Twisted Roots

  comfortably. She knew nothing of what had happened outside her door. "Is he all right?" she asked.

  "Fine," I said, looking at Uncle Linden, who had his head back on the big easy chair and his eyes closed,

  "I'll see to dinner."

  "I'm sorry about what happened."

  "It just frightened me a little. I'm sure he's all right." she added.

  I wasn't and I was now more anxious than ever that Miguel would arrive on time. It had been wrong to take Uncle Linden away. It was unfair to him. unfair to expect that Heyden and I could just drag him out to the world without all his support facilities and expect him to adjust and be successful. Mommy was right. She was always right.

  I remained as close to Uncle Linden as I could right up until Mrs. Stanton began to set the table for dinner. He went in and out of dozing, and for a few moments every time he opened his eyes. he looked confused. When he saw me, he calmed down and closed his eyes again.

  "You don't have to help me." she said. "Stay with him. I can see it makes you nervous. darlin'."

  I saw she was setting the table for four, but it wasn't because she anticipated Bess coming down to dinner. She went out to find Chubs and ask him to join us. I knew it made her feel better to have him nearby, and I didn't blame her for that. I felt better, too.

  Although my nerves made me feel there were a dozen grasshoppers in my stomach. I ate Mrs. Stanton's delicious dinner. Uncle Linden returned to his charming self, complimenting her on everything and making it seem as if I were the one who had experienced the dark dreams and not him. He and Chubs even had a conversation about growing peaches.

  About an hour after we had finished dinner. Miguel called and I was able to put Chubs on the phone with him so he could give him very specific directions to the farm,

  "He should be here within the hour.' Chubs told me. Uncle Linden had gone out to sit on the portico.

  "Who are we waiting far again?" he asked when I went out to join him.

  "Miguel. Mommy's husband."

  "Oh. yes. I like him. He's a college teacher. right?"

  "Yes, he is." I said. What was it that caused him to move in and out of memories, falling back into the past and then returning like someone who had gone under water and had fought his way back up to breathe again? There was still so much I didn't know about our family's past, but after being here nearly a day and seeing what pain and tragedy could cause. I wondered if I really wanted to know. Maybe like Uncle Linden. I was better off with some selective amnesia.

  I was never so happy to see anyone as I was to see Miguel when he drove up to the Stanton farm with Ricardo. He had never hesitated to hold me and kiss me when I was a little girl, but as I grew older. I felt his restraint. Right now all I wanted to do was crash through it and have him embrace me. He did so willingly.

  "Are you all right?" he asked. "Yes."

  "Hello, Linden." he said, extending his hand to him. "How are you doing?"

  "I'm fine. Miguel." He squinted at the rented car. "I was hoping to see Willow with you."

  "Oh, she's anxious to see you, too, but she wasn't up to this sort of trip. I'm sure you understand." he told him.

  "Of course," Uncle Linden said,

  Mrs. Stanton came out. and I introduced her to Miguel. Ricardo joined with Chubs and went to the motor home.

  "Thank you far offering your hospitality and home to my daughter," Miguel said. Long ago he had dropped the word step from (laughter. and I couldn't have been more happy about it than I was at the moment.

  "She's a delightful young lady. I'm sure everything will be fine."

  "I am. too," Miguel said. He turned to Uncle Linden. "Shall we start back. Linden?"

  "What's that? Oh. yes. I suppose we should." He rose. but then hesitated and looked at the front door and Mrs. Stanton. "I'd like to say goodbye to Bess," he said.

  Mrs. Stanton looked at me with surprise and concern. I wasn't expecting him to make that request, either,

  "I'll come along," I said. She nodded and led him and me back into the house and up the stairs. She paused at the open bedroom door and stepped back to permit Uncle Linden to enter. He approached Bess slowly.

  "I have to go now, Bess." he said. She was staring ahead, but turned to look up at him. I remained back in the doorway, out of sight.

  "I hope you'll be feeling better soon. I wanted to thank you for being my model. I promise I'll finish the picture and get it to you soon."

