Twilight's Child Page 4

  "She don't look the worse for it," Mrs. Boston assured me. We took Christie up to my room immediately and there inspected her more closely. There wasn't a mark on her body, and she looked very alert and happy now.

  "Who would do such a thing?" Mrs. Boston wondered aloud.

  Moments later Clara Sue appeared in my doorway. "What happened?" she asked, a wide smile on her face. "Did I miss some excitement?"

  "Where have you been?" Mrs. Boston asked, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.

  "I fell asleep listening to records," Clara Sue answered nonchalantly.

  "I didn't hear no records playin'," Mrs. Boston said.

  "Well, who says your hearing's so good?" Clara Sue snapped before smiling again. Then she turned to look at me, and her eyes gleamed. "I had them playing during Christie's nap, and it didn't bother her at all. She is such a good baby, isn't she, Dawn?" With that she left.

  Mrs. Boston and I looked at each other, Mrs. Boston's face screwed tightly in anger.

  "From this day on, Mrs. Boston, I don't ever want her in my room, and never near Christie," I said in a sharp tone.

  "Amen to that," Mrs. Boston said.

  Christie slept in my bed with me that night. The events of the evening had left me so frightened, it took hours for me to stop shaking. Every once in a while I had to reassure myself that Christie was all right, and when I did fall asleep, I woke up with a start every few hours and checked her again and again. Finally, just when the morning light was breaking over the horizon, I fell into a deep sleep. As if she knew how much I needed it, Christie didn't cry to be fed, and it was Mrs. Boston who woke me the following morning.

  I shook the sleep out of my body the best I could and got up to go prepare Christie's formula, but Mrs. Boston was right there at the door with it.

  "I thought it was about time," she said.

  "That's so nice of you, Mrs. Boston. Thank you," I said, and I lifted Christie into my arms. Then I sat in the rocker and fed her. I thought to myself that she had Michael's eyes, but my nose and mouth. She clutched her tiny pink fingers into little fists and opened her eyes wide to gaze into mine. I thought her mouth formed a silent "Oh," and that made me laugh. When she drank she focused on my face and didn't shift her eyes the whole time.

  It seemed so long ago, truly in another life, when Momma Longchamp had given birth to Fern, and I had to take care of her because Momma was so weak and sick; but once I began to take care of Christie, all that I knew and had learned about babies returned.

  I was so entranced with Christie and had been concentrating so hard that I didn't hear Mother come to the room, nor had I realized that Mrs. Boston had left.

  "My God," she moaned, "what was all that commotion about last night? Was it a dream?"

  "It was no dream, Mother. I'm afraid Clara Sue pulled a sick prank. She took Christie and left her in the laundry bin downstairs. Of course, she denies it, but I'm sure she did it."

  Mother shook her head as if the words confused her. She looked drugged on sleep. I couldn't believe how Mother had let herself go. Her good looks had always been so important to her, even when she was supposedly in the throes of some terrible ailment. I never saw her in or out of bed without her makeup on her face and her hair brushed and styled. And she always wore some jewelry.

  Here she was in one of her older and more ragged-looking robes, her hair unbrushed and straggly, wearing no jewelry and no makeup, her face as pale as it could be. Even her lips had lost color. She shook her head and walked farther into the room. Then she grimaced.

  "Don't you feel ridiculous?" she asked.

  "Ridiculous? Why should I feel ridiculous, Mother?" I replied.

  "Sitting there with a baby in your arms, unmarried and with so much responsibility now in your life." She sighed deeply. "I wish you had listened to me when I spoke to you just before you left to get her back.

  "Her real father deserted you both, and you're so young yet," she lectured. "Despite the manner in which Grandmother Cutler carried out her plans, she made the right decision for you at the time. The baby was with an excellent family. Now you're weighed down with a major burden."

