Hidden Leaves Read online

  As you will remember, your stepmother and I had separate bedrooms. There was an adjoining door, but our relationship with each other eventually cooled to the point where that door was rarely, if ever, unlocked.

  The idea of separate bedrooms was something Alberta thought romantic in the early days of our marriage, and to tell you the truth, I thought it was. too. For her, and perhaps for me, it was like going out on a date. Eventually we had separate bedrooms because she couldn't stand my snoring any longer. Even her earplugs didn't work. At least, that was what she claimed.

  "Men and women who share their bedrooms and see each other day in and day out grow bored with each other," she told me. She had read it in one of her romance novels. "The woman, any woman, doesn't like to be caught at her worst moments, and the early hours before makeup and hair are the worst. How is a woman supposed to remain exciting to a man if there are never any surprises anymore?"

  She amused me in those days. I laughed and agreed and we set up the separate bedrooms. During the time when I was treating your mother and when we fell in love, that wall between Alberta and myself grew thicker and thicker.

  Anyway, she was so angry with me that night, she didn't even come around to tell me all about her event, as she often did. I heard some other doors slammed, and then the house was quiet and I went to bed myself For a long time I just lay there looking up at the dark ceiling, which occasionally flickered with the starlight that slipped between some clouds. I found myself reviewing your mother's history and realized I had memorized almost all of it, every player, every place, every significant event she had revealed to Dr. Anderson in Palm Beach.

  I felt that wave of determination wash over me again. I would bring this woman back to where she could fall in love again, and I would do it, I thought, or rather confessed to myself, because I wanted her to fall in love with me.

  Am I shocking you? Your solid-like-a-rock, internationally famous psychiatrist of a father, author, lecturer, consultant, admitting that he had selfish motives? It's true. Willow. It's true,

  I went to sleep that night with Grace

  Montgomery's eyes in mine and her name on my lips.

  Alberta was never up before I left for the clinic. Usually she slept until ten or eleven unless she had a lunch appointment. We had hired a maid to cook and take care of all the cleaning in the house, including looking after our clothing, although Miles did most of that far me. At the time I am writing this, your stepmother has hired and fired three maids. We were on our third. Lettia Young. a forty-eight-year-old African-American woman your stepmother hired after a friend of her mother's passed away. I never found much wrong with the previous two, but your stepmother was already complaining about Lettia's cooking, criticizing her for putting in too much salt or too little salt. I suspected Lettia was on the verge of quitting.

  She prepared my breakfast. Miles was usually up an hour or so before I was and had already eaten. He waited for me outside as usual and was surprised at how quickly I came out of the house,

  "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day." he told me, ate. I ate," I said, but he shook his head skeptically.

  Again, an ironic reversal. Willow: my former patient was now looking after me with the concern of a doctor.

  "Going to rain a bit today." he said. "Might clear up this afternoon. though."

  I looked out the window and just realized how overcast it was. It actually surprised me. The moment I had waken that morning, my eyes seemed filled with sunshine. Willow. I had an energy I hadn't had for some time. I felt like you do when you're about to do something you've never done. You know what I mean. I'm sure: that fresh excitement.

  Miles glanced at me a few times in the rearview mirror. "Going to eat at the clinic again tonight?" he asked.

  "Maybe."

  He nodded.

  "You're working too hard again. Doc," he muttered. "Those batteries got to be regenerated from time to time." he lectured. "You're the one taught me that. too."

  "I know. Miles. I'm fine."

  "Do as I teach, not as I do. huh?"

  I laughed. Miles had a real down-to-earth view of things. It was refreshing to me even though Alberta thought his words and behavior proved he was capable of becoming mentally disturbed again. She mistook his quiet, methodical manner as mental slowness and absolutely refused to permit him to drive her anywhere. It was something for which Miles was grateful.

  "It's embarrassing to have an insane person driving our Mercedes. Claude." she would say.

  He isn't an insane person and he never was insane. Alberta. He had a traumatic event in his life, and it drove him into a deep depression. He's fine now," I assured her. She wouldn't accept that.

  "I'll be looking into that hot-water heater problem today, Doc." he told me when he pulled up to the clinic. "Return about seven?"

  "I'll call you, Miles." I told him and entered the clinic.

  Nurse Gordon was there in the lobby speaking to Edith and turned to me the moment I stepped through the door. Except for me and Dr. Price, no one was at the clinic more than Nadine Gordon.

  "Your new patient refuses to come out of her roam," she said. "I thought you might want to handle it yourself, so I didn't do anything else."

  "Yes, you were correct, Ms. Gordon. Thank you. I'll look in on her first thing." I said.

  I glanced at Edith and then hurried to the patient housing corridor. Once again, this was in no way a terribly unusual event concerning a new patient or any patient, for that matter. We usually took on only patients who were at least at a basic minimum of normal behavior. They would eat, sleep, participate in some recreation on their own.

  I knocked on Grace's door and then stepped into the room. She had the curtains drawn, and as I've already written, it was a rather dark, dismal morning. She was in bed, her blanket drawn to her chin, staring up at the ceiling, not caring about or taking notice of my arrival.

