Wicked Forest Read Online Free PDF Page B

are people here who are so wealthy, they make kings and queens in other countries look like paupers, and they can buy and own and do almost anything they want, but they still suffer depression, disappointment, doubt, whatever, and all their wealth doesn't make it go away forever. In short, you have to leave a little room in that heart of yours for the well-to-do as well as the unfortunate and poor,
    "A doctor who treats a rich person with less compassion than he or she does a poor person isn't really a good doctor, right?" he asked me.
    "Sometimes what you're saving is very right.
    Thatcher. and I would not be happy with myself if I couldn't offer compassion to everyone who needed it, but there are people who are simply spoiled rotten and just need a bit of discipline more than they need extra tender loving care. Their loved ones don't do them any good catering to their whims and moods. They just prolong the misery for everyone. I wouldn't send your mother to a spa. I'd make her work for a week in the supermarket packing groceries," I said.
    He laughed.
    "Okay. That's a debate we'll put on hold for now. Whether she should have been whipped or embraced, my mother went into one of her
    depressions after you left. and I was coping with that as well as helping your mother and Linden.
    "One night after she returned. I visited her in her bedroom. She was better. but I could see she was still very distracted, especially for her. There were piles of unopened party and dinner invitations on the nightstand. I asked her what it was that was bothering her so much. I suspected it had to do with you and me, of course. but I was prepared to discuss it reasonably.

    I was planning, in fact, to call you that night, explain what was going on, and find out how you were doing and when you were returning.
    "My mother took the wind out of my sails. She started with her concerns that you were the daughter of Grace Montgomery, that your half brother was Linden, that all of the dark mental problems could be passed on to our children... on and on like that. I didn't agree and I talked about your father and did about as good a job on her as I had ever done. In fact, I could see from her face that I was crushing her arguments like bugs on the loggia.
    "Finally, she sat back on her fluffy pillow, looked up at me, and told me what Whitney had wanted her to tell. It was like I was a priest in a confessional booth. Willow. I was so stunned. I couldn't speak. My own mother was admitting to adultery, and admitting it to me!
    "The upshot of it all was she was telling me that Linden's father and my father were one and the same.
    that Linden is my half brother. too. She was telling me that there would be even a greater chance of our having a disturbed child— not only was your mother passing on mental problems to you, but my father, as evidenced by Linden, could be passing on his abhorrent behavior to me. That was her crreat fear.
    Understand?"
    I started to shake my head, to shake the words back out of my ears.
    "No," was all I could barely utter.
    She described Kirby Scott as a very romantic, seductive man who took her one night when she had been drinking too much champagne. Shortly afterward, she became pregnant with me. She said the doctor gave her a ballpark time of conception, and she knew without a doubt that I was Kirby Scott's son.
    She and my father hadn't had any relations during that period. Or so she claimed,"
    He paused and, with great effort, as if there were a weight on his chest, took a deep breath, But you look like your father. I can see
    resemblances to him," I said. I shook my head. "It's not true. It can't be true."
    "I know, but after she told me. I dug up some old newspaper photographs. I've looked at pictures of Kirby Scott. and I see resemblances between us as well. They aren't so strong that there are no doubts, but they are strong enough to make it seem possible."
    "Even if such a story proves to be true, Thatcher, it wouldn't affect