  "It's just like you to say something like that, Mother," I replied coldly, my eyes fixed on her so that she couldn't look away. "Christie is not a burden. She is my daughter, and I love her with all my heart. She is what matters most to me, and there is nothing I wouldn't do for her. How easy it was for you to agree to giving away your baby without thought of the consequences. You think it's the same for everyone. You were so selfish and still are. You, You, You! All you've ever thought about is yourself! Well, I consider Christie a blessing, and if anyone is a burden, it's you," I said, spitting the words at her.

  She stared at me, and then she blinked her eyes and smiled in that childish manner she had so perfected.

  "I won't be drawn into an ugly spat with you, Dawn. Not now, not ever. Think and do as you wish. I'm only giving you the best advice I can. If you don't want to follow it, then don't."

  Despite herself, she gazed at Christie.

  "The most horrible thing about all this," she mumbled, "is you've turned me into a grandmother before my time. Well," she said, stepping back and folding her arms firmly under her small bosom, "you can be sure I won't permit anyone to refer to me as Grandmother Cutler."

  "Suit yourself," I said. "Believe me, you will be the one who will be missing out."

  "Missing out?" She released a short, high laugh. "On what, feeding an infant that burps and fills its diapers? I had enough of that, thank you," she said.

  "Oh, Mother, you never had any of it. You either had a mother's helper, a nurse or . . . or gave away your child," I said pointedly.

  "Go on, hurt me," she said, her chin quivering, "pound the nails into my coffin. It gives you pleasure, doesn't it? You'll never forgive me for what I've done, no matter how many times I apologize. I haven't suffered enough to suit you, I suppose. No one realizes the sacrifices I've made and continue to make."

  "Mother, you don't realize how silly that sounds," I said. I put Christie back into her cradle after burping her. Mother looked surprised at my expertise. She wiped the two tears from her cheeks. Suddenly her face lit up.

  "What's that?" she asked, pointing at me.

  "That?" I really didn't know what she was pointing at. . . something on my face, my clothing . . . I had forgotten for the moment that I was wearing the ring.

  "That ring. It looks like an engagement ring."

  "That's because it is an engagement ring, Mother. Jimmy and I are now formally engaged," I said proudly.

  "Oh, no." She brought her hand to her forehead and ran her palm over her hair slowly as she shook her head. "You are a fool after all. You're actually going to marry that boy, a soldier without a penny to his name and a name that bears no great honor, no position? When are you going to start listening to me?"

  "Jimmy and I love each other, Mother. We've been through a great deal together, and we—"

  "Love." She threw her head back and cackled. "That's such a ridiculous word. A romantic notion drummed up in novels, but not something for real life. Love someone who can give you what you need and deserve. All love really is, anyway, is fulfilling a need. Believe me," she said, nodding, "I speak from experience."

  "Not my experience, Mother. Your experience," I said sharply.

  "What's wrong with you?" she asked, her hands out. "You're now the owner of Cutler's Cove. Overnight you have been given position, power and money. Why, decent, respectable suitors will be lining the driveway. You'll be courted by the richest and most important young men, just like the ones who used to court me. You can keep them all on a string. They will all shower you with expensive gifts and make endless, impossible promises. And then, when you finally have to choose, you can choose from the cream of the crop," she promised.

  "That's not what I want, Mother. I told you—Jimmy and I love each other. All the rest—position, power, wealth—that's not important to us as long as we have
each other. I'm sorry you don't understand how important that is. I think that's why you're so unhappy. You have no one to love but yourself, and I don't think you like yourself very much these days, do you, Mother?"

  "You're a very cruel child, Dawn." Her eyes narrowed. "You don't know how much of your real father you've inherited."

  "How much have I inherited, Mother? Tell me," I pursued. I wanted her to talk about him and what had happened. I needed to know. But she waved me off.

  "I'm tired and disgusted," she said. "Do what you want," she muttered. "Do whatever you want."

  She returned to her room, shutting the doors tightly again and withdrawing to continue to feel sorry for herself. All I had done, apparently, was give her more reason.

