Wicked Forest (3 page)

My eyes were glassy with tears, of course, but most of the time I didn't permit a single one to escape. It was almost as if I instinctively knew as an infant that weeping in front of my adoptive mother was some sort of acceptance of how she characterized me. the child of a mentally ill woman, a bundle of promising new problems just waiting to give themselves expression.

Afterward. I sometimes caught the look of sadness and disgust on Daddy's face, but it was there for only an instant or so. He had to maintain his self-control. He had to treat me like the child of a stranger.

the charity case my adoptive mother believed I was, I could only imagine what havoc she would have wreaked upon Daddy if she had known the truth. Not only would she have put him through a nasty divorce, but she would have driven him out of his profession and, therefore, out of his reason to be. Keeping their love affair buried in their hearts was a price and a sacrifice both my father and my real mother knew they had to pay in order for me to exist at all.

I feel certain now that Daddy would have told me all of the truth in a face-to-face meeting eventually and not left it for me to read as part of some postmortem. He was just waiting to be sure I could handle it and not be harmed or horrified by it. In a real sense, he had to reinvent himself for me first, change from one sort of man to another, from a guardian to a father, from someone merely full of concern and responsibility to someone full of love. He was in the process of doing just that before he died. Perhaps he waited too long, but none of us ever really believes in the end of ourselves. We always feel there will be one more tarn to make, one more mile to go, one more minute to enjoy, and the opportunity to do what must be done will not be lost.

Fortunately, after his death. Daddy had left me his diary, his insurance policy for the truth, and after reading it, I knew more about who I really was and what I had to do. My closest relative. Aunt Agnes Delray, my father's widowed sister, tried to stop me.

Like everyone around me, she wanted to deny reality and truth.

"I'm so glad you're enjoying college, Willow,"

Daddy began that warm spring evening that now came up vividly out of my pool of memories. I recalled how the stars had burned like the tips of candle flames growing stronger with every passing minute.

"I am. Daddy. I love all my classes and enjoy my teachers. In fact, some of my new friends think I'm too serious about my work."

He laughed.

"I remember that I had to work so hard to enable myself to attend the university that I would feel some sort of ridiculous guilt if I relished my studies and wallowed with pleasure in my assignments and challenges."

"That's how I feel.'

It wasn't supposed to be fun." he continued, gazing out at the fields and the lake and forest beyond as if he could look past the present, back in time to happier days. His smile said all that. "It was supposed to be hard work. What an incredibly unexpected reaction to it all. Like your new friends, some of my closer friends thought I was bizarre. 'Psychiatry is a good place for you, Claude.' they would say.

'Eventually, you can treat yourself and send yourself the bill.' "

We both laughed at the idea, and then he turned to me, his face as serious as it had ever been,

"If we don't love what we do," he told me.

"then we don't love who we are and the worst fate of all is not liking yourself. Willow, being trapped in a body and behind a face you despise. You hate the sound of your own voice. You even come to hate your own shadow. How can you ever hope to make anyone else happy, wife, children. friends, if you can't make yourself happy?

It seems like such a simple truth, but it remains buried beneath so many lies and delusions for most people. I know now that won't happen to you," he said assuredly.

As I walked on the beach after breakfast this morning, that conversation and those words of Daddy's helped me to understand Linden. He was out there, wandering, trying to find a way to escape from himself. from what he now perceived to be who and what he was. Suicide was of course, one avenue to take, and he had evidently tried that, but there had to be something better. I was determined to help him find it.

Perhaps it was truly arrogant of me even to think I could be of such assistance to him. I was still quite a young woman, tentative and unsure of myself, of my own emotions, still haunted by my own childhood fears. For me, the daughter of a world-renowned psychiatrist, and someone who wanted to follow in his footsteps, it seemed like a natural thing to do. But would it be like the blind leading the blind?

