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Nor did any of this make a significant dent in the wall I sensed had grown in height and thickness between her and the Doctor. His work at the clinic still dominated his day and his life, and she never eased up on her complaints about it. To be sure, there were isolated moments when they seemed to be softer toward each other. I sensed the Doctor still liked to dress up and be seen with her. She had. whether it be because of her constant pampering of herself ar not, an enduring beauty and made a striking figure, especially when she wore one of her expensive gowns.
Despite the way she often belittled and disparaged the Doctor's profession, she was an orthodox believer in the theory that stress degenerated and eventually killed someone. Whenever something made her alloy, she would go right to one of her pampering processes-- whether it be a facial, a massage, a mud bath, a herbal bath, whatever-- to counter the negative effects. I had seen her do that time and time again when I was little and she was barking at me for one thing or another.
Perhaps that belief in the importance of contentment and its significant influence on the aging process had the most to do with the changes that I saw in her behavior toward me and toward the
Doctor. She was getting older: she knew she had to put a lid an the pot of rage that boiled over too often in her chest.
Now, more than ever. "Do what you want. I don't care," was her mantra. especially after complaining about something the Doctor was going to do. She devoted much more time to her pet charities and her elaborate luncheons and gala affairs. To give the devil her due, she was at least raising funds for important causes.
All this was why I had a mixture of emotions the day she died. I was certainly not happy about it, despite the harsh manner in which she had treated me and the mean things she had done to me when I was much younger. I had become more and more like the Doctor than I imagined I ever would. Like him. I found I was able to step back from conflicts, from aggressive or unpleasant people, and question why whatever was happening was happening. I seemed to have a natural instinct for analysis, for explaining. Often this was frustrating to my friends, who thought I should be angrier or want revenge. My tolerance irked them, and there I was analyzing why they felt that way as well.
I had begun to do the same with my AM. In short. I had begun not to sympathize with her, but to understand her. Her failure to get what she wanted from her marriage to the Doctor turned her into the bitter person she was capable of being. The tendencies, the selfishness, was always there, waiting to sprout and take control, but the world she had chosen to be in and the life she led certainly fertilized it.
She would hate me for it. but I had grown to see her as a tragic and pathetic figure. What I knew beyond anything was that I never wanted to be like her, and I think, despite all her efforts to make me envy her, to look up to her, to think of her as successful and beautiful, she knew in her heart that she had failed at that. If there was one more thing she could not tolerate around her. it was certainly pity, and especially pity from someone like me.
I was at a rehearsal for the senior play the night she was killed,
The custodian who was on duty at the school came into the theater and told my drama teacher to send me home immediately.
"Your father needs you home right away." was all he said.
My heart pounded with every quick step I took to leave the building, get into my car, and drive back to the house. When I pulled into the driveway, I saw a half dozen vehicles, some of which I recognized as cars belonging to associates of my father and one belonging to Temple Gidleigh. my AM's best and, to my mind, only friend. She and my AM usually served on the same charity committees.
When I entered the house. I heard the low murmur of conversation from the sitting room. I hurried down the corridor to it, and when everyone saw me standing there, he or she stopped talking. The Doctor, who was seated on the settee, put down the cup of tea he was drinking and rose quickly.
"What's wrong?" I asked. "Why are all these people here?"
He indicated we should continue down the corridor to his office, which we did. When we were inside, he closed the door,
"Some very bad news." he said. "Alberta lost control of her car this evening returning from that fund-raiser for MS. She went off the road at Crowley's Junction and down an embankment, where she struck a tree. She wasn't wearing her seat belt and that damn air bag did not activate. It's preliminary, but it looks pretty much as if she struck the windshield and died instantly."
I felt my stomach fold up inside me, my heart tightening like a fist, making it very hard to breathe.
"She's gone," he added, to be sure I understood the full meaning of what he was telling me,
"Gone?" I repeated, like someone trying to memorize what she had been told.
"I'm sorry," he said. For a moment it was as if he were a total stranger giving me the bad news. "These will be difficult days ahead. The funeral will be in three days. My secretary is contacting everyone whom we should contact."
"What should I do?" I asked him.
"There is nothing for you to do. Willow. Death is the most traumatic event in life because of its finality. I spend a good deal of my professional time trying to convince depressed and sick people that it is not the best alternative." He smiled, "I often use Shakespeare and quote from Hamlet. 'That
undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler has returned,' I try to get them to see they won't necessarily be better off.
"You have not been brought up in a religious home," he continued, "but I have to believe that she is in a better place. I won't ever tell any of my patients such a thing," he said, smiling again.
Then he put his arm around my shoulders, squeezed me to him, kissed my forehead, and left to return to his and my AM's friends, whom, he said, needed him to comfort them almost as much as he needed them to comfort him.
Without my Amou. I was left to find comfort in myself, for no matter what my true feelings were about Alberta, she and the Doctor were all the family I had. and Death had come into this house.
It made me think of Scott Lawrence and his belief that some people weren't supposed to have mothers and fathers. Death had done its duty.
For all I knew. it still lingered here somewhere, smiling through its icy teeth, enjoying- what it had accomplished.
What it had accomplished was to remind us all It was always there.
It was there waiting for us as well.
