Jekyll and Hyde in Queens

When I speak about my mother, I call her Ruth. My husband, Jonathan, calls her by her first name too, as does my brother, David. She is a formidable woman, accomplished, intellectually arrogant and articulate. If she hears anyone use a word or a phrase incorrectly, she does not hesitate to bring them into line. She even corrected the man who officiated the memorial service of my father. Before we each took a handful of ashes to place in the grave, he announced, “We will now proceed to the internment of the ashes.” And my mother did not hesitate to state loudly, “It’s the interment of the ashes” with a distinct emphasis on the “r” sound. She comes by this honestly, I suppose, since her career as a book editor reinforced her natural tendencies to point out errors. She is more loyal to syntax, grammar and spelling than she is to anything else in her life.

It was Thanksgiving. Jonathan and I arrived at LaGuardia, having gotten up at the crack of dawn in Denver to fly to New York in time to produce some sort of holiday for Ruth. It took forever to catch a shuttle bus to the Avis lot. As we waited in line, Jonathan offered to drive, since he knows how terrified I am of driving in New York. I am always aware of impending danger on the East Coast: the way time flows, the confusing highways, the attitudes of both pedestrians and drivers, the noise. The air seems unsafe there; it is as though the atmosphere and even the light are carrying grudges. As the plane descended over Manhattan, I felt my heart beating in my head. I looked out the window, listening to the murmured voices of the other passengers: 

“There’s Central Park!”
“Look, I can see the Brooklyn Bridge!”
“Honey, there’s the Statue of Liberty!”
“Oh my God, I can see the UN!”
And all I was thinking was, Please let these next few days go quickly. 

Once in the car, I studied the map trying to decipher the route out to central Long Island. “The highways are insane here! They’re all called something different: parkways, turnpikes, expressways, boulevards, and they’re in a big knot — like pasta: rigatoni, capellini, linguine, vermicelli. How the hell does anyone get anywhere?” 

Jonathan reached over and held my hand. He knew I was anxious and sad. “Just find the strand of spaghetti that will take us to … where is the hospital? Glendale or Glen Lake?” Jonathan replied with an edge in his voice. He did not like driving in New York either. 

“We’re going to Glen Oaks and we have to take the fucking Cross Island Parkway south to the Long Island Expressway east to the Grand Central Parkway, which is also called the Northern States Parkway, south to the hospital. As the crow flies, it’s less than 11 miles. But of course, there are probably no crows left in New York.” 

Zucker Hillside is the psychiatric hospital associated with Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens. When David and I were looking for a place to hospitalize our mother, Zucker sounded like the best one, closest to her home on the South Fork of the Island. For months, David and his wife from D.C. and Jonathan and I from Colorado had been square dancing across the country, taking turns keeping an eye on Ruth and on her unfortunate descent into a psychotic depression.

“I wonder how many jokes have been made about Zucker Hillside. Fucker Hillside? Sucker Backslide? I’m stuck at Zuck? Zuck sucks?” I offered right before I raised my voice alerting Jonathan to watch the signs, “Turn left at the next exit — don’t miss it or we’ll end up at JFK — which wouldn’t be that bad … we could catch a flight home.” 

“Let’s make a plan, Maggie,” Jonathan said trying to assert some reasoning into our conversation. “Do we stop and say hello to Ruth first or go and find Thanksgiving food before we approach Zucker? Your choice.” 

“Oh, let’s live it up and check her out first,” I responded sarcastically. “Then we can leave and go find some food. She’s gonna say she’s not hungry — I can hear her already: ‘I don’t like Thanksgiving, I never have. All the food is brown.’ And then you and I can escape and find a good Jewish deli and get pastrami sandwiches on rye with coleslaw and pickles.” 

Jonathan started singing “Over the River and Through the Woods,” trying to wrap himself around the reality of this holiday for us. 

********************** 

“Oh my God, these are army barracks, Jonathan. Real army barracks. This could be the set for M*A*S*H*. She’s hospitalized in a barracks.” I could not believe what I was looking at as we walked toward the building labeled 2 South (Geriatric) on the inpatient campus called the Behavioral Health Pavilion. 

“Keep an open mind, Maggie,” Jonathan responded hoping I would keep my lid on. 

