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Goddamn them all! Was it really possible? Had they been right all the time and she so damnably wrong? Without being fully conscious of it, her right hand was crumpling the heavy damask, clutching it as she was, held fast in the grip of her anger and disillusionment. She released the edge of the window drapery she earlier had tweaked aside. For nearly twenty minutes she had been rooted in one spot, staring blankly from the window as the blustery winds whipped the pale-leaved maples bordering her straight drive to the street. Abruptly turning from the covenant of spring and its reborn beauty, her eyes burned with hot tears, recognizing the year was young but she was old, and there would be no more gay romps in her life -- never again, not ever. The silly dream was finally over; she was awake, at long last -- but, God willing, in time. And yet. Surely, hopefully, there was still a chance they -- and now she -- were wrong. Because if they had been right all along, as she now in her torment suspected was the case, she would simply die. A bitter laugh escaped her compressed lips -- how very dramatic! Aimlessly, jerkily, she began pacing. But how could it be settled, one way or the other, without an already really ugly situation disintigrating into pure hell? She simply couldn't go to any of them for help for they would surely and immediately bring in squads of lawyers, eventually perhaps even the police -- horror, absolute horror! Somehow she had to find a discreet person who could ferret out the truth, someone without the emotional baggage the family carried -- the prejudices, the petty jealousies, the consuming self-interest. She strode the length of the large front hall, back and forth, completely oblivious to the beauty around her, hugging her elbows tightly to her sides. A thought: Hadn't Constance told her she knew -- or rather, her son knew -- of a local investigator, someone who might be trusted to be discreet with the details of this sorry mess? Was there actually such a person? It had to start somewhere. Walling off her misgivings in one corner of her mind, she resolutely left the room to make a phone call to her old friend and confidant, Constance Trump. She would tell her no more than required to get the name of this woman. |