and heavy from growing in my chest, making it ache.
I glanced up at a sky turned stormy and foreboding,
heralding rain and wind. It sent me home faster.
-Are you all right?" Mother asked as soon as
she set eyes on me.
"Yes," I said, but then began to cry, She sat
with me and listened as I described my session with
Thatcher in his office.
It doesn't sound very romantic. I know, but the
world has become so complicated. I suppose," she
said. "I can understand him feeling that. as an
attorney, he should take care of these things, but it
does take a bit of the glow from the candles. It's not
something Romeo and Juliet would have considered." I laughed.
"Yes, I can see that scene in the play. The monk
advising the two of them to see a lawyer, especially
because of the animosity between their two families." We laughed, and I wiped a fugitive tear from
my cheek. "I'm too busy to think about it anyway." "Of course you are. and I'm sure it will never be
an issue between you again."
Was she. I wondered, or do we all say the
things to people that we know they want to hear? We
ignore so much about ourselves, especially our own
mortality. Maybe the Bunny Eatons of the world were
better off after all. See everything through rosecolored glasses, deny the dark clouds their hold over
us, spend your life avoiding sadness and depression.
Dedicate yourself to it with such energy and vigor,
you never have a reason to stop and think and mourn
lost childhood faiths.
The storm brought rain and shut out the stars. I
went to sleep early and didn't wait up for Thatcher,
who came home late anyway.
What a welcome brightness it was for me,
therefore, to be at the terminal gate the next day,
waiting for Amou to deplane. I had not seen her for so
long, and I was happy to see immediately that she had put on some weight. At five feet nine, she had always been on the thin side. When I was a little girl. I worried that she would wither like fruit on a vine and get blown away by a fierce wind. My adoptive mother was also tall, but so much more substantial-looking. perhaps because of her hard demeanor. Amou always looked like a lightweight in the ring with a
heavyweight when my adoptive mother confronted her. Why Amou staved with us so long. I'd never know. Anyone else serving such a demanding mistress would have long before found excuses to leave, I told myself it was only because of me. At
least. I hoped it was.
Amou wasn't as beautiful as my adoptive
mother, but my adoptive mother was jealous of
Amou's vibrantly red hair, which she kept long, down
to her shoulder blades. Often I would sit beside her in
her room while she untied her hair and brushed and
brushed it, telling me how important it was to care for
your hair. She had a secret formula for natural
shampoo that involved olive oil and eggs and other
things she wouldn't reveal, especially to my adoptive
mother, who constantly nagged her about cutting her
beautiful hair.
"Why do you bother keeping it so long if you always wear it tied up anyway? What a waste of your
time!" she would tell Amou.
Amou always nodded as if she agreed, but
ignored her. It was the way she handled my mother, a
way that made me smile to remember now. In her own
way. Amou was a better psychiatrist than my father,
or at least as good when it came to dealing with my
adoptive mother. She once whispered her secret to
me.
"Remember. Willow, a branch that does not
bend will always break. Bend with the wind to fool
the wind. Let the wind think it is the master, and when
it stops, go back to being what you were. In time the
wind will grow tired and pass you by."
She was right. My adoptive mother eventually
stopped criticizing her, claiming it was a waste of her
time if Amou wasn't going to take her good advice.
Amou said nothing. She kept those rosy, full lips in a
tight, small smile and shifted her brown-speckled
green eyes at me. We were conspirators by then, allies
in a war within my own house, she and I against my
adoptive mother, neither of us daring to challenge her
face-to-face, but instead snaking ourselves around her,
burrowing beneath her, flying over her, avoiding her,
treating her as if she were invisible as much as we could until, like some exhausted conquering army, she decided to retire from the field and not be bothered
any longer. Her indifference became our victory. "Amour I cried, and ran to her.
She hugged and kissed me, the tears streaming
down her face. "Look at you. Lindo! Muito lindo. My
beautiful Willow."
"And you. Amou. You have finally gained
some weight."
"My sister thinks I have two mouths and two
stomachs when she cooks, and you know how I hate
to waste food."
"It looks good on you." "Never mind." "Let's go. I can't wait for you to meet Mother
and Linden and especially Thatcher."
We picked up her luggage and headed back to
Jaya del Mar. During the trip I told her about Miles,
my father's loyal servant, the funeral. how I had sold
the property; and then I told her more about Linden
and his problems.
"Heartache for seua mae, for your mother." "Yes, she has suffered in so many ways, but she
is happy now. Amou. I think that for the first time in
years, she is truly happy."