“I can’t go in yet. Let’s walk around the building for a little bit,” I suggested. 

The back of the barracks was protected by a tall chain-link fence. Through the holes we could see into the dining room. 

I whispered loudly, “Jesus Christ, they’re all drinking orange soda … not milk or water … just bottles of Fanta orange soda! This is criminal. Look at them. Oh my God.” 

I could feel Jonathan wanting me to settle down. 

There were some old men rocking in the dining chairs; a few old women were eating something white and gummy, maybe mashed potatoes or Cream of Wheat. Cardboard pictures of turkeys, pilgrims, and cornucopias were taped to the gray cinder block walls. The Zucker employees were slowly making their way around the dining room clearing plates, filling up glasses with more orange poison, and pulling up those seniors who were slumped over their plates. 

“Hey, there’s Ruth! See her?” Jonathan said as he bent over my shoulder pointing to a woman sitting at a table in the corner. 

“Yup, there she is,” I whispered. “She lost her mind and now she’s in an army barracks drinking Fanta. I think I need to sit down.” Seeing her like this made me feel weak. 

We walked back to the car and sat there for a while in silence. It was a lot to take in. 

When I was ready, we walked toward the entrance of the building. There was a sign on the front door giving us instructions and the numerical codes we would need to enter and what we were forbidden to bring in with us (knives, scissors, anything made of glass, shoelaces, belts and firearms). 

The people at the front desk asked us to relinquish our driver’s licenses while we were in the building. Paranoia is alive and well at Zucker Hillside, I thought to myself. On the wall of the main hallway was a large wooden sign. It faced the dining room, so all the highly medicated patients, drunk on Fanta, could see it clear as day. 

TODAY IS: Thursday
THE YEAR IS: 2009
THE PRESIDENT IS: Barack Obama
THE NEXT HOLIDAY IS: Thanksgiving 

I tried to imagine the person who was in charge of keeping the sign up to date. I nudged Jonathan and pointed with my face, Look at that. 

“Ah, sweet reality,” he said wistfully. 

****************************** 

Ruth looked frightened as we entered her room. Her voice was trembling as she asked us if our flight had landed on time, if we needed to have lunch, if we had been out to her house yet, if the kids were okay, if the “guards” had let us in. She was making no move to stand up and hug either one of us, so I sat down beside her and put my arm around her. She recoiled slightly. I told her how glad I was to see her. I felt heartsick that she was this agitated. 

“This place is a pit, Maggie. You have no idea. You have to get me out of here. All the patients are crazy.” Her speech was pressured. “The other day a man got undressed and took a shit on the floor in the hall. It’s filthy. They watch you take a shower, which you can only have every three days. I need to get out of here. You have to get me out of here.” 

How could we have put her in such an awful place? I asked myself. My heart tightened and my stomach felt queasy. 

I looked around the room and wondered how little it would take to make the space friendlier. The gray walls were empty other than clusters of scuffs and smudges. There were two beds, two chairs, two nightstands, two small, doorless closets. The window had bars covering the glass. It could have been a prison cell. She looked haggard, distraught, no different than she appeared before she was admitted. She seemed worse than I had seen her in years. I needed to find out which medications they had her on. 

Jonathan pulled up one of the chairs to sit close to Ruth. He took her hands in his and she did not recoil. She started whimpering. It sounded like forced crying, but Jonathan was being kind and patient anyway. The truth is, she loves him more than she loves me or David. We all know this. Even Ruth knows. The best thing I have ever done for her is to bring her Jonathan. 

He asked her who her roommate was. The other bed in the room was unmade and a black parka, tattered gloves, socks and a blue hospital robe were strewn over the end of the bed. 

“Some woman with a strange name. Alima — Pashima … I don’t know. She got here yesterday. She spends lots of time in the dining room. She eats a lot.”

“Have you been eating?” I asked.

“There’s no food here. They have toast. That’s it.”

“We’re going to go get you some Thanksgiving food this afternoon. Would you like some turkey? Mashed potatoes? A nice piece of pie?” Jonathan offered.

“No. I’m not hungry. I hate Thanksgiving food. It’s brown.

All brown.” I looked at Jonathan, and with my eyes I said, See, I told you.

