"What?"
"Oh. I'm sorry. I forget sometimes and speak Portuguese. It means I understand. Mrs, De Beers."
"Great. I don't know a word of Portuguese, Claude."
As you can see. Alberta. Isabella speaks English. It's understandable she would slip into her own language occasionally."
"Well, whenever you talk to me, make an effort not to do that," she ordered Isabella.
"Si. I mean yes. Mrs. De Beers."
"Si is okay," Alberta relented. "It's very common to hear that these days with all the Spanish and Mexican people around us, but other than that--"
"I understand," Isabella said, this time with some emphasis. It brought a slight smile to my lips that Alberta did not catch.
"Well, all right." she said, waving her hand at me. "you're my husband's employee. Just remember that. When do you expect this little invasio
n to occur. Claude?" she asked. and I gave her my estimate.
"I'll never get used to it," she vowed and left us.
Isabella looked at me with those dark, wise eves of hers you will never forget. We exchanged so much without speaking.
She was there at your birth, Willow. You went from your mother's arms to hers and the love that bonded them forever passed through you to each of them. I witnessed it and felt it and so did Grace.
Afterward, we held on to each other and she wept softly. My heart was so torn. I didn't think I would have the strength to leave her. I had to, of course, and it took all of my powers to stop thinking about her alone, without the child she had just birthed, your beautiful little face one from her eyes. She had held you and studied you like someone who knew she had to memorize every part of you to hold you again in her heart.
Amou and I brought you home that night. Alberta never came downstairs to look at you. She was preparing for a meeting of her Woman's Club. I told her you were there in the nursery.
"I hope I don't hear any wailing in the middle of the night," she said.
"You won't," I promised.
Then I went downstairs to the nursery and sat beside you while you slept. and I wondered when you would know the truth of your birth and if you would ever feel it before I had told it to you.
As I sit here writing all this now, I think about the times I felt your eyes on me and the times I had your full story on the tip of my tongue. I have always been afraid of what the weight of all that truth would do to you. I know how you have suffered with Alberta's ranting about your origins, and I have often assured you that what she says is not true. I must confess that Amou does a better job of it than I do. As more and more time passed, I felt myself moving further and further away from the opportunity or the chance to tell you everything. I have guarded your mother and my secrets closely for many reasons. Willow, not the least of which remains my terrible sense of guilt.
For I permitted her to leave you and for that and all that followed. I will forever be ashamed.
12
Mommy
.
Now that Jackie Lee had what she wanted, she
wasn't all that easier for your mother to return to Palm Beach. She wanted assurances that Grace would not be too much of a problem for her to handle. Her questions were always weighted with underlying threats.
"If she's worse because of what happened there, you will hear from Mr. Madison," she told me repeatedly.
I had to confide in Grace about it. "I'll deal with my mother when I go home," she said. 'Don't worry about her anymore. Claude."
She remained at the clinic for a while. Every day I would bring her news about you. and I started to bring her pictures as well. To her credit she was thinking more and more about Linden then. too. Your birth had brought back the memories of him, and she began to miss him more. I felt sorry for her, for how she was so torn between going home to her little boy and staying at the clinic to be close to me and to you. There was never any question about where she would end up, not now, not after all we had arranged.
All of her traumatic experiences matured Grace dramatically.
The therapist in me saw the changes clearly. Some pleased me, but some saddened me, for she had become someone who now accepted whatever Fate decided, I suppose what pleased me was her strength, her quiet resolution. Sadness and disappointment would not have their way with her anymore. She was what anyone would call a wiser woman.