Willow by V. C. Andrews

the answers. I didn't know he was my real father, of course. It might have been different for me if I had known. I might have asked. But back then. I didn't want to know what was possible in my future. and I knew if I learned about her. I would be forever expecting some terrible thing to happen to me. It was better to remain in the dark about it--which was really Amou's advice the night before_. I thought as I contemplated the folder now in my hands.
However. I had come too far. and Daddy's romance gave me a sense of some security. He couldn't fall in love with someone who was as sick as that young man, could he? She had left the clinic. She had been cured, hadn't she? She was certainly capable of a great love affair. I was no longer afraid.
I opened the folder and read about Grace Montgomery's history of depression, which brought her to Daddy's clinic when she was just twenty-five. She had been referred by a Dr. Donald Anderson, who had a psychiatric practice in Palm Beach, Florida. After some psychoanalysis, she revealed her stepfather often behaved inappropriately. This grew to the point where he forced himself on her, and she became pregnant.
She apparently kept her pregnancy hidden because of her own embarrassment and feelings of failure. Toward the end of her pregnancy, she was practically kept under house arrest by her mother: then she delivered and went into a deeper depression. She had been treated with various drugs for some time before finally being referred to Daddy.
She was suffering all the symptoms of acute melancholia: low self-esteem, inability to find pleasure in anything, insomnia, and a tendency toward being suicidal. I read how Daddy adjusted her medications and soon began to make progress with her in therapy. The date of her release from the clinic was shortly after my own birthdate. With that was the simple notation that she had returned to her family in Palm Beach for follow-up as needed with Dr. Anderson.
Much of the folder contained technical medical data, lists of medications and dosages. Aside from the brief account of her history, there was little to give me a sense of who she was. There were no pictures and, other than the paraphrasing of some of the
information she gave in the therapy sessions, no statements by her. I could have been reading any other dysfunctional person's psychological history.
I was sitting and thinking about all this when Dr. Price returned. "What else can you tell me about her. Dr. Price?" I asked him immediately.
"Not much," he said. "Remember, she wasn't my patient really. She was your father's."
"Have you ever heard from her or about her since? I mean from her doctor in Palm Beach?"
"No. My guess is that was a decision your father and she had made." he added. He took the folder from me and sat behind his desk. "You have to remember, this was all quite a long time ago. 'Willow."
"I know. I'm nearly nineteen," I said. He smiled.
"At least, from reading that, you can be reassured that you're not in the line of fire of some mental malady. Her problems were related to the behavior of the people around her. You've had quite a different upbringing."
I raised my eyebrows. "My adoptive mother could easily have tilled every available room in this place. Dr. Price."
He laughed. "Yes, but your father was there and that wonderful housekeeper who was much more of a mother to you, anyway. What was her name?"
"Amou." I said.
He smiled, "That was your name for her. In other words, you had love in your home, the sort of love she" --he put his hand on my mother's folder-- "apparently never had. Go on back to college. Willow. Make a life for yourself, and please, please keep in close touch with me."
I rose. "Thank you. Dr. Price."
We hugged, and he escorted me to the door. "The day she left." he began.
"Yes?"
"Your father watched from under the willow trees. He stood out there and saw the car come for her. I was standing by my window looking out at him. I could feel the pain in his heart. It