Twilight's Child

  Because Clara Sue had stayed with her friend in New Jersey all summer and because neither Mother nor Philip made any mention of her, I rarely if ever gave her any thought. But on the Thursday before the Labor Day weekend she came to the hotel. I was upstairs taking a nap. I had reluctantly agreed to break up my day with naps, only when Philip and Jimmy promised they wouldn't hesitate to wake me if something important happened. I didn't really believe either of them, but even though my pregnancy had yet to show and I had gained only three pounds, I was feeling more and more fatigue these days, and I found myself stopping to catch my breath more often than I would have liked.

  A clap of thunder woke me, and I opened my eyes and gazed out the window to see the sun suddenly take a fugitive position behind an oncoming wall of dark clouds. The thunder crashed again and swiftly came closer, with the swollen, heavy sky zigzagged by frightening electrical bolts, so I didn't hear Clara Sue come pounding down the corridor after she had gone into her old room, now stripped bare.

  Apparently, from what I gathered in the first few seconds of my confrontation with her, Mother had not told her I had had her things moved to Beulla Woods. I sincerely wondered if Mother had spoken with her more than once or twice the entire summer.

  Once she discovered what had been done, she shoved open my bedroom door and burst in like an angry whirlwind.

  Spending her entire summer lying on a beach, eating and partying with her friends, Clara Sue had added more pounds to her voluptuous figure. She looked ten pounds heavier than the last time I had seen her. She was wearing a clingy violet silk dress that fit her like a second skin and showed a great deal of her cleavage. She'd permed her long blond hair and wore heavy mascara and ruby-red lipstick. I thought she looked extremely trashy, but Clara Sue probably didn't care a bit about my opinion. She was darkly tanned, and her cold blue eyes were hard and sharp, sending daggers my way.

  I sat up quickly, frightened by the bang of her hand on my door. She stood there fuming, fists clenched at her sides.

  "What are you doing?" I demanded. I swung my legs over the bed and slipped on my shoes while she stood there staring hatefully at me. Her eyes narrowed dangerously, and it looked as if smoke might soon emerge from her ears.

  "How dare you! How dare you touch my things!" she cried. "What have you done with them?" she demanded, stepping forward.

  "Hasn't Mother told you?" I said calmly. "All of your things have been moved to Beulla Woods. That's where you're going to live now," I said.

  "Who decided that?" she asked through clenched teeth. I fixed my eyes on hers.

  "I decided," I answered calmly, despite the fear growing inside me.

  Suddenly she screamed, a high-pitched howl like some animal caught in a steel trap. She slapped her hands over the sides of her head and ripped at her own hair, her fingers clutching the strands.

  She lowered her head, her eyes rolling back, and then she charged at me. Her action took me so much by surprise, I didn't move.

  "You bitch!" she cried. "You can't run my life, too! I won't let you!" Without warning she swung her clenched right fist and caught me squarely on the side of my head. The unexpected blow with all her weight behind it sent me reeling to the side. I fell over the vanity chair and slammed down hard on the floor, the chair turning over beside me. Stunned, I struggled to get back to my feet. I righted the chair and got to my knees to pull myself up, but Clara Sue came at me again.

  "I'll teach you to touch my things! I'll teach you to try to give me orders! I'm going to make you pay, Dawn! I'm going to make you feel the same pain I've felt since the day you came back into our lives!" she screamed, and then she kicked me hard in the stomach. The blow sent a storm of pain around my sides and up to my chest. It knocked the breath out of me. I fell forward, and Clara Sue kicked me again and again in the side, screaming like a madwoman at the top of her lungs as she delivered each blow. When I opened my eyes the room began to spin. I felt as if I were falling down a deep tunnel, falling toward the darkness below. I tried crying out and waved my arms and hands desperately to ward of any additional blows.

  Vaguely, before I passed out, I heard Jimmy's and Philip's voices. One of them pulled Clara Sue back. Someone—maybe Sissy, maybe Mrs. Boston—was screaming in the hallway. Clara Sue continued to rant and rave. Either Jimmy or Philip started to lift me up, and then all went black.

