Cutler 03 - Twilight's Child

its side near the closet, which was opened wide, the garments dangling precariously on hangers, some clothing already fallen.
    My gaze moved to the pile of blouses and skirts on the closet floor and settled on a partially opened shoe box. Something in it caught my eye, and I walked forward slowly, knelt down and opened the box completely. Inside there was a pile of money. The missing petty cash? I wondered, and I began to count. After I went over eight hundred dollars I knew it must be so. I wasn't surprised. I wasn't sure what I should do. Surely she would claim this was the money she had brought with her, I thought, even though it was a great deal more than I had seen in her pocketbook in New York.
    As I rose and turned to leave I noticed one of her older romance magazines opened on the bed. What made this particular one odd to me was the way Fern had underlined some passages. I turned the pages back to get to the beginning, and when I saw the title of the story my face flushed so from the blood that rushed into it, I was sure I was feverish. As if I needed to hear the words spoken to believe them, I read the title aloud.
    " 'My Stepfather Raped Me, but I Had No One to Tell.' "
    Slowly, my fingers trembling, I lifted the magazine and began to read.
     
    For as long as I can remember, my mother was too busy to really look after me. She was a clothes designer and was always involved in her work. It was my stepfather who would look after me, dress me and even feed me. He did it so often and so casually, I never thought much about it until I was in fourth grade and happened to mention to a friend of mine that my stepfather usually came in while I was taking a bath to make sure I washed the "important places."
    My friend looked at me strangely and asked, "What important places?"
    I giggled and simply said, "You know. Your important places."
    She still looked confused, so I pointed. Now she looked frightened and stopped talking to me about it, but I soon realized why she was uncomfortable. No one else's father did what my stepfather was doing.
     
    I lowered the magazine to my lap. My heart was pounding, and I felt the beads of a cold sweat break out down the back of my neck. For a moment I couldn't move. I looked at the magazine again and shook my head. Then I went to the telephone quickly to call the hotel. I asked for Robert Garwood.
    "Robert," I said frantically, "please go out and get Jimmy. Tell him I need him at the house immediately. Please."
    "Right away, Mrs. Longchamp," he said. I hung up and sat down to wait, and while I did, I read some more. The girl in the story talked about her mother forgetting her birthday. That line was underlined, too. Her stepfather's rape of her began with him coming in to kiss her good night, but staying to fondle her under the blanket. Finally one night he slipped in beside her.
    Still reading, I heard the door slam downstairs.
    "Dawn!" Jimmy cried.
    "Upstairs, Jimmy." He pounded up the steps and stopped in our doorway, out of breath from running all the way. "What's wrong?"
    "It's Fern . . . it's this," I said, extending my arm, the magazine in my hand.
    "Romance magazines?" He grimaced. "We always knew she read that stuff—"
    "Look at the story and read the passages she underlined."
    "Underlined?" He took the magazine from me and began to read. His face, red from his running, gradually turned more and more ashen. His dark eyes registered shock and grew cold with horror. "My God," he said, lowering the magazine, "she got it all out of here!"
    "She's been living a romance magazine fantasy, and we believed her and accused those people of horrible, horrible things," I said.
    "But why didn't Clayton Osborne put up more of a fight?" Jimmy wondered, "if it wasn't true?"
    "He was probably afraid of what a scandal would do to his career, and he knew Fern wouldn't abandon her story.
    "At the bottom of her closet," I continued, "there's a shoe box full of money, some of which I am positive is the missing petty cash."
    Jimmy lowered himself into a chair and stared dumbly down at the floor, shaking his head.
    "What are we going to do?" he muttered.
    "We have to confront her, Jimmy. She has to know we realize everything she's done," I said.
    "Do we send her back?" he asked.
    There was no question in my mind that Jimmy would do whatever I told him now. A part of me wanted to rid us of this evil child, this problem that, I now realized, would take much of our energy and attention to correct. I