"I don't think I'd have trouble finding
psychological counseling if I needed it. Dean Thorne," I said, perhaps too bluntly. He actually winced.
"Of course. That's logical. Well, then, if it's a firm decision on your part. I'll write it up for your teachers and expect to see you here at the beginning of the next semester."
"Thank you," I said. rising.
He stood up and reached over the desk for my hand. He held it tightly. "Is it truly a firm decision? I have to be a little persistent," he explained with that famous smile, "or I'm not doing the job I was hired to do."
"It is.'"
I looked at his hand over mine, and he released it and stepped back, his head nodding and bobbing like those puppets people sometimes keep in the rear window of their automobiles. Ile held the smile until I walked out and closed the door softly behind me.
It was over and done.
I was on my way to meet my mother for the first time in my life. Even thinking it seemed weird.
And frightening.
I wondered if it would be just as frightening for her.
5
Welcome to Palm Beach
.
All I knew was that she had lived in Palm
Beach, Florida. I didn't know if she was still there. If she was. I didn't think I could just knock on her door and announce. "Here I am, your long-lost daughter." This was something I had to do slowly, gradually, sensibly. It would be too much of a shock for both of us to do it any other way.
I didn't know anyone in Palm Beach and certainly no one I could trust to help me, I did know the name of the psychiatrist who had recommended my mother to Daddy. Dr. Anderson. whom I intended to see as soon as I arrived. I had concocted a cover story, and now I wondered if I was capable of carrying it off. I was going to pretend that I was on a work-research project for my studies. That way, I thought I might get him to help me without my having to tell him the truth and Daddy's secret. I would soon discover how good an actress I could be. I supposed, how much I had learned from my adoptive mother.
Despite not living all that far away. I had never been to Palm Beach, My adoptive mother had visited with some friends. She often took vacations by herself, complaining that Daddy worked too hard and wouldn't take the time off. and she wasn't going to suffer because of him. Aside from the occasional shopping spree, I never traveled with her anywhere. The few times we took vacations when I was younger, we usually went to one of the Caribbean islands and once all the way to Hawaii. but Amou always came along to look after me. It was almost as if we were on a separate holiday, eating our meals apart from my parents and visiting sites children would appreciate.
To book my plane tickets and a hotel. I called my father's travel agent back in South Carolina. Every time I spoke with people who had known my father and, of course, knew what had happened to him. I heard the underlying tone of surprise in their voices at hearing mine and the underlying curiosity about what I was doing. My father had just passed away, and here I was asking his travel agent to make arrangements for me to visit one of the world's most famous luxury playgrounds. All of the travel agent's questions were attempts to solve the puzzle and satisfy her curiosity.
"How long will you be staving? It's expensive. Do you have to be in Palm Beach itself? I can find you very nice lodging in West Palm Beach." she suggested. "unless you have to be close to people you're meeting or something."
"No. I want to be in Palm Beach." I thought it was important to dive right into what was, or had been, my mother's world. Daddy always said you can learn about people by learning about their environment first. What were the forces that shaped and influenced them? He was a strong believer in the effects of the social and physical world on the character and personality of his patients: that was why he had spent so much time learning about the families and, if possible, actually visiting their homes. Many of his colleagues were moving toward an emphasis on genetic and chemical influences while he remained firm in his beliefs.
"Well. I can find you a hotel that has apartment facilities, your own kitchen, if you like, and if you don't mind being a little distance from the beach and from Worth Avenue. I can save you a lot of money.
If you want to be right in the Palm Beach world, I would probably look for a room at The Breakers or the Four Seasons, the Palm Beach Hilton. See what I mean? Upscale resorts like that. They're expensive." she warned. "That's why you have to tell me how long you intend on staying, what you want to do, et cetera."
Her questions did set me back for a moment. Really, what was I doing? Was I falling under the hypnotic power of my fantasy, a dream in which I saw this beautiful woman who was so overwhelmed and excited by my appearance that she insisted I move in with her immediately and live in a plush Palm Beach estate? We would spend every day together, learning about each other. We would breakfast, lunch, and go to dinner at fine restaurants. In the afternoons, we would sit around her magnificent pool and talk and talk until we were both exhausted.
In the evening, we would take long walks on the beach together. With the ocean, silvery and calm, in the background, she would knit one story about my father into another, creating a tapestry of their history. She would make me laugh and cry.
We would drink wine and listen to music and reminisce about him in ways I never dreamed, and in the end, we would love each other just the way a mother and daughter should love each other, Miraculously, I would make up for all the lost time without her and compensate for the hard life my adoptive mother had inflicted upon me. My real mother would feel just terrible about all that and declare firmly that she and my father had made a mistake.
"We should have taken them all on." she would say. "We should have defied everyone and remained together. He would have gotten a divorce and maybe moved down here to start his career all over We would have been a family, a real family."
"We will be," I would tell her, and quickly plug up the leak in our dam of newfound happiness that kept out all the sorrow of the past. She would smile, and we would walk on, hand in hand, both of us wrapped in contentment, protected. saved. This was truly Daddy's greatest legacy to me, his gift of a new life and a new family.
"No," I told the travel agent. "I'm not interested in any small apartment. Book me a room in The Breakers for a week." I said decisively. I remembered my adoptive mother had stayed there every time she had gone to Palm Beach. I wasn't going to treat myself any worse than she had treated herself. "I'll see what I need after that."
"I'll try. Willow, but you have to remember it's the season down there. Even the three- and four-star hotel