Cutler 3 - Twilight's Child (46 page)

"This is only a temporary setback, an aftershock," he continued. "She's gone through a great deal of unhappiness in her life. Everyone thinks she's had it so soft, gotten everything she wanted, but we know differently, don't we? It's understandable, this condition. Isn't it?"

"Yes, Bronson. I'm sure when you get her professional help she will begin to recuperate," I said, even though I wasn't as optimistic as he was. I saw he needed the encouragement.

"Right. And I'll get her the best doctors. You can be sure of that. I'll start right away. This very moment I'll go to the phone and make some calls. You'll come back often, won't you? And help?"

"Of course I will, Bronson."

"And bring the children. Always bring the children. Once she sees the sort of grandchildren she has, she won't be feeling so sorry for herself," he assured me, nodding his head for emphasis.

"Okay, Bronson, but first we'll have to explain things to them. They'll have to understand Grandmother's not feeling well," I said.

He bit down on his lower lip, the tears flowing freely from his eyes.

"We had a little bit of happiness together, at least," he said sadly.

"It will get better, Bronson. It will," I said more firmly. "You two have years and years of happiness ahead of you yet," I said.

"Yes, yes, of course we do," he replied, smiling again. He took a deep breath. "You wouldn't know how much she cared about you and Clara Sue. She was pulled by so many different forces. But at night recently I would wake up to find her screaming either your name or Clara Sue's.

"I guess," he concluded, "being a mother is not something a woman can ignore. She gives birth, and her children are no longer inside her womb, but there's always a part of them inside her. She can try to deny it, but in the end she always hears her baby calling to her. Am I right?" he asked.

"Yes, Bronson. You couldn't be more right," I said, recalling how much I had longed for Christie after she had been taken from me.

We embraced each other, and then I took his hand and walked down with him to make his phone calls.

Early in the summer Bronson and the nurses managed to get Mother dressed and out so she would sit in the gazebo or on the patio. Some days were better than others. On those days she actually recognized us and enjoyed the children; on other days we were no different from complete strangers, or she saw us as people from her past. One of her nurses got her to do needlework, and that seemed to be the best therapy. She would sit for hours and hours working on a project and always seemed disappointed when it was finished.

Bronson never completely lost his optimism, but it waned considerably, and he began to accept the possibility that this was the way it would be forever. I felt very sorry for him and actually went up to Beulla Woods more for his sake than for Mother's, especially on her bad days, when she had no idea who I was or who he was. He had spent so much of his life caring for his invalid sister, and now he was burdened with another invalid of sorts.

It took its toll on him, too. He began to show his age, and that once-dapper look, that spring in his gait wilted. It was as if they had both tripped and fallen headlong into the autumn of their lives.

With the coming of a new summer resort season—one promising to be bigger than any we had had before—we all became occupied with our duties. We still made time for Mother, but our visits had to be shorter and fewer. I thought nothing could take my attention away from my demanding work now. I was living and breathing the hotel.

One day, as I was rushing down a corridor to check on something in the kitchen, I caught a glimpse of myself in a wall mirror and stopped dead in my tracks. I backed up and gazed at my reflection.

It's no wonder Mother doesn't recognize me anymore, I thought. I barely recognized myself. Concern, worry and responsibility had deepened the lines in my forehead. I wore my hair brushed back more severely than ever, and I had taken to wearing cotton suits and blouses. Even though I was never one to wear a great deal of makeup, I did use lipstick and some eye shadow, but now I was going for long periods of time without a touch of color on my lips and eyes. This view of myself actually terrified me. It was as if Grandmother Cutler's spirit had begun to enter my body and change me.

But before I could think more about it, Fern came running to tell me there was a funny-talking man on the telephone demanding to speak to Lillian Cutler.

"Lillian Cutler? You know who that was. Did you tell him she's passed away?"

