9
Lock Down

The morning after my mother’s overdose, I woke up and headed straight for the Christmas tree to play with my unwrapped presents, which still littered the living room floor.

“Good morning,” said my Aunt Dolores.

I frowned at her. I had no idea why she was there. “Aunt Dolores?” I said hesitantly. “I want my Lite-Brite.”

“Okay, let’s get it out,” she said, and she got down on her knees to help me pull out the box. “You want breakfast soon?”

“No.”

“Okay. That’s fine. Let’s plug this in and set it up.”

The glare from the Lite-Brite set was so exciting—I couldn’t wait to pick my stencil to create a new glowing picture.

“You should do the white pegs first,” instructed Aunt Dolores. I knew that she was a teacher so I listened obediently. Then she walked into the kitchen, where I saw my father sitting at the table drinking coffee. I played with the Lite-Brite and wondered when my mother would be getting up. Then I heard whispers from the kitchen.

“Frannie is stable for now,” my father was saying. “They pumped her stomach and they want to keep her for a few days.”

“Maybe I should take Kristin to Connecticut,” Aunt Dolores whispered. “She can play with my girls and just relax. She’ll have a lot of fun.”

“No,” my father said flatly. “I want her at my mother’s.”

“That makes no sense. You work all the time and Kristin will be bored at your mother’s. There aren’t any kids to play with.”

“I am not sending Kristin to Connecticut. I can see her every day at my mother’s.”

Though I couldn’t see Aunt Dolores’s face, I could tell from her voice that she was growing angry. “Anthony, I can only imagine what’s going on here based on what my mother tells me and my conversations with Frannie. I just don’t know how my sister got to this mental state, and against my better judgment, I won’t tell my mother about this. Not yet. Not until Frannie is out of the hospital.”

My father nodded emotionlessly. “Frannie will be home in a few days. There’s no need to worry your mother.”

An icy stand-off followed between my father and aunt. But because they both wanted to help my mother, and me, they decided to silently tolerate each other and to provide a united front.

My father walked into the living room and sat down on the couch to watch me play with the Lite-Brite.

“Little girl?” he said quietly.

I looked up at him.

“Mom is in the hospital for a few days. I’m gonna take you to Grandma Emma’s while I’m at work.”

“Can’t I go with Aunt Dolores? I want to see Donna and Laura.”

I had overheard the conversation, so I tried to appeal to my aunt with a sad expression. But Aunt Dolores, who was standing in the doorway, was powerless to sway the outcome. So she just shook her head no.

“Grandma Emma wants to spend time with you, and you’re going to have a good time with her,” my father said.

I shrugged my shoulders, just to be agreeable, but I felt uneasy about my mother’s absence. I didn’t understand what my father was saying about the hospital. I barely understood what a “hospital” was. All I knew was that she’d put me to bed the night before and now she was gone.

“Daddy, was mommy’s stomach bothering her again?” I asked.

“Something like that, little girl.”

“Anthony, I’m going to my brother’s,” said Aunt Dolores. Then she hugged me goodbye. “You’ll come for a visit to my house real soon, okay? I’ll see you later.”

I grabbed her tightly, not wanting to let go.

*

Later, my father helped me pack a few of things for my trip to Grandma Emma’s house. But on the car ride there, I protested, “Why can’t I go with Aunt Dolores?”

“Grandma Emma really wants to see you,” my father said, his voice turning stern, and I noticed that his eyes were red with exhaustion. “There’ll be no more discussion about going to Aunt Dolores. Do you understand?”

I looked away from him and nodded.

When we arrived, Grandma Emma clapped with excitement and reached out to hug me. “There’s my little chickadee! Do you want some ice cream? I have cups of vanilla and chocolate in the freezer just for you.”

My father left shortly thereafter to go to the club, and my grandmother and I went upstairs to make up my bed and to give me a bath. She presented me with a rosary of blue and silver beads that were fun to spin around with my fingers. As I laid down on one of the beds, I stretched the rosary apart with my knees until it broke in two. The broken beads fell to the floor with a loud clatter.

“What happened to the rosary?” Grandma Emma asked.

“I dunno? I was just holding it.”

My grandmother just smiled and took what was left of it back. I’d expected her to be angry, but she didn’t seem to be upset at all.

*

When my mother awoke in the hospital, she felt like she was looking through a dark tunnel. Everything around her was hazy. She could only see a faint light at the end of the tunnel where she was barely able to distinguish Aunt Dolores sitting at her bedside.

“Frannie? Frannie? Do you know where you are?” her sister asked her.

“Hmmmm, I guess so. Hospital?”

