"They were pulling my legs apart, trying to stick their dicks in me. Their hairy dicks. A lot of them. They smelled so bad," she said, her voice rising to a wail. "They tried to stick everything inside of me: dirt and leaves and glass bottles. They were fucking me with glass bottles. Big old nasty monster men. They didn't care. They didn't care."

The declaration subsided and the muttering began, Angelica's own private conversation. Haldol couldn't be far behind.

Bethany was next to Angelica by the time she began sobbing. I came to life too. "It's all right. It's all right," she said, over and over, while I patted and rubbed and Trina sat up, her eyes half open, her sleep broken, and Brad stood there, his resolute chin thrust out.

Wilbur rushed in and I told him what had happened, including Brad's response. He and Brad took Angelica from the barracks into another room, and Bethany followed them. When they brought her back she was subdued, her muttering mere whispers. Bethany shushed her with "Aw, honey. Aw, sweetie. It's okay. Everything's okay." Jean and Eddie stood guard.

Outside the room, I heard Brad, his voice controlled, his deliberate words pitched against Wilbur's angry criticism.

"She was jeopardizing all of us. You never know who is driving by, even this late at night. We're not completely isolated." I didn't hear Wilbur's response. But after a slight pause, Brad said, "I've made my decision."

IMMEDIATELY AFTER DINNER THE NEXT EVENING, BRAD quietly instructed Bethany and me to get our things together. We would be leaving in an hour. We had been with Jean and Eddie for one week. Progress had been made. Two steps forward, one back. Better than I had expected. So I was hopeful about what lay ahead. I packed in silence next to Bethany, keeping my questions inside my head.

"Are we going home?" Trina asked me as we got into the car. "I'll take my meds when we get back home."

Her words were a siren's song. But I'd been dashed against the rocks once too often. No, I was in for the full ride.

"We're not going home just yet, Trina," I said.

Her face grew dark, her eyes stormy. "Where are we going?"

Brad walked over. "Going to a place where you will get more help. Trina, I want you to relax. Be grateful."

I could have told Brad that my child wasn't grateful, not yet. But his chin jutted forward, an indication that he was in the fearless-leader zone. It was only when we were getting into Brad's SUV that I learned that Jean would be traveling with us. The news pleased me. Even with her Earth Mother tendencies, Jean's presence was welcome because of the continuity she provided for Trina.

We were about to pull off when I heard Eddie yelling. Brad rolled down the window.

"Back tire's flat," he said.

It was a miracle he saw it, as dark as it was. We all piled out and stared at the tire, as though looking at it would repair it.

"Take our car," Eddie said. "You can't go without a spare."

Their car was an old Volvo station wagon. Brad, Trina, and I sat up front. Jean, Bethany, and Angelica sat in the back. Brad played one jazz CD after another. Highway 5 to Sacramento, the signs read. I paid attention for a while, until I fell asleep.

Around two-thirty, I woke with a start. The car had stopped. Angelica was screaming again. Amid the confusion, I heard Trina, her voice whiny and petulant. She needed to go to the bathroom.

We were now traveling along a two-lane highway; I could see a few lights in the distance. There were signs advertising gas and lodging ahead, but Brad drove right past the lighted area and didn't turn off until several miles later, onto a pitch-black road with huge fields of low-growing plants on either side. The air was thick with the scent of citrus. Angelica's conversation with her nighttime assailants continued.

Brad pulled over to the shoulder, stopped, and got out. There were no other cars on the road. He went around to the back and opened the trunk. When he reappeared, he was carrying a roll of toilet paper in his hand. He opened the door for Trina and waited for her to get out. Jean opened her door. Angelica's keening split the air. Brad didn't see Trina's eyes when she realized that the toilet paper and the unlit highway were the only accommodations she would be afforded, but I did. I thought about her request to go home and reached out to grab her arm-my fingers grazed her skin-but before I could connect, Trina had hurled herself from her seat to the ground. She began running and screaming at the same time. It was startling, the sound she made: an eagle suddenly escaped from its cage in the zoo, a shriek of panic and euphoria as the freedom stung her face.

Brad, Jean, and I took off after her, yelling for her to stop. Of course, she just ran harder, zigzagging from one side of the road to the other like a wild bird trying to outrun a hatchet. We were still calling out when we saw headlights coming right toward us.

"Help! Help! Help! They're trying to kill me! They're trying to kill me!" Trina waved her arms and jumped up and down, racing toward the oncoming vehicle.

The car, which was about half a city block away, slowed down. Brad, Jean, and I all inhaled at the same time. Trina ran to the driver's side, banging on the window. Behind her, Angelica wailed.

"They're devils! They're devils! Help me, please. Save me from the devils!"

I could see the driver now. Horror and fear stained the woman's face like makeup. The vehicle stopped for a moment. I gasped. Just that quickly, the car accelerated and sped past Trina, coming straight toward us. Brad shouted something, and the three of us scattered as the car barreled down the road.

