I walked her past the arts and crafts room. which I noticed she looked at with some interest, and then we paused at the doorway of her room. She stood there looking in at it. hesitating. Our rooms were far from spartan. They all had pretty curtains, nice furniture, lots of brightness with the windows and the pleasant coffee-white walls, all of which had paintings on them, beautiful scenes of Nature, peaceful. meditative. The floors were carpeted, and each room had its own bathroom. Patients had to go to the entertainment center to watch television. We had game tables there, cards and checkers and chess boards, and a good library, We didn't want them spending too much time alone, you see.
But this was not home and I was sure quite a bit different from the bedroom your mother had at her home. She had brought along some of her personal things. which I learned included a number of presents her father had brought home to her from his various naval excursions. One of them was a teddy bear she already had on the bed.
I always prided myself in having great compassion for my patients. Willow, but seeing your mother standing there in the doorway of her clinic room, her eyes filling with the realization that this was her home for now and for perhaps a long, long time, practically brought tears to my eyes. I recognized immediately that I was feeling everything more deeply when it involved her. I didn't ignore it, but I did try not to pay any attention to it. Little did I know then how terribly I would fail at that. However, that was one personal failure I do not repeat, even to this day, Willow.
She turned and looked at me.
"What sort of a person was here before me?" she asked. "A young woman, not unlike yourself."
"What was wrong with her?"
"Serious mood swings. What we call bipolar."
"Is that what's wrong with me?"
"Let's wait and see, spend more time before we make any definitive diagnosis."
She smirked a bit, but that was a truthful answer on my part.
"Whatever happened to her?" she asked, nodding at the bed as if the previous patient were still there.
"She's home now with her family and she's doing well. Just like you will," I said.
She smiled, but it was the smile of someone humoring someone.
She didn't have to say the words. I could hear them: -.Yeah, sure. Tell me another fairy tale."
Nothing stirred my determination more. Right then and there I swore to myself: I -will make her healthy and enough to take care of herself again. She will go home to her child,
3
A Forgotten Social Event
.
It wasn't often that I remained at the clinic and
had dinner with my staff or with some of our patients. but I very much wanted to that first night your mother arrived. Your stepmother Alberta was already quite annoyed with me because of how much time I was devoting to the clinic. She went so far as to accuse me of adultery. claiming I was more in love with it than I was with her. We were only married a short time before I was able to put the clinic together, and it was a very exciting opportunity for me at the time.
Even from the very beginning. I don't think your stepmother ever really respected the work I did. Willow. Oh, she liked the fact that she was married to a doctor, especially one who had something of a national reputation, but either she was frightened by my work or she was simply bored with it, for she hated my bringing home any stories about the clinic and especially anything at all to do with any and all of my patients.
Ironically, her father had no respect for psychiatric medicine. He thought it was all a way to excuse people from their responsibilities and called it voodoo medicine. However, he looked upon our marriage very favorably. Of course my sister, your aunt Agnes, attributed all that to my father-in-law's poor economic situation. Alberta came from an old Southern family who had become land rich and dollar poor, and they were gradually losing all of their property, selling it off to developers in order to survive.
As you know from our photographs and news clippings. Alberta was a beautiful young woman when we married. Whenever there was any sort of charity event that involved modeling clothing, she was asked to be part of it. She might even have gone on to do that professionally, but her mother and especially her paternal grandparents believed modeling to be a profession just a step away from prostitution. Quite a ridiculous and old-fashioned way of thinking, but nevertheless, a way of thinking that heavily influenced Alberta.
I won't tell you that I was ever deeply in love with your stepmother. but I will say that she fascinated me. She always maintained a true Southern elegance about her. In my way of thinking, she was one of those people who were truly born in the wrong century, who belonged at a far different historical period, like someone who had literally stepped out of Gone With the Wind or some such novel. I used to think she laughed like Scarlett O'Hara. Her beauty easily made her the catch of the season at her debutante ball.
I can't recall exactly who said it, but someone told me. "A man like you should have a wife like that. Claude," and that stuck in my mind. We were truly a famous couple during those early years, invited to everything, our pictures always on the social pages. A doctor is like anyone else: dependent upon image, reputation. recommendations. Of course, he has to have ability and knowledge, but many, many do and yet do not find the level of success I have found, and some of that might be attributed to my high social profile, what some people call networking. It certainly helped me get the financing I needed and opened many a door quickly.
If I was to analyze myself, Willow. I would have to admit to being a little insecure and perhaps too dependent on and grateful for the public image. It's very easy to fall in love with your own public self. You're complimented and lauded so much, you begin to believe your own publicity. Thankfully, I believe I caught hold of myself before it was too late and stepped back and away from all the empty glitter, something for which. I'm afraid, your stepmother never forgave me. I became less and less her husband and more and more the doctor. Maybe that was the real reason why she came to hate my work and the clinic so much.