“Yes, you are.”

“So I guess I’m not dead.”

“No, you’re fine. You were very lucky.”

“Where’s Kristin?”

“At your mother-in-law’s.”

My mother nodded slightly, then drifted back to sleep.

Aunt Dolores had stuck to her word and had not told Grandma Maria what had happened. She had also began investigating an inpatient psychiatric program at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital, knowing that my mother wouldn’t recover without more help. She didn’t take my mother’s actions lightly, and since she was traditionally the problem solver in the family, she easily took over in absence of anyone else. My father was overwhelmed with what to do next and seemed open to suggestions.

Meanwhile, over the next few days, my father and Grandma Maria played a game of cat-and-mouse by phone regarding my mother’s whereabouts.

“Anthony, is Frannie there?”

“No, Mom. She’s out shopping to return some Christmas things,” my father said, calling her “Mom” as he always did.

“Well, please have her call me back. She has been out a lot lately.”

“You know it’s the holidays, Mom.”

“Yes, Anthony, I know that.”

There were many more calls and my father made various excuses, from shopping to doctor appointments. Grandma Maria began to suspect that something was wrong—and what was most suspicious was that my mother wasn’t calling her back.

*

My mother was discharged two days after the overdose. When she arrived home with my father, Aunt Dolores was there waiting. I was still at Grandma Emma’s. The living room was a mess, with many things out of place, but my mother was too tired to care. She settled in at the kitchen table with a glass of water.

“I want you to consider going to an inpatient program at the University of Pennsylvania,” said Aunt Dolores. “They have very good doctors there who can help you feel less depressed.”

“But I don’t want to do that,” my mother said.

“I don’t think things are going to improve unless you go.”

Mom teared up. “But how long would I have to be there?”

“About two weeks. Though four weeks would be better.”

“That’s too long. It’s just too long. I have to be at home. Where will Kristin stay?”

“At my mother’s,” my father chimed in from the doorway. “She’s been fine there the last couple days, and she can stay there while you’re at the hospital.”

“We don’t want you to hurt yourself again. I think you need help,” Aunt Dolores insisted.

“And we can afford it, Frannie. Money’s not a problem,” said my father.

It took the entire day to convince her. Uncle Jerry arrived and urged her to go and Aunt Dolores continued to make a good case: if my mother took the time, she could feel much better and be better able to take care of me.

“Okay, I’ll go,” my mother said softly later that night. A bowl of soup sat in front of her that she hadn’t touched. Tears were rolling down her face. It was hard to argue with her older sister and brother and her husband, and she was still groggy from the overdose.

“That’s good, Frannie,” Aunt Dolores said with relief. “You’re making the right decision. I’ll deal with Mom. Anthony’s been telling her you’ve been shopping or out. But I’ll tell her what really happened.”

My mother was glad that Aunt Dolores would break the news, but she worried about the repercussions of having kept all this from Grandma Maria.

*

My mother was organizing some things to check-in to the inpatient program when the phone rang.

“Frannie, is it true?” Grandma Maria wailed. “Were you in the hospital because you took some pills?”

“Yes, Mom, but . . . um . . . I’m okay. I’m going to this program Dolores found.”

“Yes, she told me. Oh, my God! You don’t sound like yourself, Frannie.”

“Uh . . . I’m just tired.”

“What is that husband of yours doing to you?”

“I don’t know, Mom,” my mother said, her voice sounded detached and she gazed out the window of her bedroom.

“Anthony lied to me! That dirty rat! And your sister didn’t tell me anything! That’s it! I’m coming up there right now!”

“Mom, please don’t!”

But before my mother could finish her sentence, she heard the dial tone. There was no time to convince Grandma Maria not to come. She would arrive at our house in about half an hour. My father appeared in the bedroom doorway.

“Who were you talking to?”

“My mother. She says she’s coming over.”

“Let’s go out for a ride, Frannie. You’d like to get out of the house, right?”

*

Grandma Maria was enraged and frantic when she hung up the phone. “Frank! Frank, come upstairs!”

“What’s all the screaming about?” Grandpa Frank said when he reached the kitchen door.

“We’re going to Frannie’s. Now. Let’s get in the car. I’ll explain on the way,” Grandma Maria said while grabbing an umbrella.

My father tried his best to get my mother out of the house as quickly as possible but she was groggy and slow moving. He was escorting her down the front steps when he saw Grandma Maria and Grandpa Frank pull up in front of the house. Grandma Maria jumped out of the car, slammed the door, and started running toward them. Grandpa Frank followed behind, barely keeping up.

