Twilight's Child (Cutler 3)

"Catherine Peabody asked me why you and James haven't attempted to have another child," Mother said. "Can you imagine the gall? I wanted to ask her what business was it of hers, but instead I told her bluntly that you and James were being sensible. I said you were both too young and too involved with your work to become bogged down with a brood of offspring."

"Tell them whatever you like, Mother," I said dryly. The topic was deadening to me. I felt beaten down, defeated, exhausted over worrying about it. I was at the point of giving up and accepting the fact that it would never happen anyway.

I think Jimmy was beginning to feel that way, too. Not that we stopped making love or thinking about it. He just stopped asking me how I was and if I had any symptoms. Actually, what the birth of the twins and my inability to become pregnant did was put Jimmy's mind back on Fern. I knew that he and Daddy Longchamp had kept up a correspondence about her. We continually invited Daddy Longchamp and his new wife Edwina to the hotel, but he always had one reason or another why he couldn't come. Finally, one day Jimmy decided we should visit him.

I had left the hotel early to go to sit on the bench in our newly constructed gazebo. The late-afternoon sun spread long, cool shadows over the lawns and gardens. In the distance the calm, silvery ocean glittered. I felt pensive and moody. All day I had been recalling things about Momma Longchamp and my childhood, a time that seemed more like a dream now.

"So there you are," Jimmy said, approaching. "I've been looking for you."

"I got lazy," I said, "and decided to come home earlier today."

"You should be taking more time off. This hotel can run itself. Anyway, that's why I was looking for you," he said. "I received a new packet of pictures from Daddy Longchamp today. Look at how big Gavin's getting," he said, handing me the photographs.

"He's getting handsome, too," I said, gazing down at the dark-haired, dark-eyed boy. He had Daddy Longchamp's lean, hard look, but a very nice smile.

"I should go to see my new brother," he said. "It's not right that he and I have never met."

"Of course you should go, Jimmy. But maybe you should go yourself," I said.

"What? Why?"

"I don't know . . . maybe Daddy Longchamp is still very uncomfortable about seeing me," I said. "That's probably why he doesn't come here. You can tell him I was just too busy at the hotel to leave at this time."

"You sure it's not the other way around?" Jimmy asked. "What do you mean?"

"You sure you're not uncomfortable about seeing him?" he pursued, his eyes narrow with suspicion.

"Jimmy, how can you say that? I wanted him to come to the hotel, didn't I?"

"Yeah, but maybe you always knew he wouldn't come," Jimmy said. "And you were never terribly upset when he didn't show up." He fixed his eyes on me, and I had to look down. It was as if Jimmy could look into my heart and see my fears.

"You were the one who talked me into forgiving him and going to see him," Jimmy reminded me. "And here you're the one who still hates him."

"Oh, Jimmy, I don't hate him. I'm just . . . just . . ." "What?" he insisted.

"Afraid," I said. "I can't help it. I don't know why I should be, but I am."

He stared at me, confused.

"What are you afraid of? Raking up the past?"

"Oh, Jimmy," I said, finally letting it all burst out of me, "he raised us as brother and sister, and here we are married. I'm afraid to look him in the face."

"But—but he knew the truth!" Jimmy exclaimed.

"Jimmy, all the time I lived with him and Momma Longchamp I never felt I wasn't their child. I think they got so they believed it themselves. Truth sometimes changes. Like a chameleon, it transforms itself to fit where it is at the time. Daddy Longchamp can't look at us and not remember us sharing a room, sharing our meager meals, even sharing some clothing. And when he looks at me and remembers the past he's most likely to feel bad, even though I won't want him to."

"But—"

"Jimmy, you go yourself. Just t

his first time," I pleaded. "I promise go the next time," I said.

He stared at me a moment and then shook his head.

"All right," he finally said. "I want to talk to Daddy about Fern anyway. He's been trying to find out about her, too. I can't understand why Mr. Updike has been unable to find out anything all this time, especially with the services of a professional detective."

"Jimmy," I said after taking a deep breath, "we don't have the detective working on it anymore."