Wicked Forest (7 page)

―Why?‖

"We've got to get them back." he repeated with more insistence. "They will never stop until all the paintings are back."

I could see from the way the veins in his temples bulged and the muscles in his neck strained that he was very disturbed about it. He held on to inc.

"Okay. Linden. Okay. If that's what you want, that's what we will do,"

"Promise," he demanded. "Promise."

"I promise. We'll do it together tomorrow, okay?"

"Yes," he said, relaxing his hold on me and lowering his shoulders, "Yes, tomorrow. We'll do it tomorrow. Tomorrow," he repeated, gazing out the window as though telling that to the spirits he saw.

How bizarre, how twisted and bizarre for him to think he had violated some trust by painting the images of what he envisioned when he was on the beach, Poor Linden. I thought. How would he ever be reimbursed for all that shadowed his eyes and darkened his heart? His injury and the aftermath had left him still falling through one tunnel of nightmares after another.

Maybe by tomorrow he would forget this whole horrible idea. Perhaps after a night's sleep and the start of a new day, it would be gone, whisked away like so many cobwebs. I watched him for a while. He barely blinked, but his lips moved ever so slightly, just like someone listening to voices and repeating what they told him,

"Would you like something to eat or drink, Linden?" I asked. He didn't respond, not even to shake his head.

"If you want anything, please tell me. Come out as soon as you are able and I'll be happy to take a walk with you, if you like, okay?"

There was no visible sign that he heard me anymore.

I rose slowly, put the stool back, and watched him for a moment more before starting toward the door. I paused at the sight of the pictures piled against each other on the floor, all with their backs toward me. Something caught my eye, a seam in the top one.

I looked back at him, and then I knelt and lifted the first picture from the pile.

The sight made me gasp.

It had been slashed in an X. So had the next, and the next, and the next. In fact, they were all slashed!

I stood up quickly and took the sheet off the one on the easel. It had been slashed even more viciously. I knelt and leafed through another pile of pictures stacked against the wall. They were in the same horrible condition.

"Oh. Linden, why? Why did you do this? All your work," I moaned,

He turned and looked at me on my knees, the ruined pictures in my hands.

"Why did you do this, Linden?"

To stop the whispering in here," he said in a tone of voice that as good as called me stupid.

Then he turned back to the window, To stop the whispering," he chanted.

I stood up slowly, weighed down by the sight of the destruction. Then I went out to tell my mother, my own shoulders heavy with the burden of such news, and this, after I had just put some light back into her eyes.

.

She rushed into Linden's studio to see what I had painfully described, then burst into a torrent of tears. Linden looked her way, rose. and shuffled out while I held her.

"Linden," she called after him. He went to his bedroom and closed the door. "What are we going to do?" she wailed. "Thatcher was right. He should be in a clinic. Who knows what he will slash up next?"

"No, no. Thatcher's not right. Mother. I'm here now We'll help him. We don't have to send him away," I insisted.

"But... he might need more than simply tender loving care, Willow. He might need medication and more vigorous therapy." she said.

"Perhaps so," I admitted. but let's give him some more time. Once we're back in the main house and he sees the dramatic changes, he might have a better reaction, don't you think? It could revive him.‖

"I don't know," she said, sniffing back her tears and grinding her eyes dry. "Nothing- seems certain in my world except that when I think things have gotten as bad as they can, they always seem to get worse."

I was about to reassure her when the phone rang. She sucked in her breath and answered it, then called for me. I thought it might be Nit. Bassinger or Mr. Ross, but it was Thatcher.

"How are you doing?" he asked. "Fine."

"I need only hear one word from your mouth to know you're angry," he said. "I'm sorry I didn't acknowledge you earlier today,"

"Uh-huh."

"The. woman I was with is a client. She's starting a very nasty divorce. I was in the midst of calming her down when you suddenly appeared in the window. It was such a surprise that for a moment. I actually thought you were a vision, some working of my imagination. In the middle of such domestic misery, you looked angelic to me."