Just as I was grabbing for my phone to search for nearby delis, my mother’s roommate entered the room. Smiling warmly, she exclaimed, “Oh, hello! You must be Ruth’s family! It’s so wonderful to meet you all. I’m Halima.” 

“Hi, Halima. Good to meet you.” I extended my hand, trying not to look shocked at her apparent sanity. “I’m Maggie, Ruth’s daughter, and this is my husband, Jonathan.” Jonathan stood up and shook Halima’s hand. 

“Oh, it’s so nice to meet you,” Halima was glowing, taking us in. “You have such a beautiful family, Ruth!” She turned to us, “Are you hungry? I could go and get you something to eat from the dining room …” She kept talking, offering to get us anything we might want. “This must be so hard for you to see your mother here. But I’ll be taking good care of her, don’t you worry.” 

Halima was about five feet tall. I would not call her trim, but she was not plump either. Her brown skin was wrinkled, yet she seemed much younger than Ruth. She had an air of buoyant excitement and optimism. A Pepto Bismol-pink hair tie held most of her graying black hair on the top of her head. The rest fell onto her face; it looked over-gelled and stuck to her forehead. 

“Maggie, when are you going back to the house? I need you to do my laundry. I have so many filthy clothes here,” Ruth said, ignoring Halima. 

“We’ll do the laundry and bring you clean clothes tomorrow, Ruth,” Jonathan replied, rescuing a conversation that could have gone south had I responded. It occurred to me that Halima might have been homeless. She was clutching an oversized purse tightly to her body, as though she were protecting it from being taken away; there were no clothes hanging in her closet — just her coat, a pair of gloves and some socks on the bed. 

“Where’s your dirty laundry, Ruth? We’ll be sure to bring it back tomorrow, clean as can be — do you want anything else from the house?” Jonathan was trying hard to be helpful and keep my mother from getting more anxious. 

“I can’t read anymore,” Ruth bleated, in an unnatural, almost falsetto whine. “So don’t bother bringing books. And oh, Maggie, how are the bills being paid? Am I out of money? What are they charging me for this prison stay?” She was getting stirred up. 

“David’s taking care of your bills and finances until you get better. He’s doing a great job, of course. There’s nothing to worry about, Mom” I said trying again to sit next to her. 

“We’ll play some cards this afternoon, Ruth,” interjected Halima in a tone of voice so convincing and inviting that it actually sounded like fun: playing cards in a barracks at Zucker Hillside. 

“Mom, let’s go take a little walk down the hall to the dining room. And after that, Jonathan and I will leave and go to the house to do your laundry. 

“How far away does Ruth live?” asked Halima. “Do you have far to drive?” 

“An hour or so east of here. Maybe a little farther.” I found myself relieved that Jonathan did not mention that Ruth’s house was in the Hamptons. 

“Oh no! You don’t have a key! How will you get in?” Ruth shouted. I tried to put my arm around her again. She recoiled. “Stop it! Don’t touch me!” 

I took a deep breath. “We have a key,” I stated quietly as I got up from her bed and walked out into the hall. 

There I saw a man — or maybe it was a woman — in a bed that looked like a hammock or a sling, parked on the side of the hallway. The person, looking geriatric and infantile at the same time, was making guttural noises in between moans. And there were several men wandering outside their rooms, one of them screaming at no one in particular, “What do you take me for, a fool?” 

I ached for these people. They were at the end of their lives and so alone. How could David and I have our mother here? Would I someday end up in a place like this? I felt heavyhearted as I walked into the dining room. All the bottles of Fanta had been cleared off the tables and a few elderly women were rocking in chairs, their visiting relatives trying to engage them in conversation. 

This place would make anyone mentally ill, I thought. I looked out the window at the parking lot. I wanted to be anywhere in the world other than in Glen Oaks, Long Island. And I knew where Ruth was headed. I could feel it. She would not respond well to any medication. Then they would consider electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), but first they would have to check with her medical doctor: (Can Ruth Simon tolerate the effects of ECT, given her aortic valve replacement 10 months ago?) Another class of medication would be tried and then some cognitive behavioral therapy. When they would have exhausted all types of noninvasive treatments, they would recommend that Ruth undergo eight or more rounds of ECT. This was, as they say, not her first rodeo. 