Would I cause him even more harm, drive him even deeper into that darkness in which he now spent so much of his time? How I envied my father for the confidence he had behind all his decisions. Most of those decisions could have a significant effect on other people's Eyes. How could you know that and still speak with such authority, such self-assurance? I wondered. When would it be like that for me? Would it ever be?

Laughter coming from the rear loggia of the main house pulled my attention from the ocean and my own heavy thoughts. I had just come up the small rise in the beach and I was nearly directly behind the loggia. To my surprise. Bunny and Asher Eaton, who usually partied late into the evening almost every night during the so-called Palm Beach Season, sometimes even into the next morning, were up and dressed in their pink and white, blue and white tennis outfits and having breakfast with Thelma and Brenda Carriage, two friends of Bunny Eaton's I had previously met. She herself described them as great gossips who knew where to look to find everyone's dirty laundry. She called them "core Palm Beach" and had told me their husbands were big Palm Beach developers, two brothers who had married two sisters, now both widows.

I knew they couldn't help but notice me. They were all facing in my direction. However, neither Bunny nor Asher said a word.

Even from this distance. I could see the

displeasure in Bunny's face at the sight of me: she was probably. like me. recalling our nasty confrontation just before I left for South Carolina, She turned back to her guests quickly and, a moment later, released another peal of exaggerated laughter as if I were some sort of clown who had wandered too far from the circus. She mumbled something else and then they all laughed,

I was about to ignore them when Thatcher

suddenly appeared, obviously dressed for work. He had his back to me so he couldn't have known I was here on the beach, Neither Bunny nor Asher was about to tell him. I thought, but one of the Carriage sisters must have asked about me because he quickly turned to look in my direction. For a moment we gazed at each other. My heart began to pound so hard and fast. I had to take a deep breath. He didn't call out and he didn't set out to greet me. As if it had a mind of its own, my hand wanted to lift and wave, but I kept it down and chastised my heart for its weakness, threatening my pride.

Thatcher said something to the group and then went into the house. As if to gloat, Bunny Eaton turned my way quickly and laughed again.

I lowered my head and continued to walk the beach, searching for Linden. I soon suspected he had gone in the opposite direction because I saw no sign of him ahead, even as far as the adjoining property.

Suddenly. I felt terribly alone and again experienced those pangs of doubt that tormented every decision I was making.

I paused and looked out at the sailboats in the distance. The warm but strong easterly breeze paraded a line of puffy, milk-white clouds toward the horizon and a passenger jet lifted off the runway at the West Palm Beach airport. I watched it climb, turning toward the clouds.

"You look like you wish you were on that," I heard, and spun around to see Thatcher coming down a pathway between a row of bushes.

He had obviously gone out of the main house and then to the left to follow an approach to the beach.

I glanced back in the direction of the house. I quickly realized that what he was doing was sneaking around to meet me. The heat of indignation built so quickly in my face, I felt as if someone had put a lit match close to my cheek,

"What is it. Thatcher?" I asked, folding my arms under my breasts and pulling up my shoulders.

Are you afraid you'll get a spanking or something if you're caught speaking to me now? The Carriage sisters will put it on the news wires?"

He had been heading toward me quickly to

embrace and kiss me, but stopped and forced a smile and a laugh,

"I should know that there isn't any way to deceive the daughter of a famous psychiatrist," he said. He took the next few steps toward me cautiously.

I looked down at his polished new shoes

picking up some wet sand. The breeze lifted his hair.

There was no doubt Thatcher Eaton was a handsome man. He had just enough tan to highlight the blue in his eyes and the whiteness of his teeth. Not quite six feet tall, he was broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted enough to give the impression he was taller, bigger than he really was, and his air of confidence, bordering on arrogance at times, made him appear stronger yet.

