Cutler 05 - Darkest Hour

shivering with fear. I didn't see Mamma when I walked into the house, but when I passed Papa's office, I saw the door was opened and I caught a glimpse of him working at his desk, a spiral of smoke rising from his big cigar in the ashtray, his tumbler of bourbon and mint beside it. He didn't look up from his papers. I hurried upstairs and fixed my hair, but no matter how hard I scrubbed my cheeks, I couldn't get the redness out of them. I would look guilty and ashamed for the rest of my life, I thought. And why? What did I do that was so terrible?
    If anything, I thought, it had been wonderful. I had kissed a boy . . . full on the lips and for the first time! It hadn't been like it was in Mamma's romance novels. Niles hadn't put his arms around me and pulled me to him, sweeping me off my feet; but to me, it was just as exciting as those long, famous kisses the women in Mamma's books always had, their hair blowing in the wind or the shoulders bare so that the man's lips would find the way to them over their necks. The thought of his doing that both frightened
    and excited me. Would I swoon? Would I grow limp in his arms and become helpless like the women in Mamma's novels?
    I sprawled out on my bed to dream about it, to dream about Niles and me and . . .
    Suddenly, I heard the sound of heavy footsteps in the hallway, but it wasn't Emily's and it wasn't Mamma's. It was Papa's heavy steps. The click of his boot heels on the wooden floor were unmistakable. I sat up quickly and held my breath, expecting him to go by to his bedroom, but he paused at my door and a moment later, opened it and stepped in, closing the door softly behind him.
    Papa rarely came to my room. I thought I could count the times on my fingers when he had. Once, Mamma brought him in to show him where she wanted some work done on my closets, claiming they had to be expanded. Then when I'd had the measles, he came just inside the doorway to see me, but he hated being around sick children, and visited with Eugenia only a little more than he did with me. Whenever he did step into my room, I remember thinking how big he was and how small my things looked beside him. It was like Gulliver in Lilliput, I thought, recalling the story I had just recently read.
    But Papa always seemed different to me in different rooms. He was most uncomfortable in the living room with all of its dainty furnishings and accoutrements. It was as if he thought his merely touching Mamma's expensive vases and figurines with his big hands and thick fingers would crumble them to dust. He looked very ill at ease on the silk settee or in the thin-framed, high-backed chair. He wanted his furniture thick, wide, firm and heavy, and he roared with displeasure every time Mamma complained about the way he plopped down in one of her expensive French Provencal chairs.
    He never raised his voice in Eugenia's room. He moved about it reverently. I knew that he was just as afraid of touching Eugenia as he was of touching Mamma's precious things. But he was never one to show great affection. If he kissed Eugenia or me when we were little girls, it was always a quick peck on the cheek, his lips snapping on our skin. And then, as if it made him choke to do so, he always had to clear his throat. I never saw him kiss Emily. He behaved the same way toward Mamma, never holding her or kissing her, never embracing her in any loving way in our presence. She didn't seem to mind though, so Eugenia and I, whenever we discussed it, simply assumed that that was the way things should be between husband and wife, no matter what we read in books. However, I couldn't help but wonder if that was why Mamma loved her romance novels so much—it was the only place she found any romance.
    At the dinner table, Papa always appeared the most aloof, bearing down on us during the religious readings and blessings like some high official of the church just visiting, and then becoming lost in his meal and his own thoughts unless something Mamma said snapped him out of them. His voice was usually deeper, harsher. Whenever he had to speak or answer a question, he usually did so quickly, giving me the feeling he wished he could take his dinners alone and not be distracted by his family.
    In his office, he was always the Captain, sitting behind his desk or moving about with a military demeanor—his shoulders back and straight, his head high, his chest out. Under the portrait of his father dressed in his Confederate army uniform with