Chapter 9

 

THE NEXT MORNING when I made my way to the dining room Pru and Dylan weren’t there. As I spooned soggy cereal into my mouth I kept my eyes on the hallway, hoping to see them, but they never appeared. They must have been released early that morning. I didn’t even get to say goodbye. What if I never saw either of them again? Realizing I was alone in my mental ward nightmare sent that familiar panic racing through my body. I craved a razor blade. I wanted to go home. I missed Rags and my mom and Sam and Henry. Even James.

I finished my cereal only because I knew the kid needed it and then went back to the day room. I curled up on the scratchy vomit couch, closed my eyes, and tried not to think or feel.

“Banjo Logan?”

I looked up.

“Come with me,” Gorilla Nurse said.

I followed him to Doctor Jack’s office. My heart was pounding in my ears. My hands and arms felt thick and heavy like tree trunks. My lungs shrank, only allowing me to take shallow breaths. I dug my fingernails into my palms trying desperately to ground myself with the pain. It wasn’t working. The door was open and he waved me in. The nurse closed the door as he left to go back to the main room.

Doctor Jack motioned for me to take a seat in one of his fancy chairs. He didn’t waste time smiling. “Ms. Logan, I’m prepared to release you today, but first we need to discuss your treatment plan.”

Translation: Your insurance has run out.

He laid his hand down on a file folder that rested on his polished desk. “As we have discussed previously it is my view that you have Bipolar Disorder. Are you clear on what that means?”

He didn’t wait for me to answer. “If left untreated this disorder can become quite serious. Statistics show that twenty-five to fifty percent of people with Bipolar Disorder will attempt suicide. You don’t want a repeat of the incident that caused you to land here, now do you?”

“But I keep telling you, I didn’t try to kill myself,” I protested even though I knew I shouldn’t.

“Ms Logan, would you like to go home today?”

Pru’s voice was in my head, just go along with whatever he says.

“Yes,” I said.

“Okay, good, then we’re on the same page.” He smiled his big shiny smile. “Because of your pregnancy I feel like continuing the Seroquel is an awesome choice for you. Studies show a low risk to the fetus and the side effects for you should be pretty minimal. Once the baby is born we can discuss other possible medications. I’m assuming you aren’t going to breastfeed?”

Of course he assumes I’m not going to breastfeed. He probably assumes I’ll fill the kid’s bottle with chocolate milk or Kool-Aid.

I remained silent. That line from every cop show I have ever seen popped into my head, you have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be used against you.

His voice was like a middle school math teacher as it droned on patiently explaining to me that being crazy was much more dangerous for my baby than a tiny little pill.

He continued to educate me on the risk of suicide and psychosis in the Unmedicated Bipolar. I guess I was about to turn from Banjo Logan the Unmedicated Bipolar, into Banjo Logan the Medicated Bipolar. Luckyme. The way Doctor Jack put it, because I was now Banjo Logan the Medicated Bipolar I no longer had to worry about growing up to be that person stumbling down the street with my grocery cart thinking I was Jesus as I ranted on about the CIA and scaring people while my kid wasted away in foster care.

A few minutes later there was a knock on the office door. Doctor Jack interrupted his little speech. “Come in.”

It was Mom. She glanced at me and then quickly looked away. Her eyes were swollen and her face was saggy. Doctor Jack motioned for her to have a seat and then proceeded to explain it all to her.

Her face went red, and she leaned over Doctor Jack’s desk. “Are you kidding me? What exactly is wrong with you people? She’s pregnant, she’s been through hell. Medication? Absolutely not. No way.”

Mom had some of her fire back and that sent a rush of calm through me.

“My daughter does not need to be medicated and I will not have my grandbaby’s life risked by your quick fix mentality. I should have known that bringing her to you would be a tragic mistake. Cancel the prescription.”

When I heard her call this kid her grandbaby I felt my throat close up.

Doctor Jack put his hands on his desk. “Ms. Logan, I understand your concerns, but if your daughter does not comply with the terms of her release I can, and will, seek a court order to have her forcibly medicated. Please don’t make me do that.” He smiled thinly.

“You can’t forcibly medicate her in this case. I know my rights, sir,” Mom countered.

He ignored her and turned to me. “Banjo, if I release you, are you going to take your medications as prescribed? “

I nodded. I knew the drill.

