Wicked Forest (DeBeers 2)

"Yes," I said, holding my smile and not blinking. "Delivering everything there sounds sensible, then, doesn't it?"

"That's why I thought of it," she said. Turning to the guests, she cried. "Onward to dessert. ladies:'

If any guest was worried about her diet, she did a fine job of hiding that fact. Most of them had to have a taste of everything. The setting was

magnificent. Under a blue sky with a few puffy clouds moving lazily from the south. I couldn't have had a more beautiful afternoon on which to celebrate the event. Whitney and Hans had an English maze below their tiered patio. The flowers and trees were breathtaking. There were two pools, one for adults and one for children, cabanas, and barbecue pits. She had a trio playing light classical music. It was very difficult to do as Jackie Lee had advised Mother and keep the exclamation points off the ends of ray sentences. Whitney moved about like a queen. At one point. I gazed up at the house and saw Laurel, her face framed in a slightly opened curtain, looking down at us like an imprisoned child.

Daddy once told me there were all sorts of prisons: "People you think have the most freedom are often incarcerated by their lifestyle or their own nightmares and thoughts. They move about in cages, and it is my job, and someday perhaps yours. Willow, to help them step out."

He would certainly say that here, I thought.

Just before it all ended. Thatcher made a surprise appearance, charming everyone with a little thank-you speech, thanking his mother and sister for welcoming me to the family so enthusiastically. Bunny soaked it all up and spoke as if it was her original idea for Thatcher to ask me to marry him. Mother and I could only glance at each other and smile.

"I guess we made quite a haul here." Thatcher commented. "I saw the pile of gifts being loaded into a van."

He kissed Whitney. then said he had to fly off and get back to earning enough money to keep me in the style to which he was accustomed, which brought lots of laughter. Just before he left. Manon Florette called out to him and asked if I was going to be welcomed as a surprise guest at his bachelor party.

"What's good for the goose is good for the gander, Thatcher,' she said.

"I think if she takes a gander at that party, she'll want to cook the goose." he replied, and gave me a quick kiss on his way out.

It would have been a long, exhausting shower party, even without the added tension both Mother and I felt, so neither of us was surprised at how tired we were when it all finally ended.

"All I want to do is sleep." I told her as we drove out the gates.

When we arrived home. Linden greeted us with a phone message my cousin Margaret Selby had left. She and my aunt. Agnes Delray, had decided they would attend my wedding after all. and Margaret would be one of my bridesmaids.

"Thatcher called. too," Linden said. "for me. He wants me to go to his bachelor party."

"Oh, that will be nice. Linden. What did you say?"

"I said I'd think about it. Do you want me to go?" he asked me.

"Only if you want to. Linden. I don't want you to do anything that you think will make you unhappy or uncomfortable."

He nodded, thoughtful, then said abruptly. "I'll go."

"Remember, von shouldn't drink with your medication. Linden." Mother warned him.

He minted and left us. "I'll remind Thatcher." I told her, "He'll look after him."

"I know we want him to get out, to mix with people. but I can't help but worry." she said. Then she sighed and added, "I suppose that's a mother's curse, always to worry. Wait until you're a mother. You'll understand."

"I understand now." I assured her.

One week later, the moving van arrived to pack up Bunny and Asher Eaton's things, I was at college, but when I returned the truck was still there. I spotted Linden on the sidelines, watching the moving men load the van. The pleasure in his face was quite evident, and I thought he resembled someone whose country had been under occupation for years now watching the defeated army in retreat. After all, for most of his life, he had been relegated to the back of the property and treated like an unwanted, weird person to be ignored and avoided as much as possible. How often had he looked up at the main house, perhaps the windows of a specific room, and thought about his and my mother's situation? Years of resentment festered in and around his heart.

Bunny had assured my mother and me that her maids would leave the house immaculate. Linden said we should have it fumigated.

"She'll be too proud and too afraid of any criticism to leave it any other way. Linden," Mother assured him.

Thatcher and I had discussed the costs of running the grand home, and he had decided that since we were making it our home, he would take over the upkeep and we would maintain the two maids_. Joan and Mary, and, at his own request. Jennings, who was not eager to be packed off with Bunny and Asher. There would be little, if any, transition

problems.

Jennings and the two maids then came to the beach house to begin to transfer our things. We had already determined that Thatcher's suite would become our suite. Mother would have what was once Bunny and Asher's suite. and Linden would have the bedroom next to the room he was going to use as his studio.

One room that had remained untouched, even when Bunny and Asher lived here, was the bedroom that my mother had when she was living here with Jackie Lee and Kirby Scott. The Eatons had treated it as if it were the scene of a murder. It was while she was in that roam that my mother had been seduced and raped by Kirby Scott, I could see from the way she glanced at it and how her steps quickened when she passed it that it still carried the weight of those horrid memories for her. Linden mumbled that it should probably be walled up.