Twisted Roots (31 page)

"We do so many painful things to each other, don't we?" Mommy asked and finally turned to me.
She didn't look sad. She hadn't been crying. She looked like she had most often looked to me, strong, wise, confident, my mother the doctor, my mother.
"Some of it we do deliberately. We can't fully contain our selfishness. We are, after all, only human with our envies and our pride. Some of it we do without fully realizing what we've done. We're careless. negligent. We blunder because we're too anxious or we move too quickly, and we regret that. Some of it we can't help because we've inherited things we still don't understand ourselves.
But in the end, in the very end, when we have our quiet moments and we want to be honest, we know what we have done, and we desperately need to be forgiven.
"I did blame you for little Claude's death. Hannah. It was convenient to blame you and it helped me contend with my own sorrow. Anger brought me a little relief, ironically. Of course, that was ridiculous, but
I
was not in
a
good state of mind, and
I
did not want to be.
"I did not want to understand or explain or justify anything. I wanted to hate God. hate Fate, hate anyone or anything I could.
I
even hated myself. saw myself as a victim of that curse again and blamed it on my own heredity. Poor little Claude had to have been brought into it.
"Of course, when my reason returned.
I
understood how foolish and wrong all that was, but it was too late. I had driven you from me."
"Mommy,"
I
said, and she put up her hand.
"No, I did. Hannah. I am not going to deny it. and I don't want you to fool yourself about that. What you felt was real and was true. Your running away helped me see it.
"Of course. I was angry again because you had taken Linden with you, which at the time seemed an even more defiant act."
"I shouldn't have,"
I
admitted.
Of course not, but not because of what I had told you or forbidden you to do.
"You see. Hannah,
I
never wanted you to love your uncle Linden and become as attached to him as much as you have."
"Why not?"
She turned away.
"A long time ago, as you lalow. Linden developed an unhealthy relationship to me in his own mind. The nervous breakdown that we have told you he suffered was far more severe than we described, What Linden did in the end was try to cage me up in this very house.
I
could have died before giving birth to you. It was not a pleasant thing. It was true madness, and it has taken all these years of therapy and care to bring him to the recuperation he has enjoyed.
But I never recuperated as I should have. I never forgave him.
I
pretended I did, I hid behind all the medical and psychiatric activity and terminology I could. but I have never held him lovingly. and I have never permitted myself to care about him the way I should have I know that now, and in a way that is because of you.
"I wonder myself if I haven't been afraid of Linden all these years, afraid not just of him, but afraid of something in me. Maybe some of what happened to him was really my fault. I am constantly interrogating myself, reviewing my past here, and wondering if
I
hadn't encouraged him, perhaps out of a complicated sense of sibling jealousy. My mother loved him beyond life and I envied that.
"So you see, in a real sense I have to ask Linden to forgive me. too. I don't know if he will ever be capable of understanding why. but I am now and I need it."
'Tie couldn't hate you, ever,"
I
assured her.
"Maybe not or maybe he never will understand why he does. I know that sounds like a lot of psychiatric mumbo jumbo, and perhaps in the end, that's all it is. Perhaps things are simpler than we think they are, and some day we'll all sit here together and share the wonder of our lives and laugh and be loving in an innocent way.
"I suppose that's why we regret losing our childhood. It was a time when blue was simply blue, when stars were simply stars, when smiles and laughter had no other purpose than to make us happy.
"That's all gone for you, too. now. Hannah, but there are ways to replace it Only it all depends on finding someone who will help you love yourself again. Does that make any sense to you?"
"Yes,"
I
said.
"For me, you are that person. Hannah. You help me care about myself. I need you to love me. Hannah. I need you to forgive me,"
"I love you Mommy. I can't help it."
She smiled. "Nor can
I
help loving you. So," she said, rising out of the patio chair. "let's begin by forgiving each other first."
She held out her arms and I rushed into her embrace. For a very, very long moment we simply clung to each other. It was as if the whole world had stepped back.