It wasn't long before your mother had come to my clinic that Alberta and I began to lead quite separate lives. She didn't want to be part of what I was, and I didn't want to be part of her social world. To me it seemed a great waste of valuable time, frivolous and fall of self-important people.
I can't tell you how many times she said. "Why can't you be like the other doctors in this community. Claude, and have office hours and answering services that keep people away?"
You heard her say things like that, I'm sure. Sometimes. I wondered if she wasn't right. Had I became obsessed with my work to the detriment of everything else in my life? I suppose if I feel guilty about anything. Willow, it's not spending enough time with you. I depended too much on your Amou, your beloved nanny.
Getting back to that wonderful first day I met your mother, however, I must describe what happened at dinner. At the clinic we encouraged as much interaction among the patients as was not only possible, but beneficial. As you know from some of the things I've told you. I've had patients who were so outgoing we practically had to keep them in chains, and patients who were so introverted, so closed up, they practically had to be hand-fed. Your mother was never that bad, but it was easy to see she wanted to keep to herself.
She tried to sit alone at a table that first night. but Nurse Gordon would not permit it. To be fair to her, it was our policy to try to get the patients not to withdraw, and she was doing only what we considered goad therapy. Occasionally, one or more of my associates had dinner with the patients. and I had on occasion as well, so it wasn't so unusual for me to do the same. Even so. Nurse Gordon looked very surprised when I appeared in the dining room. There were no other physicians there this particular evening. Dr. Ralston Price and I were the head physicians and he was off to speak at a convention.
We had nearly twenty patients in the clinic at the time, their ages ranging from fourteen to sixtyeight. One was a young woman about your mother's age. I'll cal
l her Sandy because she had flaxen bland hair that she kept long and stringy and pulled an with such force sometimes, it made her forehead crimson. Sometimes she actually pulled out some strands and held them in her small, tight fist like threads of real gold. At night Nurse Gordan would practically have to pry her fingers open with a crowbar, and Sandy would scream and threaten to bite her. That was a
confrontation to behold. Nadine Gordon was no one easily intimidated, however. She usually got her way.
Sandy was an obsessive-compulsive, and she could, if she targeted someone, talk incessantly at him or her, regardless of whether or not the recipient of her conversation actually paid her any attention. She was at your mother that first night and on about her favorite new topic: the dark figures she saw lurking about the clinic, looking, she believed, for an opportunity to crawl into people.
She sat beside your mother and began to polish her silverware clean. If someone didn't remind her to eat, she would sit there all night polishing her fork and her spoon.
"I saw them bring you here," she told Grace. "They knew you were coming. They were whispering about you in the corridor all day, you know. They're just waiting outside your room now. You don't look at them. You don't let them look into your eyes. That's very important. When you see them, you turn away," she warned, "You give them your back and don't ever, ever walk into a dark room. They have you where they want you if you do that. You can't see them in the dark. That makes sense, doesn't it?
They followed me here, you know. They followed me. But don't blame me for them. They followed other people. too. They followed you, I bet. Didn't they?"
Your mother looked a bit terrified.
"Sandy," I said, sitting dawn across from her, "I want you to start eating. You want time to do other things tonight, and besides, we can't keep the kitchen staff waiting for you all night, can we?"
She looked at me, looked at Grace, and then she started to polish her fork.
"Sandy, start eating," I said a little more firmly.
All the while your mother was watching, fascinated, but still obviously frightened. too.
Nurse Gordon came up behind Sandy and threatened to take her fork and have her eat with her hands. She wouldn't eat if we did that anyway, of course. She would go out to wash them and spend an hour in the bathroom doing so.
"C'mon, Sandy," I coached. "See. Grace is eating. She wants to finish and do other things."
She looked at Grace and then she took a small fork full of mashed potatoes, inspecting it closely before putting it into her mouth.
"I'm tired," she said almost immediately after one fork full.
"So eat and then go to sleep." Nurse Gordon told her. She oversaw the patients at the tables with an eagle eve and with catlike movements.
"If there's something in particular you like to eat, just let the nurse know." I told Grace. "We have an excellent chef."
I saw Nurse Gordon's eyebrows rise. It wasn't something I told every patient, of course. I had to evaluate each one and what he or she would want to know and of course was capable of knowing.
"Sometimes you make this place sound like a country club. Dr. De Beers," Nurse Gordon told me later.
'I just want them to feel comfortable here." Ms, Gordon," I replied.
"If they're too comfortable, they'll never want to leave." she retorted.
She could be a hard person, but she was so efficient and so competent. I couldn't think of letting her go.
