No Jonquils for Mama

Cheap paintings of cut flowers lined the pastel hospital walls. A young nurse with a well-scrubbed face and a bright smile zipped in and out of the waiting room. The hospital gave every appearance of being hospitable to patients.

 "I'm Marianne, Intake Nurse. I'd like some information about your mother."

 "Earlier this summer my mother called, saying she was in Mexico, looking for Carlos Castaneda. She didn't know the Mexican police would believe her to be a crazy woman and would lock her up if they found her wandering in the street. If that happened, the government wouldn't help her and she'd be stuck in jail. I told her it was important she fly home as soon as possible."

 "Carlos Castaneda?"

"Yes, Castaneda was a writer and a supposed anthropologist whose work is now considered fiction. He wrote about his experiences with Don Juan, a Yaqui shaman and a supposed connection ao an alternate reality through drugs, magic rituals or shamanism. My mother was looking to find Castaneda in Mexico, because she was going through her own journey of altered reality.  I didn't understand it, but that was her stated reason for going to Mexico,  even though Castaneda was never in Mexico."

Marianne looked at me quizzically, as if she'd never heard of Carlos Castaneda.

"Did she come home then?"

"Well, yes, but only after weeks of languishing. She did end up in a Mexican jail, where rats were gnawing at the cell wall. She was alone for days at a time, in a damp cell, with minimal food and water. She would die there. I called a family friend in Mexico who drained one of his bank accounts to pay the authorities."

 "The government wouldn't help?"

 "Marianne, I know you're in mental health and not politics, but no, the government wouldn't help. The route we took was the best, believe me."

 Marianne looked bewildered, as if this were news. 

 "My mother did come home, but she was in bad shape. She had no money and had been living off credit; she couldn't pay for the hotel nor for the food or clothes she'd charged. She'd racked up more than three grand."

 "Oh my. Why was she doing all this?"

 "She worked for the government, of course." Marianne looked shocked.

 "I'm kidding, Marianne."

 Marianne looked embarrassed at my remark. I was ticked at her naiveté.

 "So what happened, then?"

 "When I visited her at the motel, I found her in the room, naked and staring at the TV. The TV was off. She'd had sex with Breshnev via the TV, she'd said, and that she'd been a special FBI agent for the past 20 years but had not been paid. She needed to find out why."

The paintings and the pastel walls grated on my consciousness. Marianne's attention was riveted to me. I felt ill.

"As Mama spoke, I saw how anxious she was. She was frightened; her pupils were big. She spoke without pause and jumped from one topic to the next. Breathless, almost panting, she was like an animal. Her mind raced. She weighed 98 pounds. Clothes hung limp from her limbs, as if from a clothes hanger.

 My own breath quickened as I remembered seeing Mama. This was the same Mama who'd served me mud pies when I was three just because I'd asked her to.

 "She said the FBI had allowed me to be in on her secret. I knew this would help me but I felt guilty knowing I would be deceiving her."

 Marianne leaned closer, gazing intently at me.

 "I then called the Desert Valley Health Service. They'd send their doctor on call. When Dr. Schulten arrived, he wasted no time getting to brass tacks. Mama barely spoke the words, "I work for the FBI" when he told her, "No, you do not" and said she was having a psychotic episode and needed to go to the hospital.

 Mama walked out of the motel in a huff. Dr. Schulten's last words to me were, "Don't let her out of your sight. Stay with her all day, if that's what it takes."

 Mama was fuming at my betrayal of her. She walked 10 paces ahead of me, brisk for a 50-year old woman. At 30, I could keep pace with her, but barely. With little more than her pride intact, she marched straight to the FBI office downtown.

 "I'd like to see the FBI agent in charge," Mama had said. She was told she'd need to wait. She then informed the receptionist that she actually worked for the FBI and was demanding payment. The receptionist disappeared behind a heavy oak door for a moment, then reappeared.

 "You may go right in, Mrs. Willow.

 Eliot Ness sat at a mahogany desk, flashed a bright smile and an FBI badge.  "I must inform you, Mrs. Willow, that it is a Federal offense to impersonate a Federal officer, such as an FBI agent."

 "Mr. Hansen, I'm not impersonating a Federal officer, I work for the FBI."

Her voice was high, much as a younger woman's would be but her tone lacked the lilt a younger woman might have. She was insistent. She knew she was right. Mr. Hansen knew he was right.

 I groaned, trying to catch Mr. Hansen's attention.

 "Mrs. Willow, I must tell you and your daughter that this is a serious offense.  This is not something we necessarily prosecute but we could bring charges if we deem that it's in our interests to do so.

 I was desperate. I turned and spoke directly to Mama.

 "Mama, they've informed me that I need to speak with Mr. Hansen, alone." I maximized my opportunity, knowing she'd let me into her delusional system.

 "Oh really?"

