"I'll remind you of that."
"Forever, I hope. Can I see you tonight?'" "I don't know. Can you?"
"You know what I mean. Willow. Will you meet me someplace, say about seven? I know where we can have an intimate dinner, and then later..." "Yes, later?'
"I have the keys to a friend's beach house. He's in Europe at the moment. Actually, for a whole month or so. It can be our secret rendezvous. I'll have a key made for you. We'll set up our private world there and it will be like we've stepped out of this insanity, stepped onto a cloud or something," he confirmed, weaving the dream with the thread of his golden words,
"Sounds like we're a pair of spies or fugitives." "Just a pair of lovers," he replied. "Well?"
"All right. A part of me says no, but..." "Your heart says yes?"
"No, it says maybe," I said, refusing to be a complete prisoner of the dream.
He laughed.
"I'll fix that with candlelight, music, your favorite pasta, and wine. The restaurant is called Diana's. It's a very inconspicuous, unpretentious little family restaurant just north of Palm Beach Gardens. You can't miss it. It will be on your right with a simple neon sign above the door. The beach house is only fifteen minutes away. I'll meet you at seven."
"Okay," I said, unable to put up the slightest resistance now, "How are things there?"
"Not good, Thatcher. Linden is not well at all. I'm worried for him and for my mother."
"He belongs under a doctor's care, Willow. Waiting is merely postponing the inevitable."
"That's something we all do," I muttered.
"Yes, perhaps, but it's far more costly and even dangerous for someone like Linden. I can help, if you want."
"We'll see," I said I was still under the illusion of being able to change things dramatically myself.
"Let's not think about any of that tonight," he urged. "We've got some catching up to do. right? Right?"
"Right," I forced myself to say. "Until then." he said, and hung up.
I found my mother on the loggia, sitting in her chair and staring at the sea. I sat beside her, both of us quiet.
You and Thatcher," she began after another long moment of silence. "will see each other?"
"Sort of." I said. She turned, confused. "Inconspicuously, for a while. There are some new complications. His parents, of course. He wants us to be low-key for a while. Secret rendezvous, that sort of thing."
"Oh?"
It might just be nothing," I said, already regretting saving as much as I had. Putting any more weight on her shoulders now would be disastrous. I thought, "I'll give it a little time and see."
"I hope it does work out for you, Willow. I hope your coming here wasn't a monumental mistake in your life, that my bad luck, my dark destiny doesn't infect you like some flu or bad disease."
"Oh, Mother. no. Don't talk that way."
"My mother. Grandmother Jackie Lee Houston, used to tell me everything is part of some grand plan, everything is meant to be, and in the end we can do little to change it. I guess it was her way of accepting some of the harder and sadder events in her life, and I guess she anticipated I would experience similar things and need the same philosophy to get through. But why. I wonder from time to time, do we bother to get through? Through to where. to what?"
"To something better," I declared,
"Yes. To something better. A sailor's dream," she said, looking out at the horizon. "He would have come one day, you know. He would have come to fetch me and take me away from all this, your father.'
"Yes. I believe it. too. Mother." She smiled. "At least, in his way he did come. He sent you.-
"Exactly," I said, grateful for a little light in her eyes, a little warmth in her smile.
For some of us, it's almost sinful to hope,- she said. I took her hand quickly.