  Just after Philip returned to college and Clara Sue returned to high school I began my education, too. Shortly after Grandmother Cutler's death and the reading of the wills, Mr. Updike and Mr. Dorfman, the hotel's comptroller, came up with a plan to continue the running of the hotel as smoothly as possible during the time Mr. Updike called "the interim period." I knew that meant the time it would take for me to grow knowledgeable and mature enough to take on really significant responsibilities.

  Mr. Dorfman was a small, bald man with eyeglasses as thick as beer mugs. Although he was quite a competent comptroller, he was very uncomfortable talking to people. I found him to be a shy man who didn't like to look directly or even indirectly at the people with whom he was holding a conversation. He would look down at his desk or at some papers in his hand. It was almost as if I had just wandered in and was listening to a conversation between him and someone invisible.

  "Well, I don't have the best news for you, I'm afraid," he began when we first met. "I've done a complete evaluation of the hotel's assets and liabilities. You know, of course, that the hotel is heavily mortgaged, and that most years Mrs. Cutler has managed only to pay the interest?"

  I shook my head with an obvious look of confusion on my face. But rather than becoming impatient with me, Mr. Dorfman appeared to enjoy the fact that I knew little about such matters. He then proceeded to explain what mortgages were, what interest involved and what significance all this had for the hotel.

  "So we're really no better than paupers," I concluded with surprise.

  "No, no," he said, smiling for the first time, if that twitch at the corners of his mouth could be described as a smile. "All major property owners carry big mortgages. It doesn't mean they're paupers. Quite the contrary. Your enterprise here employs many, many people, and the property value is very high, very high. Some years, as you will see, the hotel made a considerable profit, and some years—the last three, to be precise—it just about broke even. Maybe a small profit," he added, as if to make me feel better.

  "But if we paid our mortgage principal, we would have no profit," I declared.

  "You don't have to pay the principal. The bank's very content collecting the interest, which is considerable. They have no desire to become operators of a hotel, believe me."

  "It's still all very confusing to me," I cried.

  "In time you will understand this as well as I do. I've taken the liberty of preparing a number of papers for you to study. Read everything carefully, especially what it costs to run each aspect of the hotel, and then you and I will talk again. It's not all that complicated," he promised, and he handed me a thick packet of papers that included studies that went back twenty years. This really was going to be like attending school, I thought.

  "What does Randolph think of all this?" I asked, sitting back. Maybe it was better for me to become a silent partner and let Randolph take over most of the responsibility after all. Mr. Dorfman's short, bushy eyebrows lifted.

  "Oh, I thought Mr. Updike had already explained . . . that is, I assumed . . ."

  "Explained what?" I demanded.

  Mr. Dorfman fidgeted for a few moments and then looked firmly and directly at me for the first time since I had arrived.

  "Mr. Randolph," he said calmly, "is quite incapable of any real responsibility and has been for some time, even before Mrs. Cutler's passing. Why, you already know much more than he does about the hotel," he added, astounding me.

  "What? I know he behaves strangely sometimes, doing things that don't seem very important, but surely . . ."

  "Mrs. Cutler never gave her son any real responsibilities, Dawn. Why . . . he never so much as made a bank deposit," Mr. Dorfman revealed, and then he started flipping through a folder.

  I sat back and shook my head. I had been hoping to depend on Randolph and really let him do most of the running of the hotel while I concentrated on caring for Christie. The packet of papers in my lap suddenly took on more weight. I couldn't do this. My inheritance wasn't a blessing; it was a burden. I would feel just terrible if I somehow messed things up and all these people working here lost their jobs.

  "Mr. Dorfman, I . . ."

  "I can tell you that you have some very fine, very qualified people working for you, Dawn," Mr. Dorfman said quickly. "Everyone's very efficient. Mrs. Cutler did run a tight ship in that respect. If she didn't make a big profit one year, it was because of the economy, and not because of her business practices or the practices of her subordinates. It was a waste not, want not philosophy. My job is to help you keep to it," he concluded. And then, as if to add a challenge, he sat back and said, "Why, when Mrs. Cutler married Mr. Cutler and became an executive in this hotel, she wasn't much older than you are."