  She stared at him, her face unmoving.

  "Maybe some day I'll return as well and we'll take that walk. okay?"

  She nodded. I felt such a weight in my chest. They were looking at each other over chasms of emotional turmoil. Something desperate in them both was trying to touch, but there were so many obstacles in the way. How sad and unfair, I thought. Uncle Linden knelt down and kissed her quickly on the cheek. Then he turned from her and started for the doorway.

  "Wait!" she cried.

  He turned back.

  "Don't forget." she said.

  "No. I won't. That's a promise." he told her, "And I'm someone who keeps his promises," he added proudly.

  He walked out and I started after him. Mrs. Stanton followed.

  At the front doorway she hugged me.

  "God bless you, darlin'," she said. I held on to her for a long moment, and then I joined Uncle Linden in the rented car. Just as Miguel gat behind the wheel. Uncle Linden cried. "Wait!"

  "What is it. Linden?"

  "My picture," he said. He started to get out,

  "I brought it to the motor home already, Uncle Linden."

  "Oh?"

  "Ricardo will bring back all your things. Linden." Miguel promised. He has the motor home's owner's address from the paperwork."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Absolutely," Miguel said. "I made sure to tell him."

  "I hope so. I wouldn't want to lose that picture," Uncle Linden said.

  Again I wondered what it was he saw in it. but I said nothing. Ricardo had already started away. I prayed he would remember.

  As Miguel began to turn the car dawn the driveway, Chubs stepped out and held up his big hand to wave goodbye. I leaned out of the window and shouted. "Thank you. Mr. Dawson. Take care of them."

  A smile spread across his face, and then in moments, he was left behind us in the darkness, along with the farmhouse and all that had happened.

  It was as Miguel had described, a hard trip back. We nearly missed one connection, and we were delayed almost two hours on the final leg of the journey due to some scheduling problems. I dazed on and off on the planes and was actually asleep when we touched down in the West Palm Beach airport. Uncle Linden slept all the time, even when we were waiting in the airports.

  Miguel thought it would be better if we took him to his residency first.

  Met him readjust. Hannah." he said. "Mrs. Robinson will help him, and then we'll bring him to the house in a day or so. I promise," he added with conviction when I raised my eyebrows with skepticism.

  Surprisingly, when we arrived at the residency, Uncle Linden looked pleased. He got out quickly and, in his haste, almost forgot to say goodbye to me,

  "And don't forget to came see me," he said. Mrs. Robinson greeted him at the door with a big welcome, as did one of the other residents. Seconds later we pulled away,

  "We found the letter you left behind," Miguel said. "Willow has kept it beside her all this time. She has read it so often, the paper is beginning to shred.' He shook his head. You can't imagine how hard it was."

  I swallowed dawn a throat lump. "Does she hate me. Miguel?"

  'Hardly," he replied. "Although she is about as fragile as that woman you described at the farm. You both have to be considerate of each other. That's all the advice I'm going to give," he concluded.

  Despite all the dark corners of mystery and sadness that still lingered in Joya Del Mar. I felt a surge of true joy when I saw it before me again. for to me, it had always been home. Never in more splendor with i
ts vibrant flowers and beautiful grounds, its sparkling fountains and glistening stucco and glass. I felt as if it were smiling at me when we drove in and up to the main house.

  I got out slowly, my body tired, my emotions tugged and stretched to their breaking point. Lila greeted me at the door, her face full of delight.

  "I have a nice hot lunch waiting for you when you're ready," she told me.

  I thanked her. but I went looking for Mommy. She wasn't in her bedroom. where I had expected she would be, and she wasn't anywhere in the house. Miguel had gone into his office. He had decided to step away and not even be an observer. Maybe wisely, I thought.

  Finally I went out to the rear loggia. I looked down at the pool patio and saw her sitting with her back to the house, staring out at the water. She was wearing the shawl she had once given her mother. I started for her slowly, my heart pounding like the surf itself. The day had begun with an almost cloudless sky and now had some puffy globs of marshmallow being carried from east to west on the shoulders of the wind high above us. A sea breeze played impishly with the strands of Mommy's hair. She didn't seem to notice or care. She was so still. I thought perhaps she had fallen asleep.