  "Good morning. Grace." I said and crossed to the windows to open the curtains and let in whatever light we had. Then I turned on a nightstand lamp. She blinked rapidly before turning toward me. "Still tired?" I asked. "Didn't you sleep well?"

  The pills make me sleep. but I don't have any reason to get up," she said.

  "Oh, that's not true, not true at all." I told her and pulled up the desk chair. "You have lots of reason to get up and to get well again."

  She raised her eyebrows skeptically.

  "You have someone waiting for you at home, someone who needs you and will need you for a long time to come," I said.

  "He has my mother," she replied.

  "It's not the same thing. Grace, You 'claw that better than I do."

  "No, I don't. He's better off with my mother." "Is he? Do you really think so?"

  She turned away.

  "I haven't been doing this all that lang. but I have had the benefit of so many wise and talented doctors under whom I assisted." I continued softly. "If there is anything that is true about all of us, it's that there is a very, very special relationship between a mother and her child. Nothing can substitute for it, and many of the problems I've seen come about because something happens to that relationship. Both the mother and the child need each other. Grace. It's true for the child and his or her father, of course. but I believe and many of my colleagues believe that because a mother carries her child, there's something a little more involved.

  "I'm sure you miss Linden terribly already and that's good. Grace. Don't be afraid to admit to that. That's hopeful," I concluded.

  She was blinking away new tears as rapidly as they emerged, "I can't be any good to him like this and I'll never be better." "Yes, you will. Sure you will."

  "I'm afraid,' she said. "Afraid that I will bring him bad luck, too," Now there you go saying that again. Okay," I said, sitting back with my arms crossed over my chest. "how was it decided that you should be the one to bring bad luck to people. Grace?"

  "I don't know."

  "Did you do something terrible before you were
born?" I asked. She looked at me. "Of course not." she said. "How could I?"

  "Did you do something terrible when you were younger?"

  "No."

  "Was your father a bad man?"

  "No!" she said emphatically.

  "Your mother, she did something terrible?"

  "No."

  "So why were you chosen? Why are you being punished?"

  "I don't know."

  "I know many people who have suffered great tragedies in their lives, and many of them were involved with me in one way or another. Grace. Why shouldn't I say I'm bad luck to them? I'm cursed?"

  She turned away. "I don't know." she muttered.

  "Maybe," I said softly. "you don't know the answer because it's the wrong question. Neither you nor I am bad luck to people. Unfortunate things happen to people. Sometimes it's their own faults; sometimes it is just bad luck, coincidence, whatever, but you can't blame it on yourself, your contact with them, Grace."

  She just shook her head.

  "You just don't want to come to the realization that bad things can happen to people at any time, for any reason. Life is fragile. None of us likes knowing that. Grace, but your finding fault in yourself doesn't change that."

  She looked at me and I smiled.

  "I'm just as afraid of life at times as you are, Grace, but we've got to put it aside if we're to go on and be of any value to anyone, least of all ourselves."

  She almost smiled.

  "I haven't had breakfast yet." I said. It wasn't entirely a lie. I had only some juice, coffee, and a piece of toast. I was in too much of a hurry to get here. "Get yourself up and dressed and we'll have it together."

  "Don't you have other patients to attend to?" she asked with some suspicion. Was I spending so much time with her because she was so ill? she probably wondered,

  "Oh, certainly, but I can't work on an empty stomach, now can I? I asked her and she gave in to a small smile. "I'm going to my office to check on my messages and such. I'll meet you in the dining room. okay?"

  I reached out and touched her arm. "Okay?"

  She nodded,

  "Good." I said. rising. "Sorry the weather is so poor today. I was going to suggest we go for a walk. Maybe it will clear up later. My driver Miles thinks it might."

  "A walk?"

  "Sure. 'Wait until you see our gardens." I told her.

  She shook her head, a look of confusion sitting on her face. "What's wrong?" I asked.

  "This doesn't feel like...-.

  "Like what?"

  "A place for crazy people." she said.

  "It isn't," I told her. "It's a place for people who want to be happy only. That's why I spend so much time here," I told her, and she widened her smile.

  What a beautiful smile, I thought. I felt like an artist repairing a great painting.

  You see, Willow, I think I was already too far gone as a man to forget it and be only her doctor.

  4

  The Sound of Her Laughter

  .

  Willow, I'm sure you are probably asking

  yourself how do I remember these conversations with your mother in such great detail. My conversations with patients comprise the spine of my efforts to help them. Their words are the main source of revelations about their inner selves. Their actions or lack of actions are the reasons why they are brought here, of course, but the cause of those actions and inactions, what gives birth to them, that takes deep digging. Willow, and my principal tool is my questioning and their responses. I'm trained to remember what they say as it is, but with my added emotional involvement, I found Grace's words carving themselves not only in my mind, but in my heart as well. I don't know if you will have fallen in love by the time you read this, but if you have, you will understand.

  We took our walk after breakfast. Before that. I conferred with Dr. Price and asked him to pick up two of my other patients who had sessions scheduled with me that day so I could shift my efforts and give Grace Montgomery more time. One of them was Sandy.

