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wrong.
    The doctor wasn’t even looking at me when he said it; he was writing something down for a nurse. It was so casual that he didn’t seem to think that he was really dropping some bomb on my skull. He acted more as if he were reminding me of something I had always known, like my middle name or where my grandparents lived.
    This happened during a bad visit. Generally speaking, a bad visit was anything from being turned away because Mom was too fucked up to see anyone or the hospital staff would let us up to see her, only to find out when we got there that she was too fucked up to see anyone, and then we’d have to leave.
    On this day, it was the latter.
    Mom was wasted and had thrown herself on the floor in front of us in the hallway begging for forgiveness, “Please don’t hate me!” She cried and keened, her breath so pitifully short that she could barely talk. She collapsed on the floor in a dead heap, but was so tiny that my father and a nurse could scoop her up like a wet hand towel to help her walk down the hall back to her room. She was never really loud or scary, no wailing or screaming. She would bend under some inescapable sad weight, and slowly break in front of us.
    As she slumped against them padding limply back down the hall, she begged my dad to forgive her and “Please don’t stop loving me Henny, please . . .” She wept helplessly.
    My brothers and I knew to stay put. John and Henry went around the corner to the common room. I hung back with Dr. Lovey.
    Mom called everyone Lovey. If she knew you for five minutes, you were Lovey.
    Her psychiatrists were no exception. They were all familiar characters as Mom got locked up more and more frequently, and I was used to being around them. It was nothing for me to chat with Dr. Lovey and practice being the tough little girl who was totally unfazed by the madness or sadness she’d just seen.
    â€œOh, well,” I shrugged, my sneakered heel bouncing on the floor.
    â€œYour mom’s been having a hard week, but she’ll be okay, Stormy,” he said.
    â€œYeah, I know; it’s no big deal.”
    He was still writing with his head down. I hated the quiet.
    â€œAt least I’m not gonna be crazy like her. Right?”
    You know when you ask a question you already know the answer to, and you’re just trying to make conversation? You’re being friendly, engaging, filling up any uncomfortable, quiet gaps? Like, “Dontcha just love chocolate?” or “What the heck is the deal about cats and Christmas tinsel anyway? You know it ends up in their poop, right? Stupid cats.”
    I expected that he would guffaw and say, “Oh, silly girl, of course not!” Then he would ruffle the hair on my silly head as he passed by me on his way to do some doctoring elsewhere.
    But, barely giving me a glance, Dr. Lovey nodded and said, “Oh. Well, yes. It’s hereditary. You will absolutely end up like your mother.”
    My heel stopped bouncing.
    As he tore off the piece of paper he’d been scribbling on and got up to leave he said, I imagine to comfort me, “Probably not until your twenties, or when you have children, whichever comes first.”
    All I remember after that was getting very hot in my face and standing very still in the doorway. I bit my cheeks, heard the ker-plip-ker-plop of ping-pong around the corner. I wanted to walk away, take back the question, go back in time, ask him about something else, change the subject, or shut up. But, instead, I was frozen. Dr. Lovey, on his way out, said something about how lucky I was that we knew so much about my mother’s illness, now, so that when the time came for me to get treatment, not to worry, we’ll know how to take care of it, then left.
    Just like your mother.
    My dad never mentioned it to me. At some point, I know, my mom and one of her Dr. Loveys had suggested examining us, but my father would have none of it. I