Chapter One: In Love with a Patient If someone had told me that someday I would fall in love with one of my patients, I would have recommended that he or she become one of my patients.
Now I have to admit that this most improbable event has occurred at my own clinic. It got so I couldn't wait to get there every morning. It was as if I had found that the doorway to paradise was always right in front of me. I quickly discovered that when you're with someone you love, the most mundane things suddenly become wonderful.
I suppose I'll never forget the day your mother arrived, Willow. She and I often talked about it, first as part of her therapy, and then, as time passed and our relationship grew into something I'm sure neither of us had expected, we were actually able to laugh about it.
You know how people often discuss what they were doing when some major historical event occurred. My father used to talk about where he was when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, for example, and I often think about what I was doing the day President Kennedy was shot. Events like those are so imprinted on your mind it is as if life went on pause for a while and then began again.
Shall I tell you that when I first looked at your mother and she looked at me, my heart paused and then went on again? Shall I tell you that during those moments it felt as if there was no one else in the world but us? Does all this sound too romantic, perhaps more like the words in a love song than the words of a psychiatrist?
As a psychiatrist, I am too analytical, I know. I have a sort of love-hate relationship with my work. I don't really like to dissect people's emotions like some pathologist in a lab, but it is what I have been trained to do. Forgive me for how often I do that while writing this to you, Willow.
The truth is I remember everything about that day your mother arrived. It was unseasonably warm. Ordinarily I don't pay very much attention to the weather. I spend so much of my time indoors at the clinic, I don't care whether it's raining or not, whether it's cloudy or sunny, but for some reason (I hesitate to call it Fate or anything similar -- it wouldn't be very professional of me) I remember sitting at my desk and looking out the window and admiring the soft, lithe look of a cloud moving lazily over the tops of the trees in front of my clinic. I don't daydream very often. I simply didn't have time for it with my patient load at the clinic, but that day it struck me that this was the only cloud in the eastern sky and I thought it looked lonely. I could even see a sad face in its fluffy surface and told myself something my mother used to tell me when I was a little boy: Rain, she said, was merely the teardrops of sad clouds, and when it stopped raining, we knew the clouds were happy again, sunshine lighting up their smiles.
"All smiles have to have sunshine behind them, Claude," she told me, "otherwise, they are not smiles; they are masks."
Perhaps that was my first lesson in psychiatry.
I laughed at myself for remembering such things and having such a thought -- a cloud, lonely -- but it brought back that wonderfully pure feeling of innocence. And then, suddenly there was your mother and grandmother's limousine coming in the front entrance and approaching the clinic.
I had a number of patients from well-to-do families, so I didn't think all that much of the fact that someone was bringing me a new patient in a fancy, luxurious limousine. Even though I don't have any hard and fast studies on the matter, I suppose I should tell you that I do believe wealthy people are more embarrassed by their mentally ill relatives, especially, unfortunately, parents who are embarrassed by their own children. They can't wait to drop them off here and pretend they are somewhere else.
Later, I discovered that was exactly what your grandmother had done. She told people in Palm Beach, for that's where your mother and grandmother lived, that her daughter Grace was off again to college, only now out of state. Palm Beach, according to what your mother told me later, was one of those places where people can tell each other lies and feel confident they will be accepted as truth, at least on the surface. In her words, "It's just courteous to believe in someone else's fantasies. The richer they are, the more they believe in Santa Claus."
How clever she could be, don't you agree?
I watched her and your grandmother emerge from the long black limousine. Your grandmother wore a very stylish pink and white hat and indeed looked as if she was going to some ritzy charity event. Her teardrop earrings caught the sunlight and twinkled like tiny stars she might have plucked out of the Florida night sky. Even from my office window I could see she was an attractive woman, tall and stately with a runway model's posture when she walked. If she felt any shame, she wasn't about to let the world know it.
