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That summer before college, at the Leonards' house, the heat was blistering. Nearly six years had passed since the last of the Leonards' other foster children had come and gone. Their own three kids had long ago moved out. Only the Leonards and I remained.On the morning of August 11, a Monday, when Mrs. Leonard awoke before seven and saw that I was still in my room -- if it was a sunny day, she insisted I spend it out of doors -- she snapped, "What are you still doing in the house? It's a beautiful day. Why do you think we paid for that bike?"
I spent hours bicycling around the valley, returning to the Leonards' porch in the afternoon. I warned myself, You've come back too soon. She'll be angry. When I walked through the front door, my T-shirt was soaked with sweat. I tiptoed to the kitchen for some water. Then I saw it.
Dangling from the refrigerator by a magnet, the note from Mrs. Leonard was brief: "Your mother called."
After years apart, something -- if just a whisper -- must have told my mother that her boy needed her, that he was about to leave the one place she knew to find him. Courting danger, I tried prying some information out of Mrs. Leonard. She told me that my mother had called from the Norwalk mental hospital.
"Did she say what she wanted?" I asked.
"How would anyone ever know what Hope wanted?"
I sat at my bedroom desk and pored over a map, figuring out a route to the Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk. Round-trip, the distance was about 90 miles. Two days after my mother called, I left the house early, before anyone else awoke, and walked to the bus stop. After several transfers, I arrived at the edge of the San Fernando Valley. By midmorning I had only begun the long journey through Los Angeles County's immense inner core.
Finally I arrived at the facility, a fenced and walled fortress. I told the woman in the reception area, "I'm here to see Hope Bridge. I'm her son."
Her fingers began leafing through the pages. "Are you sure she's here? I don't see the name."
Desperate, anxious, I thought maybe I'd already missed her. I reached back in memory for my mother's maiden name. "Could you look for Priscilla, please? Priscilla Reese?" I said.
The woman found it. I signed in and was taken to an empty room, where I was told to have a seat, that Priscilla would be brought out. I fidgeted. The sharp clack from the door's lock startled me. I turned my head. An attendant appeared and smiled. Then, suddenly, she was there.
Boxed in the door frame, the woman who had clung to me on a Los Angeles street long ago, the woman who had loved me unconditionally, no matter what her situation, stared at me.
Her hair was still dark but cut randomly. The bright flowered muumuu that she wore was really more of a bag than a dress. Her once slender form had swollen. My mother moved toward me. A smile of faint recognition crossed her face as she lifted her arms to hug me.
In her still familiar voice, she whispered, "Andy."
I stepped forward and gripped her. My mother, I learned, had arrived here only recently, after authorities took her off the streets, as they did from time to time. We strolled together to a grassy area bordered by patches of orange marigolds. I told her that I would be going away to college soon, that I would be leaving the Leonards'. The college was in the East.
She lifted her hand to my face, brushed it against my hair. "It's still blond," she observed with a faint smile.
"And yours is still black," I answered.
She looked to the side, then muttered to the emptiness, as much as to me, "You know, I tried. I tried."
I tried to concentrate on the space over her shoulder and the closed door that waited beyond.
"I know you did," I answered, feeling the burn of a first tear as it escaped and ran down my face."I know," I repeated."I know." And we held each other for a long, long time.
Andrew Bridge graduated from Wesleyan University in 1985 and Harvard Law School in 1989. He lives and works in New York City, where he advocates for foster children's access to legal and medical services and educational opportunities. His mother, Hope, remains in a mental health facility; Andrew visits her as often as he can.
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