"She has you. Why not? You brought the light
into the house. Seu pal, he always said so, if not in
words, with his eyes."
"How long did you know the truth about my
father and my mother. Amou?"
She glanced at me,
"You knew for a long time, didn't you?" I
guessed.
"From the beginning. Seu pal honored me with
his deepest secret and knew that I would never betray
it or him or leave you until I was sure you needed me
no longer."
'I'll always need you. Amou."
"Yes, but from a distance now. Willow," she
said, and we both laughed. The sound of her laughter
was like a wave of warm love, remembrances,
cherished memories raining down on me, bathing me
in hope and happiness again.
"I can't believe you're here, you're really here!" "Stop. I am just an old lady. Make nothing
more of me," she warned.
"Believe what you want." I said. "I'll treat you
like the wind and I'll bend."
She laughed harder and shook her head, "If
only the doctor could be here. too."
"He is. Amou. I believe he is."
"So do I." she said, and we drove through the
gates of Joya del Mar.
"What a place!" she cried. "You have become a
princess."
"Hardly," I assured her.
The moment Mother met Amou. I could see
they would be friends forever. As was Amou's way,
she kissed Mother on both cheeks. They looked like
they would both begin to cry.
"Thank you for being the mother to
my
daughter that I was unable to be." Mother told Amou. "It was easy with such a child," Amou replied. "I wasn't always easy, Amou. What about the
time I painted the kitchen walls with honey and you
had ants forever?"
"To this day. I think of that whenever I put
honey in anything," Amou admitted.
Jennings took Amou's things to her room. and
Mother and I showed her Joya del Mar.
"Um palacio!"Amou exclaimed, "This is truly a
palace. One would think there are kings and queens in
America."
"Some of the people who live here in Palm
Beach believe they are royalty, and some really are
related to royal families in Europe." Mother told her. After we showed her about. I took her to her
room so she could rest and dress for dinner. when. I
hoped. Linden would appear to be introduced.
Thatcher was in court but had promised to be back in
time.
"Obrigado, Willow," Amou said.
"No. I am the one who should thank you.
Amou. Thank you for making this trip and being here
for me, to stand beside my mother and be part of my
family."
She smiled softly.
'Seu pal described her to me, not in detail, but
just as a beautiful woman, someone who had put
music and light back into his life. That's what he said,
'She is the woman who gave meaning to the word
angelic,' he said. When he spoke of her, he had tears
in his eyes."
"Thank you for telling me that. Amou, Rest," I
said, and kissed her softly.
My heart was so full. I thought I would explode
with happiness.
To my joyful surprise. Linden came down to
dinner. He had dressed well for it and brushed his
hair, and even participated in conversation, asking Amou questions about me as a young airl, some of the
answers embarrassing.
After they were introduced_. Thatcher couldn't
wait to tease her about the dreads,
"To this day she worries about them." he joked. "Stop it," I warned him, and glared at him with
hot eyes.
"No, no, it's all right," Amou said. She gave
Thatcher one of her famous intense looks-- famous,
at least, to me. "May you always be able to make fun
of the dreads." she told him after a long moment. He held his smile, but it was as if a prophet had
spoken, and he couldn't wait to change the topic and
talk about his mother's newest idea for the wedding.
Afterward, he confessed that Amon was more than he
had expected.
"She's nobody's fool, wise and very sensitive.
You were lucky to have had her," he told me. "Why,
she even got Linden behaving like a normal person:" "She's always been magical for me."
"Maybe we'll take a trip to Brazil next year and
visit her," he said.
"Oh, will we?"
"What's to stop us? Just your work schedule or
mint, and we can find a way around that, most of the
time," he promised.
That night, my heart so full of joy, we made the
most gentle and yet passionate love we had yet. We
fell asleep clinging to each other as if we were both
afraid sleep would take us too far away.
.
The next morning. Aunt Agnes and Cousin
Margaret Selby arrived. Aunt Agnes was astounded
when she saw Amou and couldn't believe she had
come all the way from Brazil to attend my wedding.
She was cordial to Mother, but anyone could tell from
the way she spoke to her and looked at her that she
could never be very close or very friendly to Mother.
The only reference she made to my father was a
confession of surprise.
All my life I thought of my brother as the most
correct, proper man I knew. He was even serious as a
little boy, so concerned at how he looked to people, he
would wipe his mouth with his napkin practically
after every bite at dinner. To think of Claude having
an affair with a patient!
"On the other hand. I suppose I should be
grateful," she said with as plastic a smile as I had seen
her wear. "After all, if it wasn't for you, we wouldn't
have Willow, now would we?"
