took that as a sign that he regrets the whole episode. If I were you, I’d casually approach him about removing it in a couple of months. Maybe just the two of you could go do something together that would get him in a talking mood.”

  “All right. Thanks. Oh, the rehearsals are going really well. They’ve invited a lot of television and movie people for opening night, which will work out great since it’s so close to pilot season. Maybe I can go right from the play into a series. That’s the point of doing these hundred-and-seventy-five-dollar-a-week gigs. Exposure, baby. I got you sitting right up front on opening night.”

  “Have you heard back about your sitcom audition?” I knew as soon as I said the words, as soon as I heard him inhale, that he hadn’t made the cut.

  “I couldn’t be as dumb as they wanted,” Orlando said. Then he switched topics, going on and on about the play. Several times I tried to break in, to tell him about PJ and how he wanted to know about Trina, but he was wound up, ready for his close-up, so I just let him talk. Maybe that’s how it had always been with Orlando and me. There were times when I just let him talk, but I wasn’t really listening and he didn’t really care.

  I felt lonely after I hung up the phone, a feeling I couldn’t shake off in the days that followed. In the past I’d prayed for as much silence and avoidance as Trina now began doling out. She didn’t scream; she didn’t curse. Only now I needed for her to get out of control, to break my windows, yell and scream and threaten me: to meet the criteria. But she was quiet, talking on the telephone, leaving water running, not flushing toilets, but doing nothing that would have gotten her put on a seventy-two-hour hold. So I waited. Maybe she was waiting too.

  It occurred to me that I hadn’t smelled weed in days. Whoever had been supplying her had cut her off, or maybe she was worn out from climbing up the drug staircase, hopping from cigarettes to liquor to weed and who knew what else. Each step had promised tranquillity, a restoration of balance. Each step had lied. The staircase was circular. The drugs calmed her initially, then set her off.

  In her current state, Trina was relatively tranquil because she wasn’t stressed out. Her room, equipped with a television, CD player, and telephone, her current drug of choice, was devoid of triggers. Her mealy-
mouth mama, passively accepting her highs, her lows, making no demands, walking on eggshells with skill and interminable patience, wasn’t upping the ante.

  If she was ever to be my pearl again, I had to be her grain of sand.

  There was risk involved, of course. She could become manic and still not meet the criteria. I could create a monster I’d be forced to endure.

  Since she’d been off her medication, Trina never cleaned up the kitchen. From the garage door one evening after work I observed the usual chaos: dirty dishes swimming in oil-slick water, food smeared on the counter, cabinet doors wide open. I took a deep breath. My fury was effortless, a vein just waiting to be tapped. I screamed my displeasure from the bottom of the back stairs all the way to the top, where I pushed open the door to Trina’s room and yelled some more.

  She was in the bed watching cartoons, giggling like a toddler. Her first glance was filled with curiosity, as though Mom was just another form of entertainment. She actually chuckled. I stormed across the floor to her bed and yanked the covers off. She jumped up.

  “Leave me alone, you bitch!”

  “This is my house, and I won’t let you turn it into a garbage can. Go downstairs and clean up that kitchen right now.”

  “Fuck you!”

  “Don’t you dare talk to me like that.”

  I moved in closer, pressing my chest against hers. She pushed back with her hands. I let them stay on me for seconds, and then I fled downstairs. I called SMART.