 Her eyes narrowed to slits as she scrutinized my face, suspicious of my duplicity and looking for hints as to my real purpose.

 "Yes. They've communicated with me just now."

Mr. Hansen shot the same questioning glance at me that he'd shot toward my mother. My heart raced. Time was running out. I turned to Mr. Hansen.

 "Mr. Hansen, I need to speak with you. My mother can wait outside."

Mama left the room, not convinced of my sincerity.

 "Mr. Hansen, my mother is a paranoid schizophrenic. This morning, Dr. John Schulten of the Desert Valley Health Service arranged a commitment at the Pines Memorial Hospital. You can call them yourself.  Dr. Schulten told me to follow her around all day, even if that meant following her directly to your office. "

 Mr. Hansen phoned the Pines Memorial Hospital and then called my mother back to the office.

 "Mrs. Willow, I've confirmed that a commitment is waiting for you at the Pines Memorial Hospital. If you do not go with your daughter voluntarily right now, we will personally escort you to the hospital. Which is it going to be, Mrs. Willow?"

My mother knew she'd no choice and asked the FBI to call a taxi.  She sent a scathing glance my way.

 Once at the hospital, the triage nurse asked my mother why we were there. My mother pointed to me: "It's her. She's crazy. "

The triage nurse glanced sidelong at me, casting aspersions upon my own sanity. In truth, my sanity had been feeling trampled upon from the stress of the previous few days.

I smiled wanly and let Mama continue talking.

 "You see, Nurse," Mama had said, "I was in Mexico looking for Carlos Castaneda when my daughter said I should return home. I came back but my apartment lease was up and I'd no place to live, except the Holiday Inn. I've been helping the U.S. Government but have not been paid.  I went to the FBI office to find out why."

 In a bizarre way, some of what Mama had said made sense. She looked for Castaneda's alternative reality.  In her own delusions of working for the government, she'd sort of found this alternative reality. But it was in any literal sense of what she said and how she said it that made no sense to the average person.

 Psychiatric nurses in street clothes filed past patients who whiled away their time nodding off in the day room as they watched TV or stared out the window. Some played cards but most sat alone, speaking to no one but themselves.

 I brought a bouquet of yellow Jonquils for my mother. Mama reached for the bouquet but Marianne stopped her.

"I'm sorry, no Jonquils for Mama," Marianne said.

"Why is that, Marianne?"

 "It's hospital policy that patients are not allowed to have flowers or plants in their rooms."

 I'd wanted Mama to see life begin from one small seed and watch it grow into something marvelous and unforeseen.

Mama was in the hospital for a month. The medication was deeply sedating, slurring her speech and making her lethargic. She was a shadow of her formerly vibrant self.  The Mama who'd knit me an angora hat and muff, who'd taught me to bake and sew, who'd exhibited oil paintings at the University, was now in a hospital gown, glassy-eyed and drooling over her black coffee.

 Day after day I visited this quiet creature: her brown hair was graying, her eyes tired but still blue, her skin smooth as a baby's. She was trapped in her own psyche; her mind had split into two. She believed things that were fantastic but untrue; ultimately, what she believed was fiction, crazy.

 Each day, I brought a plant for her to take home when she was discharged.  The first day, I brought yellow Jonquils, for the renewal I hoped someday would come. The second day, I brought Tulips, for the Tulip bulbs she and I'd planted each fall. The third day, I brought Rosemary, the herb for remembrance, in the hope she'd remember what electroshock therapy had erased, years earlier.

 After the first days, she began to grow accustomed to the medication, but it made her sleepy. She drank coffee to stay awake and beat back the sedation, and she'd beg for cigarettes when she could or sneak them when the nurses weren't looking.  Most days, she did little else. It was a hell of a life.

 Each time the door slammed shut, it was a silent sentence. The slammed door walled off her soul from what little remained of her creativity. She was at odds with reality: she'd construed a marvelous fiction, a fiction she'd believed was God's honest truth only to be told she was crazy.  Truth was, an argument could be made that the world was no crazier than she -  that she believed the wrong fiction, and that that was her only crime against reason.

 As I looked at her one last time before I returned home, I thought I'd seen a subtle change:  along the edges of her mouth a smile began to crack. Along the fine lines of her face danced feelings trying to surface; I tried to look her in the eye and connect, but this moment retreated all too quickly into a blank stare of nothingness. Her time had not yet come.

 Despite the paintings of cut flowers that lined the pastel hospital walls, there would be no yellow Jonquils for Mama. Cheerful nurses in brightly colored street clothes  were no match for the cold bureaucracy of the mental health system. But even through Mama's despair, I thought I'd detected a glimmer of hope. I resolved to visit her again soon to see if I could nudge that hope closer to the sunlight.

*  *  *

This follows Gnarled Trees.

It will be a while before I continue to the next in the series.