  When I reached her side. I stood there quietly, searching for a way to begin. Somehow, even though I had walked on air. she knew I was beside her.

  "I remember the first time I met my mother as my mother, when my true identity was finally revealed," she began, not looking at me, her eyes fixed on the ocean. She could have been talking to herself. "I wanted to burst right out and ask. How could you leave me behind? How could you close the door and forget me? How could someone who was part of you, who had came from your blood and your every breath, be forgotten? I wanted to love her, but at the same time. I wanted to hate her.

  "Her first reply came from her eyes. The pain was there in full brightness. Of course, after what she had been through here and at the clinic, she was afraid she wouldn't be able to care properly for a child, a baby. It had been the birth of Linden that had sent her reeling back into her darkness. And then there was concern for my father and far all the possible consequences of their forbidden love. She comforted herself with the knowledge that he would be my father, if not in name, at least in action, providing for me, watching over me. She had no idea what hell my stepmother would create for me.

  "What was clear to me was the realization that whatever were her faults and mistakes, she was my mother and I was her daughter, and in the end, in the final moments of this often difficult life, we would not escape that, nor would we want to deny it We would never stop needing each other really. We could pretend we were beyond all that, perhaps, but as oldfashioned as it might sound, the tie that binds would not be unbroken. What we realized, she and I, was that forgiveness was everything, that love grew out of it and was nourished by it.

  "We do so many painful things to each other, don't we?" Mommy asked and finally turned to me.

  She didn't look sad. She hadn't been crying. She looked like she had most often looked to me, strong, wise, confident, my mother the doctor, my mother.

  "Some of it we do deliberately. We can't fully contain our selfishness. We are, after all, only human with our envies and our pride. Some of it we do without fully realizing what we've done. We're careless. negligent. We blunder because we're too anxious or we move too quickly, and we regret that. Some of it we can't help because we've inherited things we still don't understand ourselves.

  But in the end, in the very end, when we have our quiet moments and we want to be honest, we know what we have done, and we desperately need to be forgiven.

  "I did blame you for little Claude's death. Hannah. It was convenient to blame you and it helped me contend with my own sorrow. Anger brought me a little relief, ironically. Of course, that was ridiculous, but I was not in a good state of mind, and I did not want to be.

  "I did not want to understand or explain or justify anything. I wanted to hate God. hate Fate, hate anyone or anything I could. I even hated myself. saw myself as a victim of that curse again and blamed it on my own heredity. Poor little Claude had to have been brought into it.

  "Of course, when my reason returned. I understood how foolish and wrong all that was, but it was too late. I had driven you from me."

  "Mommy," I said, and she put up her hand.

  "No, I did. Hannah. I am not going to deny it. and I don't want you to fool yourself about that. What you felt was real and was true. Your running away helped me see it.

  "Of course. I was angry again because you had taken Linden with you, which at the time seemed an even more defiant act."

  "I shouldn't have," I admitted.

  Of course not, but not because of what I had told you or forbidden you to do.

  "You see. Hannah, I never wanted you to love your uncle Linden and become as attached to him as much as you have."

  "Why not?"

  She turned away.

  "A long time ago, as you lalow. Linden developed an unhealthy relationship to me in his own mind. The nervous breakdown that we have told you he suffered was far more severe than we described, What Linden did in the end was try to cage me up in this very house. I could have died before giving birth to you. It was not a pleasant thing. It was true madness, and it has taken all these years of therapy and care to bring him to the recuperation he has enjoyed.

  But I never recuperated as I should have. I never forgave him. I pretended I did, I hid behind all the medical and psychiatric activity and terminology I could. but I have never held him lovingly. and I have never permitted myself to care about him the way I should have I know that now, and in a way that is because of you.