“My baby, my baby!” Grandma Maria said as she scurried up the driveway. She embraced my mother, then shot my father a horrible glare. “You bastard!” she sneered. “What did you do to my daughter?”

“Mom, I’m just taking Frannie out for a bit.”

“I’m tired,” my mother said, sounding a little drugged and still gripping my father’s arm for support. “We’re just going for a ride, Mom.”

Grandma Maria protested but my father opened his car door and began easing his wife into the front seat of the car.

“Frannie, you’re not going anywhere with this man!” Grandma Maria cried. “You’re coming home with me.” She grabbed my mother’s arm and began pulling her out of the car.

“Whoa, whoa! Stop it, Maria!” my father said. “I’m just taking Frannie out for a drive. She wants to stay with me.”

“Oh, no she doesn’t! Get your hands off my daughter!” She started beating my father with her umbrella.

“Mary, stop hitting Anthony,” Grandpa Frank pleaded weakly from behind the fray.

“Mom, I’m going with Anthony,” my mother said, her voice barely coherent but powerless to stop the struggle while leaning back in the passenger seat.

“My daughter is drugged, you bastard. What did you do to her?!”

My father fended off Grandma Maria, pushing her away to close the passenger door. She lost her balance and fell on the ground. Then, Dad got into the car and peeled out of the driveway, leaving my grandparents behind.

Grandpa Frank helped Grandma Maria off the ground and steadied her onto her feet.

Grandma Maria was not beaten yet. “Frank,” she said, “I’m calling the police.” She marched over to our neighbor Rosie’s house and knocked on the front door. When Rosie answered a moment later, Grandma Maria said, “Can you please help me? I need to use your phone? Anthony is abusing my daughter.”

“I heard all the commotion,” Rosie said. “Are you okay?”

“No. He just took away my daughter. And he pushed me hard to the ground, too!”

Two police officers were waiting when my parents returned from their drive. My father stepped out of the car, left it running, and approached one of the officers.

“Sir, did you have a confrontation with Mrs. Maria Parrotto?” the officer asked.

“Yes,” my father said gravely. “But it was just an argument. Everything’s fine.”

“Ma’am, are you okay?” the other officer asked my mother, leaning down and looking at her through the car window.

All my mother could do was cry. A few moments later, the officers arrested my father for assault and domestic violence, and, without protest, my mother watched them put him in the back of a squad car. My grandparents stayed with my mother the rest of the day to make sure she was alright, and then eventually left her to rest.

*

Later that evening, Grandma Maria arrived home and called Aunt Dolores. “Dolores, I saw Frannie today. She looked awful and drugged. She didn’t even look like herself.”

“I know, Mom. She’s still recovering.”

“And Anthony pushed me so hard to the ground when I tried to get to Frannie. He forced her into the car.” Grandma Maria was weeping as she spoke. “I think he’s abusing her. I called the police and they arrested Anthony.”

“He pushed you? He’s been arrested? Oh, my God! My friend Rachel is a judge at Delaware County Court. I could talk to her about Anthony.”

After a few phone calls, Aunt Dolores successfully had my father held in jail overnight.

*

As my father awaited his bond hearing, he made one phone call. “Mom, please drop these charges,” he said to Grandma Maria.

There was a long, frigid silence. Finally, Grandma Maria replied, “Absolutely not. Drop dead, Anthony.”

“This isn’t going to solve any problems. It’ll only make things worse.”

“I’m going to do whatever I can to stop you from ruining my daughter’s life.”

The stand-off went nowhere and finally my father hung up. He made bail the next day. My mother had not pressed charges for domestic violence and assault. All the chaos seemed unimportant to her and she was unable to negotiate what was going on around her through her depressed haze. She was preparing to check into the hospital for treatment within a few days.

My father drove my mother to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital located in Center City. They met Uncle Jerry and Aunt Dolores in the main lobby, which was filled with visitors and hospital workers bustling about. They all escorted my mother up to the floor where she would check into the inpatient program. Since she would be voluntarily signing papers to commit herself, family members were at the ready to ensure that she wouldn’t back out of the plan. My mother signed on the dotted line and then said goodbye to everyone. I was still safely at Grandma Emma’s.

“I hope you’re right about this,” my mother said, hugging Aunt Dolores and crying.

“It can’t hurt, Frannie. It can only help.”

Mom hugged her brother. “You’ll be out of here before you know it,” he said.

Then Mom hugged my father. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered into his ear.

“It’s okay. Just get better. Listen to the doctors. I’ll visit and bring Kristin, too.”

