GLORIA

Gloria still had one task before calling Iris’s daughter. They were parked in the Stop & Shop lot, camouflaged as ordinary grocery shoppers between an SUV and a Prius.

“I’ll call your daughter from the pay phone in the store,” Gloria said. “You should stay hidden under the quilts, just in case.”

“Okay. Nap time.”

“And, oh,” Gloria said. “Could you lend me some cash?”

Iris rummaged in her purse and handed Gloria a twenty. “Get some treats,” she said.

Gloria locked the car behind her. Walking up and down the store aisles with a basket, she punched a phone number on her cell and waited for her former co-worker to pick up. Roberta had been a social worker at the state hospital before joining the agency where Gloria last worked.

Roberta was surprised at Gloria’s questions, but confirmed what Iris said. In the bad old days, one physician, any kind of doctor, could commit a person to the hospital. A court hearing was supposed to follow, but judges rarely questioned the doctor’s assessment.

“That’s horrible,” Gloria said.

“Shameful,” Roberta agreed. “In the late sixties they rewrote the laws, but before then, a lot of people ended up at the hospital who didn’t belong there.”

“And what about the staff? I know the treatments back then were pretty medieval, but were the staff kind? Did they care?”

“When? What years are you interested in?”

“Starting in the midfifties.”

“I didn’t start working there until much later,” Roberta said. “But the first psych meds were beginning to be widely used about then. Mostly Thorazine. Patients were often pretty zonked. And yes, some of the staff were very nurturing. Some brought patients to their homes on holidays, became like family. More like family pets maybe, but still kind. Of course, there were always a few staff members who were sadistic, more ill than the patients, but they were few. They did damage though.” Roberta paused before adding, “Why did you say you wanted to know about this?”

“It’s complicated,” Gloria said. “Let’s get together soon and I’ll fill you in.”

Wandering up and down the aisles, Gloria looked at fancy cookies and fruit platters, at candy bars and potato chips and smoked salmon. What would a woman like Iris consider a treat? Gloria had no clue and it pained her that she didn’t know. Did the daughter know what food would comfort her mother? How lucky Lexi was to have Iris for a mother.

Gloria would just have to guess. She put rosemary crackers and brie into her basket. Chocolate chip cookies and Honeycrisp apples. Then she headed to the back of the store to the pay phone to call that lucky daughter.