Trina was hysterical, screaming and running in the dark. Brad finally overtook her. He held her, his hands gripping the backs of her arms. She sat down on the ground, in the middle of the road, refusing to move, so we lifted her up and carried her back to the car.

"We're trying to help you. Shh, shh, baby," I said.

Brad's mouth was tight and grim as he gave both Trina and Angelica shots of Haldol. Bethany was leaning over her daughter, her arms around her neck. Trina was mercifully still, resigned that her escape had been foiled. She whimpered for a while and then grew quiet. Brad's face was tense, like a bank robber's when the getaway car is missing.

Trina could have been killed, I thought. The car could have run right over her. Jean and Brad couldn't have done a damn thing about it. They possessed ideals, not power. Suppose I had died? What would have happened to Trina?

The next time I looked at my watch it was 5 a.m. and the car had stopped in front of another farmhouse surrounded by a field.

"A friend with friends" I heard Brad say. A front door opened, and once again we were ushered in.

Jean offered to make sandwiches, but no one was hungry. A man who introduced himself as Pete led us through a dimly lit house to a bedroom where four single beds were lined up. Another barracks. He disappeared before I could get a good look at him. At the window, blackout shades were drawn.

Jean and I helped Trina change into her pajamas while Angelica and Bethany were in the bathroom. Trina didn't want to brush her teeth or wash her face, but Jean succeeded in persuading her without raising her voice. Through the wall I could hear Brad filling Pete in on our backgrounds, carefully not mentioning that the wild child sleeping in one of his beds had just jeopardized the entire program. Pete didn't say much. Maybe he was used to being given psychological profiles of strangers before dawn.

I met Brad at the door when he came into the room. "Trina could have been hurt," I said, my voice low, my back to my daughter, who was lying down but not asleep. "That car could have hit her. Or suppose the woman had opened the door and driven off with her? I didn't know it would be like this."

Brad's hand reached for me, pulled me away from Trina. "There is risk involved in what we do," he said. "You knew that."

"I didn't know. I didn't know that this-I want to go back," I said.

"Back to what?" Brad asked.

"I just want to take her home. This isn't working."

"No," Brad said.

"What do you mean, no? I'm taking her back home."

Jean suddenly appeared at my side. "This is mental illness, Keri; the behavior is unpredictable. That's part of it," she said. "That will always be part of it, no matter where you go."

"What do you think will happen if you take her home now?" Brad asked. "She has to get enough meds in her system before she'll be willing to stay on them. She is still manic, still paranoid, still psychotic. If you take her home now, as angry as she's feeling, she might call the police and tell them you kidnapped her."

"She could do that anyway."

"No one who completes the program has ever done that," Jean said. "You take her home now, and you'll have to go back to square one. Trina has a mental illness."

"You keep telling me what I know."

"Do you?" Brad asked. When I didn't answer, he said, "It will never go away. Recovery for Trina will be ongoing for the rest of her life and the rest of yours. It will take years. Those years can be disappointing or painful for you or they can be productive, maybe even joyful. It depends on your attitude."

"There is nothing wrong with my attitude," I said.

"You're like a lot of parents. You think your daughter's bipolar disorder is your personal tragedy, but it's not. It's Trina's. She is the one with the brain disease, not you. You want the bright child back, who attends Brown and gets straight A's. Well, don't we all. You have to accept Trina the way she is. She's not something you ordered from a catalog. She's a gift from God. You need to treat her that way."

"I love my child."

He put his hand on my wrist. "I'm not talking about love. I'm talking about reverence for her life."

Brad squeezed my wrist and then let me go.

When I looked at Brad and Jean, I realized they wanted me to surrender my dreams of Trina's complete recovery. Maybe that was another reason to leave.

"I think we should all get some rest," Jean said.

"Is there anything to drink around here?" I asked, looking at Jean. The question didn't appear to throw her.

Brad stayed behind with the girls. Jean, Bethany, and I went to the kitchen and sat at a large round claw-foot table. Jean went right to the cabinet above the refrigerator. It was high, so she used a small ladder. She pushed aside bottles of apple juice.

"Rum or vodka?" she asked.

We opted for rum and mixed it with some fruit juice we found in the refrigerator. Sipped it for a while before anyone spoke. The fuzziness began permeating my mind, filling it with sad music. What's the use, what's the use, what's the use? was the refrain.

"They all try something, honey. Tomorrow will be better," Jean said.

"It just goes on and on," I said. "One minute she seems perfectly normal and the next-"

"-she's running through the world naked with bloody legs." Bethany looked at me. "Yeah. Be grateful for your own sack of woes. I'd trade places with you in a New York minute."

I let that sink in, but the words didn't make me feel better.

LATER, WHEN THE CELL PHONE RANG, IT WAS FRANCES, HER voice not cheerful. "Keri, I hate to call you when you're taking your break, but I just . . . I don't know what's going on with Adriana. She's, she's-listen, those so-called friends of hers, they won't leave her alone. Every time I look up, they're right there. And I've seen her with that guy more than once. It's like they're stalking her. Like they know her protection is gone and they're moving in for the kill. She's acting so strange. Coming in late to work, acting spacy. Girl, Adriana's in trouble."

