Dawn (Cutler 1)

"Believe me, Clara Sue, I wish more than you that it wasn't."

That took her back a pace. Her eyebrows lifted.

"What? Why not? You certainly weren't better of living like a pauper. Now you're a Cutler and you live in Cutler's Cove. Everybody knows who we are. This is one of the finest hotels on the coast," she bragged with what I was beginning to recognize as a family arrogance she had inherited from Grandmother Cutler.

"Our lives were hard," I admitted, "but we cared about each other and loved each other. I can't help missing my little sister Fern and Jimmy."

"But they weren't your family, dummy," she said, shaking her head. "Whether you like it or not, we're your family now." I looked away. "Eugenia," she added. I spun around on her self-satisfied smile.

"That's not my name."

"Grandmother says it is, and whatever Grandmother says around here, goes," she crooned, moving toward the door. "I've got to get dressed and start my first shift at the front desk." She paused at the door. "There are a number of kids our age who come to the hotel every season. Maybe I'll introduce you to one or two of the boys, now that you can't chase after Philip anymore. After work change into something nice and come to the lobby," she added, throwing her words out as someone would throw a bone to a dog. Then she left, closing the door behind her. It clicked shut, sounding more like the door of a prison cell to me.

And when I looked around my dull and tedious room with its bland walls and worn furniture, I felt so empty and alone, I thought I might as well have been placed in solitary confinement. I folded my hands in my lap and dropped my head. Talking about family with Clara Sue made me wonder about Jimmy. Had he been given to a foster family yet? Did he like his new parents and where he had to live? Did he have a new sister? Maybe they were kinder people than the Cutlers, people who understood how terrible it had been for him. Was he worrying about me, thinking about me? I knew he must be, and my heart hurt for the pain he was surely feeling.

At least Fern was still young enough to make a quicker adjustment, I thought, even though I couldn't help but believe she missed us terribly. My eyes filled with tears just thinking about her waking up in a strange new room and calling for me, and then crying when a complete stranger came to pick her up. How terrified she must be, I thought.

Now I understood why we had always left so quickly in the middle of the night and why we'd moved so often. Daddy must have been spooked or thought he or Momma had been recognized. Now I knew why we couldn't go too far South those times and why we couldn't return to Daddy's and Momma's families. All the time we were fugitives and never knew it. But why had they taken me? I couldn't stand not knowing everything.

An idea came to me. I opened the top drawer of my night table and found some hotel stationery and began to write a letter I hoped would find its way.

Dear Daddy,

As you know by now, I have been returned to my rightful home and real family, the Cutlers. I do not know what has become of Fern and Jimmy, but the police told me that they would be farmed out to foster families, most likely two different families. So now we are all apart, all alone.

When the police came for me and accused you of kidnapping me, my heart sank because you did nothing to defend yourself, and at the police station all you could say was you were sorry. Well, being sorry is not enough to overcome the pain and the suffering you have caused.

I do not understand why you and Momma would have taken me from the Cutlers. It couldn't have been because Mommy wasn't able to have any more children. She had Fern. What possessed you to do it?

I know it doesn't seem all that important to know the reason anymore, since it has been done and is over with now, but I can't stand living with this mystery and pain, a pain I am sure Jimmy feels as well wherever he is. Won't you please try to explain why you and Momma did what you did?

We have a right to know. Keeping secrets can't mean anything to you anymore now that you are locked in prison and Mamma is gone.

But it matters to us! Please write back.

Dawn

I folded it neatly and put it in a Cutler's Cove envelope. Then I left my room and went to the one person I hoped would be able to get this letter to Daddy: my real father.

I knocked on my father's office door and opened it when I heard him call. He was seated at his desk, a pile of papers and a stapler before him. I hesitated in the doorway.

"Yes?" The way he squinted at me, I thought for a moment he had forgotten who I was.

"I must talk to you. Please," I said.

"Oh, I haven't got much time at the moment. I have fallen behind on my paperwork, as you can see. Grandmother Cutler gets so upset when things aren't running on time."

"It won't take long," I pleaded.

"All right, all right. Come in. Sit down." He lifted the pile of papers and moved them to the side. "So, have you seen Philip and Clara Sue yet?"

"Yes," I said. I took the seat in front of the desk.

"Well, I imagine it will be quite an experience for the three of you to get to know each other as brother and sisters, now that you knew each other as school chums, eh?" he asked, shaking his head.

"Yes, it will."

"Well," he said, sitting up. "I'm sorry I don't have more time to spend with you right now . . ." He gestured at his office as if the responsibilities and the work were hanging on his walls. "Until we get things rolling in their proper rhythms, there is always so much to do.