He looked at Mom, a smug smile spreading like a disease across his face. “Alright then. Good. Now I would also like to have you see a talk therapist. You’ll be provided with a list of my colleagues when you check out. Anyone on that list will be perfectly suitable.”

The idea of there being other people like Doctor Jack in the world made me shudder.

He stood and went to the polished oak file cabinet in the corner and rifled through it for a minute before producing a single sheet of paper. “Banjo, have you ever heard of a No Suicide Contract?” 

Mom groaned loudly.

Doctor Jack shot her a look. He scribbled my name in the blank space at the top of the sheet, wrote the date, and signed it.

“So a No Suicide Contract is a document, a contract, that we both sign stating that when we release you, you promise to stay alive.” He cleared his throat. “I, Amanda Logan, hereby agree that I will not harm myself in any way, attempt suicide, or die by suicide.

“Furthermore, I agree that I will take the following actions if I am ever suicidal:

“One. I will remind myself that I can never, under any circumstances, harm myself in any way, attempt suicide, or die by suicide.

“Two. I will call 911 if I believe that I am in immediate danger of harming myself.

“Three. I will call any or all of the following numbers if I am not in immediate danger of harming myself but have suicidal thoughts—the numbers are down at the bottom, including my cell number.” He slid the paper toward me. “You need to sign there at the bottom.”

I dug my nails into my palms. “So if I kill myself you’re going to sue me?”

Mom coughed down a laugh. I glanced at her and our eyes met. We both looked away fast before we burst into laughter. I couldn’t even remember the last time I laughed with my mom and the fact that we were laughing over a No Suicide Contract was sort of perfect. I was glad she was there.

Doctor Jack’s voice turned cold. “Banjo, we can do this the hard way, or we can do this the easy way. It seems to me that this would be a good time for you to stop choosing the hard way. Comprende? My patience with you is wearing dangerously thin. It wouldn’t take much for me to convince the courts that you, and your mother, aren’t fit to raise that baby of yours and I’m beginning to think that maybe that’s the best option for everyone here. Please make your choice.”

Terror shot through me. Even though I wasn’t sure if I would, or even could, keep this kid, the idea of Doctor Jack taking her from me made me want to puke. My hand shook as I signed.

“I’m sorry,” Mom stammered. “It’s just a really stressful time. I’m sure you understand. I’ll see to it that she takes her meds and follows through with the treatment plan.” She reached across the table to Doctor Jack and they shook hands as he flashed Mom a look of triumph. Mom looked so old.

“Well then Banjo, give me two seconds to make you a copy of our contract and then you can stop by the nurse’s station to claim your things and get your discharge instructions You and your mom can sign the final paperwork and you’re outta here! I hope I never see you again.” He winked and put his hand up for a high five.

Mom and I walked through the crowded hospital parking lot in silence. Crows and screaming gulls crowded around the hospital dumpsters, looking for food scraps. The smell of salt water from the nearby Sound mixed itself up with the delicate scent of the flowering cherry trees that lined the hospital lot and filled me with a strange sense of hope. Despite the  gray dampness of the day I could feel the promise of summer seeping into my body.

Mom slid her hand into mine. Even though I had only been gone a few nights, I wondered if Sam was home. I thought about that night a couple months ago—back before Mom knew I was pregnant—when Sam and I sat out on the garden wall and she had promised me that she would soon move back and change how things were between us. Maybe my colossal fall apart had sparked her to actually keep her promise to me.

In the weeks leading up to the day I lost my mind I was spending pretty much all of my time in my room. I kept my Virgin Mary candles burning day and night. When the candles burned down to a puddle of hot wax, eventually swallowing the stub of a wick, I asked my mom for more. She never questioned me. The next day I would just find a Dollar Store bag filled with the tall glass candles outside of my door. I had grown up with the Virgin Mary.

We weren’t Catholic, but Mom liked to refer to Mary as the Patron Saint of Teenage Mothers and liked to point out that Mary was the original teenage mother and Jesus the original bastard child. In my house Mary was not the Mother of God, but rather the protector of all lonely teenage mothers and their children. I didn’t think Mom questioned me about the candles because I think maybe she really believed that if I kept those candles burning I would be okay. I think maybe I believed that too. Of course, at that time, Mom didn’t know that I was pregnant yet, or at least she didn’t know for sure, but still the flickering light of the Virgin made us all feel safer.

