CHERYL, PENNY, AND I boarded the train in New Haven, CT for the six-hour Sunday ride to Baltimore. I sat in the aisle seat with Cheryl in the window seat next to me. Penny sat in the aisle seat directly across from me. Besides bathroom trips, I wasn’t allowed to get up. If Cheryl got up to go to the café car or the bathroom, Penny sat next to me until she returned.

At one point, I asked Penny to buy me a mixed drink. She returned with orange juice and Sprite that she mixed together for me. Not allowed to go to the café car myself, I had to be satisfied with that.

I asked Cheryl, “Tell me again. Why don’t you want me to have a conversation with these nice boys on the train?” I had spied a troupe of boy scouts who were travelling in our railway car. I was sure they would want to interact with me. Both of my friends instructed me to read my book. I removed my Shakespeare anthology from the Hello Kitty tote bag I had brought with me. I read a little, taking a break to color an eight-by-ten photo of myself with the green magic marker I had remembered to place in the bag. “I made the picture prettier,” I enthused to my friends. I wanted to show it to the scouts, sure they would love it. Penny said no.

Finally, I fell asleep. Shortly after I awakened, we pulled into Baltimore’s Pennsylvania Station. Penny carried my bag off the train. Cheryl walked close to me. Why don’t they have any luggage of their own, I wondered. We took the escalator above ground to the station. A few feet from where we entered, I saw my mother and Uncle Vernon. That was nice of them to pick us up. I had figured we would catch a cab to my house like I usually did when I took the train home.

My uncle took my suitcase from Penny. Cheryl turned me over to my normally resolute mother, who now looked overwhelmed. Penny and Cheryl each recounted later, separately, that although my mom knew each of them, from school as well as our home, she barely spoke to either of them as she whisked me away. Unable to concentrate on anything other than her sick child, my ultra-polite mother failed to thank them for their sacrifice. They returned to Connecticut on the next available train. According to her account, Cheryl was stunned by the experience.

My uncle drove my mother and me home. That night, my parents conversed into the night, formulating an action plan. I sat in another bedroom reading the biblical book Song of Solomon. I wanted to know what “but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go” meant. Somehow, everything that was happening had to be connected to my upcoming nuptials, I surmised.

The next evening my parents and I visited a psychotherapist in the Mt. Vernon area of Baltimore. Knowing a lot of artistic types resided there, I concluded, He’ll know what to do.

The psychotherapist spent about twenty minutes talking to my parents and me before sharing his assessment of my condition. “Your daughter’s mental health history suggests she suffers with the maturing form of bipolar disorder,” he diagnosed. “Eventually she could require custodial care.” He clarified his diagnosis, making sure my parents understood the unlikelihood of my finishing college. Marrying and having children were off the table.

He dismissed us with a book he had written in my hand. Back at home, I read through it, highlighting sections with my green marker and writing nonsensical notes in the margin. At the time, they seemed to me the illuminations of a genius.

When we left the doctor’s office, I don’t know why my parents did not take me directly to The Johns Hopkins Hospital for inpatient treatment. My mother knew it existed. Some years before, Val, Karen, and I had visited my mom’s first cousin Theodora at The JHH psychiatric unit on Christmas day. Like me, she was living with a bipolar diagnosis.

Denial is a powerful and sometimes dangerous thing.

That night, while my parents slept, I sat in the living room comparing photos of myself. Did I look happier when I was thinner or heavier? I chose heavier.

Then I decided to slip out of the house for a late-night walk. I walked two blocks from Finney Avenue to Greenspring Avenue, the main street. As I climbed up the hill, it magically became part of The Underground Railroad. I remembered Granny Ruth saying sometimes, when no one in her family knew where she was, she hid in plain sight, just like I was doing now. And then I was Billie Holliday, another Baltimorean. Carrying my Hello Kitty bag, my Shakespeare anthology, my green marker, some ribbons, and other miscellanea, I walked, songs from the movie Lady Sings the Blues reverberating in my head.

A gentleman saw me walking and offered me a ride. Without a thought about getting into a car with power locks driven by a stranger, I had him take me to the corner of Park Heights Avenue and Taney Road, less than a mile away. He said he was going in that direction. When we reached my destination, I got out of the car and noticed a City Paper box on the corner. The papers were free. I took one out and wrote some important messages on it with my green marker before returning it to the box. I removed a tiny stuffed bear from my bag and attached it to the box handle with a piece of ribbon I had been clever enough to bring. I needed to leave an Underground Railroad marker for the next traveler on my route.