You could have at least nodded," I said.

"Get this straight. Willow. I can't just nod at you and then turn away as if you were just another person, another face, another name in my life. I'd rather not see you at all than suffer like that."

"Thatcher Eaton, you should be writing for
Hearts Entwined
or some other soap opera rather than writing those boring legal briefs," I quipped, which brought a laugh.

"You're right. You bring out the romantic in me. What can I say? It takes a good woman to make a man good."

"I'll remind you of that."

"Forever, I hope. Can I see you tonight?'" "I don't know. Can you?"

"You know what I mean. Willow. Will you meet me someplace, say about seven? I know where we can have an intimate dinner, and then later..."

"Yes, later?'

"I have the keys to a friend's beach house. He's in Europe at the moment. Actually, for a whole month or so. It can be our secret rendezvous. I'll have a key made for you. We'll set up our private world there and it will be like we've stepped out of this insanity, stepped onto a cloud or something," he confirmed, weaving the dream with the thread of his golden words,

"Sounds like we're a pair of spies or fugitives."

"Just a pair of lovers," he replied. "Well?"

"All right. A part of me says no, but..." "Your heart says yes?"

"No, it says maybe," I said, refusing to be a complete prisoner of the dream.

He laughed.

"I'll fix that with candlelight, music, your favorite pasta, and wine. The restaurant is called Diana's. It's a very inconspicuous, unpretentious little family restaurant just north of Palm Beach Gardens.

You can't miss it. It will be on your right with a simple neon sign above the door. The beach house is only fifteen minutes away. I'll meet you at seven."

"Okay," I said, unable to put up the slightest resistance now, "How are things there?"

"Not good, Thatcher. Linden is not well at all.

I'm worried for him and for my mother."

"He belongs under a doctor's care, Willow.

Waiting is merely postponing the inevitable."

"That's something we all do," I muttered.

"Yes, perhaps, but it's far more costly and even dangerous for someone like Linden. I can help, if you want."

"We'll see," I said I was still under the illusion of being able to change things dramatically myself.

"Let's not think about any of that tonight," he urged. "We've got some catching up to do. right?

Right?"

"Right," I forced myself to say. "Until then." he said, and hung up.

I found my mother on the loggia, sitting in her chair and staring at the sea. I sat beside her, both of us quiet.

You and Thatcher," she began after another long moment of silence. "will see each other?"

"Sort of." I said. She turned, confused.

"Inconspicuously, for a while. There are some new complications. His parents, of course. He wants us to be low-key for a while. Secret rendezvous, that sort of thing."

"Oh?"

It might just be nothing," I said, already regretting saving as much as I had. Putting any more weight on her shoulders now would be disastrous. I thought, "I'll give it a little time and see."

"I hope it does work out for you, Willow. I hope your coming here wasn't a monumental mistake in your life, that my bad luck, my dark destiny doesn't infect you like some flu or bad disease."

"Oh, Mother. no. Don't talk that way."

"My mother. Grandmother Jackie Lee Houston, used to tell me everything is part of some grand plan, everything is meant to be, and in the end we can do little to change it. I guess it was her way of accepting some of the harder and sadder events in her life, and I guess she anticipated I would experience similar things and need the same philosophy to get through.

But why. I wonder from time to time, do we bother to get through? Through to where. to what?"

"To something better," I declared,

"Yes. To something better. A sailor's dream,"

she said, looking out at the horizon. "He would have come one day, you know. He would have come to fetch me and take me away from all this, your father.'

"Yes. I believe it. too. Mother." She smiled.

"At least, in his way he did come. He sent you.-

"Exactly," I said, grateful for a little light in her eyes, a little warmth in her smile.

For some of us, it's almost sinful to hope,- she said. I took her hand quickly.

"Then let's go to hell together. Mother," I countered. Her smile widened into a thin laugh.

"Come on," I said, tuning on her to rise. "Let's look at some magazines and think about a new hairstyle for you. We'll make appointments tomorrow."

"That soon?"