  I regained consciousness in the back of the hotel limousine, but the voices I heard around me sounded thin and distant. I tried to cry out, but it was as if my own voice was trapped inside my chest. It ached so in there, and the pain that had begun in my stomach had turned into a hand of fire with fingertips made of hot coals, spreading itself over my body, expanding, growing, invading the walls of my heart, which alternately pounded and fluttered. My lungs felt as if they had filled with air so hot that I couldn't breathe. I saw that my head was resting on a pillow, and the pillow was on Jimmy's lap. He was looking down at me, petting my hair, his eyes filled with tears. I tried to smile, but my face was like plastic. My lips wouldn't move, my skin wouldn't fold.

  "Easy," I heard Jimmy say. "We're almost there."

  "Almost there . . . almost there . . ." The words trickled down the back of my mind. My eyes wouldn't stay open.

  The next time I did get them to open I was on a gurney and being rolled down a hospital corridor. I saw the ceiling lights flash by, and I heard the voices of the nurses and the distinct voice of Dr. Lester.

  I'm with Dr. Lester, I thought, and I felt reassurance. I'll be all right now. Everything will be all right now.

  "She's hemorrhaging, doctor," I heard a nurse say.

  "In here, quickly," Dr. Lester responded. Something warm was running down my legs. The panic began to creep up my body again, and my heart began to pound in long, deep thumps that reverberated up into my head. I felt myself being lifted, and as my body was lowered onto a bed I lost consciousness again.

  When I awoke this time, I was in a hospital room, and Jimmy was at my side. He had his head down, and his shoulders slumped. He didn't know I was awake, so he didn't hide the tears, nor did he keep them from dripping off his cheeks. I gazed around the white-walled room and saw one large window to the left. The plain cotton curtain rose and fell with the slight breeze that drifted in. I could smell that cool dampness that followed a brief but hard summer storm.

  "Jimmy," I said, my voice surprisingly weak. He lifted his head and quickly scrubbed the tears from his face. Then he grabbed my hand between both of his.

  "How are you doing, honey?" he asked.

  How was I doing? I wondered. I felt numb all over. The sharp pain had gone. If anything, there was only the sense of a dull ache in the walls of my stomach.

  "Jimmy," I said, my lips trembling.

  "I know, I know. She was wild; she was horrible. We couldn't get her off you. It was like she was possessed. I threw her out, and she went screaming through the hotel. I want to press charges against her," he said angrily. "I want to see her put in jail. She deserves nothing less than to be treated as a common criminal . . . as a . . ." Jimmy's tongue stumbled over the words.

  Oh, no, please, no, I thought. Please . . .

  "As a murderer," he said, and it was as if Clara Sue was still there, kicking me again and again.

  "The baby . . . I had a miscarriage?"

  Jimmy nodded and bit down on his lower lip.

  I closed my eyes and turned away. It was no use, I thought. That black cloud that had always seemed to hover above us when we were young was still hovering above us. I would never be happy, and that meant that Jimmy would never be happy. I wished I had never agreed to marry him, for when I did, I tied him forever to whatever curse had been cast over me.

  "Dr. Lester says you're going to be all right," Jimmy said reassuringly. "He says in time we can try again. He says there's no reason why—"

  "Oh, Jimmy, there will always be a reason," I cried, turning back to him. "There will always be something making life miserable for us, turning
everything sweet into something sour. Why hope? Why care?"

  "Don't talk like that, Dawn," he begged. "Please don't. It's not true anyway. Good things have happened to us and will continue to happen. Why, we've got the hotel and—"

  "The hotel," I spat out hatefully, unable to lock in the bitterness. "Don't you see? It was Grandmother Cutler's ultimate revenge, my having inherited so much."

  Jimmy shook his head.

  "Yes, Jimmy," I said more firmly. I tried to sit up, but the pain in my abdomen kept me down. Even so, I continued. "The hotel is a weight, a burden, not a blessing. In the end it will destroy us. I want to sell out. Yes, that's what we'll do. We'll sell out and take whatever money we can to start a brand new life someplace else . . . you and me and Christie."

  "We'll see,” Jimmy said, trying to calm me. "We'll see."