  "Yes, but she had Mr. Cutler," I fired back. He shook his head and twisted his fingers around his pen nervously.

  "I don't think I'm speaking ill of the dead when I tell you your father, Randolph's father, was not much of a hotel administrator. My father was the comptroller here then, so I speak from firsthand knowledge. This hotel didn't really become anything significant until Mrs. Cutler became actively involved.

  "So," he said, eager to leave the topic, "I'll always be available to you. If I'm not here and you need me for anything, anything at all, you have my home phone number at the top of the packet of papers I just gave you."

  I rose from my chair in a daze, thanked Mr. Dorfman and slowly walked out, moving like a somnambulist down the corridor. Where was I going? It suddenly occurred to me that it was time for me to take over Grandmother Cutler's office.

  I paused before her doorway almost as if I had to knock. Then I opened it slowly and stood just inside for a long moment, my heart pounding as if I anticipated her miraculous resurrection. I could almost see her standing firm and tall with her steel-blue hair cut and styled to perfection. She was standing behind her desk as always, her shoulders pulled back firmly in the bright blue cotton jacket she wore over her frilly blouse. She turned her cold gray eyes on me, and in my imagination I even heard her chastisement: "What are you doing here? How dare you enter my office without knocking first?"

  I gazed around. The dark-paneled office still had its lilac scent, everything about it still suggesting Grandmother Cutler, reflecting her austere personality, from the hardwood floors to the tightly woven dark blue oval rug in front of the aqua chintz settee. Her dark oak desk was just the way she had last left it: the pens in their holders, papers neatly piled to one side, a small bowl of hard candies in one corner and the black telephone in another. Her memo pad was open at the center of the desk.

  Firm and resolute, I finally stepped forward and went to the partially opened curtains and pulled the cord to open them wide. Sunlight burst into the office, washing away the shadows that covered her high-back, blood-red, nail-head leather chair, the bookcases and standing lamp. Particles of dust danced in the air. Then I stepped back and looked up at the portrait of Grandfather Cutler, the man who I had learned was my true father.

  It appeared the portrait had been painted in this very office with him at this very desk. Right now he seemed to be leering down at me, his head slightly tilted forward, his light blue eyes fixed on me. As I crossed to the other side of the room the portrait gave the illusion of his gaze
following me. I thought that even though the artist might have been instructed to capture a strong, authoritative and distinguished look, he had also managed to replicate some lightness and charm in the way he had drawn and painted my father's lips.

  What sort of a man could he have been? I wondered. How could my father have been a conniver, deceitful and lustful? What had made him decide to rape my mother, if it was indeed a rape? What sort of morality did he have if he could make love to his son's wife? Obviously he had had some pangs of conscience, for he had tried to atone for his act by giving me this inheritance and making a full confession after his death. And he had been compassionate enough to worry about how it would all affect Grandmother Cutler and so left instructions for none of it to be revealed until she had passed away, too.

  As I gazed into my father's eyes—eyes strikingly like my own—I wondered what, if anything—beside some physical attributes—I had inherited from this man. Would I now become as ambitious as he was? Would I live up to the responsibilities placed on my shoulders and develop into a good administrator? Did I have his charm when it came to pleasing guests? Had he been fair with the help and liked by them, and would I be? I realized I had developed a great hunger for knowledge about him and hoped I could get those members of the staff who had worked under him and were still here to talk to me about him. I certainly didn't expect Mother to tell me anything worthwhile, and as for Randolph . . . well, from what I understood and saw, Randolph couldn't be counted upon for anything these days.

  I went around the desk and sat in Grandmother Cutler's chair. Looking over the large desk from this point of view, I began to see things in a more natural and realistic perspective. It was as if sitting in her chair and taking her position imbued me with the confidence I would need to carry on. The office wasn't as large as it had always seemed to be to me. I could do a great deal to brighten it up, I thought. I would replace the rug and the furniture. Then I would hang up some bright paintings.