My mother was turned over to the hospital staff who quickly escorted her to the locked ward. She looked behind her, gave a weak wave to my father, and then disappeared.

*

My mother’s first night at the hospital was spent acclimating to the rules of the program. She would have limited access to the outside world, with few phone calls allowed, and monitored visitations only with approved family members. Different types of therapy sessions would be conducted: one-on-one sessions with a psychiatrist, group sessions with other patients, and family sessions with my father or with Grandma Maria and Grandpa Frank (but not all of them together).

Claire, my mother’s neighbor in the clinic, was an affable woman who was being treated for Anorexia Nervosa. She was also severely depressed. “Welcome,” Claire said as my mother was settling in. “It’s nice to meet you.”

My mother noticed Claire’s skeletal frame, gaunt cheeks, and thinning hair, and she realized that she’d finally met someone thinner than herself. Claire appeared to have lived on the ward for a long while. Photographs covered the walls of her room and she had many personal items from home—blankets, sheets, and piles of books. Mom’s room had single bed, a simple dresser, and a small square window with iron bars on it. She unpacked a few things and placed them in drawers, and she tried to get comfortable in her new surroundings. But sleeping here, she knew, would be difficult.

The next morning, my mother approached the nurses’ station and asked, “Can you have someone make up my bed?”

“This isn’t a hotel, Mrs. Battista,” a nurse said coldly without looking at her. “You’ll make up your own bed.”

“Oh,” my mother said in a surprised voice. “I didn’t know that.”

“And you’ll have to hurry to the cafeteria. Breakfast is only served for thirty more minutes.”

“And after breakfast I see Dr. Shelton, right?”

“Yes, Mrs. Battista. Here’s your schedule for today,” the nurse held out a piece of paper. “You better get dressed. You’re not allowed to stay in pajamas all day.”

The routine at the clinic quickly became apparent. My mother’s morning session with the psychiatrist lasted an hour and was followed by a group session. Later was lunch, a late afternoon therapy or family session, then dinner. Visiting hours were in the late afternoon and the evenings ended very early, with lights out by 10 p.m.

As my mother recalled, the group sessions were what most helped her put things into perspective. As crazy as she felt, almost everyone else there seemed to be in much worse shape than she was. Many of the patients were getting daily electric shock treatments and it was horrifying for her to see them groggy and forgetful afterward. And Claire had been at the hospital for more than six months, fiercely battling her anorexia, but it seemed like she was nowhere near winning the war. Her accounts of how she felt fat every time she looked in the mirror—despite actually looking like a Nazi concentration camp victim—broke my mother’s heart.

Also in the clinic were self-cutters, manic-depressives, and severe agoraphobics for whom even a glimpse of the Philadelphia sky was devastating. And there were several patients who had tried to commit suicide multiple times. Seeing all the suffering around her, my mother began to think she wasn’t nearly as sick as some . . . but she did come to realize exactly how depressed she felt.

Even so, after a few days on the ward, my mother had become a social butterfly. She often sat with other patients, listened to their problems, and shared stories. Everyone liked her. She’d always been good at interacting with others. Her sessions were going well but she was still depressed and felt that being separated from me and locked up wasn’t helping her. She asked every day if her time there could be shortened. She didn’t want to stay the entire four weeks. She was there by her own choosing and she thought there was no reason for her to stay longer than she needed or wanted to.

She received a phone privilege and she called Grandma Emma’s house to speak to me.

“Hi, Mom!” I said excitedly. Since she was calling, I thought she must be feeling better.

“Hello, so . . . how have you been doing?”

“Fine. I’m eating ice cream.”

“That sounds yummy.”

“It is! When are you coming home?”

She sighed into the phone and I could hear the sadness in her voice. “Pretty soon, Kristin. Are you being good for Grandma?”

“Yes.”

“That’s just great. I’ll see you soon. Daddy is bringing you for a visit tomorrow.”

“Okay . . . bye, Mommy!”

I went back to busily coloring in the other room and started a new picture of me and my mother holding hands together in front of our house with the dogwood tree in the background. I had missed her and felt like she had been gone a long time. I still did not fully understand why she was sick but I believed what Dad told me—she just needed some rest and would soon be as good as new.

I then overheard my Grandma Emma abruptly shattering the cheerful nature of the phone call. Although I couldn’t hear everything she said, she seemed very angry on the phone. Everyone had seemed so mad lately and I figured if I could be on my best behavior, maybe this would help.

“Frannie, everything’s fine here. But I have to say, it’s awful what you’ve done.”

My mother was stunned silent.