"Why wait any longer to start again?" I asked.

"Hesitation just makes it all seem so serious."

"It is serious. For me," she whispered.

As if she were made of air, she rose at the end of my hand and let me lead her along like a balloon on a string, just as light, but just as fragile and just as vulnerable to a strong, stormy wind.

3

New Beginnings

.

Thatcher couldn't have chosen a mare

inconspicuous restaurant. I passed it twice, turned around, and practically crawled along the highway until I spotted it. The neon sign he'd described was so small, you really had to start down the driveway of the restaurant before fully seeing it, and the restaurant itself looked like someone's home, with a short walkway and steps leading to a small entry porch. The wooden cladding, stained by years of sea air, was a marine gray, reminiscent of a ship's hull. I recognized Thatcher's Rolls-Royce parked off to the right, sufficiently in the dark to go unnoticed by disinterested eyes.

I parked in a lot that contained a half dozen other vehicles and walked to the entrance. There was a short foyer with a dark oak desk on my right. The lighting was subdued, only a small lamp on the desk and a dull fixture above dripping just enough pale yellow glow to reveal a coat rack and a poster-sized map of Italy. I could hear some chatter coming from the room off to my left, but before I took another step, a short gray-haired lady in a black dress with a cameo on her bodice stepped in from the room on the right and went around the desk. She had a round face with Santa Claus–red cheeks and eyes the color of black pearls.

"
Buono sera
," she said. "and welcome to Diana's. Did you have a reservation?"

"I'm meeting someone who might have made a reservation," I said. "Mr. Eaton?"

"Oh, yes, of course. He's already here. Please,"

she said, indicating I should follow her.

We went to the right, but I glanced into the room on my left and saw a half dozen tables, all occupied. The recognizable voices of the famous three tenors— Carreras, Domingo. and Pavarotti— came over the sound system, but the volume was kept just low enough to serve as background and not overpower the conversations.

The room to the right was smaller, with only three tables. The one at which Thatcher waited was off to the left in the corner, screened by privacy walls on both open sides. He stood up quickly. A bottle of chilled champagne was beside the table and a bottle of red wine at the center, next to a basket of small rolls.

"Thank you. Mamma Diana," Thatcher said, and extended his hand to me. "Willow," he mouthed, kissed me quickly, and pulled out my chair.

"
Bon appetito
," Mamma Diana wished us.

"Grazie, ma con il sou cibo, non c'è problema
con l'appetito,"

Thatcher said, and she laughed as she moved away.

"What did you say?"

"I thanked her and told her that with her food, there is no problem with appetite."

"I didn't know you could speak fluent Italian."

"
Cosi, cosi, abbastanza d'arrangiarmi
. So-so, enough to get by." he replied, and sat.

"You can get by quite a bit with that," I quipped, and he laughed.

Then he reached across the table to hold my hand.

"I missed you so much. Willow. Those days we had, the picnic on the boat, those nights, were so special, the memory of them was enough to sustain me until you returned. I thought we'd have a champagne toast to celebrate your coming back, back to me."

I tilted my head.

"Maybe you really are Kirby Scott's son.

Thatcher,"

His smile wilted.

"I mean what I say. Willow. Kirby Scott came here and used words like a magician uses the turns of his hand to distract and confuse and betray," he said sternly. "That's not my intent or purpose."

He looked indignant, hurt, and insulted, Maybe I was being too harsh, I thought.

"In a strangely ironic twist of fate, if what you have been told is true, you and Linden could very well share a similar anger at the world and fate," I suggested,

He considered the idea for a moment and

calmed,

"Yes, perhaps so. I never think of things from his point of view exactly. I guess I should.'

I quickly told him about my conversation with Leo Ross and his references to Kirby Scott, especially his belief that Kirby had introduced Thatcher's parents to the idea of renting my mother's property.

"I don't know. I can't recall any mention of him in that regard, but it might be true. I'll have to ask my father and mother. However. I think I would agree with you that if it is true, he had other than altruistic motives. What a piece of work he was."