Wicked Forest

  "Oh, Mother." I cried. "I'm sorry."

  "You have nothing to be sorry about. Willow. In the end, believe me, he will be the one who wakes up alone, lost, confused, and very sorry."

  She put her arm around me and for a while we sat on the bed, me resting my head on her shoulder, she kissing my hair.

  "Let me see about dinner," she said.

  "I'm not going to be very hungry. Mother."

  "Don't start punishing yourself. Willow," she warned sternly. "I did that for too long before your father helped me realize how foolish and wrong it was. You know if he were here now, he would not approve."

  I smiled,

  "Okay, Mother. I'll be strong."

  "Good." she said. standing. "Good.'

  She left, her shoulders still sagging with the weight of all this terrible news. I went into the bathroom to wash my face and brush my hair. When the phone rang. I froze. If he was hoping to do better through a phone conversation, he was dearly mistaken. I thought. However, it was Manon.

  "Are you all right?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said with strength. "I'm fine."

  "We all felt so bad for you. Willow. We all had grave doubts that we had done the right thing. Even though it is not the fault of any of us, we would feel guilty if you lost your baby or something." she declared,

  "I'm not losing my baby," I said with such determination. I even surprised myself.

  "Good. Did you--"

  "Confront him with the evidence?" She was silent. I knew that was the real purpose of this call. but I wasn't going to simply fade away into the sunset. Thatcher would have to face the world with all of this revealed. The Club d'Amour would see to that. I thought, and for the first time. I was actually happy about them. "Yes. I presented it to him. He couldn't deny any of it."

  "What did he say? I mean, if you want to tell me, that is."

  "He said he had an affair with her to get her out of his system."

  "What?"

  "And he claimed that was just what he had done."

  "I don't think I've heard that one before." she said, so thoughtfully it brought a smile to my face. "It's like a serial killer killing one more time to get it out of his system.-

  That brought a laugh out of mc.

  "In a way. I suppose it is. It didn't work with me. He's left the house." I told her.

  "That's good." she said. "I want you to know we are here for you. We are more than just here for you. Marjorie. having the most bitter experiences with divorce, is our resident expert. She wanted me to give you the name of her attorney, who, you will be glad to know, is a woman. Gloria Baker. Marjorie has taken the liberty of filling her in on your situation already, so when you call. if you want to call her, she will know who you are and what you need exactly."

  She rattled off the telephone number. I wrote it down and thanked her.

  "In fact, thank everyone. Manon, and tell them I don't blame them for anything or hold anything against them. I never thought I would be grateful to you and the others. if you want to know. I thought you were interesting, but a bit too far left of center for me when it came to male-female relationships. I don't think so anymore."

  "I'm glad. Willow. We'll call you and, if you let us, well come see you in a few days."

  "Thank you. yes," I said.

  As Victor Laszlo, the leader of the French resistance against the Nazis, says in Casablanca, 'Welcome back to the fight. This time I know our side will win.' "

  I smiled at the dramatics, thanked her again, and hung up.

  I actually did feel better and went ahead and called Gloria Baker's office, Her secretary put me right through to her.

  "Why don't we meet tomorrow?" she said after I introduced myself. She gave me a time I could manage and, without any words of comfort or any platitudes, she simply concluded with, "We will do what has to be done."

  Fortified. I left my suite to go downstairs, then paused when I saw Linden standing in the hallway just outside his studio. He looked like he had been waiting there for some time. He stood so that his face was mostly in the shadows draping the wall.

  "Linden? Are you all right?"

  " yes.'

  "Why are you just standing there like that?" I asked.

  "I saw Mother come out of your suite. She was crying, so I asked her why and she told me."

  Oh.

  "I'm not surprised,- he said, moving into the light. His face was luminous, his smile cold. "When you told him you were pregnant, he wanted you to discover his unfaithfulness so you would send him away."

  "I don't know that the baby has all that much to do with it, Linden," I said softly.

  "Oh, it does. yes it does." he said. He held his smile. his eyes becoming even more excited and bright.

  "Well, what's happened has happened. I don't want to dwell on it," I said.

  "Good. We've all got to put the past behind us," he proclaimed. But now that this has happened, it is the right time to show you my latest work. Tomorrow. I will hang it on the wall.'

  "So you have finished it. How nice." I said. It took a great effort for me to generate interest in anything at the moment, even to pretend it. but I knew how proud he was of his new work and how important it was to him that I like it.

  He went to his studio door, opened it, and stepped back.

  "You are the first to see it, of course. Even Mother hasn't been in here yet. I made sure of that."

  I nodded, smiled, and walked into the studio. The painting was as big as he had said it would be. He had it up on the west wall of his studio with a light on it. The picture was done in vibrant, almost neon colors, everything as bright as could be. That was startling in and of itself. but what was depicted was so strange, it took my breath away.

  It was set on our beach. There was no question the woman walking was I. She was pregnant. but the figure behind her was done in multiples to show movement. and there was also no question that figure was Linden. He'd painted himself moving up and into me. Emerging from the front of me was an infant. and the infant was shown growing until it was clearly a little girl.