My sister started coming around more and more. We didn’t talk much. We might pass in the hall when I came out to pee, or say a few words to each other in the kitchen, but still a part of me felt safer knowing she was around. The house had become so quiet since Gray’s death. Everyone seemed afraid to speak. There was a feeling of impending disaster that seemed to float just out of reach like a word that you couldn’t quite remember.

The night that Sam made that promise to me, she had put Henry to bed and headed out back to have a cigarette. I followed her. We sat on the cinder block garden wall that ran along the edge of the half-rotted deck. Mom’s garden sat a few feet below us. The garden was as chaotic as everything else of Mom’s. The skeletal remains of last year’s crop cast black shadows across the garden and over the barely visible early spring sprouting of vegetables and flowers. Mom hadn’t bothered to clean out the old, dead plants before beginning to plant the new ones. Mom went a little crazy when she couldn’t be outside, so it wasn’t uncommon for her to start planting in February, digging through the still frozen dirt saying, what have we got to lose? Tiny green sprouts were scattered everywhere, making it look like Mom had just taken handfuls of seeds and thrown them up in the air to take hold wherever they pleased, which may have been what she had done.

In the bright light of the full moon the scattered shadows cast by the dead plants and the young hopeful ones were both beautiful and spooky. Sam and I sat silent for a long time, staring at the moon. The cool night settled around us. The gloomy Pacific Northwest damp and rain would be around for at least two or three more months. I zipped my sweatshirt and pulled the hood over my head. I drew my legs up tight to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, resting my chin on my knees.  

Sam balanced her lit cigarette on the edge of the grimy garden wall and went back into the house. She came out with two opened bottles of Coronas. “I think you could use this,” she said, handing me a beer.

She sat down next to me, her leg touching mine. She set her beer down on the wall and tucked her messy brown hair behind her ears. She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes as if she were very tired. We didn’t speak for a long time. Sam and I used to be really close. She was to me what I was to Henry. She was eight years older than me, and I’m eight years older than Henry. I suppose if I kept this kid Henry would be to my baby what I was to him. After Henry came my sister and I slowly drifted apart. Or maybe it was that the sister that I knew slowly drifted away and the person that filled in for her didn’t really have much interest in me.

She zipped her faded green hoodie up to her chin and put her hand on my back.

“You okay, Banj?”

“Yeah,” I said, but it came out way too fast and way too loud.

“It’s going to be alright, I promise. I’m so sorry this happened. You know that, right?”

I nodded.

“You know I used to want to die.” Sam stared hard at the moon. She pulled her hand off of my back and turned the beer bottle around and around in her hands. “I used to have so much pain inside of me that I felt like I just couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t even think about what it would do to Henry or you or Mom, I just wanted the pain to end. What Gray did wasn’t okay, but it was what they thought they had to do. I hope you know that. I hope you don’t hate them too much. Gray loved you, Banj. It was all over them. I think they were in love with you.”

She took a long drink of her beer. “I know they were in love with you.”

All of my words were stuck deep down in my throat. I stared at the yellow moon.  

“They were, Banj. Gray was in love with you. You were in love with them too, huh?”

Again I nodded. Tears came slow and quiet.

“Gray didn’t do what they did because they didn’t love you. They just couldn’t go on with that feeling in their guts. If it wasn’t for Mom, I would have done the same thing back when Henry was small. Do you remember how things were then?”

She took another long drink of her beer.

“I had no choice. It was just all too much, but Mom wouldn’t let me. That’s the only reason I’m still here, Banj . . . and it’s taken me this long to know that I won’t ever make that choice. It hasn’t been easy. Try not to hate Gray.”

My sister got quiet again. I didn’t look at her, but I could tell she was crying too.

We sat there for a long time, sipping our beers and staring at the moon. I knew I shouldn’t be drinking beer in my condition, but I figured one wouldn’t hurt.

“I’m pregnant.” I didn’t plan to say those words. They just sort of fell out of my mouth onto the cinder block wall and sat like a heavy rock. I could feel my sister turn and look at me.

“I know,” she said. “I could tell. I think Mom’s suspicious. It was Gray?”