************************** 

In the car, all Jonathan wanted to talk about was Halima. “She’s so sweet and generous with your mother. And she seems totally normal — not even a little bit crazy. Why’s she in there?” 

“I think she might be homeless, Jonathan. She never lets go of that huge purse. It almost looks attached to her, like an external womb. And I think she only has the clothes she’s wearing. I feel for her. She’s so kind. She's even aware of how I could be feeling about my mother being in a loony bin. Ruth lucked out in the roommate department, that’s for sure. Maybe Halima faked a mental illness just to get admitted — Zucker Hillside gives her a bed, food and a roof over her head.” 

While Jonathan went on about Halima, I gave him directions to a deli on the way to Ruth’s house. Pastrami and coleslaw never smelled so delicious.

************************ 

At the house, we put her laundry in the washer even before we sat down to have our Thanksgiving dinner, if you could call it that. The house seemed more than empty — it felt as though all the energy had been siphoned out of it, leaving the entire space languorous and hollow. My parents bought this house after they retired, having lived in Manhattan all their lives. Moving to the end of Long Island was as huge an adjustment as it would have been had they moved to a small fishing village in Nova Scotia. The house carried a tremendous burden: it was to make them happy, proud; it was to be a place where they could reap a grand life, one that they felt they had earned. Ruth was ambivalent about both retiring and moving out of the city. So after the distraction of decorating the new house was over and after the golden glow of living in the Hamptons turned into ordinary light, she fell into a slough of despondency. The glamorous retirement they worked toward turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory, at best. 

In the morning, we returned to Zucker with Ruth’s clean and folded laundry in tow. We arrived at about 9:30 because we were told that her psychiatrist would be available midmorning. As we walked into the room, Halima sat up from her bed and greeted us with the same warmth and enthusiasm as she did the day before. 

“We brought you and Ruth some contraband doughnuts, Halima,” Jonathan said as he gave her the bag from the bakery. “Where’s Ruth?” 

“My Lord, you have answered my prayers! These look so delicious,” she said as she peered into the bag. “Ruth has been complaining about the food here, poor thing. I hope she’ll eat these. I told her she needs to eat to stay strong. I’m worried about her.” 

“Where is she?” I repeated. 

“Oh, I think she’s in the dining room still. Let’s go get her and tell her there’s a treat for her in our room.” 

As we walked down the hall, I noticed that the wooden sign had been updated: 

TODAY IS: FRIDAY
THE YEAR IS: 2009
THE PRESIDENT IS: Barack Obama
THE NEXT HOLIDAY IS: Christmas 

Ruth was sitting alone at a table looking into space. “Hi, Ruth!” Jonathan and I said almost in unison. She looked distraught, as though she barely noticed who was greeting her. 

“Ruth, your wonderful daughter and her husband have brought us a treat! Come back to the room to see it!” Halima again made it sound exciting, as though this were Christmas morning at Zucker Hillside. 

“And we brought your clothes, Ruth, all clean and smelling fresh.” Jonathan, on the other hand, sounded like a detergent commercial. 

When we got to the room, she unfolded the shirt that was on the top of the laundry pile. “This is NOT laundered! Jesus Christ, Maggie. You lied to me.” She began to rifle through the neatly stacked pile of clean clothes on the end of her bed. “Look at all this lint. None of this has been washed.” She was livid. 

Jonathan picked up the shirt. “Ruth, there’s no lint on this shirt. Look, it’s perfectly clean.” 

“Oh, for God’s sake, Jonathan, I’m not crazy.” We could have disputed that, but she went on. “Look at all the lint and schmutz on these pants. They’re filthy!” She laid the pants out on her bed pointing to what she said was lint as though she was accusing the pants of a crime. 

“Oh Ruth, they’re fine, honey. They look clean as a whistle. Come look what they brought us.” Halima was trying hard to distract Ruth, opening the bakery bag to let the aroma of the freshly baked doughnuts infuse the room. 

“Get those away from me! I don’t eat doughnuts.” Ruth slapped at the air. 

Not skipping a beat, Jonathan said, “Okay, they’re all for you, Halima! Enjoy them.” 

Ruth was obsessed with imaginary lint. Hallucinatory grime. And she was on a tear. I felt so sorry for her. 

