Twilight's Child (Cutler 3)

"Daddy Longchamp? Why didn't you say so? What did he say? Is he coming to see us?" Jimmy shook his head. "What is it, Jimmy?"

"Edwina had a miscarriage," he said. "I didn't want to tell you b

ecause of all that was happening here. She's all right, but they were both upset."

"And so you're afraid of my becoming pregnant now?" I asked.

"It's not that. You're so involved with what you're doing that you barely have time for Christie and me at the moment."

"Having our baby is more important than anything else I'm doing."

Jimmy lay back against his pillow and watched as I got undressed. Naked, I crawled in beside him and cuddled up against him, feeling his desire for me quickly stir. Even so, he remained a bit hesitant.

"Don't do this because you're feeling gloomy, Dawn," he warned. "There should never be any regrets."

"There never will be," I swore, and then I brought my lips to his and kissed him long and hard, making my embrace more and more demanding until whatever reluctance he had in him evaporated under the heat of my passion. He pressed on lovingly. As he drove me higher and higher, the despondency that had invaded my heart began to retreat. I turned to look out the window and saw that quarter moon slip past the clouds and blink brightly against the inky sky.

The past can't hurt us, 1 thought, if we build a fortress out of our love.

Mother did not emerge from her suite the next morning, nor did she come out for lunch or go anywhere. Jimmy had told me she had cried softly in the hotel limousine all the way back to the hotel once they had left Bronson's house. Bronson had tried to paint a different picture of her for me; he painted a portrait of a little girl to whom her father barely paid attention, a little girl who grew up to become a beautiful but fragile and insecure person, trapping herself in a marriage that proved horrifying. I knew that much of his description evolved from his desperate and undying love for her, and that she wasn't the lily-white victim he had portrayed her to have been; but I was also haunted by the fear that I was becoming too hard and too cold.

Tired of hating and fighting, I got myself to go in to see her.

She was lying in bed, looking much like she used to look before my wedding and Randolph's passing: weak and despondent. The tray of food Mrs. Boston had brought in to her lay on the nightstand, barely touched. She had her eyes closed, her head sunk in the large pillow, her hair falling around her. I was surprised to see that she hadn't put on any makeup.

"What's wrong with you today, Mother?" I began. She let her eyelids flutter open and stared at the ceiling for a moment before responding.

"I'm just so tired of arguments," she said. "So tired of hateful words. It's made me sick. I was never a very strong person to begin with, Dawn," she added, lifting her head and sliding up slowly, "and years and years of turmoil have taken their toll. I feel like surrendering to Father Time and his despicable companion, Age. Let what will be, be," she said, and she let her head fall back on the pillow again.

Her performance brought a smile to my face, but I turned quickly to hide it.

"But Mother," I said, "what about your plans to marry Bronson and start a wonderful new life? Bronson won't want to marry a wrinkled-up, gray-haired hag, will he?" I teased.

"Bronson won't marry me if you oppose it and make it seem like another scandal," she said sadly, with funereal eyes. "He says we must all like one another or it won't work."

"I'm not opposing it," I said. "I'm not one to cast stones. If the two of you want to get married, get married," I said, and at my words she lit up like a Christmas tree.

"Oh, Dawn, do you mean that? Do you really? That's wonderful," she cried, sitting up again.

"Are you going to have a wedding here, too?" I asked, wondering how it could all be planned in a week's time.

"Oh, no, no. We're past that sort of thing. We're going to New York to be married by a supreme court judge and then see dozens and dozens of Broadway shows!" she exclaimed. She reached for the food tray and brought it to her bed table. "I've already bought an entire new wardrobe for the occasion," she continued, pecking away at her salad. "That's what I've been doing afternoons these past few weeks."

"So you knew that far back?" I asked.

"What? Oh. Well, I always thought . . . yes," she confessed, unable to think of an excuse quickly, "I did. I know it doesn't sound nice, but what was the point in deceiving ourselves and pretending something we knew would happen wouldn't? We knew what we wanted and what we were going to do eventually. I wanted to prepare and be ready."

"I see. Have you told Clara Sue anything?" I asked, wondering if that might be another reason why Clara Sue had refused to come home for the summer. Mother shifted her eyes back to the food quickly.

"Not yet."

"How much will you tell her, Mother?" I asked.

"Just that we're getting married," she said. "That's all that's necessary for now. Why complicate things any more than they already are?" she asked.

"That's for you and Bronson to decide," I said. "I can tell you that it's very painful to learn that someone you thought was your mother and someone you thought was your father are not."

"I agree," Mother said, missing my point. "Why add additional pain? Poor Clara Sue has already suffered in losing the man she thought was her father. Why . . . why, it would be like making him die again," she said. She looked up, smiling, her blue eyes shining with excitement.