Cutler 04 - Midnight Whispers

another stone. Nevertheless, I didn't linger near it; I walked past it quickly and approached my parents' twin graves. There I knelt and shed my tears as I spoke to them.
    "Mommy, I miss you and Daddy so much," I said. "And Jefferson is so heartbroken and lost. We hate living with Uncle Philip and Aunt Bet. There is no love in their family." I went on to tell them about Richard and Melanie and how weird they were and mean to us.
    "But I promise to always look after Jefferson and do whatever I can to help him overcome his grief and confusion," I said. The tears flowed freely down my cheeks and dripped off my chin. I didn't try to stop them; I let them fall on my parents' graves.
    "Oh Mommy, it's so hard to live in a world without you," I moaned. "Nothing's the same: no morning is as warm and bright, no night is as safe, nothing that I loved to eat tastes as good, and nothing that was pretty to wear looks pretty to me anymore. I feel empty inside. Surely my fingers will be numb on the piano keys. The melody is gone.
    "I know you hate me to say these things. Everyone tells me I must recuperate from my grief and try even harder to become who you dreamt I would be, but the road seems so much longer and harder to travel now without you by my side. And no matter what everyone says, I can't help believing there is a dreadful curse on our heads."
    I sighed deeply and nodded as if I had actually heard Mommy reply.
    "But I know I must try and I must succeed and my responsibility has grown greater. I must live and work imagining how proud of me you would be. I will try, Mommy. I promise," I said. I stood up slowly. I was so tired, so drained. It was time to go home to sleep.
    But just as I was about to leave, I heard footsteps. Someone was coming up the pathway behind me. I turned and peered through the moonlit cemetery to see Uncle Philip. He stopped at Grandmother Cutler's tomb. When he did so, I drew back into the shadows behind another large monument. I didn't want him to know I came here privately at night. I waited, expecting him to leave after he had visited his grandmother's grave, but he surprised me by continuing to my parents' graves after only a few moments. He paused before Mommy's and knelt down to put the palms of his hands on- the cold earth. Then, with his palms still flat against the ground, he raised his head and spoke in a voice that was loud enough for me to hear.
    "I'm sorry, Dawn. I'm sorry. I know I never told you that enough. A thousand apologies wouldn't suffice, nor ever wipe away what I did to you. Fate had no right to take you from me so soon, especially before I truly won your complete forgiveness."
    What had he done? I wondered. What could be so horrible that even a thousand apologies wouldn't be enough?
    "I feel half of me has died along with you. You know how I felt about you and how I couldn't help those feelings. Nothing stopped me from loving you. I married Betty Ann, but she was a poor substitute. I dreamt and hoped for the day you and I would pronounce our true feelings toward each other.
    "Oh, I know you refused to acknowledge it, but once we loved each other purely and passionately, and if we could do so then, I hoped we could do so once more. Perhaps I was foolish to have such a dream, but I couldn't help it.
    "Now," he said, his head bowed, "every time I look at Christie, I think of you. I think of her as our child, or at least what our child would have been like."
    His words fell like cold rain over me. So this was why he gazed at me so intently at times, I thought; but rather than make me happy to hear he had such strong feelings for me, it made me shudder. A trickle of ice slid down my spine.
    "Never in my wildest imagination," he continued, raising his head again and speaking in a fiery voice, "did I ever think you would die before I did. Surely, the angels themselves were jealous of my love for you and worked to destroy it. Well, they have taken you from me, taken you from this world, but they can never take you from my heart.
    "I pledge to you I will care for Christie lovingly and see to it that she is happy and secure. I will rebuild this hotel as a monument to you, bigger and brighter and more wonderful than it ever was, and as soon as it is completed, I will have a gigantic portrait of you placed on the lobby walls.
    "You sing on, my love, on and on in my heart." He lowered his head again. "But forgive me, forgive me," he begged. Then he stood up slowly and walked away, his head