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I sat looking at the sea.
Upstairs, behind blackened windows. Linden had retreated to the deepest places in his troubled brain. I had no such escape, nor did I want one.
If my baby and I were to survive, it would be because I had grown stronger from all this trouble and pain. I thought. When you had no one but yourself as Linden had, you could afford to withdraw. I could not. Little Hannah was waiting to be greeted with smiles and joy and hope, not tears, and certainly not gloom and doom.
I don't know why I did it exactly, or even where I drew the strength to do it. but I got up and walked the beach until I reached the dock, and then I went out to the end and stood where Mother had stood so many nights and gazed out at the sea, waiting for my father, waiting for a promise to be fulfilled.
In a real sense. Thatcher's betrayal had left me in the same place that Mother had been. I would be alone here with my child. I would be as unwelcome in the same society out there beyond our walls. Why had she stayed? I wondered. Why hadn't she gone somewhere else to start anew? Wouldn't that have been better for both of them?
Would it be better for me and for Hannah?
I searched my mind, looking for my father's much-needed wisdom.
What do I do now, Daddy? Do I stay or do I go?
What do you want to do?
I'm not sure.
Then why don't youwait until you are?
What if I never am?
Daddy?
What if I never am? I asked more desperately.
But there was only silence in my mind, silence replaced with the sound of the sea and the whispering of the breeze past my ears.
Maybe tomorrow.
Maybe tomorrow I would know.
19
Alone with Linden
.
Our lives changed in so many ways during the
days and weeks that followed Mother's death. Jennings left soon after, as he had previously announced. I had not done much to find new household help, so we were still without any maid. Instead. I closed down as much of the main house as I could, shutting up Mother's suite and all of the guest suites and bathrooms and confuting our existence to my suite, the room that would serve as Hannah's nursery. and Linden's suite and studio.
To my surprise, Linden welcomed this shrinking of the property. He said it made our home feel cozier to him, closer to the way he and Mother had lived in the beach house, even though we still utilized the grand dining room and the large den, as well as the rear loggia.
The departure of our servants also had an unexpected positive effect on him.
"Grace and I lived a long time without maids and butlers," he declared when I told him Jennings was leaving us, too. "We survived then, and you and I will survive now."
I was pleased with his new optimistic attitude. A dramatic change came over him. No longer the introvert who spent most of his day locked away in his darkened studio, he decided he would fulfill most of the duties and asserted he would run the house, even cook and do our shopping. His whole demeanor went through a striking metamorphosis. He looked and behaved like a college freshman who was excited about being on his own for the first time in his life, being the one most responsible for himself. Every new responsibility he assumed was exciting to him.
"You're going to cook for us?" I asked with a smile when he declared he would take on the kitchen duties. too.
"Absolutely. I cooked for Grace and me on occasion. and I've been reading up on foods a pregnant woman should be eating. too. And things she should avoid eating and doing!" he added, wagging his right forefinger at me.
"Oh?"
"Yes. After all," he declared with a regal air of authority, we have more than just ourselves to worry about now. We have our baby, our baby Hannah."