"Yes. I told him you were the boss now, too. Then he demanded to speak to you. He said you would know who he was for sure, for dang sure," she mimicked, and she grimaced.

"Dang sure? What's his name?"

"Luther somebody," she replied.

"Luther?" Luther, I thought. Luther, from The Meadows. But why was he calling?

I gazed once more at myself in the mirror and thought I saw the satisfied smirk of Grandmother Cutler coming back at me. Then I hurried off.

"It's Miss Emily," Luther said after I picked up the receiver, told him who I was and said hello.

"What about Miss Emily, Luther?" I asked.

"She's gone and died," he replied.

"Died?" I didn't think that cruel, hard woman was capable of dying. She was too mean and ugly for even death to touch her.

"Yep. I'm calling you from Nelson's General Store," he declared, as if that were the most important fact of all. Of course, I remembered they had no phone at The Meadows.

"What happened to her, Luther?" I asked.

"Her heart run out, I guess."

Heart? She didn't have a heart, I thought, just some chunk of meanness beating away under her breast.

"Charlotte come out to tell me Miss Emily didn't get up to make breakfast this morning, so I went up to her room and knocked on the door, but she didn't reply. I went in and found her sprawled on her back, her eyes and mouth wide open," Luther continued.

"Did you call a doctor?" I asked.

"Doctor? What for? She's dead as last Christmas. Ain't nothing a doctor gonna do for her now," he replied.

"You still have to call a doctor, Luther. She has to be declared legally dead, and you have to make arrangements for the burial," I said.

"No arrangements necessary. I'll dig a grave in the family plot on the grounds and drop her in," he said.

"You can't do that without first calling a doctor, Luther," I stated, even though I didn't think that hateful woman deserved any better.

"I don't know where she kept her money for such things," he told me.

"Don't worry about money. I'll see to that. How's Charlotte?"

"She's all right. She's singing in the kitchen and making herself some eggs," he said, not hiding the joy in his voice.

I would have laughed, but I recalled the Spartan meals Miss Emily prescribed for all of us: that horrible oatmeal with the vinegar in it so we would taste bitterness and know hardship, that single apple for lunch, and those measured portions for dinner. Even the drinking water was rationed.

"But I guess you people got to come down here to see about things," he said.

"We people?" Yes, I thought. We do have to see about things, especially about poor Charlotte. "All right, Luther. We'll be there right away. But you call that doctor," I ordered.

"I'll do it, but it's good money thrown down a gopher hole," he remarked.

After I hung up I went to tell Jimmy and Philip. We decided that Jimmy and I would go to The Meadows. Philip wanted to remain at the hotel. He hadn't seen Aunt Emily or Aunt Charlotte for years and had little interest.

"Don't worry about Christie or Fern," Mrs. Boston told us. "I'll look after both of them and make sure Miss America behaves herself or else," she promised, winking.

Jimmy and I smiled at each other. It was practically my only smile during this trip, for I couldn't help but recall the nightmare of my incarceration at The Meadows. Grandmother Cutler had sent me there to give birth to Christie in secret. Her sister Emily was a midwife, but more importantly, she was a religious fanatic who was determined to see me suffer for my sins.

I still had nightmares in which I saw her looking down at me with those steel-blue, icy eyes set in a narrow face. She had a pasty and sallow complexion with thin, colorless lips. She would hover over me like a bird of prey, hoisting her shoulders and spouting her threats of hell and damnation.

How could I ever forget that horrible little dark room she made me sleep in; the hard chores she forced me to perform; those weekly baths in water she had already used; and the overdose of laxatives she made me drink, trying to cause a miscarriage.

Grandmother Cutler must have known all this would happen when she sent me there, I thought. After all, she and Emily had conspired behind my back to give away Christie shortly after she was born. If it hadn't been for Jimmy's arriving to save me, I might have withered away there myself.

