What I missed, of course, was the innocent, childlike view of the world, those trusting eyes that would settle on me with a soft smile of contentment around them. Now she looked at me as if from a great distance. Every minute, every hour that passed lengthened the distance we knew would came between us.
I had reduced her medications while she was pregnant, and now she was practically weaned off them entirely. She spent her time walking and reading, working in the arts and craft center and talking to other patients in a way that made the more nervous and high-strung ones calmer. It got so many looked forward to seeing her, and on a few occasions I viewed her actually doing better than my trained staff and nurses when it came to settling down a patient who was acting out. Half jokingly. I told her she should consider a career in mental health.
"I've had a career in mental health," she replied. "Enough to last a lifetime. Claude."
All, yes. I thought, how true,
We still took our walks occasionally, only now they were slower, both of us more pensive.
Paragraphs and paragraphs of dialogue between us no longer had to be said. We were that good at reading each other's thoughts, sensing each other's moods.
At home Alberta continued her aloof attitude toward the baby. There were times I believed she really had forgotten you were there. Willow. I would see this sudden look of surprise when you cried out or when Amou walked through a room holding you or took you out in the carriage. When our dinner and party guests asked about you, she would unabashedly tell them to ask me.
"The child is Claude's project." she would say, as if I were running some sort of experimental laboratory in the house and doing research on child behavior.
One night at dinner she did ask me about Grace. It wasn't so much a question as it was a demand.
"I suppose you should tell me about the infant's mother now. Claude."
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything, of course. And don't give me any of that gobbledygook about patient-doctor confidence ar something." she added firmly.
Alberta. I decided, would have made a wonderful cross-examiner at the Nuremberg Nazi trials.
"I told you already. She was a young woman who suffered acute depression. I treated her with medication and therapy counseling. In time we worked out her problems and she has become a much stronger person. I have no doubt she will do well in the outside world."
"Then she's gone?" she asked.
I thought for a moment and decided it would be better all around if that was what Alberta believed.
"Yes, she's gone."
"Do you think there is any possibility that in the foreseeable future she would want her own child?" she asked.
Of course, it was a question I had lodged in the darker closets of my own mind. Would there be a time when Jackie Lee would agree to such a thing? How long would it be before that occurred? If it was too long, it would be difficult, if not emotionally and psychologically damaging to you. Willow. I had to consider all that.
"No, Alberta," I said "I don't believe that will ever happen."
"I don't see why not. Aren't mothers supposed to want their own offspring. Claude? Something more must be wrong with this person if that's the case. Maybe you've missed something, something that can be inherited and now we'll be the ones suffering with it," she pointed out.
"Most unlikely, Alberta," I insisted.
"Most unlikely. Alberta,," she mimicked. "The know-it-all, great doctor. Well, I predict otherwise. Claude De Beers, and when my prediction comes tile. I want more than an apology from you. I want you to agree to send her away to some sort of institution for such children."
"That, Alberta. I will never do," I said. I said it with such conviction that even she was taken aback. "How would it look if I. the head of a nationally reputable mental clinic, couldn't handle his own problems?" I added to soften my sternness.
It gave her some pause, and she pulled herself back and began to eat again, stopping only to say, "I hope that you're right."
However, it was a theme Alberta would not put aside. Willow. Up until now, the time I am writing this, you have experienced some of it yourself. I remain hopeful that these tensions in the home will dwindle, thin out, and dissipate, but who can tell?
What I do know is everything I've learned and all my insight and skill tells me you will be a wonderful young woman soon, bright, personable. and. I must say in all modesty, a very beautiful woman. too. You take after your mother, there.
I was never going to be the one to tell her it was time for her to go home. She knew that. We skirted that discussion often during the time she spent at the clinic after your birth, Jackie Lee called periodically. She claimed she had begun to prepare Linden for the revelations to come. I. of course, was skeptical of that and even more afraid for the child. This was not something anyone could just drop on a child one day and expect all to be well. I warned Grace about that.
"Your experiences here might come in handy back in Palm Beach, Grace," I told her. "Linden will have some problems with all this."
"I know. This is why I think it's time for me to go. Claude. The sooner I can get back there and be with him, the better it will be. I'm sure you agree about that."