Cutler 04 - Midnight Whispers

Aunt Fern stepped farther away from him, but had to take hold of a railing to steady herself.
    "Sure, you take the word of one of the hired help over your own sister," she moaned and turned away.
    "He doesn't have a reputation for lying; my sister does, I'm sorry to say. And besides," Daddy stressed, "this isn't the first time you've done something like this, Fern."
    "He's lying!" she wailed into the night. "I wouldn't dance with him, so he's trying to get even."
    "Stop it, Fern. This isn't all the bad we've heard about you this weekend. I wasn't going to bring this up until tomorrow because I didn't want to cast any shadows over the evening, but Dawn received a phone call from your dorm mother complaining about your bringing whiskey into your room," Daddy revealed. Fern spun on him.
    "More lies. She hates me because she caught me making fun of her one day. It wasn't me who brought the whiskey into the dormitory. It was . . ."
    "It was you. Don't deny it. Don't even try," Daddy said. "According to you, everyone who's ever come to us to complain about you has had another reason. You're always the one being picked on."
    "I am!" she bawled. "Dawn can't wait to hear bad things about me and bring them to you. She can't!"
    "That's ridiculous. Dawn has tried to be a mother and a sister to you, but you are ungrateful for every generous and loving thing she does for you and now you've gone and embarrassed all of us," Daddy said, ignoring her histrionics. "Not just Dawn and me, but Daddy, too and . . ."
    "Embarrassed my father?" She threw her head back and bellowed as if he had said the funniest thing ever.
    "Stop that," Daddy commanded.
    "Embarrassed my father," she said, now with a smirk in her voice. "How can I embarrass an ex-convict?" she retorted, throwing her words back at him as if she were tossing a glass of that spiked punch in his face.
    Beside me, Gavin sucked in his breath.
    "I hate her," he muttered, his lips close to my ear. "I just hate her."
    I pressed my fingers around his arm. When he looked at me, I saw tears of anger and pain in his eyes. Then we both turned back to Daddy and Aunt Fern quickly. Daddy had raised his hand, intending to strike Fern. She screamed and cowered in anticipation. I had never seen him strike her or anyone before. Usually a reprimanding look or a sharp word from him was enough, even for Jefferson. He didn't do it though; he lowered his arm slowly and regained his composure.
    "Don't you ever say such a thing. You know very well why Daddy went to jail and how it wasn't his fault. Grandmother Cutler got him and Momma to kidnap Dawn, lying about the reasons."
    "He still went to jail and everyone knows it. I don't embarrass him," she insisted. "He embarrasses me. I tell everyone at college my father, as well as my mother, is dead," she said. "I don't want to think of him as my father." Her words fell like freezing raindrops on both my and Gavin's ears.
    For a moment that stretched like eternity no one said anything. Daddy simply stared at her. Aunt Fern crossed her arms under her bosom and looked down at the ground.
    "That was a terrible, terrible thing to say, Fern," Daddy began slowly. "If you can't think of Daddy as your father, you can't think of me as your brother."
    Aunt Fern lifted her head slowly. In the glow of the outside lights, I could see her mouth twisted ugly.
    "I don't care," she spat. "You're not my brother. You're Dawn's slave, believing everything she says about me, doing everything she wants. All she has to do is snap her fingers and you jump like a puppet on a string."
    "THAT'S ENOUGH!" Daddy screamed. "Now go to your room and sleep off all that whiskey you consumed. Go on!" he ordered, his arm out, finger pointing.
    "I'm going," she said. "Maybe I won't stop. Maybe I'll run away?' She wobbled again and then turned and stumbled away. Daddy stood there watching her.
    "I hope she does. I hope she runs far away," Gavin said. "He should have slapped her. All those horrible things she said about my father and about Dawn."
    "She's drunk, Gavin."
    "It doesn't matter. She would have said them even if she hadn't been," he replied.
    Before we could say another word about it, we heard a drum roll inside.
    "WHERE'S THE BIRTHDAY GIRL?" the band leader cried into the microphone.
    I wasn't in the mood to return to the party just yet, but there wasn't anything I could do. Daddy hurried back inside.
    "You better go inside," Gavin said.
    "Are you coming? I won't go back unless you do,