"I didn't have to be sent off to have a bastard," she sneered. "Whose was it? His?" She pointed at Jimmy. "Or don't you know who the father was?"
"Please," Mother said, "stop this right now. We're a family in mourning," she reminded.
Philip dropped his eyes to the table, but kept his silly smirk. Clara Sue embraced herself and turned away in a sulk. I looked at Randolph, but he seemed distracted, lost in his own world and unable to hear anything. Under the table Jimmy found my hand and squeezed it.
Mother took over the conversation after that, describing all the arrangements for the funeral in great detail, down to the flowers she had chosen to be placed around the coffin, the cards she had had printed to be given out, and the food she had ordered Nussbaum to prepare for afterward.
"Naturally, we have to make this the most impressive funeral Cutler's Cove has ever seen," she declared. "People would expect it."
With a joy and a pleasure she had trouble disguising, Mother had taken complete control of Cutler's Cove. Randolph sat by nodding in silent agreement with everything she said and did. It was almost as if he were a puppet and Mother had her hand behind him, manipulating him.
She went at her own preparations with relish, acting as though she were preparing for a gala celebration. The day of the funeral she descended the stairway like a queen about to greet her subjects. Never did she look more radiantly beautiful. Her black dress had a string of tiny diamond-like stones along the V-neck collar, which I thought showed more cleavage than proper for a memorial service. It was a short-sleeved dress with a firm waist and pleated skirt. She wore her most ostentatious diamond necklace and matching earrings. She had had Randolph get her one of Grandmother Cutler's beautiful silk shawls to wear over her shoulders.
Randolph and Philip both wore black suits and ties. Clara Sue had a black dress that she had to have let out at the waist and bosom. I overheard some of the staff talking about how she had abused the seamstress when the poor woman came to do the fitting.
Mother insisted I go to the boutique in Cutler's Cove and charge something to her account. I had Jimmy take me and I bought a simple black dress.
Jimmy and I followed Mother, Randolph and Philip to the church in Jimmy's car. It was as if Grandmother Cutler had ordered the proper weather for a funeral, too. The sky was completely overcast and gray, and a cool wind blew in from the sea. Even the ocean looked dismal and depressed, the white caps barely rising and the tide barely making its way up the shore.
Mother had been correct in predicting the importance and size of Grandmother Cutler's funeral. The church was overflowing with the residents of the community. Every lawyer, doctor and politician was there, as well as every businessman, many of whom prized the hotel as one of their chief clients.
All eyes were on us, especially, I thought, on Mother, as we took our places up front. The coffin was before us. Mother had decided it should be kept closed. The minister made a long sermon, talking about the special obligation more fortunate people had to their communities. He cited Grandmother Cutler as an important community leader who had used her skills and business sense to help build the community and thus help those who weren't born as fortunate as she was. He concluded by saying she had lived up to the assignment God had given her.
Only Randolph showed any sincere emotion, his eyes filling with tears, his head bowed. Mother maintained her perfect smile, turning and nodding at this important person and that from time to time. Whenever she thought it necessary, she dabbed her eyes with the corner of her white silk handkerchief and lowered her head. She knew how to turn her emotions on and off like a faucet. Clara Sue looked bored, as usual, and Philip kept glancing at me, an impish glint in his eyes and a flirtatious smile on his lips.
Afterward, we proceeded the way Mother had described. The funeral procession followed the hearse up to the hotel where we all got out to listen to the minister say a few more words from the front steps of the hotel. The staff was gathered all around, everyone looking glum. I caught sight of Sissy in the background with her mother. She had come even though Grandmother Cutler had ruthlessly fired her. When she saw me, she smiled.
We went on to the cemetery. The first thing I noticed when we drove in and walked to the Cutler section was that the tombstone Grandmother Cutler had put up with what was supposed to be my name was gone. Now it seemed more like some nightmare I had had.
The minister read some psalms over the grave and then we were all asked to bow our heads while he offered the final prayer. I prayed that Grandmother Cutler, wherever she was, would finally realize the cruelty and harshness of her ways. I prayed she would repent and beg God to forgive her.
Again, as if Grandmother Cutler commanded the weather, the skies began to clear and the sun dropped its rays around us. The ocean looked blue and alive again, and the terns that sounded a mournful cry in the morning now chatted gaily as they swooped down on the beaches searching for some plunder.
Randolph was so confused with grief, he had to be led back to the car. Mother thanked the minister for his nice service and invited him to the hotel to join in what was supposed to be the mournful gathering.
