Willow (DeBeers 1)

4

A Fateful Decision

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The Willows was Daddy's baby from the

beginning. He had been a practicing psychiatrist for nearly five years before he learned of a rather sophisticated rest home that was going out of business not more than fifteen miles from our estate in Spring City. He brought the investors together, and they visited the facility.

What attracted Daddy immediately was the location. The home had been constructed on a hill overlooking the Congaree River. The structure was surrounded with open field but also at least eight hundred acres of open pine woods composed of longleaf, labially, and pond pine. The woods contained a wide variety of ferns, legumes. and wildflowers.

It had always been a linchpin of Daddy's philosophy concerning therapy that nature and the immediate environment had a dramatic effect on the mental well-being of his patients. There was a peacefulness, calm and tranquility about the Willows that made it so attractive to him.

What gave it its name and what was so unique about it were the six wonderful weeping willow trees in the front that rose to heights of close to forty feet. The original owners considered them to be the most romantic trees because of how gracefully they bowed and stirred with the breeze. The branches were full of olive-green leaves that hung in pendulous curtains to the ground.

Behind them, the building loomed. It was eclectic in style, with a number of Italian Renaissance features and a unique recessed porch that always made me feel as if I were entering a tunnel or some dark, mysterious world. It was a three-story building that had been expanded over the years.

Mainly because of the way my adoptive mother characterized Daddy's clinic as a building full of insanity, I had always been afraid to go there. My heart would pound just approaching the

property. Daddy was very careful to keep me away from any direct contact with patients who had severe problems. And despite what my A.M. said, the people I saw enjoying the lounge, watching television, playing board games, or just reading generally didn't look any stranger to me than the people I saw on the outside. Still. I was afraid to look directly at them for long. Once. I caught sight of a young girl, probably no more than fifteen, marching through the hallway angrily, her long black hair stringy and knotted, her hands clenched into fists, and her arms extended and locked at the elbows. She turned her head toward me as if she could feel my eyes on her. and I gasped because her eyes were wide and furious. The attendant moved her along, and as she disappeared around a corner. I could see her shoulders lifting as if her whole upper body were going to break away and float to the ceiling.

I had a nightmare about it and woke up crying. My adoptive mother bawled out Daddy, warning him that he would only nurture the disturbances within me if he brought me back to that world. She loved to say that. "back to that world." as if I could actually recall my birth in the clinic.

Even now, even after all these years, I could feel the trembling in my body as I drove into the parking area. I actually had trouble breathing and had to sit in the car for a moment after I had turned off the engine. I took as deep a breath as I could and stepped out. With my head down, just like when I was a little girl walking toward that entrance. I started for the building.

For as long as I could remember. Edith Hamilton had been the receptionist. She sat behind a horseshoe-shaped desk, now covered with computer equipment. The sixty-year-old woman smiled at the sight of me. She had dark brown eyes and hair that was becoming completely Confederate gray. She kept it styled short and neat, almost like a helmet. At the funeral yesterday, she was crying harder than most, I recalled how my adoptive mother had accused Daddy of encouraging Edith to have a crush on him.

"No woman dotes on a man as much as she does without fantasizing about him in bed," she declared.

Of course. Daddy denied it all. Now. I thought to myself how ironic it was that my adoptive mother had accused Daddy of harboring romances in his clinic. If only she had known how close to the truth she was. I thought.

"Haw are you. dear?" Miss Hamilton asked as I approached. She came around her desk to embrace me. Just the sight of me brought tears to her eyes, and that brought tears to mine. "I'm all right. Edith."

She always insisted I call her Edith. She was a divorced woman who had returned to her maiden name but insisted I call her Edith, even when I was only six or seven years old. Her marriage hadn't lasted a year, and she had never found anyone after that. I wondered if perhaps she had gone to Daddy for some sort of counseling-- and maybe my adoptive mother was right, regardless of what Daddy thought, maybe Edith had dreamed of being with him and let that fantasy take control of her life, Here I was being an amateur psychoanalyst already, I thought, and laughed at myself.

"Dr. Price is waiting for you." she told me. "You know where his office is now?"

"Yes," I said. He had moved to the office adjacent to Daddy's a few years ago.

I started for it. It was just a habit of mine now to walk through the corridors without moving my head very much. I had never wanted to look to the right or left, into the recreational rooms or the small cafeteria, to see the patients. But today I couldn't help thinking my mother was here once, sitting at that card table or working on her arts and crafts. Maybe she was like that woman seated in front of the window, looking at it as if it were a television set. In her mind, she could be seeing some of her favorite programs. How odd all this was to me in light of what I now knew.

I knocked on Dr. Price's office door and entered. He was standing by the window with his hands behind his back and turned to smile at ine.

"When you drove up in your father's car just now. I had the wild fantasy that everything that has happened was just a nightmare and he would be stepping out of the automobile."

"How I wish that were true." I said.

He nodded. "Going back to college today?" "I expect to yes."

"That's good. Get right back into the ebb and flow of things, occupy your mind, stay busy. That's what I'm doing. whether I like it or not." he said, nodding at a pile of folders on the corner of his desk. "We're at full capacity, you know."

"I don't know whether to say that's good or bad."

He laughed. "You're right, a doctor with no patients would starve. Police need crooks, mechanics need broken-down cars: doctors need sick people. I suppose you could divide the world between people who make a living off someone else's trouble and misery and those who make a living off people's extravagances. I should sell jewelry," he quipped. and I laughed again.

We were both obviously very nervous,

"I'll let you read this." he said, putting his hands on a folder at the center of his desk. "I have to see a few patients, and that will take a while. When I return. I'll try to answer any questions you might have, and then I sincerely hope you put it all behind you. Willow. Devote yourself to yourself now. That's my best advice, and I feel certain it would have been your father's as well."