"I can't help her," I said, maybe too fast. Maybe too hard. On the other end of the phone, Frances was quiet.

"I know that. The only reason I'm calling you is that I don't want you to be shocked when you get back," she said finally. "It's just-damn, it's hard to see someone falling through the cracks right before your eyes."

When I hung up I said one of Mattie's quick prayers. There should be a patron saint for wayward girls, a celestial guardian for strippers, porn queens, hookers, junkies, and those whose brains spew out dangerous impulses. What's a mother to do against those tragic impulses? What kind of protection can I offer?

I sat down on the side of Trina's bed. My body felt stiff and heavy. She was lying there, still not sleeping. I didn't know what she'd heard. My fingers made a trail down her arm. She flinched but didn't pull away. I took her hand in mine and began massaging her fingertips and then the joints of each finger.

"Why can't we just go home?" she asked me. "These people are devils." She began to cry, silently at first, and gradually the sound became a little louder. "I never thought my life would be like this." She wiped her eyes and became silent again.

"Everything is going to get better, Trina. You'll see. I know you think you hate me now, but I had to do this. You're going to have a good life again. You have to believe that."

Trina stared at me; then she took my hands and placed them on her head. I thought of Rona then, her small fuzzy head. Poor thin tired Rona, battling a wildfire in her body, hoping desperately to make it to her reunion in October. Wouldn't that be a small thing for God to grant? "Could you manage that one tiny thing?" I said aloud. Trina looked at me. I began massaging again. My energy passed from me to her. My peace, my power, eased across my skin to hers. Was she feeling me?

22.

DESPITE JEAN'S COAXING, TRINA REFUSED TO GET UP LATER that morning. I didn't really feel like moving either. As I lay on my narrow bed, Bethany and Angelica were dressing under Jean's watchful eye. They were off to the salt mines. I'm sure that somewhere on the premises there was a room for shelling, a space for yoga and games and crafts.

You've seen one underground railroad stop, you've seen them all.

I could hear Bethany and Angelica talking. Mostly, it was Angelica, carrying on at least two conversations, one with one of her invisible friends and the other with Bethany, who was trying to distract her. I stole a look at Angelica. Damn. How did Bethany stand it? The voices, the catatonic stares, the meth habit. Sunken cheeks and burned-out eyes, stringy hair she probably refused to wash. Her teeth were stained, a yellow that made me want her not to smile.

At least Trina was still beautiful. At least she looked normal and clean. She could carry on a decent conversation. If she walked into a store, no one would alert security. It wasn't right to compare them, but I couldn't help myself. I needed to feel superior.

Closing my eyes, I recalled going to the movies, a drink after work; I recalled seduction and quick, easy fucking. Good times seemed so far away.

"Are you okay?" Bethany leaned over me. I could smell her perfume. She was still putting it on, even on this unscented journey of ours.

"I'm just tired. Everything caught up with me all at once."

She gave me a look that told me she understood. Behind her, I could hear Angelica muttering at the unseen.

"You're not going to go home, are you?" Bethany asked.

Now that someone besides Brad was calling my bluff, I had to consider my words and ultimately confess that I'd been premature in my thoughts and certainly in speaking them. If I went back home, Trina would be worse off than before. She had just enough medication in her system to keep her out of the hospital and not enough to maintain her at home unless she continued to take her pills. Given her recent track record, I couldn't count on her to do that. So here I was: stuck.

"No," I told Bethany. "We're staying."

She patted my shoulder.

"Actually," I said, "I was thinking about calling my boyfriend for phone sex."

Bethany gave me a look of pure amazement. "God bless you. I haven't thought about sex in so long."

"Are you married, Bethany? I've never asked."

"My husband died five years ago, but we were living completely separate lives at the time. We hadn't slept together in years. He had someone, but I didn't. Too caught up in Angelica's illness. And then I have another daughter. She's older."

"Mom."

We both looked up at the same time. I gasped; Bethany didn't. A naked Angelica was standing in the doorway of the bathroom. Her legs were dripping blood in four or five places.

I got out of bed. "I thought you got rid of everything sharp. What did she use?"

"I don't know."

I called Brad and Jean; they came running. The cuts weren't deep. Jean applied peroxide and Band-Aids. Brad found a sharp rock in the wastepaper basket.

"Come on, honey," Bethany said to Angelica when she had dressed and the excitement was over. "Let's get some breakfast."

Trina never woke up. I went back to bed.

Trina and I dozed for maybe two hours before Brad and Jean came in to wake us. When we were ready, they escorted us to a very large eat-in kitchen where fruit, juice, coffee, herbal tea, muffins, cheese, and oatmeal were waiting for us. Trina dug right in, but I wasn't hungry.

"It's good, Mom," she said, as though we were sitting in a restaurant. Moments like that threw me off, normal moments that appeared so suddenly.