  I couldn't help but step closer to the picture. In the background. almost unseen, was the figure of a woman who resembled Mother.

  "I don't understand this. Linden." I said. "What's happening in the picture?"

  "How can you not understand?" he cried.

  I turned and saw his face filling with agony.

  "I just want to be sure I'm right. Linden," I said softly. "Please don't be upset. It's remarkable," I added. That seemed to calm him.

  It took every bit of creative energy out of me to paint this," he told me, approaching the picture and gazing up at it with great adoration.

  "There's a birth here," I said.

  "Oh, there's everything here. This is all of it, love, life, struggles, victories. This is us." he declared, "See Mother? See her watching?"

  "And that's you?"

  "Yes, of course it's me. Who else could it be?" But why are you... why are you going into me?"

  "Because we're part of each other, always and forever. You know that," he said. 'You have even told me so in so many different ways. Isn't that right?" he asked with a frantic note that threatened to explode into full-blown hysteria if it was denied,

  "Yes." I nodded. "Yes."

  'I'll show it to Grace now. She's been dying to get in here to see this for some time," he added with a smile,

  "I bet," I said.

  "Then you like it, right? You really like it?"

  "Yes Linden. It's very, very interesting," I said.

  "Good. Thatcher wouldn't have liked it." he declared. "He would have wanted it destroyed."

  I didn't say yes or no. I thought he would certainly have been shocked.

  "I'll hang it tomorrow," he said.

  "Maybe we should make this extra special. Linden."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Maybe we should hang it somewhere special."

  "Where's that?"

  "Put it in your
room,," I said.

  He studied my face.

  "My room? Why in my room?"

  "I think it's so much a part of you and who you are that it belongs with you. I'd like to see it there. I'd like to go there often to see it." I added.

  "Oh.-

  He thought a moment, then smiled and nodded,

  "Yes, you're right. It's too special for the rest of the world to see. They won't appreciate it like we do. anyway." He looked up at the picture again. "I tried to make her more like you. I know what you want to name her. too. I overheard you tell Mother. I like the name. Hannah." he said. "Perfect.

  "Everything," he added, turning to me, "is going to be perfect."

  I left him standing there, looking up at the picture as if he could not take his eyes away, as if he was looking somewhere deep inside himself at a place so dark no one else should ever be able to see it, but a place I feared I had just seen.

  I knew Mother was as disturbed by the picture as I was, but she tried not to show it because she didn't want to upset me any further. Yes, she said, it was strange, offbeat, but most everything Linden had done to date was. When I asked her what she thought he was saying in the work, she just shook her head.

  "I always tell him his work is interesting and very good, but most of the time. I don't understand it. Of course. I remember some of the artwork your father's patients at the clinic did.

  Your father didn't think of it as art in the true sense. He told me he saw it as a means of bringing troubled or disturbing thoughts up from the dark well in their minds and, by exposing them, beginning to deal with them. There were some very weird things done in that arts-and-crafts room in the clinic." she said, smiling and shaking her head.

  "Let's leave it be for now," she concluded. "We have other problems to solve first."

  "I'm not worried about them, Mother. I'll do what I have to do."

  "I know you she said. "but I wouldn't be your mother if I didn't worry, now, would I?"

  She smiled at me and held it until I smiled and agreed. But later, when she didn't know I was watching. I saw the heavy weight of it all, my problems and Linden's, furrow her brows and sag her shoulders. Maybe we shouldn't have ignored Linden's troubled thoughts that had surfaced through his picture, but we did. Somewhere deep inside me, regret had planted a seed. and I knew in my heart it would grow into something bigger and, like an insidious weed, curl around whatever flowers of joy were in our garden, choking them until they were gone.

  Thatcher's rage at being rebuked took form rather quickly over the next few days, making me even more grateful for the assistance Manon and the members of the Club d'Amour provided.

  My attorney reviewed Thatcher's and my prenuptial agreement and advised me that she would challenge any and all clauses not to my advantage.

  He should have had a third party involved, an outside attorney. This is like the beneficiary of a will writing the will and making sure all other

  beneficiaries are eliminated. There would be and there are grounds to challenge."

  "Yes, my attorney from South Carolina wanted me to do that right after it was drawn up."

  "You should have let him. If Thatcher calls you and tries to discuss any of this. which I imagine he will do, just have one response: Call lawyer. Understand? I'm the wall between you and him from now on." she advised.

  As she predicted. Thatcher did call. He started to threaten me with the document.

  "If you're so unforgiving. I have no choice but to protect my rights."

  "Go on, protect them. Thatcher. You're the one who included the reference to adultery, which changes everything."

  He was silent. "Very odd." he finally said. "how you have all this so well worked out for someone who is supposedly a victim here."

  "Supposedly a victim? Just call my attorney, Thatcher," I snapped. I gave him my attorney's number and hung up on him. He didn't call back, but someone arrived the next day with a list of things he wanted from the house. Most of it was his personal belongings. I had Jennings assist him.

