Twilight's Child (Cutler 3)

"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 . . ."