  "She's still there, Jimmy," I insisted. "She was the one striking at me through Clara Sue, don't you see? It was she!"

  "Easy, Dawn. You're only getting yourself more upset and making yourself sicker."

  "She was the one kicking me. She was the one who killed my baby," I muttered, closing my eyes. "It was she." I must have fallen asleep again and dreamed. In my nightmare it was indeed Grandmother Cutler who was kicking me over and over, smiling as she drove her tiny foot with a sharply pointed shoe into my stomach. I shuddered and woke with a start. I knew I had slept for a while, for it was dark outside. Jimmy was standing in the doorway talking softly to Philip.

  "She's awake," Philip said. They both returned to my bedside.

  "Hi, Dawn," Philip said. "How are you?"

  "Tired," I replied. "Very tired, but very thirsty." Jimmy reached for my plastic cup of water and straw and brought it to my lips immediately. The cool liquid felt good, felt as though it was putting out the simmering ashes of the fire that had been started inside me. I made myself smile for Jimmy.

  "She's become a monster," Philip began. "I told her I don't ever want to consider her my sister again. As far as I was concerned, she could go jump off a cliff."

  "We still might press charges against her," Jimmy said. I shook my head.

  "You should," Philip agreed. "She needs to be locked up someplace and the key thrown away."

  There was a knock on the door, and we all turned to see Bronson and Mother.

  Mother wore a sable wrap over a scarlet dress. She had her hair pinned up and had so much makeup and jewelry on that I thought she and Bronson must be stopping by after attending a formal function or the theater.

  "It's so cold out. There's such a bitter chill in the air," she said, pulling the fur wrap tighter around herself as she entered. "Why is that window open?"

  "It's all right," I said softly.

  "Well," she said after taking a deep breath and pulling her shoulders back, "how are you?"

  "I'll be all right," I said.

  "Good, good. I just can't stand being in hospitals. They smell so . . . medicinal. It makes me want to faint. I didn't even go to the hospital to visit my own mother until I had to," she said, as if that was something to be proud of.

  Bronson stepped up beside Philip and smiled at me.

  "I was sorry to hear what happened," he said, shaking his head sadly. "When she came to Beulla Woods I forbade her to leave her room."

  "She's probably gone by now," Philip said, "doing whatever she wants. She's a wild animal."

  "That will change," Bronson said sharply. He fixed his eyes on Philip so firmly that Philip had to swing his eyes away. "Your mother found out just yesterday that she failed almost every subject at school," he added, and Mother released a tiny cry that sounded like the whimper of a mouse. "Somehow she had intercepted all the school reports and kept them from us," Bronson added, but when I gazed at Mother I wondered if that was so, or if Mother herself had simply put it all aside and ignored it until she had to face up to reality.

  Bronson patted my hand and smiled down at me. "If there is anything we can do for you . . ."

  "Thank you," I said. My lips began to tremble.

  "Well," Mother suddenly said with a burst of energy, "perhaps after you are released from here you and Jimmy can consider joining us on that cruise."

  "Sure they can," Philip chimed in. "I'll take care of things at the hotel if you guys want to get away. Don't worry about that."

  "I don't think I'm in the mood to go on a cruise," I said quickly.

  "Well, you have to get your mind off all this somehow, and a cruise is just fine for that, isn't it, Bronson?" Mother asked.

  "I think we had better take things one step at a time," he said wisely.

  "Well, now that we see you're all right," Mother said, ignoring the fact that I was lying prone because my body was full of aches, that I was pale and weak because I had lost blood and had a miscarriage, "we'll leave. I'm not one for staying in hospitals long. If I ever get very, very sick, they will just have to bring the medicines and machinery to me. Bronson?"

  "Right. Feel better, Dawn," Bronson said, and he leaned down to kiss me on the cheek. Mother blew me a kiss, and then the two of them departed.

  "I'd better go, too," Philip said. "I'll check on you in the morning." He kissed me and left.

  Jimmy and I stared at each other for a moment. "What did you tell Christie?" I asked him.

  He shook his head.

  "She thought you were coming here to have the new baby already," he said. "That kid's something else," he added, and he started to laugh.

