Wicked Forest (DeBeers 2)

"If you're so unforgiving. I have no choice but to protect my rights."

"Go on, protect them. Thatcher. You're the one who included the reference to adultery, which changes everything."

He was silent. "Very odd." he finally said. "how you have all this so well worked out for someone who is supposedly a victim here."

"Supposedly a victim? Just call my attorney, Thatcher," I snapped. I gave him my attorney's number and hung up on him. He didn't call back, but someone arrived the next day with a list of things he wanted from the house. Most of it was his personal belongings. I had Jennings assist him.

Daddy once told me that bad news travels rapidly because people are so grateful it's not bad news for them,

"It is almost as if they feel that by spreading it, they ensure that it will stay away from their

doorsteps," he'd said. He smiled and added. "Like throwing the garbage over the wall into someone else's yard and keeping it out of yours. I see this as especially true with mental illness. Friends and neighbors can be cruel. Relatives, of course, keep it as hidden as they can for fear someone will think it's in the blood and they or their children are next. How many times have I seen families that hide severely disturbed children, even parents, so no one will know."

In fact. Daddy had written a paper about a teenage girl who suffered from paranoid

schizophrenia and was locked in a room without windows for nearly two years until she committed suicide. His thesis dealt with how even the mentally ill had the need for communication and society.

The news of my marital problems found a good home at school, of course. The twins were the first to commiserate. Pet claiming she'd always suspected Thatcher was a heel. Loni felt so sorry for me, she looked sick. Holden Mitchell, who had kept his distance from me ever since the incident on the beach, looked very satisfied and had the courage to approach me one afternoon to say, '1 heard about you and your husband. I told you so." I ignored him and walked away quickly.

Professor Fuentes knew about it all as quickly as everyone else, but made no attempt to talk except to ask me if I was all right. I wasn't in the mood to talk about it anyway, but soon after that. I realized I was guilty of the very things we hoped to overcome in prospective clients-- avoidance, the ostrich

syndrome-- only here, it wasn't possible to bury your head in the sand for long. Waves of gossip, intruding eyes, and busybodies washed it away and left you naked with the truth.

Finally. I admitted to the professor that I wasn't all right. He nodded and asked me to join him for coffee, which quickly turned into one of our famous tete-a-tetes.

"How are your mother and Linden taking all this?"

"My mother puts on a good act. but I know she's hurting for me. Linden... is behaving strangely again."

"How so?"

I explained how he doted on me even more, and how my breakup with Thatcher had reinforced his idea that it was the two of us against the world.

"He's been insisting I stop going to the doctor Thatcher had recommended. I was never crazy about him anyway, so I might go to someone else. Of course. I'm worried about reinforcing his paranoia."

"Don't worry about that. Worry about what makes you comfortable at this time," Professor Fuentes advised.

I agreed with him, then described Linden's latest painting. He nodded. thoughtful.

"He literally sees himself in you. Your suffering is his suffering."

"I haven't done enough to help him. For a while there, because of Whitney and her nasty rumors and such. I neglected Linden, actually avoided him when I should have been helping him get stronger and get out in the world."

"Don't try to take too much of this on your own shoulders. Willow," Professor Fuentes warned, "Get him to return to a professional therapist and get back on some essential medication."

"I will," I said, knowing that was a much bigger task than I could envision. There were more storm clouds on the horizon with Linden's and my names on them.

For one thing, the Eatons, especially Whitney, weren't going to permit Thatcher to be the bad one in this scenario. It wasn't long before new rumors began to blossom like black weeds with sharp thorns. Once again. the Club d'Amour was my source of information. The girls knew when I was going to be home after class, and all burst onto the property together a few days after Professor Fuentes and I had spoken. They were waiting for me when I arrived, Mother had greeted them and sat with them. but Linden, as was usually the case when anyone came to Joya del Mar, had fled to one of his private places on the beach.

The moment

I set eyes on them, I knew there was more trouble. Mother. her eyes dark with worry, excused herself and went upstairs. She looked so much more frail and older to me since my breakup. It almost made me wish I had swallowed my pride and accepted Thatcher's ludicrous rationalization for infidelity.

I sat quickly. I could see the urgency and anger in their faces. "What now?" I asked as soon as Mother excused herself. "They dropped the second shoe," Manon began.

"Second bomb is more like it," Marjorie quipped.

"They, meaning my in-laws?"