Cutler 04 - Midnight Whispers

What had we done to deserve this wretched and contemptible fate? Surely, I was right to believe there was a curse on our family. It wasn't something anyone else could appreciate or understand. I felt the inherited strain of disaster running through our destinies, saw the perennial gray clouds of gloom hovering over our heads, and understood that no matter how hard we tried, how fast we ran, or how much we prayed, the cold rain of anguish and grief would drop torrents of misfortune on our heads.
    This spell had begun because of some horrible sin committed by one of our ancestors. Whoever he or she was, he or she had shaken hands with the devil and we were still paying for that evil act.
    Somehow, some way, I hoped I could discover what it was and beg God's forgiveness. Perhaps then and only then, we would be free and safe, as much as anyone could be free and safe in this world.
    I said a little prayer for myself and Jefferson and then, finally, fell asleep.
     
    The next day Aunt Bet was like a hot and cold faucet. In the morning at breakfast, it was as if nothing terrible had happened between us the night before. I imagined Uncle Philip had done what he had said he would—calm her down. She didn't bring up Lady Chatterley's Lover or our confrontation. Instead, she rattled on and on at the breakfast table about all the changes she was planning on making in the house—the curtains she would replace, the carpets she would tear up, the painting she planned to have done. Then she declared she wanted to have Julius take us all shopping in the new mall that had just opened in Virginia Beach.
    "We'll go on Saturday," she said. "Christie needs some new things to wear, especially something new for her first recital since . . . since the fire."
    All of Mr. Wittleman's students were to participate in a recital the first week of August. I had no enthusiasm for it, but I didn't refuse to participate. Aunt Bet was well aware that the recital was an affair usually attended by the most influential and wealthiest citizenry of Cutler's Cove and its immediate surroundings. I knew she was looking forward to attending and sitting in the front row.
    "I don't need anything new," I said.
    "Of course you do, dear. You want to bring your wardrobe up to date, don't you?" she asked sweetly.
    "It is up to date. Mommy bought me some of the latest fashions before she died," I replied.
    "Your mother was never really up on what was fashionable and what wasn't, Christie," she said with that syrupy false smile on her lips. "She was always far too busy at the hotel and she didn't subscribe to the proper magazines or read the fashion columns as religiously as I did and do."
    "My mother never looked out of fashion a single day of her life," I said vehemently.
    "I never caught Dawn looking unattractive," Uncle Philip agreed. "Not even when she was exhausted at the end of the day."
    Aunt Bet snapped herself back in her chair.
    "I didn't say she was unattractive. It's one thing to be attractive, but another to be in fashion," she lectured. "You will always be attractive, Christie. You've been blessed with pretty features, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be in style, does it?"
    "I don't care," I said, tired of the argument. She took that as my admitting she was right and she smiled and chattered on like a happy canary once again. Jefferson kept his head down and ate his food. Whenever he looked up, I saw by the darkness in his sapphire eyes that he was listening to his own thoughts. Thankfully, he had gotten so he could turn Aunt Bet off and on at will. The twins, of course, sat perfectly straight and listened to everything she said attentively.
    After breakfast I retreated to the parlor and my piano, moving through each part of the day like a somnambulist, vaguely aware of where, I was and what I was doing. When I ate lunch, I chewed mechanically and swallowed without really tasting my food. When I read in the early afternoon, my eyes drifted off the page and my gaze seemed to float about the room like an aimless balloon. The only time I came to life was when the mail was delivered and I ran out to see if a letter from Gavin had arrived. Since my mail had been tampered with, I tried to make it my business to be around when the mail was delivered.
    There was a letter from him, a short one, but a wonderful one because in it, Gavin told me he had sold his valuable collection of baseball cards and made the equivalent of another week's wages. It meant he