Cutler 04 - Midnight Whispers

certainly did."
    "Don't you say anything nasty about my mother," I spat back at her. She wobbled again and shook her head.
    "It's time you stopped living like Alice in Wonderland. Your mother and Daddy grew up living in the same room, practically on top of each other until she was sixteen, and after that, she fell in love with Philip without knowing he was her brother. What do you think they did on their dates, play paint-by-numbers? Of course, they would keep all that secret, but I never let any of them tell me what to do. None of them are better than me."
    "That's not true; that's not true about my mother and Uncle Philip," I said. She shrugged.
    "Ask him one day," she said. "And while you're at it, ask him about all the times he walked in on me while I was dressing and he claimed he was looking for Jimmy or Dawn.
    "Take one look at his wife, Christie, and you can understand why he looks elsewhere."
    "That's terrible, Aunt Fern. I know you're drunk again and you're saying horrible things because of that, but it's not a good enough excuse anymore. I don't want to hear any more," I said.
    She laughed.
    "You don't?" She walked toward me, her face twisted in a vicious imitation of a smile. "You don't want to hear how Dawn and Jimmy thought they were brother and sister but still slept in their underwear beside each other on pull-out sofas?"
    "Stop it!" I said, putting my hands over my ears.
    "You don't want to hear how your mother French-kissed with Uncle Philip, how she swooned when the most handsome boy in her high school kissed her on the neck?"
    "STOP!" I ran into the bathroom and slammed the door. Then I embraced myself and crouched down on the floor, sobbing. I heard her laugh and then I heard her come up to the door.
    "All right, Princess Christie, I'll leave you in your wonderland. I feel sorry for you. They always pampered you and favored you. It was Christie this and Christie That. You were the most wonderful and talented little girl and I was a load of trouble. Well, you're on your own now, just like I was really. See how you like it," she spat. I heard her footsteps as she pounded her way out of my room.
    For a while I just lay there, crying. How ugly and hateful she could be, I thought. Daddy wanted only to make her happy and Mommy tried so hard to love her and treat her fairly. I was glad she was leaving and I hoped she would never come back.
    I got up slowly and washed my face. I thought it would take hours and hours for me to fall asleep, but once I lay my head down on my pillow, emotional exhaustion washed over me like an ocean wave, and it wasn't until the dismal, gray light of early morning, a morning with bruised angry clouds traveling across the sky like a caravan of singed camels, seeped in through my curtains that I opened my eyes. I gazed straight ahead. The sight of my black dress draped over a chair reminded me painfully that what had happened and what we had done yesterday were not part of some horrid nightmare, but were events in horrid reality instead.
    But before my eyes could even begin to tear again, the small sound of someone sighing spun me around, and I was shocked to discover Uncle Philip. He had pulled a chair up to the other side of my bed and was sitting there gazing at me wistfully. His hair was messed and his shirt was open. He wore no tie or jacket. I thought he looked very pale and very tired.
    "Uncle Philip!" I cried, clinging to my blanket. Some of the hateful things Aunt Fern had said lingered like mold on the walls of my memory. "What are you doing here?" I had no idea how long he had been sitting there, staring at me while I slept.
    He sighed again, louder and longer.
    "I couldn't sleep," he said, "and I was worried about you, so I came by to see how you were doing and I guess I fell asleep in this chair. I haven't been awake much longer than you," he concluded, but I thought he looked like someone who had been awake all night.
    "I'm all right, Uncle Philip," I said, still confused by the look on his face and his actions.
    "No, no, I know you well. I know how fragile and sensitive you are and what you are suffering," he said and leaned forward. His eyes turned softer, meeting and locking with mine. "You need extra-tender loving care and I mean to give it to you as best as I can." He smiled softly, his eyes two pools of tenderness, and then he kissed my forehead. "Poor, poor Christie," he said, stroking my hair.
    I relaxed. "It's all right, Uncle Philip. Go get some sleep