Into the Woods (DeBeers 4)

chased down by some of the more unsavory characters he was indebted to. He put up no resistance to the legal proceedings to separate him from Mommy. Our financial advisors and lawyers did the best they could creating- barriers to his raiding what was left of our fortune. Once she had loved him passionately, with a young woman's excitement, and now there was no one she hated more.. And I was to tell her this person had done one more terrible thing to

us?

My throat closed every time I thought I could

do it. and I was too frightened and knew no one to go

to who could help me find a secret way out of my

dilemma. I was still barely showing. But I knew it was

going to be very hard to keep my secret much longer. While all this was going on our financial

advisor had located a couple who were very interested

in renting Joya del Mar. the Eatons. They had no

problem about our living in the beach house and were

even willing to keep on all our servants. Preparations

were begun for our taking over the rear apartment in

the beach house, the biggest one at least. and Mommy

began to sell off whatever she could from the house to

build up our bank accounts again and at least give us a

sense of some security.

Mommy behaved as if someone had died the day we moved out of the main house. She would break out in quiet sobbing on and off and then suck in her breath to give the servants another order. The maids packed all our clothing and brought it to the apartment, which had no closet space in comparison. One of the bedrooms in the apartment had to be utilized for storage. and Mommy wailed about all her wonderful dresses and gowns, her pants suits and

shoes that would be ruined.

Another fact of life would be the use of the

servants themselves. After this day they no longer

worked for us. They worked for these new people. the

Eatons.

"It's been so long since I've cooked anything,"

Mommy complained. "We'll starve."

Her sighs were so deep and came so often I

thought she would eventually crack in two. Out of the

garage came our two automobiles, now to be parked

on a section of the driveway.

"We'll have to sell one of the cars anyway," she

concluded. I didn't really care. I had no interest in