When people say they hate snakes, or spiders, or elevators, what they really mean is they're afraid. Me? I hate the red light at the corner of South and Main.

I pull up and flip on my right-turn signal. The roof of my car is sagging down a bit at the back, so I can't see the driver behind me very well, but I'm sure I already know what he's thinking.

There's only one road to the right of this intersection, and only one place it leads: Driftwood.

___

In the front passenger seat I have Snickers bars and some caffeine-free soda. I used to bring cake, but by the time it got to Mom all the middle had been disemboweled. I don't know what they were looking for: knives? They have knives in the cafeteria; plastic ones, but still. Money? She has nothing to spend it on. Notes, maybe? But what would I say?

I am signed in at the desk and given a name tag that says "Oak". They renamed Mom's section last winter. It sounds homier than Ward C, I suppose. But I kind of miss the familiar old signs.

___

Driftwood is where I learned to smoke. One of the ward patients, thinking I was older than I was or maybe just thinking I needed a good diversion, handed me a cigarette and asked me if I'd ever had one.

"Yes," I lied.

She handed me a Bic. A little scared of the power these tiny things held, I held both lighter and cigarette at arm's length and tried to look like I knew what I was doing. After a few attempts I got a flame, and looked up at her, hoping for some kind of clue as to what to do next. She laughed, and put the cigarette in her own mouth.

Giving the lighter an expert *flick!*, she sucked in noisily, and handed the cigarette back to me. I looked dubiously at the greasy purplish marks her lipstick had made.

"Go ahead. It won't bite ya."

I carefully placed the cigarette between two fingers, like she had done, and quickly puffed out smoke.

"I'm Sheila," she said.

Sheila had been "in" for five weeks after attempting suicide with a coat hanger. She showed me the scratches on her arms -- long, thin ones, and short, deep ones. "I didn't really wanna off myself," she said. "I just wanted everything else to stop, ya know?"

I knew.

____

I've been told time and time again not to correct her when she says something untrue, but I can never remember.

"I want you to know that I forgive you. I went to chapel today and I told God I forgive you for putting me in here," she says.

"Mom, I didn't put you in here. The police did."

She frowns. "You just hate me, that's all. You want my things."

I roll my neck, iron out the kinks. Her "things" are a ten-year-old Chevy, a few clothes, and a house with an $800 mortgage payment that I'm trying like hell to make this month on top of my own rent.

"Mom, the police signed the papers this time. Don't you remember the post office?"

My brother, David, hasn't visited home in some fifteen years, yet every birthday Mom sends him a card, and a letter, and a bag of hard candy that won't melt on the long journey.

I'm guessing the clerk on duty told her she needed more stamps to mail the candy. Or maybe he gave her a funny look, or wasn't as nice to her as usual. Whatever it was that set her off, her mind told her that the young man was a danger. So she protected herself.

She went home and found the camera that Aunt Becky had given her last Christmas. Then she drove back to the post office and snapped pictures of everything she felt might be evidence if something happened to her: the front door, the customers waiting in line, the floor, the service desk. Even the clerk himself. I think that's what did it. He called 911.

Emergency services have it on record, after years of similar incidents, that if Mom's name or description is entered into their computer, I am to be called to the scene. I have my cellphone for that very purpose.

"Ma'am, it's protocol. You just can't take pictures inside a government building."

Twenty-two years old, and I still get "ma'am" over "miss" every time. "She didn't hurt anybody. Look, you can have the film. You can even have the camera. But please, please don't arrest her. Can't you take her to a hospital?"

He took off his hat, scratched his head. "If she gets in the squad car, she goes to the station." He turned the camera over in his hands. "Tell you what. You can both leave, right now, if you take her to the hospital. I'll follow you out and meet you there."

____

Visiting hours are over. I walk outside, collapse into my Buick.

I remember to peel the name tag off my shirt.

The canvas roof has sagged down to the bottom of the rear window, and I can't see behind me at all.

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