She had arranged for everything to be set up in the lobby. I thought all that was missing was live music. The staff were on duty just the way they would have been for any hotel affair. Waiters walked around with hors d'oeuvres and glasses of whiskey and wine. Tables of food were arranged at the far end. At mother's behest, Nussbaum had prepared all sorts of salads and meats, including Swedish meatballs, small frankfurters, and sliced turkeys. There were Jell-O molds with fruit and a separate table just for desserts.
Just about everyone who had been at the church arrived. The small murmur of conversation that had begun when we first returned from the cemetery exploded into a loud roar of voices. Randolph tried standing beside my mother, Clara Sue and Philip at the front entrance to greet people, but he had to sit down after a while. He was given a glass of whiskey and sat there, still looking quite dazed and confused. Once in a while, he would focus his faraway eyes on me and smile.
Before long, I heard my mother's peal of laughter and saw her escorting the men she obviously considered the most important around the room to the various tables of food and drink. I saw her every-where, and everywhere she was, she looked like a fashion plate, vibrant and beautiful and always surrounded by clusters of male admirers.
Late in the afternoon, the mourners began to leave, most stopping by to shake Randolph's limp hand. Older people, especially the older women, tried to give him real comfort and some hugged him. It was only then that he looked like he knew what was happening and what had happened.
Finally, when just a half dozen or so people remained behind, a tall, stout gray-haired man with a robust slightly tanned face and dark brown eyes approached Jimmy and me. His forehead had deep furrows and there were webs of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, but despite his apparent age, he stood firm and had an air of authority about him that told me he must be Mr. Updike even before he had introduced himself.
"I have contacted the people who thought they were adopting your baby," he said when he pulled us aside. "I have their address here," he indicated, handing me an envelope, "and they expect you to come by in a day or so. Naturally, they're very upset because we were all given to understand this was something you wanted to do."
"I was never even asked, and I would never have agreed," I replied. He nodded and then shook his head.
"It's a bad business, bad business. I'm conducting the reading of the wills in about a half hour in Mrs. Cutler's office," he added. "Be there."
"What would Grandmother Cutler leave you?" Jimmy asked as soon as Mr. Updike walked away.
"A pail and a mop," I replied. I really could think of nothing else.
Mr. Updike sat behind Grandmother Cutler's desk with the papers and documents spread before him. Randolph, my mother and Clara Sue sat on the settee. Philip sat in a chair to the right of them and Jimmy and I took the chairs on the left.
Even with all the lights on and the sunlight streaming through the windows, the office looked dreary, drab and gloomy.
But I couldn't get over how brilliant my mother looked. Supervising the funeral and its aftermath had brought a healthy flush into her face. She sparkled, her eyes dancing with a youthful glint. Clara Sue, who had been pouting all day, glared with hatred every time she looked my way. Our cheerful mother looked more like her sister.
"Since everyone who is required to be present is present," Mr. Updike began, "I shall commence with the formal reading of the wills and disposition of the estates of William and Lillian Cutler, both deceased," he said in a somber tone of voice. My mother was the first to realize something odd.
"Did you say William and Lillian, John?" she asked.
"Yes, Laura Sue. There is some unfinished business as concerns the instructions William left."
"Well, why wasn't it done before this?" she pursued.
"Please be patient, Laura Sue," he replied. "The answer is here," he added, tapping a document. My mother's smile wilted and I thought she looked rather uneasy suddenly, but Randolph didn't seem to notice or care. He sat there coolly, his legs crossed, his eyes focused on some memory rather than on Mr. Updike.
"I shall begin then," Mr. Updike said, "with a letter of instructions left by William B. Cutler, deceased." He fixed his glasses firmly on the bridge of his nose and held up the document to read.
" 'Dear John or whom it may concern,
" 'This letter is to serve as my final will and testament and is to be read only immediately after the event of my wife Lillian's death. I have left these instructions specifically to ensure that my wife suffer no embarrassment during her lifetime.' "
Suddenly, my mother rose, her hand on her bosom. Mr. Updike looked up from the documents.
"I . . . I'm not feeling well. I've got to lay down!" she exclaimed and bolted from the office. Randolph started to rise.
"You had better remain here, Randolph," Mr. Updike said firmly.
"But . . . Laura Sue . . ."
"She'll be all right," Mr. Updike said and made a gesture with his hand to indicate we must forget her for the moment and return to the business at hand. Randolph sat back slowly, looking frightened as well as dazed. Mr. Updike continued to read.
" 'I realize I have no real way to make amends for my actions, but I feel I must not permit my sins to echo on and on punishing the innocent. Accordingly, I hereby confess to having fathered the second child of my son's wife. I make no excuses for this other than to say I succumbed to the same animal lusts and desires men have succumbed to since Adam and Eve. I blame no one, but myself.
