Midnight Whispers (Cutler 4)

She paused, her lips tightening, her eyes growing narrow as she looked across the table at Jefferson.

"Jefferson, dear, didn't anyone ever show you how to hold a fork properly?"

"He holds it like a screwdriver," Richard commented and smirked.

"Watch how your cousins use their silverware, Jefferson, and try to copy them," she said.

Jefferson looked at me and then at her and then opened his mouth and dumped all the food he was chewing back onto his plate, the globs falling over his meat and vegetables.

"Ugh!" Melanie cried.

"Disgusting!" Richard screamed.

"Jefferson!" Aunt Bet stood up. "Philip, did you see that?"

Uncle Philip nodded and smirked.

"You get right up, young man," Aunt Bet said, "and march yourself upstairs right now. There'll be no dinner for you until you apologize," she said and pointed at the door. "Go on."

Jefferson looked anxiously at me. Even though I understood why he had done it, the sight of the globs of chewed food was revolting. My stomach churned from that and from all the tension and anger I felt inside.

"I'm not going upstairs," he shot back defiantly. He got up and ran out of the dining room and to the front door.

"Jefferson Longchamp, you don't have permission to go out!" Aunt Bet called, but Jefferson opened the front door and shot out anyway. Aunt Bet sat down, her face and long thin neck beet-red. "Oh dear, that child is so wild. He's gone and ruined another meal," she complained. "Christie . . ."

"I'll go after him," I said. "But you're going to have to stop criticizing him," I added.

"I'm just trying to teach him good things," she claimed. "We've all got to learn to get along now. We've got to adjust."

"When are you going to adjust, too, Aunt Bet?" I asked, rising. "When are you going to show some compromise?"

She sat back, her mouth agape. I thought I detected a slight smile on Uncle Philip's lips.

"Go get your brother and bring him back," he said. "We'll talk about all this later."

"Philip . . ."

"Let it be for a while, Betty Ann," he added forcefully. She flicked an angry glance at me and then pulled herself up to the table. I left them sitting in silence, which was something I felt they did more often than not.

I found Jefferson on the swing in our backyard. He was moving very slowly, his head down, dragging his feet along the ground. I sat next to him.

Above us, long thin wisps of clouds broke here and there to reveal the stars. Since Mommy and Daddy's horrible deaths, nothing seemed as bright and as beautiful as it had been, including the constellations. I recalled a time Mommy and I had sat outside on a summer's night and stared up at the heavens. We talked about the magnificence and wonder and let our imaginations run wild with the possibilities of other worlds, other people. We dreamt of a world without sickness and suffering, a world in which words like unhappy and sad didn't exist. People lived in perfect harmony and cared about each other as much as they did about themselves.

"Pick a star," Mommy said, "and that will be the world we've described. Then, every time we're out here at night, we'll look for it."

Tonight, I couldn't find that star.

"You shouldn't have done that at the table, Jefferson," I told him and took the swing beside him. He didn't answer. "You should just ignore her," I added.

"I hate her!" he exclaimed. "She's . . . she's an ugly worm," he said, desperate to find a satisfactory comparison.

"Don't insult worms," I said, but he didn't understand.

"I want Mommy," he moaned. "And Daddy."

"I know, Jefferson. So do I."

"I want them to get out of here, and I don't want Richard sleeping in my room," he added to his list of demands. I nodded.