Halima shot me a look that said, Poor Ruth. She can’t help it. We must forgive her behavior. 

Suddenly, as if on cue, there was a knock at the door. “Hello? Hello? Mrs. Simon?” The psychiatrist, Dr. Abraham Kronick, entered the room, looking unaware that Ruth had visitors. “How are you doing today, Mrs. Simon?” Halima quickly grabbed Ruth’s clean clothes, which by this time were strewn all over room, and began to fold them slowly and carefully, reconstructing the neat pile they were in minutes earlier. 

“I feel terrible.” Ruth did not introduce us to Dr. Kronick, even though we were standing within three feet of him. And more concerning was Dr. Kronick’s indifference to who was in the room. 

“Dr. Kronick, I’m Maggie, Ruth’s daughter and this is my husband, Jonathan,” I interjected. 

“We’re here from Colorado to visit Ruth and to find out what the treatment plan is for her stay at Zucker.” I found that saying his name out loud did not engender much trust. 

“Well, she’s been on several medications and she’s not had the response we’ve been hoping for,” he said as he looked at the chart and not at her or at us. “We’ll be adjusting the dosage of one of them …” his voice trailed off as he was writing in the chart, “… and we will replace another …” He kept on writing. 

“May I ask you which medications she’s taking now?” I wanted to know. 

“Oh, Maggie. You ask too many questions. You always have,” Ruth said with a tone of exasperated authority. 

“Have you been sleeping better, Mrs. Simon?” He was ignoring my question. 

“No, I’m awake all night. People are yelling and groaning in the hall — how can a person sleep in a place like this?” Ruth was getting worked up. I stepped in front of Dr. Kronick to sit down next to Ruth. 

“Dr. Kronick, I’d like to know which medications she’s on because her hallucinations are worse. We brought her freshly washed clothes and she saw dirt and lint that wasn’t there.” 

My mother started yelling: “My clothes are covered in lint and you know it! I won’t wear those filthy clothes.” As I looked up at Dr. Kronick with the hope that he would respond to me, Ruth slapped me on the face, something she had never done before. I was in shock. My cheek burned and my eyes filled with tears. 

“Ruth!” admonished Jonathan. He stood up and reached over my mother to touch my arm. 

Dr. Kronick was writing in the chart; he said nothing about my mother hitting me. “Mrs. Simon, we’ll be changing one of your medications, Zyprexa, to a different one called Seroquel. We’ll see if that helps with the hallucinations.” 

“I am not hallucinating!” 

Jonathan stood up and said, “Dr. Kronick, could we talk to you for a few minutes out in the hall?” 

“I’m afraid not — I’m running late with my rounds as it is.” 

I could not believe what was happening. As I tried to hold my tears back, I got up and left the room. If I’m here much longer, they’ll admit me, I thought to myself. Halima came after me. 

“Oh, Ruth’s a nasty one when her head’s all mixed up. How’s that face of yours?” I was struck with how much kinder Halima was than Dr. Kronick. 

“What’s wrong with that doctor?” I asked her. “That’s what I want to know. He should’ve been a pharmacist, not a psychiatrist.” 

Halima laughed. “They’re as crazy as the patients, sometimes crazier.” I wondered how many times Halima had been here. “Let’s go get us some coffee in the dining room and leave Ruth with the men.” 

*************************** 

We spent most of that day at Zucker. I walked the halls with Ruth, while Jonathan played cards with Halima in the dining room. I told Ruth that once she recovered from this terrible depression (this was her fourth one in 18 years), she had to start seeing a therapist. 

“I don’t want therapy. I don’t need to revisit my childhood. I lived through it once — that was enough. All therapists want to talk about is your damn childhood. What I need is to get out of here, Maggie. I would do better at home.” 

“Mom, you weren’t safe at home. You have to get better before you can go home.” 

Ruth started her attack: “You always exaggerate, Maggie. You don’t know anything about me. You think I’m better off in this pit than at home? Dr. Kronick is about as good a psychiatrist as Halima is an actress.” 

“What do you mean — Halima’s acting? Why is she here — do you know?” 

“No, but she’s hiding something.”

“We’re all hiding something, Mom. She must have some mental illness to have been admitted. I wonder if she’s been at Zucker before.” 

