Cutler 03 - Twilight's Child

castles, but the moats that surrounded us were filled with lies and tears. The rich and the famous lived behind billboards; their houses were like movie sets, facades, glittering but empty. What person living what he considered a mediocre life would want to trade places with Bronson Alcott once he knew the truth about how the man had suffered?
    Suddenly, looking out over the ocean and seeing the quarter moon peek through two soft white clouds, I became melancholy. I wished I could fall back through time and be a little girl again, the little girl who thought she was running home to her real mother when she cut her finger and needed love and attention. I wanted to burst through the front door of whatever poor and shabby cottage or apartment we were living in at the time and throw my arms around Momma Longchamp and feel her arms around me and her kisses on my hair and face. I wanted all the scratches and cuts and bumps to go away in seconds.
    But they don't go away in seconds anymore. They linger in our hearts, I thought, because we have no one but ourselves to comfort us.
    As we turned into the driveway and climbed toward the hotel I felt some of the gloom lift from my heart, for I knew inside that Jimmy and Christie were there for me. It was important—more important than ever, I thought—that we hold on to one another and love and cherish one another dearly.
    The hotel was quiet. Most of the guests had gone to their rooms. Some lingered in the lobby, talking softly, and a few sat outside. I hurried up to our suite, stopping first to look in on Christie. She was fast asleep, her face turned. She still embraced her teddy bear. I fixed her blanket and kissed her cheek and then went in to tell Jimmy everything Bronson had revealed.
    He listened attentively, shaking his head in amazement every once in a while. When I was finished I made him hold me tightly.
    "Oh, it was terrible, Jimmy, terrible to sit there and listen to him describe how cruel and mean the people who were supposed to love one another had been to one another," I cried.
    "Our lives won't be like that," he promised.
    "Maybe there's a curse here, Jimmy. Maybe we won't be able to help ourselves," I said fearfully.
    "The only curses here are the curses people make for themselves," he said.
    "Jimmy," I said, pulling back from him, "I want us to have our baby right away."
    He didn't answer, and I saw that darkness around his eyes that always suggested something sad.
    "What is it; jimmy? Why doesn't that make you happy?" I asked.
    "It makes me happy. It's just"—he stared at me a moment—"I got a letter from Daddy yesterday."
    "Daddy Longchamp? Why didn't you say so? What did he say? Is he coming to see us?" Jimmy shook his head. "What is it, Jimmy?"
    "Edwina had a miscarriage," he said. "I didn't want to tell you because of all that was happening here. She's all right, but they were both upset."
    "And so you're afraid of my becoming pregnant now?" I asked.
    "It's not that. You're so involved with what you're doing that you barely have time for Christie and me at the moment."
    "Having our baby is more important than anything else I'm doing."
    Jimmy lay back against his pillow and watched as I got undressed. Naked, I crawled in beside him and cuddled up against him, feeling his desire for me quickly stir. Even so, he remained a bit hesitant.
    "Don't do this because you're feeling gloomy, Dawn," he warned. "There should never be any regrets."
    "There never will be," I swore, and then I brought my lips to his and kissed him long and hard, making my embrace more and more demanding until whatever reluctance he had in him evaporated under the heat of my passion. He pressed on lovingly. As he drove me higher and higher, the despondency that had invaded my heart began to retreat. I turned to look out the window and saw that quarter moon slip past the clouds and blink brightly against the inky sky.
    The past can't hurt us, 1 thought, if we build a fortress out of our love.
     
    Mother did not emerge from her suite the next morning, nor did she come out for lunch or go anywhere. Jimmy had told me she had cried softly in the hotel limousine all the way back to the hotel once they had left Bronson's house. Bronson had tried to paint a different picture of her for me; he painted a portrait of a little girl to whom her father barely paid attention, a little girl who grew up to become a beautiful but fragile and insecure person, trapping herself in a marriage that proved