It would be easy to fall in love with such a man, to surrender to his charm and cast myself with abandon into his waiting arms. But I didn't laugh at his silly quip. I was sure that the expression on my face told him I wouldn't tolerate any featherbrained excuses or half-truths and fabrications to justify his failure to call me after I had left Joya del Mar to tend to sad business back in South Carolina. I certainly wasn't going to support the way he was behaving now and feel sorry for him having to soothe and protect his spoiled mother.

The smile left his face, quickly replaced by that look of seriousness and assuredness that he habitually wore to face the public

"I'm here to apologize for not calling you when I said I would. and I'm sorry about the things my mother told you the day you left. She recited the exchange to me word for word. although I'm sure she embellished your statements to make you appear harder and nastier," he said. smirking.

"No, I imagine she didn't exaggerate anything.

Whatever she told you I said. I'm sure I did say. I wasn't going to permit her to make me feel like I was beneath the Eatons because of what my mother has been through," I assured him.

"No," he said, his expression softening into a smile. "I bet you weren't."

His eyes grew dark and serious again as he stepped closer to me.

"Look, Willow, there is no question about the right and the wrong here. Of course my parents are snobs. I never pretended they weren't, did I?"

"No, you didn't, but you left out your own snobbery, Thatcher. I was very disappointed in your failure to call me. You knew I wasn't going home for the fun of it, and you knew how terrible things were for my mother. Linden, and me back here. It broke my heart to have to leave her, even for a short while. but I'm beginning to wonder if you are capable of understanding how quickly such love and concern can develop and flourish when they're honest and true."

"Listen, listen." he said. pleading, "I really was getting ready to contact you. In the meantime. I was working behind the scenes to be sure Linden had the best medical attention possible if he needed anything, and to be sure your mother was all right."

"Why behind the scenes?" I fired back. "You're a grown man, a successful attorney. You led me to believe you weren't affected by the glitz and the opulent wealth down here and you had just as little respect as I did for the pompous asses who parade about as if they were some sort of gods and goddesses."

"That's true. It's still true. but..."

"But what?"

"Look," he said, stepping closer. "you have to compromise a little to succeed in this world. Willow.

Those who won't, who insist on standing on high principles and won't compromise, are just as snobby."

"What?" I smiled incredulously. "Highly principled people are snobby?'"

"That's right, There's another sort of arrogance, an arrogance of being right, of being perfect, of intolerance. Rich people can be pitied. too. For their failings, their insecurities, their imperfections," he added quickly before I could laugh or even widen my smile of incredulity at such a thought.

I wasn't going to. The truth was. I did pity people like his parents far more than I hated them or, of course, envied them.

"The successful person in this world is the one who knows how to compromise in such a way that he or she holds onto enough self-respect to enjoy the success. It's a matter of proportion, diplomacy, negotiations." he lectured.

"How does any of that justify your sneaking about your own property even to speak to me?" I threw back at him.

He sighed and shook his head.

"Look. it might not be obvious to you, but I do have a rather fragile family, especially when you consider my sister and her situation. My parents put up a good facade, but my father especially is carrying a great burden on his shoulders.'

"What burden, the supply of champagne?"

"Ridicule if you want, but you're not the only one with a troubled past and present. My sister's marriage has been on the rocks for years. Her husband isn't as successful as he makes out to be. There's a lot you don't know, Willow. I saw no reason to add my dark shadows to your own house of dreads," he said, softening his lips. I had told him of Amou's sayings and ways. His using the expression did quell the flames of fury in my chest, if not put them out altogether.

"And then, all of this, these revelations about you and Grace. and Linden's actions... all of it coming at us so fast and so furiously... it takes time to adjust, to accept, to understand." he continued in a voice of pleading. "Despite how it looks, there is a very orderly, disciplined life here, at least for me."

I stared at him. How reasonable he sounded, how perfectly, damnably reasonable.

"I keep forgetting what a good trial attorney you are. Thatcher Steven Eaton, even though it's usually a trial over bad kitty litter or something similar," I said, and he laughed.

"Hey, don't knock it. It pays the bills and then some."