I walked for a while thinking about my new task: establishing the new world order I had begun to outline in the back of my Shakespeare anthology. Without planning to, I had reached Nome Avenue where Debbie W. lived. Granny Ruth always said, “God protects babes and fools.”

Though surprised to see me, Debbie invited me into her familiar kitchen where I rattled on about this and that. Mrs. W. made me some tea before insisting she drive me back home. I accepted the ride, although I assured her I could have made it home by foot. When I let myself back in the house just before midnight, everyone was asleep.

The next day, my mother went to work. My father stayed home with me. I called a cab to go to noon-hour prayer with a group of mothers from my church, but my dad tipped the driver and sent him away after mentioning something about my “condition.” Confused, I asked myself, Does he think I’m pregnant?

Later that day, I called another cab. Fortunately, it came while my dad was in the bathroom. I had the driver take me to Valerie’s job at a bank in Towson. Never having been there before, I don’t know how I was able to direct the driver to the branch. While the cabbie waited outside, I marched into my sister’s office. She would know how to get our father off my back. “Val, Daddy’s micromanaging me,” came out in a whiny torrent. “I needed to get away from him, so I decided to visit, but only for a minute—my cab’s waiting outside.”

She looked at me directly and commanded, “Charita, wait here while I go talk to my manager.” When she came back, she grabbed her purse, exhaled and announced, “I’m taking you back home.” Valerie is wise, I figured, that must be where we need to be next. As we rode home, she seemed frustrated and a little angry. Thankfully, the anger didn’t seem to be directed at me.

As my improvisational fervor increased over the next few days, my parents managed to keep me at home, giving me plenty of time to outline my new world order on the blank pages of my Shakespeare anthology. I also had time to read magazines. But, at the end of the week, I managed to elude my parents.

I walked five blocks and caught a bus downtown, compelled to attend happy hour at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. I never drink alcoholic beverages, but I ordered and drank a wine cooler. When it was time to pay, I didn’t have any money. When I pretended I had left my money at home, a gentleman at the bar paid for my drink, no strings attached. When I tried to order another wine cooler, the bartender reminded me I had no money and politely asked me to leave.

When I refused, he summoned a member of the hotel security staff. I sat on the floor, refusing to move. “I’m staging a sit in!” I yelled. Soon, two Baltimore police officers arrived. Karen says my family was told I slapped one of the officers. I don’t remember that, but I do remember an officer cuffing me before placing me in the back of the paddy wagon. One of the officers had to tighten the cuffs after I slipped my hand out of the cuff on my right wrist. At the station, they removed the cuffs and allowed me to do something I found exciting in the moment. They let me put my fingertips on a black inkpad and place my fingerprints on paper, like in kindergarten. I was glad I left my Hello Kitty bag at home. I might have gotten black ink on it.

That night, I stayed up all night in a cell singing, full voice. Some of the other women would yell out, “Shut up,” from time to time. I guessed I wasn’t singing the hymns they liked.

The next day was a Sunday. My mother, Valerie, and Karen came for a visit, as did my cousin Lela. I noticed they all looked worried. I told them about the tasty bologna sandwiches I had eaten and showed them the earring one of the women had given me that I had put through the piercing in my left ear. “It’s a cannabis leaf,” Karen noted disparagingly. “Take that out of your ear.” After I did what she said, I lost my earring. My mother said something about an arraignment the next day. Val’s brother-in-law, the attorney, would represent me. I tried to make sense of what they were saying.

Elder James Hickey, an apostolic minister from Baltimore, also visited me. He had received a master’s in pastoral counseling from Loyola University, a Jesuit college that boasted one of the premier programs in the United States. He hoped to set up counseling sessions with me when I was released. Knowing of Elder Hickey’s expertise, Bishop Geddis had put him in touch with my parents, hoping we could set up a beneficial therapeutic relationship.

My arraignment was held on Monday morning. My lawyer, noticing my wet linen jacket, grimaced, then asked, “How did your coat get wet? You didn’t put it in the toilet, did you?” I had needed it to be wet so I could put it on to cool myself off. That small sink was not large enough for me to saturate it with water. I refused to answer his question.