Mother took no offense at anything Aunt Agnes
said. Afterward, she whispered to me and revealed
that my father had "described your aunt to a T." When Bunny arrived, she and my aunt took to
each other immediately, siding with each other at
every opportunity. That, too, brought smiles to
Mother's and my faces. Amou couldn't be idle and
went into the kitchen to prepare one of her Portuguese
chicken dishes with piri-piri sauce, a hot sauce so
delicious that everyone raved about it.
Margaret followed me about all day. She
explained at least a half dozen times why her husband
was unable to attend my wedding. Pressing business
concerns kept him from leaving Savannah. From the
way she spoke of him and their marriage, it seemed
that he devoted 90 percent of his time to his work and
10 percent to her, but she didn't seem to mind. She
went on and on about her social activities, her charity
functions, her full life, which to me sounded like a life
full of activities designed to avoid facing reality. Margaret was intrigued with Linden, who didn't
give her a moment of attention. however.
"Is he dangerous?" she asked in a whisper. "Only if you pester him," I said. She believed
me and kept her distance.
To keep her occupied and get her out of my
shadow, I introduced her to the Butterworth twins and
later to most of the Club d'Amour. She got along well
with all of them. although I thought Manon and her
group were really humoring and toying with her most
of the time.
With all my last-minute preparations, I had no
time to be concerned anyway. Both Mother and Amou
hovered around me. Bunny had asked to be called to
my last gown fitting. but I conveniently forgot,
imagining that she would find fault with something
simply because we hadn't taken her advice and used
the people she wanted me to use.
Thatcher had decided that he would spend the
night away. He told me he was going to sleep at the
beach house and that his friend. Addison Steele, had,
as promised, flown in from his home in Paris to attend
our wedding.
"Since we spent so many wonderful nights
there." Thatcher told me. "I think it's only fitting I
sleep there the night before our wedding.
I was too nervous to care or even to listen to
half the things he was telling me. For someone who
had avoided the wedding altar as if it were the
guillotine, he, on the other hand, seemed very cool
and collected.
When we kissed good night. I asked him why
he wasn't at least as nervous as I was. He paused to
consider, then shook his head and shrugged. "I think because it still feels like it's happening
to someone else. But soon enough, the reality will
strike home and then you'll hear my knees knock," he
promised, kissed me on the tip of my nose, and left. An hour or so later. I had a phone call from Mr.
Bassinger, who had just arrived in Palm Beach and
was calling from his hotel.
"I must apologize, Willow. I was away from the
office on a business trip, and my wife and I had
arranged to fly directly here for your wedding. Only
an hour ago, they faxed me your documents. and I've
just completed reviewing this prenuptial. The only
thing that seems out of the ordinary is Thatcher's
working himself into your property because of some
agreement you and he made about the upkeep. Is that
correct? He's paying for that?"
"Yes. Since we're making this our home." 'That's fine, But the way this is written, it's the
same as him levying a lien. Do you want me to get
into it and have the wording revised? There are a few
other minor things I would change."
I thought for a moment,
"No," I said. "I'm sorry I bothered you with it I
don't even want to think about it, especially tonight." "I can understand. These things are usually
done a lot more in advance. We can revisit it later, if
you like," he added softly,
"Good."
"We're so looking forward to your wedding and
seeing you."
"Thank you. I'm looking forward to seeing
you." I told him. I was, because he had been one of
my father's closest confidants, and having him there
was having a little more of my father. too.
"Well, rest up," he said, and hung up. I thought about his comments for a few
moments, then drove them out of my head with a
vigorous shake and denial. I would let nothing do
what my mother had warned this could do. I would let
nothing diminish the glow of our candles.
Not tonight.
Not ever.
Not if I could help it.
Do you think you are being realistic, Willow?
Daddy would surely ask.
Must we always? You weren't realistic all the time, Daddy. Especiallywhen you fell in love with
my mother.
Was I right to be that way?
Yes. Yes! I screamed back at him.
He popped out of my mind like a soap bubble
and left me staring at myself in the mirror.
Wondering.
13
A Most Wonderful Wedding
.
How do you sleep the flight before your
wedding-? I wondered when it came time to do so. I had periodic feelings of numbness alternating with an electric sensitivity at my nerve endings that made me jump and flinch and have shortness of breath every time I brushed against something or stopped and let myself dwell on the ceremony and reception. I don't know how many times I looked at my wedding dress, my shots, my veil, questioning whether I had made the right decision or whether I should have listened to Bunny.