Afterward, Bronson sat back, stunned. Then he looked at me sympathetically.
"Betty Ann told me you ran away because you were very upset over her household rules. After you and I had had that earlier discussion, I just assumed that was the reason," he said apologetically. "I should have paid more attention to some of the things you were telling me. I'm sorry. I would have never permitted him to fetch you and Jefferson and put you through such a horrible experience. Where did this latest episode occur?" he asked.
"He was taking me to see Jefferson at the hospital," I said and I described the beach road Uncle Philip had taken. Bronson nodded, his face hardening, his eyes growing small and sharp. Then he stood up and went to the telephone. I heard him call the local police.
"This is all very nasty business," he said, returning. "You've been through a terrible time, but it's all going to end now I promise you that," he said firmly. "You and Jefferson will come to live with me. If you want to, that is."
"Oh yes," I said quickly. "I always did." He nodded and then smiled.
"It might be nice having a little boy around here. The house could use the pitter-patter of young feet and the sound of a child's laughter again," he said. "And goodness knows, it needs the gentle touch of a young lady once more," he added, looking toward the portrait of his long-dead sister. "I look forward to you and your brother . . ."
"Jefferson!" I said sitting up quickly. "I'm not sure Uncle Philip was telling me the truth now. Maybe he wasn't transferred. Maybe he's still in Lynchburg!"
"I'll find out about him right away," Bronson said. "In the meantime, you go into the bathroom and wash those nasty scratches. I’ll have Mrs. Berme bring you some disinfectant. I'm sorry," he said again, "I'm sorry I wasn't more aware of how difficult things were for you and Jefferson."
"Don't blame yourself. You had your hands full with my grandmother, Bronson."
"Yes," he said, finally admitting it. "Yes, I did. But strange as it may seem, I miss her, even in her fragile state of mind. Every once in a while, she would become herself again and we 'would have some precious moments," he said, smiling at his recollections. "But now I'll have you and your brother to cheer up this big, sad house." He pushed down on his knees and stood up. "Go on," he said. "Take care of your injuries and let me call the hospital."
I went to the bathroom and peeled off my blouse slowly, my shoulders aching and my skin burning in spots. When I looked at myself in the mirror, it seemed I still had the imprint of terror on my face. My eyes remained wild, my hair disheveled. I traced the scratches on my collarbone and chest and then squeezed my eyes shut so I wouldn't start to cry again. Mrs. Berme knocked on the bathroom door and then came in to give me the medicine.
"You poor dear," she said, looking at my back. I hadn't realized how scraped up I was. It must have happened when he threw me to the ground and I struggled to get out from under him, I thought. Mrs. Berme washed and dressed my wounds without asking any embarrassing questions. A little while later, Bronson came to tell us Jefferson was indeed at the hospital in Virginia Beach.
"He's doing fine, too," he added.
"Can we go see him?" I asked.
"Absolutely, my dear. If you're sure you're up to it, that is," he added.
"Oh, I'm up to it. I never thought I would miss him as much as I do."
Bronson laughed. We heard the doorbell ring and Mrs. Berme scurried off to see who it was. It was a tall, dark-haired policeman. I followed Bronson down the corridor slowly to greet him in the entryway.
"Evening, Mr. Alcoa," he said. He looked at me. "This is Dawn?"
"Dawn? No, no, this is her daughter, Christie. What made you say Dawn?" Bronson asked. I stepped closer to him and he took my hand quickly. It was eerie to hear a policeman use my mother's name like that.
"Well, we went down to the beach, to where you described, to begin our search and we found the car still there. A short while afterward, Charley Robinson, that's my partner," he explained, gazing down at me, "Charley, he hears someone on the beach. So we walked out aways and sure enough, we heard him screaming for Dawn."
"Oh no," I said, pressing my hand to my heart. "Mr. Cutler?" Bronson asked.
"Yes sir, himself . . . wandering about screaming. We practically had to carry him off the beach. He insisted Dawn was still out there."
"Where is he?" Bronson asked.
"He's in the back of the patrol car now. He's not in too good a shape, Mr. Alcott. I came up here because I was wondering . . ."
"Yes," Bronson said quickly. "Thank you, Hen-ry. I think Mr. Cutler needs a doctor more than he needs a judge right now . . . a psychiatrist."
"I see."
"You know what to do?"
"Yes sir. We'll take care of it, and you will follow up?" he added, looking at me as well as Bronson. Bronson put his arm around my shoulder.
"Yes, Henry. Thank you," Bronson said and shook the policeman's hand.
The policeman opened the door and went down the steps to the patrol car. I stepped into the doorway with Bronson and we both looked out as the patrol car started away. In the outside lights we could easily see Uncle Philip in the back seat. He turned as the patrol car began its journey down the driveway, and then he pressed his face 'against the rear window. It looked like he was screaming my mother's name, and although I couldn't really hear it, the echo rippled down my spine and made me shudder.