"Now," she said, taking my hand. "let's walk along the beach, and you can begin to tell me all about this crazy thing you did and all that happened along the way." We started walking and I did just that.
.
When I reached the end of my story. I told Mommy I had called Daddy first to ask him to help me. I explained what had happened, and she shook her head and told me she wasn't surprised, but she thought I should call him that night and tell him I was home anyway.
He wasn't home and thankfully, neither were my twin brothers. The butler put Danielle on the phone. She said she would let my father know, but she sounded very sad herself. I thought it was because she still believed I was to blame for what had happened at the house on the twins' birthday. I started to explain again, and she stopped me,
"You don't have to tell me anything.
cherie
. I know the truth. I know now just who my sons are." she said. I thought her voice cracked again. and I asked her if she was all right. She said she was and again assured me she would tell my father
I
was safely back home.
I
expected to hear from him that night or at least the following day, but he didn't call. I called his office, and Mrs. Gower told me he was out of town. She would give him the message when he called in for his messages. Again, the day passed and he didn't call. I decided to stop pursuing him.
As he had promised. Miguel brought Uncle Linden to Joya del Mar for lunch two days after we had returned.
I
could see Mommy was nervous about it. but Uncle Linden wasn't. He was very talkative and sat on the rear loggia making comments about this or that on the property, recalling things that had happened at the pool or on the beach front.
I
thought he had forgotten everything about our trip, until he paused at the end of his visit to tell me I should stop by when I had an opportunity because he wanted to show me the completed picture he had made of Bess and Rosemary. Mommy and I looked at each other with a little concern. She made arrangements to go to see him at the end of the week.
It had been a long time since she and I visited the residency together. Uncle Linden was very excited to see us, but not. as I thought at first. because Mommy was with me. Na. he couldn't wait to bring us to his room so we could see his finished work of art.
I
had prepared Mommy for this, describing to her what
I
had discovered when I had gone to fetch his painting and put it in the motor home. We were both prepared to pretend we saw something that made sense.
Imagine the shock both of us experienced when we entered his room and saw the picture on his easel. It was a remarkable picture. Bess's likeness so exacting I could look at
it
and actually hear that thin and fragile laugh and see the vulnerability in her eyes. What interested me the most about the picture, however, was the rendering of Rosemary. The little girl beside her bore only the slightest resemblance to me and that was just in the color of her hair. She looked happy, too. so I imagined that the photograph Bess had given Uncle Linden was one taken before her husband had begun to poison Rosemary against her.
I
could see some of Bess in Rosemary and even something of Grandmother Stanton. Perhaps that had been Uncle Linden's contribution.
As in all of his recent pictures, the background was somewhat abstract, but the colors were vibrant and true, I thought.
"It's a wonderful picture. Linden." Mommy told him. "I want you to help me get it to her," he said.
"We can do that right away. I'll have it packaged properly and sent express delivery," she promised.
"Good." He stepped back to admire his own work,
"And you did the little girl from a photograph?" Mommy asked, showing her admiration.
He turned and looked at her, shaking his head. "Oh. no. Willow," he said. "She was there. I saw her. Wasn't she, Hannah?"
I
smiled. "Yes. Uncle Linden. She was there."
Afterward, we had some iced tea on the porch. Uncle Linden had gotten Mrs. Robinson to buy some mint tea. He made a point of telling us, however, that somehow, it didn't taste as good as Mrs. Stanton's.
"She has secret ingredients for everything. I bet. Next time I see her. I'll coax her into telling me." he said.
I thought it was nice that he expected there would be a next time. Mommy thought it was healthy for him to have a goal like that, to want to return to see someone else. He then revealed that he was writing letters. too.
"Well, when you're ready, then, Linden, you should take a trip like that." Mommy said.
"Yes. I should. When I'm ready," he agreed.
We took the picture with us when we left. and Mommy went directly to the packaging store to have it prepared and delivered. Afterward, we both agreed it was one of the nicest visits we had ever had with Uncle Linden.
