ere is where they bring you when you are sadder than sad, I think to myself as we pull up and try to find parking. My mom has been driving erratically the entire way, which is saying a lot because my mom can’t drive even on a good day. My brother and I brace ourselves in the backseat as she goes through two red lights. When we tell her about them later, when things feel slightly calmer, she looks genuinely confused. “Really?” She says, with a sort of exhausted laugh. The whole drive up she’s not making much sense. She keeps talking about soul mates; how my brother and I have found ours, but her soul mate slips further and further from grasp with each hospitalization. I have never in my life heard my mom use a word like soul mate. She’s not exactly a sentimental woman in that way so, for a minute, that unsettles me more than our destination. As we pull up, my mom makes sure to get one of the best parking spots, close to the entrance. Even in times of crisis, she’s competitive about parking. “This is a very, very good spot,” she tells us several times as we make our way to the hospital elevators. Before getting in, she notices a painting up for auction. “This is a very nice piece of Indigenous art and we could get it for a good price.” It’s an eerie painting at first glance—lots of blood reds and dark figures ghosting around the canvas as though they’re dripping off the page. I see her quickly scribble down $300 on the next open line. Who the hell wants a memento from today, I think to myself, but never mind. We get in the elevator and click number seven for the psychiatric ward.
Once we get upstairs, we find my dad in his room. Sometimes his illness brings him to such anxiety-filled places that he cannot move or speak. On this particular day, he can’t do either. He looks like a little kid in these moments; sitting in his pajamas, hands balled up on his lap, wholly helpless from himself. We sit there in silence for a long time together as tears stream down his face, his body completely still.
The next day, when we come back, I notice the other patients in the ward. Many of them seem to be somewhere else when you look into their eyes, like the body they’re inhabiting is just a decoy and they have left long ago for somewhere else. Some look like psychiatric patients cast for the movies, while others walk the halls as if they are in a supermarket and nothing out of the ordinary is going on.  
When we get to my dad’s room, he is more verbal and mobile. He’s still in his pajamas, his hands folded on his lap. One thing you need to understand about my dad’s hands is that they are incredibly soft. They are very gentle and smooth—just like my grandmother’s were. They also look like they’ve never seen a day of hard labour. This is sort of true—my dad’s work is stationary and he’s never exactly been a handyman. As a kid, I always thought about how my dad’s hands encompassed the gentleness of his spirit. It is not surprising then, that one of the first things I notice when I arrive that day, are the silver and gold sparkles crusted under his fingernails. He catches me looking at them, and I see the hint of a smile flash across his face. He then produces a page of a colouring book where a turtle with big eyes looks helplessly at the viewer. He’s coloured it in with various greens and browns, and even finessed certain spots with splotches of gold and silver sparkly paint.  “I think mine was one of the best,” he says.
With that, his new roommate enters. He’s immediately apologetic, but we tell him to not be silly and to come in. This man is a spitting image of Owen Wilson—he’s got sandy blonde hair and the same California surfer way of speaking. He confirms he and my dad had, by far, the best two drawings at art class that morning. They share a laugh that is ripe with so many underlying feelings I don’t know how to access it. Owen Wilson lives up north by himself and describes his admissions as “tune-ups” every so often to get back on track. We learn he’s from a very wealthy Toronto family, but has distanced himself from them. He has no visitors during his stay, so I assume his family doesn’t know he is here. He and my dad share a self-deprecating humour about their situation that seems to make them feel human again. I feel eternally grateful that this is who chance has bunked him with, and I can see their friendship slowly giving my dad life. My dad asks Owen if, once they are out, he’d like to come to a performance of a play he has written. Owen doesn’t end up coming to the performance that takes place a few weeks later, but I like the idea of these two men meeting again on the other side. The other side, this time, being a 50-plus community theatre production.  
Months later, I am at my parents’ house for dinner. I’m in the living room and notice a newly hung painting that looks instantly familiar. It’s the painting from the auction. I’m acquainted again with the red and black figures that haunt the space between the frame. When I get close enough, I can see the piece is titled, “The Two-Headed Monster.” Just like the duality of my father’s bipolar illness and its looming presence over him, as though his illness is the ghostly figures in the painting. I think about the helpless bystanders it has made each of us. 
“We won,” my mom says as she sees me looking at the painting. She boasts about the price she got it for, and how she really does have a good eye for art. I tell her, in this light, it is more beautiful than I remember it being and, for a moment, this feels true.

Gabrielle P. Leith is the co-producer of the podcast Soft Chew and the creator of a Toronto film series called Supper Club Cinema. She is currently the manager of the film office at the Toronto International Film Festival.
softchew.podbean.com