  "I wonder myself if I haven't been afraid of Linden all these years, afraid not just of him, but afraid of something in me. Maybe some of what happened to him was really my fault. I am constantly interrogating myself, reviewing my past here, and wondering if I hadn't encouraged him, perhaps out of a complicated sense of sibling jealousy. My mother loved him beyond life and I envied that.

  "So you see, in a real sense I have to ask Linden to forgive me. too. I don't know if he will ever be capable of understanding why. but I am now and I need it."

  'Tie couldn't hate you, ever," I assured her.

  "Maybe not or maybe he never will understand why he does. I know that sounds like a lot of psychiatric mumbo jumbo, and perhaps in the end, that's all it is. Perhaps things are simpler than we think they are, and some day we'll all sit here together and share the wonder of our lives and laugh and be loving in an innocent way.

  "I suppose that's why we regret losing our childhood. It was a time when blue was simply blue, when stars were simply stars, when smiles and laughter had no other purpose than to make us happy.

  "That's all gone for you, too. now. Hannah, but there are ways to replace it Only it all depends on finding someone who will help you love yourself again. Does that make any sense to you?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "For me, you are that person. Hannah. You help me care about myself. I need you to love me. Hannah. I need you to forgive me,"

  "I love you Mommy. I can't help it."

  She smiled. "Nor can I help loving you. So," she said, rising out of the patio chair. "let's begin by forgiving each other first."

  She held out her arms and I rushed into her embrace. For a very, very long moment we simply clung to each other. It was as if the whole world had stepped back.

  "Now," she said, taking my hand. "let's walk along the beach, and you can begin to tell me all about this crazy thing you did and all that happened along the way." We started walking and I did just that.

  .

  When I reached the end of my story. I told Mommy I had called Daddy first to ask him to help me. I explained what had happened, and she shook her head and told me she wasn't surprised, but she thought I should call him that night and tell him I was home anyway.

  He wasn't home and thankfully, neither were my twin brothers. The butler put Danielle on the phone. She said she
would let my father know, but she sounded very sad herself. I thought it was because she still believed I was to blame for what had happened at the house on the twins' birthday. I started to explain again, and she stopped me,

  "You don't have to tell me anything. cherie. I know the truth. I know now just who my sons are." she said. I thought her voice cracked again. and I asked her if she was all right. She said she was and again assured me she would tell my father I was safely back home.

  I expected to hear from him that night or at least the following day, but he didn't call. I called his office, and Mrs. Gower told me he was out of town. She would give him the message when he called in for his messages. Again, the day passed and he didn't call. I decided to stop pursuing him.

  As he had promised. Miguel brought Uncle Linden to Joya del Mar for lunch two days after we had returned. I could see Mommy was nervous about it. but Uncle Linden wasn't. He was very talkative and sat on the rear loggia making comments about this or that on the property, recalling things that had happened at the pool or on the beach front. I thought he had forgotten everything about our trip, until he paused at the end of his visit to tell me I should stop by when I had an opportunity because he wanted to show me the completed picture he had made of Bess and Rosemary. Mommy and I looked at each other with a little concern. She made arrangements to go to see him at the end of the week.

  It had been a long time since she and I visited the residency together. Uncle Linden was very excited to see us, but not. as I thought at first. because Mommy was with me. Na. he couldn't wait to bring us to his room so we could see his finished work of art. I had prepared Mommy for this, describing to her what I had discovered when I had gone to fetch his painting and put it in the motor home. We were both prepared to pretend we saw something that made sense.

  Imagine the shock both of us experienced when we entered his room and saw the picture on his easel. It was a remarkable picture. Bess's likeness so exacting I could look at it and actually hear that thin and fragile laugh and see the vulnerability in her eyes. What interested me the most about the picture, however, was the rendering of Rosemary. The little girl beside her bore only the slightest resemblance to me and that was just in the color of her hair. She looked happy, too. so I imagined that the photograph Bess had given Uncle Linden was one taken before her husband had begun to poison Rosemary against her. I could see some of Bess in Rosemary and even something of Grandmother Stanton. Perhaps that had been Uncle Linden's contribution.