"I am still amazed at how he did this picture. Mommy. What were all those lines and that mess
I
saw?"
"Maybe what you suspected: an artist's notes. Linden always had a visual mind,
a
real
photographer's memory. He took his snapshots and kept them in his head along with the colors he saw and put down on that canvas. It is something amazing," she agreed. "Maybe he will came out of there one day," she concluded and then looked at me and smiled. "but not to go off in a broken-down motor home."
I
laughed with her. Time can make mistakes and trouble seem funny in retrospect.
I
thought, although I couldn't find it in myself to laugh or think lightly of what Heyden had done.
One afternoon the following week. I called his house just to see if there was any possibility he was home, He hadn't returned to school and his absence was the hottest topic of the week. Gradually it ended, and it was almost as if he had never attended. My friends stopped asking me about him, especially when they saw they couldn't get any satisfactory responses. I really had nothing to tell.
No one answered his telephone, so I tried it one night and did get his mother. I asked for him and she said she didn't know his whereabouts. She
remembered me, of course. I hesitated, but then I asked her about Elisha.
"She's in one of those places for juvenile offenders," she said.
I
heard her start to sob and then stop and say, "which is best for her."
I
wished her goad luck and hung up.
Occasionally, over the next week, I glanced at one or another of the songs Heyden had written.
I
had my copies. I even sang them, but after a while
I
put them away. I wished I could put away the painful memories as easily, but nothing lingered as vividly in my mind as the vision of Heyden's angry face when he accused me of betraying him.
Had I betrayed him?
Had I betrayed myself as well?
Forgiveness, Mommy had said.
It
all begins with that.
Throughout this time I worked harder at my school assignments. I went sailing with Mommy and Miguel, and we went to his family restaurant more often. I met some new relatives on his side, and we had some wonderful family gatherings, one during which
I
was asked to sing a Cuban song I had learned at school, a song I knew was one of Miguel's favorites.
What I didn't know was they were planning a big party for my seventeenth birthday. It fell on the upcoming weekend, and what they had decided to do was close the restaurant and dedicate the night to me. Somehow, those friends of mine they had invited at school had managed to keep the secret. Mommy and Miguel had me believe we were just going out to dinner to celebrate my birthday, only when we arrived at the restaurant and entered, the party crowd
of
Miguel's family, my friends, all burst out with a "Surprise! Happy birthday!"
I
was overwhelmed, but I did look for Daddy, Danielle, and the twins.
"I invited them," Mommy said when
I
asked her about them. "I made sure Mrs. Gouter knew to put it on your father's calendar, and as far as I knew, they were coming. Maybe, they'll still be coming,' she said. "It's like your father to be late anyway. But let's not worry about it. Let's have a good time."
We did. There was music and wonderful food and
a
pile of presents that rivaled the one I saw my half brothers go through on their birthdays, except the gifts weren't as expensive, of course. I got up and sang with Miguel's cousins. My friends at school who at first looked reluctant at being there and remained somewhat clannish during the early part of the celebration gradually warmed to the food and music. Before the night ended, they came to tell me how much they had enjoyed themselves, and
I
even could see some envy. Ironically, I. the daughter of
a
broken marriage, tossed about in a sea of adult turmoil, was suddenly the one with family, with people who loved and cared about me.
I
remembered a line in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: The eye sees itself but by reflection.
How true it was. We never see ourselves truly and what we have unless and until we look into the faces of others and see ourselves reflected.
How full my heart was, how much I loved Mommy and Miguel. There was so much going on, I had actually forgotten Daddy and his family had not attended, but the reason for that came at the end of the evening to one of Mommy's friends, Morgan Williams, who had been carrying her cellular.
I think it is true that you can feel and sense significant events, especially when they involve people close to you. I heard Mrs. Williams call to Mommy as we were saving good night to some of Miguel's relatives, There was a drastic note in Mrs. Williams's voice, Mommy's name came out like a cry for help. It was enough to turn her with concern, her happy smile holding barely in a trembling of lips.