"I'm sorry, Alberta. I had a new patient arrive late in the day and--"
"I see. And what I want, what I need, is not as important. I know. You don't have to confirm it. Thank you. Claude, for clearly illustrating where I stand on your totem pole of priorities."
She reached in for my door handle and pulled it shut, the sound like a clap of thunder. I sat there staring at the door wondering what indeed had happened to me that I would have completely forgotten this social event. It actually frightened me a little, and I made a secret promise to myself that when I returned to the clinic in the morning. I would be more my professional self than I had ever been. For now. I wouldn't attempt any more apologies. I thought. Alberta was too any at me.
As you will remember, your stepmother and I had separate bedrooms. There was an adjoining door, but our relationship with each other eventually cooled to the point where that door was rarely, if ever, unlocked.
The idea of separate bedrooms was something Alberta thought romantic in the early days of our marriage, and to tell you the truth, I thought it was. too. For her, and perhaps for me, it was like going out on a date. Eventually we had separate bedrooms because she couldn't stand my snoring any longer. Even her earplugs didn't work. At least, that was what she claimed.
"Men and women who share their bedrooms and see each other day in and day out grow bored with each other," she told me. She had read it in one of her romance novels. "The woman, any woman, doesn't like to be caught at her worst moments, and the early hours before makeup and hair are the worst. How is a woman supposed to remain exciting to a man if there are never any surprises anymore?"
She amused me in those days. I laughed and agreed and we set up the separate bedrooms. During the time when I was treating your mother and when we fell in love, that wall between Alberta and myself grew thicker and thicker.
Anyway, she was so angry with me that night, she didn't even come around to tell me all about her event, as she often did. I heard some other doors slammed, and then the house was quiet and I went to bed myself For a long time I just lay there looking up at the dark ceiling, which occasionally flickered with the starlight that slipped between some clouds. I found myself reviewing your mother's history and realized I had memorized almost all of it, every player, every place, every significant event she had revealed to Dr. Anderson in Palm Beach.
I felt that wave of determination wash over me again. I would bring this woman back to where she could fall in love again, and I would do it, I thought, or rather confessed to myself, because I wanted her to fall in love with me.
Am I shocking you? Your solid-like-a-rock, internationally famous psychiatrist of a father, author, lecturer, consultant, admitting that he had selfish motives? It's true. Willow. It's true,
I went to sleep that night with Grace
Montgomery's eyes in mine and her name on my lips.
Alberta was never up before I left for the clinic. Usually she slept until ten or eleven unless she had a lunch appointment. We had hired a maid to cook and take care of all the cleaning in the house, including looking after our clothing, although Miles did most of that far me. At the time I am writing this, your stepmother has hired and fired three maids. We were on our third. Lettia Young. a forty-eight-year-old African-American woman your stepmother hired after a friend of her mother's passed away. I never found much wrong with the previous two, but your stepmother was already complaining about Lettia's cooking, criticizing her for putting in too much salt or too little salt. I suspected Lettia was on the verge of quitting.
She prepared my breakfast. Miles was usually up an hour or so before I was and had already eaten. He waited for me outside as usual and was surprised at how quickly I came out of the house,
"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day." he told me, ate. I ate," I said, but he shook his head skeptically.
Again, an ironic reversal. Willow: my former patient was now looking after me with the concern of a doctor.
"Going to rain a bit today." he said. "Might clear up this afternoon. though."
I looked out the window and just realized how overcast it was. It actually surprised me. The moment I had waken that morning, my eyes seemed filled with sunshine. Willow. I had an energy I hadn't had for some time. I felt like you do when you're about to do something you've never done. You know what I mean. I'm sure: that fresh excitement.
Miles glanced at me a few times in the rearview mirror. "Going to eat at the clinic again tonight?" he asked.
"Maybe."
He nodded.
"You're working too hard again. Doc," he muttered. "Those batteries got to be regenerated from time to time." he lectured. "You're the one taught me that. too."
"I know. Miles. I'm fine."
"Do as I teach, not as I do. huh?"
I laughed. Miles had a real down-to-earth view of things. It was refreshing to me even though Alberta thought his words and behavior proved he was capable of becoming mentally disturbed again. She mistook his quiet, methodical manner as mental slowness and absolutely refused to permit him to drive her anywhere. It was something for which Miles was grateful.
"It's embarrassing to have an insane person driving our Mercedes. Claude." she would say.
He isn't an insane person and he never was insane. Alberta. He had a traumatic event in his life, and it drove him into a deep depression. He's fine now," I assured her. She wouldn't accept that.
"I'll be looking into that hot-water heater problem today, Doc." he told me when he pulled up to the clinic. "Return about seven?"
"I'll call you, Miles." I told him and entered the clinic.
Nurse Gordon was there in the lobby speaking to Edith and turned to me the moment I stepped through the door. Except for me and Dr. Price, no one was at the clinic more than Nadine Gordon.