"It's no problem for me. Doctor. I have no pressing engagements." he added.
I was caught in so many deceits and webs of my own making. Willow. Now I was even lying to Miles. If I refused his offer, he would be upset. I could see it in his fact. He needed to be needed, and yet, having him drive me made me feel I was making him part of what I was doing, and I thought that was wrong. Feeling cornered, I smiled and nodded and told him to get the car.
I glanced at the stairway, looking up toward Alberta's bedroom and thinking she was falling asleep with never a thought of what I was about to do ever crossing her mind. A part of me wanted to have me march back up those stairs and throw open her door to declare. "Alberta. I am in love with another woman. I cannot continue this pretense."
And vet there was another part of me that still couldn't believe I would do what I was setting out to do. Even when I was sitting in the vehicle and we were driving to the clinic. I heard this voice within me taunting, You can't do this, Claude De Beers. You are only fooling- yourself Youwill embarrass yourself You will fall on your face and in front of the whole staff and even some Patients, Tell Miles to turn back.. Turn back before it too late.
If those words were there, my tongue refused to form them. I closed my eyes and thought only of Grace. Grace waiting for me in her room. Grace trembling with expectation and with hope, keeping the demons outside her door, staring away any shadows, closing her own ears to any warnings.
Of course. I wondered if she loved me out of a terrible need born from her mental problems or if she loved me as purely and as overwhelmingly as I loved her, Shouldn't I be able to tell? You 're an analyst, analyze, I told myself. In my heart I knew I was too much in love, too compromised even to attempt such an objective evaluation.
More to the point. did I want even to consider the question? I wanted her and that overwhelmed everything else, even her own state of mind, Was I horrible. Willow? Was I terrible to think such thoughts?
Drive on, Miles, I thought. Take Brie to My love, to ray destiny and all else be damned.
Maybe it was because of the excitement boiling inside me, or maybe it was more what I wished than what was, but when I looked up at the night sky, it seemed to be particularly full of stars, so crowded with the twinkling specks they looked as if they might bump into each other. The Big Dipper was never clearer. I vowed that I would forget nothing about this night. I would memorize the heavens so that afterward, every time I thought about this evening. I would see that sky and I would feel the same electric excitation and joy.
"I'll be in the recreation room." Miles told me after we parked and I started for the front entrance of the clinic.
"What? Oh. yes," I said. "Good."
Can you believe it. Willow? I actually forgot he was there, walking just behind me. My mind was so focused on Grace. Self-conscious now. I slowed down, pulled myself back, and tried to look more like the doctor than an anxious lover.
Nadine Gordon was not on duty that evening, thankfully. Suzanne Cohen, a much gentler nurse, younger, but just as competent, was in the recreation room speaking softly to a new patient of ours. whom I will call Palmer. He was a twelve-year-old boy who had been acting out more and more seriously, finally setting fire to his own home. Ralston had taken the lead therapist position with him. He was. I will admit, better with teenagers than I was. In any case Suzanne did not notice my entrance, but would of course realize I was there as soon as Miles appeared.
I went to my office and busied myself with some reports. anticipating Suzanne coming around to see if there was anything in particular I needed from her. Less then ten minutes later she appeared.
"Everything is fine." I told her. "Please, just go about your usual duties. Suzanne."
"I thought I should tell you that Grace Montgomery retired early tonight," she said. "I thought she looked more distracted than she has these past few weeks. She didn't eat very well at dinner. either."
"Oh? Well, I'll try to stop by to see her. Thanks. Suzanne."
She stood there for a moment longer. My heart was ticking away like a time bomb. Had Grace done something, said something about us?
"Very good. Doctor. I'll be at my stati
on should you need me for anything."
"Thank you." I said, still holding my breath until she actually left my office.
I closed the files and sat back. The reasonable doctor part of me began its final pleas, its final attempt at turning me back.
Just put everything away here, Claude. Find Miles and go home, I heard the voice inside me advise. Before it's too late, forever too late, go home, Claude. Go home.
When I stood up and walked to my office door. I actually did not know which way I would go. Willow. I thought of that famous poem by Robert Frost. You know, the one about someone stopping at a fork in the road and choosing one direction over the other and Frost concluding it made all the difference. How many forks in the road do we come to in our lives? I wondered. How many choices do we make that truly affect everything else ahead of us?
And that made all the difference. I kept thinking as I walked toward the patient dormitory and Grace's room, where I knew she waited for me.
She had the small lamp lit on her nightstand, and she was in bed. reading. She looked up when I entered, but she said nothing. I stood there gazing at her. What was the magic that held me so firmly, orbiting her every gesture, every smile, longing to touch her hair, kiss her lips, hold her close to my heart? Was it all some chemical, physical thing or is there truly such a thing as soul mates? I wondered and still do. I laughed to myself thinking how surprised my colleagues would be if I ever so much as brought up such a question for discussion at one of our seminars.
I moved slowly to the side of her bed, neither of us saving a word yet. I think we were both hoping to keep the entire encounter dreamlike, ethereal, perhaps so we could live with it afterward, pretend it was still part of a fantasy.
She closed her book slowly and laid it on the nightstand. I went to my knees and lowered my head gently against her breasts, and she touched my hair. Finally I found some words.
"I wanted to be here so much, to come to you so much, I ache," I said.
With her hands beneath my chin, she lifted my head so we could look into each other's eyes, and then she urged me toward her so our lips would touch, just graze at first and then make demands on each other. That kiss was long and wonderful. I felt myself gliding down some very soft slope. She shifted over in her bed, and I prepared myself to be beside her.