“You need to pull yourself together,” Grandma Emma went on. “If you ever pull a stunt like this again, they’re going to take Kristin away from you.”

My mother slammed down the phone and started screaming. “My babyyyyyyy! I need to get out of here!”

Her wail was deafening, and nurses quickly came rushing into her room.

“Mrs. Battista, please calm down. Who were you talking to?”

“Just leave me alone!”

“Mrs. Battista, please,” the nurse said, now holding my mother’s hands. Then the nurse screamed towards the nurse’s station, “Someone get me a sedative now! And call Dr. Shelton right away!”

My mother sobbed uncontrollably. “You can’t take away my baby . . .” she repeated over and over, until finally a nurse gave her an injection. My mother felt a rush of warmth and immediately lay down to sleep. This incident was a setback and she knew she might not get home as soon as she had hoped.

Later, Dr. Shelton requested Grandma Emma come in for a session. But she refused. He also discussed with my father and Grandma Maria the prospect of starting electric shock treatments for my mother. My father was willing to authorize whatever the doctors recommended, but Grandma Maria absolutely refused to allow the treatments.

“Don’t you touch a hair on her head, or you’ll have me to deal with!” she threatened.

The conversation about electric shock did not go any further.

*

The next day, my father picked me up at Grandma Emma’s. I wore a nice dress, tights, and my black Mary Jane shoes. I didn’t know what to expect at the hospital and I was nervous. I wondered if my mother would look sick. My father was quiet on the drive to the city and when we arrived at the hospital, we first stopped at the gift shop.

“Pick out something to bring to Mom,” said Dad.

I looked through the entire shop, wanting to pick something really nice and special to make my mother feel better, then gravitated toward the big glass refrigerators packed with beautiful flowers.

“I like this one, Daddy,” I said, pointing to a slender vase with a few red roses.

“Okay. Let’s get this one and go visit Mommy.”

I gripped them tightly with one hand and held Dad’s hand with the other as he escorted me on the elevator. I wanted to see my mother but hoped she looked like herself. We arrived at her floor and walked down a long, highly polished white hallway. The sound of my heels clicking against the floor reverberated around me until we reached a set of locked metal doors. My father rang a bell and the doors buzzed open. Inside the ward was the big round nurse’s station, a common area with a TV, several simple-looking couches, and big windows with a view of the city.

We headed through the common area, then down another long hallway, and finally we stopped in front of a door. I hid the flowers behind my back. My father squeezed my hand and then he pushed the door open.

I saw my mother seated in a chair facing us. Her face was sad and pale and it scared me

“Hi, Frannie,” my father said in a near-whisper. “Look who’s here to see you.”

I came in right behind my father. As I approached my mother, I awkwardly twisted the vase from behind my back and the flowers and water spilled all over the floor.

“Oh . . . I’m sorry . . . Hi Mom,” I said meekly, so sad I had ruined the flowers.

“Don’t worry, Kristin. Here, let me pick these up,” my father said, scrambling on the floor to shove the flowers back into the vase.

I covered my face with my hands.

“Well, hi there,” my mother said, fighting back tears. “You look so nice, Kristin.” Then she looked at my father and said in a low voice I could barely hear, “Anthony, I just . . . can’t do this . . .”

I didn’t know what to say or do. I must have ruined the visit.

“Okay, Frannie,” he said as he set the ravaged flowers by the window. A moment later, my father had led me into the hallway. “Just wait here for one minute,” he said. My father stepped back into the room. I felt like crying and overheard some whispering, then he reappeared. “Let’s say a quick goodbye to Mom, okay? She’s real tired.”

I was marched back into the room, and all I could think to do was to wave, a gesture my mother barely acknowledged. Then we left, and Dad drove me back to Grandma Emma’s house. On the way home, it seemed to me like my visit had been a disaster and she didn’t seem like she would be home anytime soon. I had ruined everything. If only I hadn’t dropped the flowers.

*

A few weeks later, my mother was discharged from the hospital, but her doctors recommended that she and my father separate for a while. It was decided that my mother and I would travel to Aunt Dolores’s home in Connecticut for a peaceful, two-week stay. There was a ton of snow in New England that year, so my older cousins—Donna and Laura—took me sledding every day in the backyard. It was great fun, but during our snow antics I would glance toward the house and see my mother watching us from the window. I worried about her and it was too heavy a concern for someone of that young age. Whenever I waved at her, she always waved back, but she never moved from that seat until I’d returned into the house. Her motions of helping me take off my coat and boots were quiet and deliberate, as if she were in deep thought contemplating the next steps of her life. And I was helpless to do anything to ease her pain.