Wicked Forest (DeBeers 2)

Mother and I guided Linden into his room and managed to get him on his bed. She went into the bathroom to get a washcloth and cleaned away the dried blood while I took off his shoes and socks.

I'll take care of him. Willow," she said, stepping back and gazing down at him. "I've done it all his life."

"I'm sorry. Mother. I'll make sure Thatcher is sorry. too."

"It's all right. Don't do anything more tonight. He isn't in a condition to understand you anyway. Men are often boys. Maybe it wasn't so bad for Linden to have the experience," she concluded. "as long as it doesn't set him back.'

"Okay," I said. I watched her for a moment as she lovingly washed off his face and unbuttoned his shirt.

When I walked back to our suite. I found Thatcher sprawled over the foot of the bed, lying on his stomach, his arms dangling over the edge. He was fast asleep.

Mother has her little boy to put to sleep, I thought. And now I have mine. After I struggled with Thatcher, who periodically woke to giggle and kiss me. I managed to get him into bed. The moment his head settled on the pillow, he was asleep, snoring away as loud as a tug-boat. He reeked of alcohol. To get some sleep myself, I retired to one of the guest rooms.

.

I awoke shortly after darkness began to pull its blanket of stars back, retreating before an insistent sun that promised a bright, hot day. The house was still quiet. I looked in on Thatcher. The way he was wrapped around the blanket and the pillow, he appeared to have been struggling with some demon and collapsed in exhaustion. His eyes were shut tight. his mouth slightly opened.

I left him and went to check on poor Linden. Mother, exhausted from worry and concern, was sleeping soundly, as was Linden, his arms still at his sides. I looked at his nose and saw it was a little swollen. He looked like he had spent the night in battle rather than in reverie with Thatcher and his friends. I did hope Thatcher was right about Linden enjoying himself and being accepted as one of the boys at last.

I smiled to myself, recalling how one of my teachers. Mrs. Foggleman, had once compared our socially accepted rituals, such as bachelor parties, to primitive tribal events.

The line between what is primitive and what is not is often blurred by who is deciding," she lectured. "Sort of like history being written by the conquering army."

Maybe what was basic and natural to humanity made us all more alike than we would like to think. I concluded, although to compare people here to people in primitive lands would surely cause a social nuclear explosion. I laughed to myself, thinking how Bunny Eaton would react to such an idea.

As I turned to leave Linden's room. I caught sight of a stack of photographs on his dresser, Curious, I walked over and looked at them. They were all pictures of me, his famous candid photographs. I was astounded not only at the number of pictures he had taken, but at the variety of locations, the things I was doing at the time, the times of day, the people I was speaking to when he'd snapped them. It was as if he had been truly a fly on the wall, invisible and so inconspicuous. I couldn't recall his presence at a single one of these occasions.

He had me sitting at a table on the loggia, bent over my notebook, my face intense as I read and reread notes. He had me eating, speaking with the servants and with my mother: to my surprise, he even had pictures of the Butterworth twins. Holden, and me studying before he had arrived to join us for coffee that day. There were many close-ups of me, catching almost every expression on my face.

But it was the second pile of pictures that shocked me the most. These were taken of me in my room during various stages of undress. Somehow, like some voyeur, he had snapped photographs of me totally naked. There were even pictures of me taking a bath and stepping in and out of the shower stall, as well as bending over the sink, fixing my hair, putting on makeup, in every conceivable place and position-- even going to the bathroom.

&nbs

p; After my initial astonishment, my first reaction was a blood-angry rage. I wanted to tear each and every picture in two and throw the pieces at him. When he had told me he wanted to take candid photographs. I had no idea that meant he would invade my most private moments as well. There was just so much abhorrent behavior I would tolerate in deference to his emotional and psychological problems. This was totally unacceptable and inexcusable. I couldn't wait for him to recuperate enough to be chastised.

After my boiling anger receded somewhat, however, and I looked at the pictures again and then at him still dead to the world in his bed. I had a secondary reaction, one based upon a more thoughtful and objective analysis. This wasn't just annoying and infuriating: it was also somewhat frightening. To what would Linden's obsession with me lead? Was he capable of ever accepting who and what we were to each other? Could he ever have a substantial and satisfactory relationship with another woman?

If I ranted and raved at him and threw these photographs in his face, would he charge madly toward some dark abyss again, and would I then have to live with the knowledge that I had driven him there? Would I stand over his gravesite with my mother beside me and feel it was all my fault? Here I was, a student of psychology, someone who, if anyone could, should be able to step back, calm down, and first seek to help him, not punish him.

I once asked my father how he was able to maintain his objectivity and remain calm enough to help his patients after hearing about some of the terrible things they had done to themselves as well as to others.

"It's a balancing act," he explained. "A surgeon performing a heart transplant on a convicted killer can't think of who he is. He has to think of the medical issues, the problems to solve, and treat the body, not the man.

"People often accuse doctors of being too cold, too indifferent, but sometimes they have to be that way to survive and to perform without prejudice. Caring too much for your patient might make you tremble at the wrong times, just as caring too little might make you negligent.

"I have had patients so full of belligerence and rage, they want to leap out of their seats and choke me to death. Their eyes are sending darts at me. but I can't show them I see that as a threat or see them as so terrible I won't want to help them.

"So. I think of the mind, the condition, the mental problems, and try to isolate them first," He smiled. "I don't always succeed at being so objective. but I have to try and to at least appear as though I have succeeded.

"We're all actors in a sense. We're all wearing masks. Willow. Just choose your masks carefully," he told me.

I looked down at the pictures again, then at Linden, asleep.

What mask do I choose now, Daddy? I asked him in my imagination.

You'll blow

What if I don't know? Daddy? I heard nothing in my mind.