“She’s stealing things and putting them in her purse — which she never lets go of. Sugar packets. Straws. I’ve seen her. She seems kind, but I think it’s an act.” 

I could not decide if my mother was being paranoid or perceptive. “I’m just thankful you have a nice roommate. You could have gotten someone like that woman who sits all day by the front door screaming about how the stock market is about to crash.” 

Halima was having the time of her life beating Jonathan at gin rummy. On the way back to Ruth’s house that evening, Jonathan corroborated my suspicion that Halima was homeless. 

“Man, she’s one smart cookie! What a way to get housed, fed and cared for if you have nowhere to live … just fake a mental illness. The worst thing that could happen is you’d get put on some loopy drugs. What a gig!” 

“I find it hard to believe that they wouldn’t be onto her. Although, if Dr. Kronick’s any example of the quality of psychiatric care here, I suppose Halima could get in under the radar. God, is he awful! Do you think he even noticed Ruth slapping me?” 

“All he was focused on was Ruth’s chart. After you left the room, I told Ruth that she could never slap you or anyone again.” 

“Did Kronick hear you say this?” 

“Yeah, and he said nothing. I think we should report this.” 

“To whom? The head of the ‘Behavioral Health Pavilion’? Like they would care. After all that I’ve seen here, a patient hitting her adult daughter is hardly going to get their attention.” 

“I’m so sorry she did that, Maggie. I couldn’t believe it. She’s nuts.” 

“Don’t call her that! She’s psychotic. There’s a difference.” I could not stand hearing Jonathan call my mother “nuts.” 

“Okay, not in her right mind. Is that better?” Jonathan snapped back. 

“I just hope they figure out she needs ECT. It’s the only thing that’s worked in the past.” The last thing I needed was to argue with Jonathan. 

It was Friday night. We had been in New York for about 36 hours and yet it felt like more than a week. I was glad we had decided to reserve a flight home on Saturday afternoon and not Sunday morning. I could barely stand the thought of spending another entire day at Zucker Hillside, although it was killing me to think of leaving my mother there. 

************************* 

Halima was sitting up in bed when we entered the room on Saturday morning. Ruth was standing in her closet picking imaginary lint off her clothes. 

“Did you all get some good rest last night?” Halima asked us, as though she were the concierge at some hotel. 

“Good morning, Ruth!” I shouted trying to sound cheerful. 

“I have nothing to wear!” she growled. “Everything is filthy.”

“Mom, let me help you find something.” I walked over to where she was standing, keeping her arms in my peripheral vision. I did not intend to get slapped again today. I took a blue shirt off a hanger and then, like a mime artist, I wiped off all the lint. “This shirt is lint-free,” I declared. Amazingly, she accepted it as wearable. 

Jonathan stepped out of the room as Ruth was getting dressed. He offered to get them coffee from the dining room. 

“Oh, that would be great,” responded Halima eagerly, “with a little milk and sugar.” 

“Ruth,” Jonathan had to repeat the question, “would you like a cup of coffee?” 

“The coffee here is undrinkable,” Ruth said with no awareness that Halima had just placed her order enthusiastically. 

Right before Jonathan returned with the coffee, Halima raised her voice, “Maggie, I know you! I figured it out.” She was smiling as though she had come upon an unexpected treasure. “You and I met at church. Remember? In Queens … at Ebenezer Baptist. I swear it was you, right?” 

“I don’t think that was me, Halima. I’ve never been to church in Queens.” I had a feeling that this was not the time to add that I never go to church anywhere. “So it must’ve been someone who looked like me.” 

Jonathan came in and handed Halima a Styrofoam cup of coffee. “Here you go, with milk and sugar.” 

Halima put the cup on her nightstand and did not say thank you; in fact, she did not even look at Jonathan. It was as though an ominous weather system had suddenly replaced a cloudless, sunny sky. 

“Oh, I get it now. I get it.” Halima said as she took her purse from under the covers and embraced it more tightly than usual. She got louder. “I know it was you — I saw you, too.” She pointed to Jonathan. “You can’t fool me. I saw you both in the balcony. You sat with the other white folks. I saw you with my own two eyes.” 

“It must have been a couple who looks like us, Halima. We’ve never been to church in Queens. In fact, Zucker Hillside is the first place in Queens, other than the airport, that I’ve spent any time in.” 