“Mom knows?” I felt so stupid. My sister was only out here with me because Mom told her to. “Is that why we’re sitting out here, Sam? Are you on one of Mom’s information gathering missions? I should have known.” I felt my face burn as the anger rose.

“Jesus no. Banjo, I swear. I swear to you. I’m out here because I think you need me and I’ve been a shitty sister and a shitty mom and a shitty daughter and I want to make it right.”

We stared at each other for what felt like forever.

“Please, Banj, you have to believe me. I’m not lying to you. I won’t tell Mom anything. I swear.” Her eyes started to water again. “Please tell me that you believe me.”

“I do.”

She took a deep breath and then finished her beer in three large swallows. “It’s okay. I don’t blame you for being suspicious. I’ve been a dick. But yeah, I’m pretty sure Mom knows far more than she lets on most of the time. She’s been asking me if I think you’re pregnant. Dude, you’re getting fat. And, Banj, do you realize that lately you’ve have been walking around rubbing your belly all day?” She smiled at me through her snot and tears.

I hadn’t. But as she said it I became aware that I was rubbing my belly right then. My sister looked down at my hand just as I did and we burst out laughing. Snot flew out of my nose and that made us laugh even harder.

“Mom said Gray left you a note. Have you read it yet?”

“No.”

“Why?”

I didn’t really know why. “I dunno.”

“Are you going to?” she asked.

I shrugged.

“So I’m assuming you are keeping that baby?”

Again I shrugged.

“Um, Banj, you’re getting pretty far along to abort. Are you thinking adoption?”

I kept my eyes on the moon.

“Have you seen a doctor? I can take you if you want.”

The moon was rising higher in the inky black sky. I didn’t want to be having this conversation, but I also did want to be having this conversation.

“I’m moving back home,” she said. “I think you need me and it’s time I sort of stepped back into life again. What Gray did kind of made me see things differently, if that makes sense? I want to take care of you, Banjo. I want to help out Mom and I want to be a full-time mom to Henry again. Is that okay with you?”

I didn’t answer. I fell over sideways and put my head into my sister’s lap as a sob exploded. She petted my hair, and I could feel her tears falling onto my shirt. I swear we were the cryingest family that had ever walked this earth.

 

MOM’S WORDS YANKED me back to reality.

“That man! That man is an asshole. An A Number One First Class Asshole. What a power hungry jerk.” Her body shook and then her voice went soft. “Banjo, I’m so sorry. If I had known . . .” She took several slow, deep breaths.

She led me through the misty gray to the car and fumbled with the key fob, trying to get the car to disarm. Half the time it didn’t work. Like everything else of Mom’s, her car was dependable but far from perfect. The windshield was cracked and the front end dented. A few years ago she had been hit at an intersection and had used the insurance money to fix the leaking toilet and buy Christmas presents, rather than fix the dent. Who cares what it looks like as long as it gets us where we want to go, she had said.

She was pushing the fob repeatedly. I noticed her hand trembling.

“Here, Mom, let me try.” I took the fob from her and hit the button. The door unlocked.

“Thank you,” she murmured in a voice as unsteady as her hand.

We climbed into the car, and I shoved the pile of crap on the floor aside to make room for my feet. In the shoving, a McDonalds cheeseburger wrapper was unearthed. I looked at Mom.

She blushed. “Sometimes you just need a shitty cheeseburger.”

We both laughed, though her laugh sounded nervous.

“Yeah,” I agreed, but I wondered what was happening to my mom. It scared me. Everything felt flimsy and unstable. Mom had always been the one person that I could depend on. She was like the solid concrete foundation of my life. Even when she ignored me and was all caught up in Sam she was always this thing I could count on, but lately it sort of felt like my world was built on a pile of sand.

We fell into silence. Mom sat staring out the window, holding my discharge papers in her hand. And then she started ripping them into strips. Slowly and methodically she tore the sheets, one by one, into confetti.

“We have to fill the prescription just in case, but I’ll be damned if you’re going to take those pills. Who gives these kinds of pills to a teenager anyway? Much less a pregnant teenager?” And then she burst into tears.

“That man is dangerous, Banjo. We have to be careful.” She turned toward me, her face blotchy and sunken. “Are you hungry?”

“Yeah, a little. I guess.”

She didn’t bother asking what I wanted. She started the car and turned on the radio. The voice of the NPR host hurt my ears. I leaned in and turned it off. I pressed my head against the cool glass and stared out the windshield. My hands were clenched into loose fists, but I didn’t dig my nails in.