Your mother was difficult to evaluate from any distance, but especially difficult that day because she kept her head down, her shoulders turned inward, and her arms very close to her body, her hands crossed. This was not an unusual demeanor for me to see in one of my patients. People don't exactly come here because they are full of self-confidence.
Your mother and grandmother disappeared from my view when they walked to the front entrance. The driver followed with your mother's suitcases, and I sat back and continued to read her medical history, sent to me by her doctor in Palm Beach, a friend of mine, Dr. Anderson. I won't bore you with the medical terminology, the analysis and whatever. Suffice it to say, your mother was coming to me after having attempted suicide, but there were factors that told me she might very well not have realized the significance of what she was doing. I'll explain that later, and I promise, I won't be too technical.
While your mother was admitted, a process that involved some physical examination, recording of medications, etc., your grandmother was brought to my office. I usually meet with someone from the immediate family as soon as possible and preferably before I meet with the patient. Getting to know the parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, whoever, of a patient helps me understand what possible social and environmental factors are impacting on that patient.
Forgive me for writing about my work so seriously. I am trying not to be the doctor now, but your father instead, and, I suppose you have realized by now, I am not writing as your stepfather. I am writing as your biological father. I am your father, Willow, in every sense of the word. Your mother wasn't raped by some attendant as you were told too often by your stepmother, and I didn't bring you home because I felt guilty that such a thing happened at my clinic.
I have already told you how I was in love with one of my patients, your mother. I must now tell you how such a thing happened to a man who prided himself all his professional life in being objective, properly aloof, the doctor first and foremost. Your mother taught me that was not necessarily the best way for me to be, the best way for me to help my patients. In fact, dear Willow, everything gradually became reversed here between your mother and me. Many times toward the end, I felt more like the patient and your mother spoke to me with more wisdom than I had imagined she possessed.
But let me stop talking about what happened and talk about how it came to happen.
Into my office walked Jackie Lee Montgomery, your grandmother. I should say burst in, for she had that sort of confident, domineering presence. She was looking at everything like someone who was thinking about buying the clinic. It brought a smile to my face, but a smile I've learned to hide well under what you used to call my "doctor mask." There was just a slight quivering at the corners of my mouth as I told myself, Claude De Beers, you'd better dot your i's and cross all your t's when you speak to this woman.
My receptionist, Edith Hamilton, brought her to my office and announced her at the door.
"This is Mrs. Montgomery, Dr. De Beers," she said and stepped back, closing the door softly behind her.
I rose quickly to greet your grandmother, and she held out her hand like a queen who expected it to be kissed.
"Jackie Lee Montgomery," she said, holding her head high, her eyes fixed on mine.
"Please have a seat," I said, pulling a chair a little farther from the desk the way a gentleman would pull out a chair for his lady at a dining table. It made no sense for me to do that, but your grandmother had that sort of an effect on me. Later, I laughed about it with Grace. She told me her mother had become Palm Beachified. That was her term for it, for all the changes in her personality the wealth and the social life had caused.
"It breaks my heart to be bringing my daughter here, despite the wonderful references and recommendations I have received concerning you and this mental clinic, and despite how beautiful your building and location are," your grandmother Jackie Lee began.
"I understand, Mrs. Montgomery," I said, taking my seat.
"I'm sure you're wondering why I didn't return to my first married name or even my maiden name. My daughter was very fond of my second husband, Winston Montgomery. He adopted her and gave her his name, and I thought for the sake of simplicity, to avoid confusion..."
"Of course."
"I thought I should tell you that right away," she said.
"I understand completely," I said. "You made a wise decision."
"I would never keep my third husband's name," she said, pursing her lips so hard, it brought little spots of white at the corners of her mouth. "Dr. Anderson told me he has given you everything, so you are familiar with all that horror, I expect."
"I am, somewhat, yes."
She opened her purse and took out a frilled silk handkerchief and brought it to her eyes even though I didn't see any tears.
"I've done the best I can dealing with this. What can anyone expect when a woman learns her husband has seduced, really raped her daugh...