"It's over, Christie," Bronson whispered, embracing me more tightly. "I promise you . . . it's all over."
EPILOGUE
INDEED IT WAS OVER, AND INDEED IT HAD JUST BEGUN.
During one of our frequent walks on the beach when I was a little girl, Mommy and I once came upon a dead fish in the sand. It frightened me to see it so still with its eye so glassy. I began to cry. Mommy picked me up and held me as the tide came in and washed around the fish, slowly pulling it back into the sea.
"Will it swim again, Mommy?" I asked her.
"In a way," she said. "It will change into something else, be born again."
"I want to see," I demanded. I was still a child and thought I could command the sun in the morning and the stars at night simply by closing my eyes and wishing hard enough.
"We can't see that," she told me. "Some things are too magical for us to see. Instead, we have to believe in them without seeing. Can you believe in the fish?" she asked me, smiling. "Can you believe in the magic?"
I nodded, even though I wasn't sure what she meant. But I watched the fish float and bob on the waves, and it seemed to me that it did turn and dive and go off. I wanted to believe. I still had a child's faith that anything good and beautiful would never end.
As I grew older, I came to realize that we couldn't command the sun and the stars to appear, but we could feel the sun's warmth and be dazzled by the night sky and that was magic enough. I also under-stood that each day of our lives, some new part of us was born and some old part of us died.
There was so much I wanted to die, to bury forever in the deepest regions of my memory. How painful those days and weeks after my parents' deaths were. It seemed the agony and the turmoil would never end, but Bronson's promise came true.
Bronson handled the aftermath of my episode with Uncle Philip on the beach as discreetly as possible. Whatever had shattered in Uncle Philip's mind that night, it remained shattered for some time afterward. He couldn't handle his routine responsibilities and had to remain in professional care. Aunt Bet was overwhelmed by the rapid turn of events. In the end she couldn't face people in the community and she decided to move herself and the twins to her parents' estate.
Jefferson made a complete recovery from his illness and when he heard that we were going to move into Buella Woods and live with Bronson, he was full of joy. I'm sure it made him recuperate that much faster. Mrs. Berme quickly became like a grandmother to us and Bronson became a wise and loving grandfather. In his house I began to play the piano as I never had. On summer nights, he would throw open the patio doors so that my music could tr
avel down the hill and "all the people in Cutler's Cove could hear and appreciate it."
I made up my mind that music would be my life and no matter how important the hotel was and how much money the hotel made, it would always take second place. Bronson took over the trusteeship of the hotel. He was always after me to take more interest in the day-to-day management. I tried to be interested, tried for the sake of Mommy and Daddy, but in my secret heart, I hoped it would be Jefferson who developed a love for it and someday would be the real owner of the new Cutler's Cove Hotel.
My dreams led me elsewhere ... to the school for performing arts, to European tours, to the great concert halls. And of course, there was Gavin.
We spent as much time together as we could and whenever we did, our conversations always wove their way back to our days at The Meadows. One summer we even went back to visit Charlotte and Luther and Homer. We took Jefferson with us and when Homer set eyes on him and he saw Homer, it was as if they had never parted, never missed a beat. Homer took him off to show him where a fox had given birth.
"What ever happened to that Fern?" Luther asked me when we all sat down to dinner.
"She eloped with someone after I put an end to her allowance. But it wasn't the man she was with here," I said. After a pause I added, "I don't miss her."
"Neither do we," Charlotte said and we all had a good laugh. We had a wonderful time. I played the piano for them and when we left, we promised to return as many times as we could.
In the summer of my nineteenth year, I was enrolled in a three-week program that would take me to Paris and then to Vienna. It was a concert tour and I was looking forward to it very much. Gavin came to see me off and we took a walk on the beach.
"I'm going to miss you, Christie," he told me.
"Every time I leave you or you leave me, something in me dies, and every time I see you again, something new in me is reborn."
"It's the same for me, Gavin," I told him.
"I'm jealous of your music," he confessed. "It possesses you the way I wish I could."
"Don't be jealous," I said, smiling. "It does fill me with great joy, but I will share it only with you."
"Promise?"
"For ever and ever," I said, but I stopped walking and stopped smiling.
"What is it, Christie?" Gavin asked. He followed my gaze. There was a fish lying still in the water. My heart felt so heavy and sad, but suddenly . . . its tail fluttered and then it fluttered once more and the fish turned over as if it had been faking death. It dove into the next wave and disappeared.
And as clearly as the day she had stood beside me on the beach, I heard Mommy ask:
"Can you believe in the fish, Christie? Can you believe in the magic?"
I could believe; I could believe for ever and ever. Thank you, Mommy, I thought. Thank you for your gift of faith.
"Are you all right?" Gavin asked with concern. "Oh yes, Gavin. Oh yes."
Off in the distance, a seagull floated toward the setting sun. I drew closer to Gavin and the two of us walked on ahead of the shadows toward our own special, bright new day.
Midnight Whispers Page 37
