Free Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital by Eric Manheimer Page B

fallen ill shortly after her passing and been diagnosed with lung cancer. Within ninety days of Lola’s death—his other half of forty-plus years—he was dead himself. Their nine children were busy taking care of their own children, trying to make a living scratching something from the hardscrabble Brooklyn tarmac and concrete. One was a cop, another an electrician; a daughter owned a beauty parlor; and on and on.
Abuela
Lola’s eldest daughter, Lila—as Ingrid and Ana remembered—was the anchor of the entire group, in many ways the key. She had been sent by her mother to nursing school in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, and then to New York City for a U.S. degree. With the earnings from her work at Maimonides hospital, she had brought every sibling to the city, and then her parents. The siblings all recognized her as the direct descendant of Lola, the matriarch,
la mera mera
. She was the chosen one and had earned both their respect and clan leadership.
    “Why don’t we contact Lila. She seems like the real deal. Tani was a part of the family and maybe, just maybe she will be willing. Even better, maybe she will understand that this is Tani’s chance, maybe her only chance to become part of a family.” I was pretty emphatic, and they looked skeptically at me while picking at their scrambled eggs.
    “Eric, you are dreaming. She is not a foster mother, she is not licensed, does not have any legal standing here for one thing. And obviously, why would this woman—three years after the death of her parents, with responsibilities for her children and grandchildren plus her husband, who works like a burro—take on a kid who is ancienthistory?” Ana let me have it. “It is ridiculous, silly, and a waste of time.” I waited until she chilled out. Ana was rational, 99 percent correct in my experience, and utterly dependable. It did leave open the one-in-a-hundred chance that it might work out. I felt those were better odds than we’d find at a state hospital for zombie-eyed Tanisha. She certainly still had the life force. She was creative, was energetic, and had writing and art skills that showed insight and depth.
    The odds were the problem. There would be attempts to violate her again under the right—or really, wrong—circumstances. She would kill someone or go down herself. You certainly did not have to be prescient to appreciate her depth of rage despite her successes on the unit. Her three-hour walk on a freezing winter night to the receiving center of the new ACS building on First Avenue proved her determination. She knew she would be held there safely, fed, and given some warm clothes. She also knew she would probably be sent to Bellevue for evaluation and admission. She had been taking it day by day. But not entirely. She had been counting on us to fight for her. She had done what she could to engage us in her battle. We were the only extended family she knew in the city. We were a safe zone—the most trustworthy thing Tani had going for her. We could not let her down.
    I pulled out my black notebook and opened to a page where I had printed in large box letters “LILA!!!” And then “TANI????”
    I stopped by to see Tani and the 21 West team at least weekly. The irony was that with the state hospital option on the table, the pressure to discharge was gone. There was a long line and fewer beds every year. Between cuts from Albany and a long-overdue move to bring kids in the juvenile justice system closer to their parents, capacity was shrinking. Tanisha might have to wait for a year. I brought her black notebooks with thin black ribbons to mark the page; some had blank pages for her drawings, some graph paper for writing. When a notebook was filled with her small fine handwriting mixed with sketches and full drawings in pencil or black ink, she would give it to me to read and to lock away so they wouldn’t get stolen.
    I would go through them very slowly. It was painful to read