  Daddy once told me that bad news travels rapidly because people are so grateful it's not bad news for them,

  "It is almost as if they feel that by spreading it, they ensure that it will stay away from their

  doorsteps," he'd said. He smiled and added. "Like throwing the garbage over the wall into someone else's yard and keeping it out of yours. I see this as especially true with mental illness. Friends and neighbors can be cruel. Relatives, of course, keep it as hidden as they can for fear someone will think it's in the blood and they or their children are next. How many times have I seen families that hide severely disturbed children, even parents, so no one will know."

  In fact. Daddy had written a paper about a teenage girl who suffered from paranoid

  schizophrenia and was locked in a room without windows for nearly two years until she committed suicide. His thesis dealt with how even the mentally ill had the need for communication and society.

  The news of my marital problems found a good home at school, of course. The twins were the first to commiserate. Pet claiming she'd always suspected Thatcher was a heel. Loni felt so sorry for me, she looked sick. Holden Mitchell, who had kept his distance from me ever since the incident on the beach, looked very satisfied and had the courage to approach me one afternoon to say, '1 heard about you and your husband. I told you so." I ignored him and walked away quickly.

  Professor Fuentes knew about it all as quickly as everyone else, but made no attempt to talk except to ask me if I was all right. I wasn't in the mood to talk about it anyway, but soon after that. I realized I was guilty of the very things we hoped to overcome in prospective clients-- avoidance, the ostrich

  syndrome-- only here, it wasn't possible to bury your head in the sand for long. Waves of gossip, intruding eyes, and busybodies washed it away and left you naked with the truth.

  Finally. I admitted to the professor that I wasn't all right. He nodded and asked me to join him for coffee, which quickly turned into one of our famous tete-a-tetes.

  "How are your mother and Linden taking all this?"

  "My mother puts on a good act. but I know she's hurting for me. Linden... is behaving strangely again."

  "How so?"

  I explained how he doted on me even more, and how my breakup with Thatcher had reinforced his idea that it was the two of us against the world.

  "He's been insisting I stop going to the doctor Thatcher had recommended. I was never crazy about him anyway, so I might go to someone else. Of course. I'm worried about reinforcing his paranoia."

  "Don't worry about that. Worry about what makes you comfortable at this time," Professor Fuentes advised.

  I agreed with him, then described Linden's latest painting. He nodded. thoughtful.

  "He literally sees himself in you. Your suffering is his suffering."

  "I haven't done enough to help him. For a while there, because of Whitney and her nasty rumors and such. I neglected Linden, actually avoided him when I should have been helping him get stronger and get out in the world."

  "Don't try to take too much of this on your own shoulders. Willow," Professor Fuentes warned, "Get him to return to a professional therapist and get back on some essential medication."

  "I will," I said, knowing that was a much bigger task than I could envision. There were more storm clouds on the horizon with Linden's and my names on them.

  For one thing, the Eatons, especially Whitney, weren't going to permit Thatcher to be the bad one in this scenario. It wasn't long before new rumors began to blossom like black weeds with sharp thorns. Once again. the Club d'Amour was my source of information. The girls knew when I was going to be home after class, and all burst onto the property together a few days after Professor Fuentes and I had spoken. They were waiting for me when I arrived, Mother had greeted them and sat with them. but Linden, as was usually the case when anyone came to Joya del Mar, had fled to one of his private places on the beach.

  The moment
I set eyes on them, I knew there was more trouble. Mother. her eyes dark with worry, excused herself and went upstairs. She looked so much more frail and older to me since my breakup. It almost made me wish I had swallowed my pride and accepted Thatcher's ludicrous rationalization for infidelity.

  I sat quickly. I could see the urgency and anger in their faces. "What now?" I asked as soon as Mother excused herself. "They dropped the second shoe," Manon began.

  "Second bomb is more like it," Marjorie quipped.

  "They, meaning my in-laws?"

  "Yes."

  "And the second shoe is what?"

  "Thatcher's defense, at least the defense he is floating out there." Manon said. nodding at the front door.

  "Oh, and what is this defense?"

  "The story they are spreading is that he caught you in an incestuous relationship with Linden, and he is even unsure that the baby you're carrying is his," she said.

  "That last part has Whitney's fingerprints on it." Sharon added. "You knew she was circling it for some time, just waiting like a rumor vampire to sink her sharp teeth in it and bleed it all over Palm Beach."

  I tried to swallow, to take a breath, but I felt as if there were fingers closing on my throat.

  "How could Thatcher permit this?"

  "You ever hear 'All's fair in love and war'?" Marjorie asked. "Here, love and war are one and the same."

  "They have their image to protect in the community," Liana said. "Thatcher has to be the victim, I've heard they are already being invited to dinner parties so they can tell the sordid tale. and Bunny Eaton is the one eager to do it and do it well."

  "I'm disappointed in Asher," I said.

  "Why? He was never much of a man, as far as I could see,"

  Manon said. "He's like most of them-- he goes whichever way the wind is blowing."

  "And Bunny is always doing the blowing." Liana said.

  They laughed. but I couldn't find a shred of humor in the moment.

  "What will I do?" I looked toward the doorway, the image of Mother hobbling away fresh in my mind. "If my mother hears of this..."