" 'Accordingly, I hereby instruct that on the event of the death of my wife Lillian and on the eighteenth birthday of my son's second child, who is in truth my son's half-sister, sixty percent of my holdings in the Cutler's Cove Hotel be deeded to the second child and the remaining forty percent, heretofore deeded to my wife Lillian, be distributed as she sees fit in her last will and testament.' "
Mr. Updike looked up. For a moment it was as though a streak of lightning had passed through the room and we were all waiting for the clap of thunder. Everyone, including me, wore the same expression of disbelief and shock. Randolph shook his head slowly. Philip's Adam's apple bobbed as if he had just swallowed a live frog. Clara Sue finally broke the silence by bursting into tears.
"I don't believe it!" she screamed. "I don't! I don't!" she repeated, pounding her own leg. "This can't be happening!"
"This has all been properly notarized and witnessed. Actually, I witnessed it myself years ago," Mr. Updike said calmly. "There is no question about its authenticity."
"Daddy," she cried, shaking Randolph's shoulder. "Tell him it isn't so; tell him it's a lie."
Randolph lowered his head in defeat. Clara Sue glared at me and then turned back to Mr. Updike.
"But why should she get so much?" she demanded. "She's a bastard."
"It's the way your grandfather wanted it," Mr. Updike replied. "And," he reminded everyone, "it was his to do with as he wanted."
"But she's a . . . a freak!" Clara Sue screamed. "That's what you are, a freak!"
"No, she's not," Philip said with a smile of amusement as he turned to me. "She's your half-sister and your aunt."
"That's freaky. I don't believe it; it's all a lie," Clara Sue insisted. She got up and turned on me just as she reached the door. "I hate you," she spit back at me. "I won't let you get away with this! I won't let you get away with taking what is rightfully mine. Mark my words. One day you're going to pay." Then she ran from the room.
"What about my grandmother's will?" Philip asked Mr. Updike.
"I'll read it in a moment. She leaves various things to various people, but her share in the hotel goes to your father."
Randolph continued to sit with his head bowed. Had he known all along? I wondered. Was that what made him the way he was? There was no question in my mind now that Grandmother Cutler always knew. Now I understood why she called me her curse on her deathbed and why she hated me so. Despite my hardened heart, a small part of myself even felt sorry for her.
But I didn't feel sorry for my mother. I stood up. "Mr. Updike," I said, "since the rest of this doesn't concern me . . ."
"Yes, of course. You may go now. I will be in touch with you concerning documents to sign."
"Thank you," I said and turned to go. I hesitated a moment and crossed to Randolph, who lifted his head and looked up at me with eyes flooded with tears. I touched his shoulder and smiled at him.
"I wish," he said through his tears, "that you really were my daughter."
I kissed him on the cheek and then Jimmy and I walked out of the office.
"Well," Jimmy said, shaking his head. "From a girl with barely enough to eat to the owner of a major resort."
"I'd give it all up in a second for a normal life, Jimmy."
He nodded.
"Let's go get Christie," he said.
"You go to the car, Jimmy. I'll be right out," I said. "I want to speak to my mother first."
I hurried across the lobby, through the family's section of the hotel and up the stairs. The doors to my mother's bedroom were shut, but I didn't knock. I opened them abruptly and marched in to find her spread on her stomach on her bed. She had been sobbing into one of her big, fluffy pillows.
"Why didn't you ever tell me the truth, Mother?" I demanded.
"I'm so embarrassed," she cried. "Why did he have to do that? Why did he have to write that horrible letter and let the whole world know?"
"Because he couldn't die with it on his conscience, Mother. You know what a conscience is, don't you? It's what haunts you and haunts you when you lie and deceive people you are supposed to love. It's what haunts you when you are so selfish you don't care who you hurt, even if the people you hurt are your own flesh and blood," I lectured.
She slapped the palms of her hands over her ears. "Oh stop it, stop it!" she cried. "I don't want to hear this. Stop it."
"Stop what? The truth. You simply can't take the truth, ever. Can you, Mother?
"So this was really why you permitted Grandmother Cutler to arrange for my kidnapping? She knew that Grandfather Cutler was my father, didn't she? Didn't she?" I demanded.
"Yes," my mother confessed. "Yes! Yes! Yes!"
"And this was why she hated me so much when I was returned and why she couldn't stand the sight of me," I continued, extracting each piece of truth out of her like a dentist pulling teeth.
"Yes," she moaned. "That woman despised me because of what William had done. She wanted to hurt me . . . to have her revenge."
"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.