  Ralston Price and I have been together ever since medical school. I have had and have at this moment no closer associate. When two people have gone through as much as Ralston Price and I have together, we can read each other almost as well as we can read ourselves. Up until this occasion, there were few secrets between us. For example. Ralston knew how my relationship with Alberta had changed, or should I say, drifted into something much less than it ever was. The truth was he was never fond of her and she was definitely never fond of him. She once told me his eyes were too close together, and her grandmother had drilled it into her head that a man with close eyes was sneaky and never to be trusted. I actually pulled out pictures of great men in history to illustrate how foolish that superstition was, but when Alberta formed an idea, it was formed in stone and rolled around in her mind forever.

  After I made my request. Ralston raised his somewhat bushy light brown eyebrows and relaxed his lips into that somewhat impish smile of his.

  "What is the reason for this intense approach. Claude?" he asked. "And with a patient you have hardly met?"

  "I think I can make significant progress in a short period. She's reachable." I said. "It's more of a case of having someone she trusts. She's already quite forthcoming."

  His head moved in a slow tilt to the right as his skepticism fattened and fattened right before my eyes.

  "I see, and you were able to make this analysis in one day?" he asked, one eyebrow higher than the other.

  "Yes. I was." I said "And she has a little boy waiting for her at home." I practically shouted at him.

  He pressed his lips together and uttered that famous "Ummm" of his. Then he flipped the pages of his calendar and nodded. "Okay, Claude. Let's see how it goes for a while. I'll take on those other patients for you."

  "Thank you, Ralston."

  I started out of his office and he said. "Claude." I turned, "Don't reach too high. Remember our wings of wax." he reminded me, I nodded.

  He was referring to that myth of Icarus, the boy who, with his inventive father, tried to escape an island imprisonment with wings attached by wax. He was warned not to fly too closely to the sun or the wings would melt. We psychiatrists like to use it to illustrate how arrogance can be your downfall.

  Like Icarus. I was not to listen to the warning, but this was a happy fall. Willow. Without it, you wouldn't have been born and I wouldn't have known true love. I'd gladly fly too close to the sun repeatedly if it meant I'd have you and Grace's love again and again and again.

  After breakfast. as I had suggested. Grace and I took that walk. I found that when one of my patients reached the point where he or she could be

  comfortable outside my office. I would try to get him or her to take one of my famous walks. Somehow, without spending much time with her. I knew Grace would be more comfortable. She was curious, however, even suspicious about this almost

  immediately.

  "Dr. Anderson never spoke with me out of his office," she said. "Even if he saw me somewhere else, which was not often, he would barely say hello, especially if I was with my mother. She didn't want anyone to know I was seeing him."

  "I'll tell you a secret. Grace. I make it seem as if we're just going on a walk, but it's way more than that. I try to sneak up on my patients and doing things that are a bit unorthodox helps."

  She liked that. She enjoyed my honesty. With her head slightly lowered, but holding on to that soft Mona Lisa--like smile on her lips, she walked along. I confess I couldn't take my eyes off her. Willow, and no matter how twisted and troubled she was inside herself. I sensed that she knew I couldn't. We doctors, especially we psychiatrists, like to pride ourselves on our stoical expression, what you called my doctor mask. and I know I rarely, if ever, unmasked myself. but with your mother, right from that first clay, it was as if my doctor mask was made of a thin layer of ice and either melted in the presence of her beauty or slipped off.

  As we walked. I asked her about her youth, prodded dee
per and deeper into the origin of these terrible fears that plagued her. I quickly understood that even as a little girl she was worried about her father, worried that when he went away, he would never come back. It made every return special. wonderful. It wasn't hard to see that these sort of emotional ups and downs took its toll on an impressionable child.

  However, every time her father returned, her confidence in him grew.

  "I thought Daddy was indestructible." she admitted. We were sitting on a bench by now, looking out over the field and hills behind the clinic. The threat of rain had passed, and as Miles had predicted, the gray overcast sky was shattering like brittle china, slices of sunlight forming a web of promise behind them.

  "He was so strong," she said. "so tall and handsome and confident, and I saw how other men looked up to him and saluted him and snapped to attention when he appeared. How could he die? How could he not come back to me?"

  "And so you thought if that could happen to him, it could happen to anyone. In fact, you expected it to happen to everyone you loved, didn't you. Grace?"

  "Yes." she said, her eyes widening a little. She nodded. "Yes."

  "People like to say the only thing certain to expect is death and taxes. None of us has any more assurances than that. Grace. You can't predict much more and definitely not someone else's future. Here I am a psychiatrist. I'm supposed to know how to read people's minds and anticipate what they will do, but it's not an exact science. Actually, that's what makes people interesting to me."

  "What?" she asked me. Our eyes locked.

  "That they are unpredictable, that even a man like I am might do and think unexpected things, might do something out of character."

  She held my gaze a moment longer and then looked dawn.

  "You put too much on yourself, Grace." I said. "Those pretty shoulders shouldn't have to carry that much weight, carry other people's futures and fate. Not that I couldn't see why someone, some man might want to trust you with all that."