Afterward, I walked your mother out and tried to get her to relax a while, watch some television perhaps, or read in the recreation room, but she complained about being too tired and just wanted to sleep. Of course, she was in a deep depression and people who are often choose sleep over anything or everything else. I suppose it's a form of escape. (I could write an and on about this and have to keep reminding myself this isn't an article for a psychology magazine,)
I escorted her to her room again. I do try to give each and every one of my patients as much personal attention as I can. but I recognized that I was trying to find every way possible to remain with Grace,
"Your room has one of the nicer views. It looks toward the Congaree River. I can walk to it from my home, but because of our height here, we can catch glimpses of it. I know you had the ocean to look at, but it's nice to have water nearby, even if it's only a river." I told her.
She looked at me with what I thought were smiling eyes. She could sense my struggle to keep talking, to find a way quickly to break through the dark curtain she had dropped between herself and the world.
"I don't look outside much anymore." she said.
"Well, we'll just have to help you do that. then," I told her.
She seemed to sink inside herself, retreat into those dark places that sadly had become her comfort zone. I wished her a goad night just as Nurse Gordon came down to dispense her medication.
"Still here, Doctor?" she asked, a bit surprised.
"Just on my way out." I said and said good night to Grace. She didn't look at me. I exchanged a quick, doctor's-mask look with Nurse Gordon and then left.
About a year before your mother arrived at the clinic. I hired a former patient of mine to be my driver and to fulfill same of our household chores which involved mainly looking after the grounds. His name is Miles Porter. and I imagine he will still be with us when you read this. Alberta was against my hiring him because he was a fanner patient of mine, but I held fast to my decision and she accepted it, even though she never treated him with much respect and often complained about what she considered his strange silences and his work. She avoided him and Miles didn't miss any opportunity to avoid Alberta.
Because I had remained at the clinic for dinner, Miles ate with the staff.
He was used to my working in the car, reading or scribbling notes, but I couldn't help wondering if even Miles saw something different in me that night. Willow. can I tell you my heart was pounding? I didn't feel foolish as much as I felt guilty. Like someone caught being where he knew he shouldn't be. Why do I feel this way? I continually asked myself as we drove home that night. I had met a new patient. I had helped her begin to orient herself to her new surroundings. I had a preliminary session with her. I had given her a little tender loving care. I've done that before, hadn't I? My driver. Miles, sitting in front, was a prime example of that.
All true, I heard my inner self reply, but why can't you get that young woman's eyes and soft lips out of your mind? This imagery doesn't have anything to do with your work or her needs. I'm surprised at you, Claude De Beers, You're behaving like a lovesick schoolboy. Get hold of yourself.
There I was holding a full, all-out debate with myself in the car.
Your stepmother wasn't home when we arrived. I was grateful for that. I felt as if I had another woman's lipstick on my collar or something and all she would have had to do was look at my face and paint her finger at me and ask. "What have you been doing, Claude? Why do you have that look on your face?"
It was ridiculous of me to think that, of course. If anyone was oblivious to my moods, my looks, it was Alberta. Most of the time she was so occupied with her own activities and thoughts, she wouldn't know if I was there or not. I didn't think about where she was this particular evening. She was often somewhere when I returned from the clinic, but when she arrived this particular evening, she marched right to my office where I was catching up on some paperwork and stood in the doorway glaring in at me.
"How do you feel about yourself now?" she asked.
I tell you. -Willow, my heart skipped beats. If guilty feelings popped out on one's face. I would have been covered in red freckles.
"What?"
I wondered: Could someone have called her from the clinic and said something to her about my behavior toward Grace? That's how guilty and selfconscious I felt.
"I don't understand. Alberta." I continued, I think I was holding my breath. too.
"I just want to know how you feel about yourself? About not having the decenc
y to at least call to say you weren't going to be there."
I shook my head.
"I'm sorry, Alberta, be where?"
"Be where?" She looked away for a moment, calming herself. She actually looked more beautiful when she was angry like this. Her face would take on a soft ruby tint, and her eyes would blaze with the fire of rage stoked inside her. "How about the executive committee for the Heart Association gala ball? You and I are sponsors as well. Your name was prominent on the program. Claude."
"Oh. Oh. yes." I said, glancing at the formal invitation stuck between the pages of a medical reference book on my desk. She had made a point of giving the invitation to me so I wouldn't forget it. and I had put it in my calendar. In fact. I had even remembered it that morning on my way to the clinic and had made a mental note about what time I wanted to leave to get home to dress. As I told you. I avoided as many of these dinners as I could, but I recognized this one Was special, especially for Alberta.
"Oh. yes? Do you have any idea what it was like for me to be seated next to an empty chair? Bart Kaplow thought it was funny and suggested we talk to the chair as if you were in it. I told him it wouldn't be anything new for me. I often talk to the walls at home."
"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.