Cutler 03 - Twilight's Child

now."
    Patricia's lips trembled harder. Her chin began to wrinkle, and her shoulders started to shake.
    "Patricia. You promised," Sanford reminded her.
    She took a deep breath and pressed her small fists into her bosom as if to hold her sorrow inside.
    "I'm sorry," she whispered.
    "We'd better be going, Dawn," Jimmy said. "We have a long ride back."
    "Yes. Thank you for the baby's things," I told Sanford. He nodded, but I could see he, too, was holding back a flood of tears. Jimmy and I started out of the house. Just as Frazer closed the door behind us we heard Patricia Compton's wail. It was a loud, shrill scream, the moan any mother would express if her child were being taken away.
    The heavy front door was closed rapidly, and it mercifully entrapped the wail within. Even so, Jimmy and I hurried down the walkway, driven along by the horror of Patricia Compton's agony. Neither of us spoke until Jimmy had started the engine and driven off. I couldn't help but gaze back once more at the house and grounds that might have been Christie's home. Then I closed my eyes and drove the image back into the deepest closets of my memory. When I opened my eyes again I gazed down at my baby, her tiny pink face just waiting for my kisses.

 
    2

BACK AT CUTLER'S COVE
     
    BEFORE JIMMY AND I HAD LEFT FOR SADDLE CREEK I HAD ASKED Mrs. Boston to prepare the room across from Grandmother Cutler's suite. It had two big windows looking out over the hotel grounds, and I liked the light blue wallpaper. There was a room that had served as a nursery for Philip, me and Clara Sue, but it was from that room that my abduction had been arranged. I didn't ever want to put Christie there.
    Mrs. Boston helped me get Christie's things organized. Jimmy brought up the carton of clothes and other items Sanford Compton had given us, and Mrs. Boston unpacked it all and put it away.
    "It's a good thing to have a newborn child here now," Mrs. Boston said. "The birth of a child washes away the shadows Death leaves behind when he visits a house. And she's a beautiful baby, too," she admitted.
    I thanked her. I had half expected Mother might come in to see Christie, but she kept her suite door shut tight and didn't even acknowledge our arrival.
    After Mrs. Boston left and I had Christie sleeping comfortably in her crib, I felt someone's eyes on me and turned to see Clara Sue leaning against the door jamb. She had her arms folded under her bosom, and the corner of her lip twisted up in a smirk.
    "Aren't you embarrassed bringing her back here?" she asked in a haughty tone. "After all, she is a bastard, just like you."
    "Of course not," I said. "What happened doesn't make her any less beautiful or wonderful. And don't you ever let me hear you call her a bastard again!"
    "What are you going to tell her when she grows up and asks who her real father is?" she shot back, trying to stab me with her hateful question.
    "When she's old enough to understand, I'll tell her the truth," I said. "She's not going to be brought up in a world of lies like I was."
    "It's disgusting and disgraceful, and Grandmother would never have permitted it. It hurts the hotel's reputation," she insisted.
    I turned on her, my hands clenched into fists, and walked toward her slowly, my eyes fixed on her so firmly that the hateful smile evaporated quickly from her face and was instantly replaced by a look of fear. With every step I took forward, she took one backward.
    "I'm going to say this once and only once, so make sure you listen. Don't you ever, ever say anything to make Christie seem like something evil! If there is anything that is disgusting and disgraceful in this hotel, it's you. Keep away from Christie. I don't want you anywhere near her!" I cried. "And if I hear about you spreading any nasty stories, I'll beat those extra pounds out of your face and body myself," I added, raising a fist. Clara Sue shot me one last dark look before she fled.
    In the days that followed, little of this changed. I really began to feel like an orphan. I already knew that Randolph, who had always been distracted by his busywork, had become very melancholy after Grandmother Cutler's death. Once a man with one of the most charming smiles and the most suave, sophisticated Southern demeanor, Randolph moped about the hotel and grounds speaking to people only when it was necessary. His eyes became shadowed, and when he spoke, it was barely above a whisper.
    I had met very few men who were as concerned and as