Twilight's Child (Cutler 3)

"I'll just get this out to the car," Jimmy said, picking up the carton. "Thank you."

"I am sorry how all this worked out," Sanford said when he and I were alone for a moment. "It was never our intention to add to anyone's suffering."

"No, no. It wasn't your fault. You weren't told the truth," I said.

"If I had been, you can be damn sure it wouldn't have gone this far," he replied, his eyes icy blue again. "Your grandmother, or the woman who called herself that, must have been some piece of work."

I couldn't help but laugh at his description, but my joviality was short-lived, for when I lifted my gaze toward the stairway I saw Patricia Compton coming down slowly, baby Christie in her arms. My heart began to pitter-patter, both in anticipation and in anxiety, because Patricia walked as if she were under a spell. To me it appeared she could fold up at any moment and topple down the staircase, dropping the baby out of her embrace.

"I wanted to do all of this," Sanford whispered, "but she insisted."

I stepped forward quickly to greet her at the base of the stairway. She stopped two steps from the bottom and stared at me. Christie was wrapped in a pink blanket, her tiny nose and chin barely visible. Patricia continued to gaze at me silently. Her sad eyes and trembling lips kept me from simply reaching out to seize Christie.

"She's just been fed, and she's dozing," Patricia finally said. "She always drops right off after a feeding. Sometimes"—Patricia smiled—"sometimes she falls asleep with the nipple of the bottle still in her lips. She just stops suckling and closes her eyes and drifts off, contented. She's a wonderful baby."

Her eyes shifted to Sanford. Jimmy returned and approached slowly.

"Give Miss Cutler her child now, Patricia," Sanford said firmly but softly.

"What? Oh, yes, yes." She lifted the baby toward me, and I stepped forward quickly to take Christie in my arms. When I looked down into her little face I finally felt the shadow lift from my heart, filling with sunshine and joy. I had forgotten how blond her hair was. It looked like a crown of gold.

"Thank you," I said, turning back to Patricia. "I am truly sorry for the pain you are suffering 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."