The automatic doors kiss behind us, and we walk
through the hospital’s flower garden. A few steps along
the path, mom stops to sprawl beneath a thorny bush.
Where she rests her head, red petals fleck the mulch.
Her fingers flutter like Chopin. I wait, watch.
Two weeks on the ward, I think, and she’s nostalgic
for sun and green growth. Which might be how
psychiatry heals. Or she’s just putting the roses
back in neuroses. Either way, we only have an hour
for lunch—what her nurse called our midday outing.
So I offer mom a hand. Let’s go to the restaurant, I say.
Mom doesn’t budge. She stares past me at an empty sky.
I flew in this morning and leave tomorrow.
A quick visit. Which is fine. Because it’s painful
seeing mom like this. For three decades,
she’s been receiving care. But I’m not convinced
anyone’s helped her. I’m not sure we even know how.
*
The first time we locked mom in a hospital
was after she slit her wrists. A month later,
home again, she told me an orderly had tried
to rape her. Said it plainly, without preface.
We were sitting on the porch. Sixth grade
would begin soon. I wasn’t sure I knew
that word, so I filed it with others I’d heard
recently: bipolar, psychosis, mood stabilizers.
I know I should’ve replied. I can see that now.
I could have asked a question. Something.
Maybe when you’re older, she said, I’ll try
to tell you more. She turned away then, shaking
her head. It feels like she hasn’t looked back.
*
At last, mom takes my hand. I pull her up
from the matted grass, pick bits of mulch
from her short gray hair, which is oily,
like she hasn’t showered in days.
I can remember her arms so strong
I could hang from them like monkey bars.
These days, her shoulders slump like sandbags.
Her feet shamble. Her eyes never look certain.
I beseech thee, gods of all logics and weird
etiologies: grant us the comfort of swordfish,
collard greens, and garlic cheese biscuits.
*
In the restaurant lobby, while waiting for a table,
we stare at a tank of lobsters. We listen to water
gurgle and suck. The crustacean-warriors teeter
on the bottom, claws forward, showing off
their rubber bracelets. The fluorescent lights
leave nowhere to hide. I look around. Emergency
Exit Only. Alarm will sound if door is opened.
Mom’s orange sweatsuit makes her look like an inmate.
Or a caution cone someone misplaced. Me, I suppose.
At room temperature, good chemists assure us,
lithium is a stable solid. But that depends
on the room, now doesn’t it? This way to your table,
says the rhythmic waiter. I see him catch a glimpse
of mom’s hospital bracelet, a cloud of concern crossing
his face. Then he grins, waves us on—a sweeping gesture,
as if he could conjure hors d’oeuvres from disorder.
*
The fifth time we let mom leave the hospital,
a few years back, her friend told me something
I had never considered. She cornered me
at dad’s retirement party. Your mom, she whispered,
is the bravest person I know. I was dumbfounded.
Really? I asked. How’s that? Across the room, mom
was pouring tea for a guest. The task demanded
her complete attention. Because, the friend went on,
every time she comes home, she knows that we know
where she’s been—folks at church, bridge club, everyone.
But what does she do? She jumps back in! Gives it all
another go. Her eyebrows arched significantly. Don’t
kid yourself, she said. That takes some serious guts.
*
If someone doesn’t help her order, mom will gaze
at a menu forever. How about the crab cakes? I suggest.
With grilled asparagus. You’ve always liked crab.
Grilled, mom mumbles, suddenly distant. Your father
liked to grill, didn’t he? Your father…. She trails off,
as if trying to remember him. This is disconcerting.
Dad’s been to visit her every day, bringing cookies
for the staff. Cutting her spaghetti with a plastic fork.
Sipping weak tea from Styrofoam cups. Today,
needing a break, he’s on the golf course.
Yes, I tell her. He did like to grill.
*
When I was little, maybe four years old,
mom once let me shower with her,
my eyes agog at waist-level. The taut skin
over her abdomen. I saw the pale grin of a scar.
It’s called a Caesarean, she explained. The doctors
had to cut me open. And that’s how you came out.
How you were born. The scar seemed broad and exotic,
its edges slightly rough. I thought: I used to be in there.
Inside. Part of her. It’s OK, mom told me, you can touch it.
So I did, gently, water beading my fingertips.
In all the years since, I’ve never wanted a Caesar salad.
*
I dollop remoulade on mom’s crab cakes, cut her asparagus
into chewable lengths. Her white napkin is a flag her throat
is waving. Sometimes, when I’m ruthlessly honest, I think
she’s gone—that whatever’s left is a flickering ghost.
Or the slowest imaginable avalanche. But the atomic weight
of lithium, we’re told, is let’s all just take things day by day.
Mom prods her baked potato, but she doesn’t take a bite.
Instead, she seems to focus on her fork. Then, at last,
she lifts her chin and looks at me. The intimacy
of her expression is jolting. There is, I can see,
nowhere else she’d rather be. What’s the difference,
she asks me flatly, between being embarrassed
and being just plain bare-assed? This is far from whatever
I’d been expecting. A joke. She’s telling a joke.
I don’t know, I say, already grinning, what’s the difference?
Something we never had, she chuckles. A Stairmaster!
Wow, I say, laughing with her. That’s pretty good.
Who told you that? She shrugs, a slight smile
in her eyes. The doc who does electroshock.