Secrets of the Morning (Cutler 2)

"And so you let her give me away, Mother. And you let her torment me when I returned. Because I reminded her of your liaison with Grandfather Cutler. You let her do it, Mother. You permitted her to get away with it. Not once did you try to help me."

"I tried," she said, turning toward me. Her face was red and streaked with tears. "I did what I could."

"Y

ou did nothing, Mother. You let her humiliate me. You let her put up that tombstone symbolizing my death. You let her make a slave of me. You let her send me to her horrible sister to be tortured. You let it all happen and why? Why?" I screamed, burning with frustration from the unanswered questions smothering me and because for my entire life I had been a pawn in a game I hadn't orchestrated.

"Because you were afraid," I said, answering my own question. "You were always afraid she would reveal the truth and the truth must have been that you seduced him."

"No!"

"No? I'm not blind. I see the way you flirt, even with Jimmy. It's in your nature to be like this. I'm sure that story about my real father being some traveling entertainer, a story both you and Grandmother Cutler led me to believe, wasn't all fantasy, was it? You probably did have a line of lovers, didn't you? Didn't you?" I demanded.

"Stop it!" she screamed, her hands over her ears again.

"I don't pity you anymore, Mother. I despise you for what you've done. You've hurt so many people, Mother, that if you had a conscience, it would tear you apart," I said.

"Oh Dawn," she replied wiping her face with the backs of her small hands. "You're right to be so angry," she said in that softer, childish tone of voice she could easily manage. "I don't blame you for feeling the way you do. I really don't. I should have done more to help you, but I was afraid of her. She was such a tyrant. I am sorry. Really, I am.

"But," she said, smiling, "amends have been made. You're about to become a very rich young lady and there's this hotel to run. Randolph will be useless to you. He's always been useless. But we can be friends again. We can work on our mother-daughter relationship. Maybe even become friends. I'd like that, Dawn, wouldn't you? I've always loved you, Dawn. Honestly I have. You must believe me. I'll help you and together we will make the hotel into something and . . ."

"Right now, Mother, all I care about is getting back my baby. And don't think that money makes it all right again. As for this hotel . . . I couldn't care less if it burnt to the ground," I flared and stormed from her room.

"You will feel differently, Dawn," she cried. "After you calm down, you will feel differently. And then you will need me. You will need me . . ."

I slammed the outer chamber door behind me, stifling her cries, and hurriedly descended the stairs. As soon as I stepped out of the hotel, I stopped to catch my breath. Then I looked up at the now-deep-blue sky with the previous layers of clouds far off toward the horizon.

God couldn't have wanted all this to happen, I thought. He didn't write the scripts for the puny little players down here. We wrote them ourselves—with our lusts and our greed and our selfish ways. These rich and powerful people feasted on each other like cannibals and if someone got hurt in the process, well, too bad.

Then afterward, like my mother up in her luxurious suite, they tried to make it seem like nothing significant had occurred. Well, it was terrible, and they should be made to suffer even more than they had, I thought.

"Hey," Jimmy called from the car. "Come on, Dawn." He came forward to take my hand. "Say goodbye to the past, and hello to the future. We're wasting time. Christie is waiting for you."

"Yes," I said, smiling. "She is, isn't she?"

It was just like Jimmy to say the right words to make me feel alive and free, free enough to forget thoughts of revenge and think only of blue skies and warm breezes, days of happiness filled with music, music I wanted so much to make.

I took his hand and let him lead me away from the hotel. In moments we were driving off toward a rainbow and all the promises it pledged.