Now we were on our way back to that old plantation, which was a shadow of what it had once been. We made our travel arrangements as quickly as we could and set out, neither of us eager to make the trip. But I did feel sorry for Charlotte. She wasn't more than a little girl in mind and heart, yet she was a soft and gentle person who had been Emily's whipping post.

We rented a car at the airport when we arrived and drove out to Upland Station. I was surprised at how well I remembered the exact route. I guess that escape was implanted in my mind forever and ever. We bounced over the long and narrow cracked macadam road and turned down the dirt road where the property of The Meadows began, and once again the tips of the brick chimneys and the long, gabled roof of the great plantation house loomed over the treetops.

Nothing had changed. The marble fountains were still dry and broken, some leaning over precariously. The hedges were just as dead and scraggly, and the stone walks were still chipped and battered. In the dark shadows of the late afternoon sun the leafless vines that ran over the columns of the full-facade porch looked like rotting rope. After we got out and approached the porch I looked up at the roof that seemed to touch the clouds. The windows in the gabled dormers resembled dark eyes peering down angrily. This was still a cold, dark house.

Our footsteps echoed on the loose porch floor. We tried the brass knocker and waited. Moments later we heard the scurry of footsteps within, and then the door was thrust open and Charlotte gaped out at us, her blue eyes bright with curiosity. She wore her simple shift and her father's old slippers. Her gray hair was still tied in long braids. Aside from the fact that she looked even plumper, she seemed unchanged from when I had last seen her.

"Hello, Charlotte," I said. "Do you remember me?" She nodded, but I didn't think she did.

"Emily's dead," she announced. "She's died and gone to heaven on a broom, Luther says."

"On a broom?" Jimmy asked. He smiled at me.

"1 know what Luther's saying," I replied. "Has the doctor been here, Charlotte?"

She nodded.

"Where's Luther?" I asked.

"He's at the family plot digging a grave. He said it's the first time he's enjoyed digging," she added.

Jimmy couldn't help but laugh.

"May we come in?" I asked her.

"Oh, yes. We can have mint tea."

"That will be fine," I said, stepping into what had been a house of horrors.

I couldn't help but shudder. The memories came rushing back the moment I entered that dark, dismal entryway and saw the oak chest, the hardwood benches too uncomfortable-looking to sit upon and the upholstered chairs that were great dust collectors. On the walls were portraits of ancestors—women with pinched faces dressed in dark clothes, their hair pinned back severely, and men, unsmiling and stern. There was no doubt Emily had been a descendant of these horrid people, I thought.

"Emily's still upstairs," Charlotte revealed. "She's still in her bed."

"Luther didn't call an undertaker?" I looked at Jimmy. He shrugged.

"I'll go upstairs and take a look," he said. We had decided on the way that I would spend most of my time going through papers and documents in what had been Emily's office.

"I'll go, too," Charlotte cried. "And then we'll have tea."

"Lead the way, please," Jimmy said. Charlotte shuffled toward the stairway. She still walked like a geisha girl, with her hands clasped to her body, her head down. Jimmy followed, and I went to the office.

The moment I entered, the grandfather clock in the corner bonged as if warning me to stay out. I lit the kerosene lamp on the desk quickly, and the flame threw a sheet of light up and over the giant picture of Mr. Booth. He looked as if he were frowning down at me. I found another kerosene lamp on a table and lit that one as well. In fact, I tried to light every kerosene lamp in sight, recalling how Emily had forced us to live in such darkness, hoarding the fuel and distributing it with a miserly hand.

I went behind the desk and began to sift through papers, most of which were common household bills.

"If you're lookin' for a will, you won't find one," Luther said, suddenly appearing in the doorway. The shadows on his face made him look leaner and older. As he approached I saw that he was otherwise unchanged. It was as if everything and everyone about this place were frozen in time, trapped forever and ever in one of my nightmares. The strands of his dirty brown hair were long and disheveled. As always, he needed a shave badly, his rough, gray-brown stubble growing in ugly patches over his otherwise pale white face.