“Mom?”

She turned to look at me.

“Why didn’t you come visit me?”

“Oh, honey, I tried to. They wouldn’t let me see you. They said that if they kept you past seventy-two hours then I would be granted visitation, but not before. I tried. I came in the very next morning right when visiting hours started.”

My stomach twisted.

“I’m sorry, Banjo.” She tried to smile as she squeezed my shoulder.

“I made you an appointment with an OB. You’re way overdue. If you want, well, if you’d rather, we can get you a midwife, but I thought we should at least get you in for an appointment right away and this woman had an opening on Thursday. She was referred to me by one of the women from the clinic. Said she’s gay friendly. I don’t know why I waited so long to make you an appointment. I think I was in denial . . . about a lot of things.” She took a deep breath. “A lot of things indeed.” She said this more to herself than to me.

She took another deep breath. “Anyway, enough of this pity party crap. So I think I found you a counselor as well. She’s an old friend of mine. Well, actually we dated a long time ago, but we’re friends now. You know how lesbians are with the exes.” She smiled. “I’m not sure if you’ll remember her, or actually if I you ever met her. Her name’s Anna.”

Mom’s words were halting and strained. I hated that my mom was nervous around me. I tightened my fists. I could feel the nails just barely tapping against the flesh in my palms.

“I’m hoping she’ll see you tomorrow. We have to keep Doctor Jack off our backs, but first we’re going to get you some food.”

Mom put her hand on my thigh. “Sweetheart. Banjo, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault—”

“It’s okay.”

“Please let me finish.”

My nails dug in harder.

Mom steered the car out of the hospital parking lot and onto the highway. “It’s not okay. Nothing is okay and nothing has been okay for a while. I haven’t been there for you. I let you down and have been letting you down for a long time. The stuff with your sister, that stuff . . .” Mom was breathing hard. I wondered if she should even be driving.

“Mom? Are you okay?”

She wiped her eyes with her sleeve just like a little kid and took a long, deep breath. She looked at me and smiled, and then turned back to the road.

“Sweetie, I know you’re tired. We don’t have to talk about all of this right now, but I just want you to know—I need you to know—that I’m sorry and I’m going to be here for you. We’re going to get through this together. Things are really going to change this time.

“Sam is moving back home on Saturday. We’re all going to make this work. When you, well, when you lost your shit . . .” She looked at me and smiled again. “When you fell apart it was a wakeup call for both your sister and me. We’ve been talking a lot. It’s time this family came back together in the right way. You, Me, Sam, Henry, and James. The baby too, if you decide to keep her, which is something we need to really talk about soon.

“But not now, for now you just need to know that we’re going get through this. So step one: counseling. Step two: off to the doctor with you. Step three: we get the damn house finished and if you want to raise that kid then we will raise that kid. If you don’t, well, we can talk about that.

“I love you so much. I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry . . .”

Tears were running down her face. I felt like I should touch her, but I didn’t.

We were quiet for a while.

“Is that okay, sweetie?”

“Yeah.” I needed it to be okay. It had to be okay.

“Hey, want to know what step four is?” Mom asked. “Step four is we get chickens.”

Snot flew from my nose with the force of my laugh. “Some things never change, Mom. The entire world is collapsing and you plan to rebuild with chickens.”

“Well, it is all the rage these days and you know I like to be on the cutting edge. But actually I’m being serious. We’re getting chickens. I’m not sure exactly when, but we are. Think about it, sweetheart, getting up in the morning and collecting fresh eggs. Sam and Henry already put up the fence. We have a coop on order and we will paint it purple . . . unless you would rather paint it a different color, maybe green? Or orange? I like purple though, but anyway Henry is so excited. It’s all going to be okay, I promise. I know you’ve always wanted chickens.”

“Mom, I wanted chickens when I was nine.”

She turned and looked at me as if she was just now realizing that I was sixteen and not nine. She gave her head a small shake. “Where does the time go?” she said quietly, her face flushing red.

“I still want chickens,” I lied. I was glad to be going home with my insane mom and her crazy chicken plans. I knew—like most of Mom’s plans—the chicken plan wouldn’t come true, but in this moment Mom’s weird fantasy plans made me feel safe somehow.