  "Oh, Jimmy . . ." I couldn't stop the tears from gushing.

  "Don't, Dawn." He was at my side quickly.

  "But I should have been coming to the hospital for that one thing only," I cried.

  "I know. You will. Someday soon you will," he promised. "Come on," he coaxed, "you and I have been through some hard times, and we've always managed to see the rainbow at the end of the storm. We'll find it again, as long as we have each other."

  I smiled up at him. He was so handsome and strong now. I was lucky to have him.

  "That's better; that's the Dawn I remember," he said. I closed my eyes.

  "Getting tired again?" he asked.

  I nodded.

  "All right. I’ll let you sleep, but I’ll be close by," he assured me.

  "Go home, Jimmy. I'll be all right. Get some rest your self," I told him.

  "Now don't go being the boss again," he chastised. "You're off duty."

  I didn't have the strength to argue. I closed my eyes and felt his lips on my lids and then on my lips. My eyelids fluttered open as he backed away. He waved, and I closed my eyes, locking his image within, an image that brought back memories.

  We were somewhere, a long time ago. We had been dragged from one place to another so often, I couldn't remember exactly where we were, but I had been running, and I fell and scraped my knee badly. I hurried home to show Momma, but she was at work, and there was no one to comfort me, so I sat on the floor crying. Finally the door opened, and Jimmy came in. He rushed over to me and looked at my knee. Then he went into the bathroom and came out with a wet washcloth to clean it. He fixed a bandage for me, too. And then he lifted me up and took me to our sofa bed and made me comfortable.

  So much of the time we lived like two orphans, and orphans have less time to be children. It's as if some strange adult, someone with a dark face, takes our hands and makes us run faster, pulls us along and then suddenly lets go and leaves us dangling, wandering, searching for our identities, hungering for a place to call home. I wondered if we would ever find it.

  All I could do was hope that Jimmy was right. We had been through so many storms, and we had always managed to find a rainbow waiting.

  Where was the rainbow waiting now?

  PART TWO

  9

  LIFE GOES ON

  DESPITE MY HOPES AND EXPECTATIONS, THE RECUPERATION FROM my miscarriage took months and months. Even though Dr. Lester assured me I was recovered physically, I was continually tired and listless. Even after I had become pregnant, I was used to wo
rking an endless stream of hours without so much as pausing to go to the bathroom, but now I found a mere hour or-so seemed to exhaust me. I had to retreat to take frequent naps. Sometimes I would just lie there with my eyes open, wondering and dreaming about the baby I had lost.

  Jimmy tried to get me to take a winter vacation. He wanted to go fishing in the Florida Keys, but I kept postponing it until he finally gave up.

  "You're behaving like a bear in hibernation," he told me. I did welcome the gray, cold days because they drove me to sleep, and sleep seemed to provide the only hours of relief.

  Nothing excited me, not even Jimmy's plans for our house. I tried to show interest, but he took one look at my face as he explained the architectural drawings and saw that I wasn't really listening. I knew he had deliberately thrown himself into this project soon after my miscarriage in the hope that it would plant new seeds of happiness and joy in the garden of our marriage. He was trying so hard, every way he could, to pull me out of the doldrums.

  Finally, one spring afternoon when he came up to our room and found me staring blankly up at the ceiling, he exploded. I hadn't seen him in this sort of a rage since our early days when Daddy Longchamp would rip us abruptly out of one place to speed us through the night to another, making us leave treasured possessions and new friends behind.

  Jimmy threw up his hands and almost made me jump out of my skin with his outburst.

  "This can't go on, Dawn!" he exclaimed. He paced in front of me, pounding his feet down so hard, the whole room shook. "You're letting everything get the best of you. Everyone's noticed it and is upset. It's even affecting Christie."

  "I'm sorry, Jimmy," I said. My tears began to rise against the floodgates, threatening to overflow and send torrents down my cheeks.

  "It's not enough to apologize, to lie there day after day, night after night, for months and months, feeling sorry for yourself. A terrible thing has happened, I know. I hate that it has happened, but we can't change that now. We've got to go on and build anew," he lectured.