I watched Halima’s face. She looked both frightened and frightening at the same time. “Oh no you don’t. You don’t pull that crap with me.” Her voice was getting louder. She moved her body so that she was sitting in bed on her haunches. “You can’t fool me. I know who sent you. Deacon Pruitt! You work for him — I know it. I saw you talking to him that Sunday. Get out of here! Right now.” 

“Halima, I’m Ruth’s daughter. Jonathan and I live in Colorado. We’ve never spent time in Queens. I think you’re making a mistake,” I said softly, realizing that facts were not of much interest to Halima at this point. 

“Get out of this room right this minute — or I’ll call Pastor Morrison. You’ll go to hell, you know. And you will NOT be taking me with you. I pity your children.” 

All of this brought Ruth out of her obsession with lint for the time being. “Halima, you cannot talk to my children like this.” 

“Oh, today you’re protecting them, eh, Ruth? Yesterday you smacked Maggie — in front of the doctor.” 

“I certainly did not smack her,” protested Ruth. 

I could not tell if Ruth was objecting to Halima’s word choice or if she was denying that she hit me. I felt as though I were suddenly in some updated version of The Snake Pit. 

“What happened yesterday is in the past,” I said trying to avoid corroborating Halima’s accusation. “Let’s all just take a break.” I glanced at Jonathan. “Let’s take Ruth for a little walk down the hall.” 

While Jonathan and Ruth were looking out a window facing the parking lot, I went to the nurses’ station. “I just wanted to alert you that my mother’s roommate is acting very strangely and she’s demanding that my husband and I not be in their room.” 

“And what exactly do you want me to do about this?” The nurse must have been in her 60s and appeared permanently bored and fed up. 

“Well, I’m not sure. I just thought you might need to know. She was very sweet for the last two days, but today she’s like a different person.” 

“It’s called mental illness, sweetie. You’re in a psychiatric hospital. Did you get disoriented for a moment? Were you expecting that Miss Manners teaches classes here?” 

I turned away thinking that these people working at Zucker were as messed up as the patients. Before joining Jonathan and Ruth, I stood in the hall looking at the wooden sign. Someone had changed the day to Saturday. Saturday, the day I get to leave. I just have to get through a couple more hours and I’ll be free. 

Halima’s rants continued until we said goodbye. Jonathan and I found her to be exhausting, but interestingly, the more escalated she got, the calmer Ruth was. In fact, when Halima yelled, “Maggie, you’re nothing but a ho!” Ruth interjected dryly, “That’s whore, Halima. Not ho.” 

******************************** 

On the plane going back to Denver, the flight attendant smiled and asked us if we wanted another ginger ale. Then she asked kindly if there was anything else we needed. I flashed to Halima. Helpful, sweet, solicitous Halima. I turned to Jonathan, “What do you think made her crack?” 

“Who — Halima? God, who knows? What makes your mother see imaginary lint?” 

“Maybe it’s all a brain thing.” I paused. “Or maybe there really was lint and dirt on her clothes and we just couldn’t see it. Maybe Ruth was right.” 

“Well … then logically we’d have to say Halima did see you at Ebenezer Baptist.” 

I rolled my eyes and shrugged at the same time. 

“Maggie?” Is there something you haven’t told me?” Jonathan’s voice was low and almost flirtatious. “Are you having an affair with Deacon Pruitt? 

“Jonathan …” 

“Or maybe Pastor Morrison?” 

“Jonathan, I’m serious. How does anyone know who’s healthy and who’s off their rocker. As much as I feel sorry for my mother, I’d also like to strangle her. And then there’s Dr. Kronick. He’s not what I’d call the picture of mental health — he has absolutely no empathy. The woman screaming all day about how the stock market is about to crash might be right. And Ruth! Is she the person who points out lint or the one who points out grammatical mistakes?” 

“You’re thinking too much, honey. Close your eyes and try to rest that brain of yours,” Jonathan suggested softly. 

“That’s a good idea — I’m way beyond exhausted.” I leaned my head on Jonathan’s shoulder. 

Falling asleep, I heard him whisper to me, like a lullaby: “All we know for sure is that today is Saturday, it’s 2008, Barack Obama is the president, and the next holiday is Christmas.”