Cutler 3 - Twilight's Child by V.C. Andrews

sighed.
    "He won't accept his mother's death or face up to it. I've spoken to him repeatedly about it, but he doesn't hear those words, or doesn't want to." She pressed her lips together and shook her head. Then she sighed. "We're just going to have to ignore him right now, Dawn. He'll snap out of it soon."
    "Ignore it? How can you ignore it? You should have a doctor see him," I suggested.
    "What for? He just misses his precious mother," she said bitterly. "What's a doctor going to do for him? He can't bring her back. Thank God," she added under her breath.
    "Well, something has to be done for him. He's only going to get worse," I insisted. "The staff can humor him for a while, but it's not natural, not normal. He has dark shadows around his eyes, and he's lost so much weight that his clothes just hang on him. I can't believe you haven't noticed how serious all this has become."
    "He'll be all right in time," she replied coolly.
    "No, he won't," I insisted. I stood directly in front of her, my hands on my hips.
    "All right," she finally said when I wouldn't budge, "if he doesn't get better soon, I'll ask Dr. Madeo to look at him. Does that satisfy you?"
    "I would think you would be the one worrying, Mother. He isn't really my father, but he is really your husband."
    "Oh, Dawn, please don't start all that again," she begged, dramatically raising a hand to her forehead. "We have so much to do right now. Please send the decorator back in to see me."
    I saw there was no point in carrying this conversation any further with her. When she wanted to be an ostrich with her head in the ground, she could be. She saw and heard only what she wanted to see and hear. That was the way she had lived her life up until now, and nothing that had happened or that would happen would change her. Disgusted, I shook my head and left her arranging and designing my wedding.
    Mr. Updike provided Mother with a list of important guests to invite. Subtly, he made the point to her and to me that the wedding would serve as my coming out, the equivalent of a debutante's ball. I was to be formally introduced to Virginia's high society. Mother didn't hesitate to use his words to stress the importance of all she had done and was doing. The Cutlers had gained some undesired infamy, and we had to show the world that we were still one of the most sophisticated and elegant families in Virginia. The hotel was and always would be a desirable resort for the wealthy and influential who made up the bulk of the wedding guests.
    Jimmy and I had few names to add ourselves. I sent Trisha, my best girlfriend at the Sarah Bernhardt School, an invitation, requesting that she attend as my maid of honor. We sent an invitation to Daddy Longchamp, but he called as soon as he had received it to tell us he didn't think he would be able to travel because his new wife Edwina was pregnant again and having some serious complications.
    "Pregnant again?" Jimmy replied. It was a shock for both of us to think of Daddy Longchamp as having a whole new family with a new wife. Edwina had already given birth to a boy they had named Gavin about a month or so before Christie had been born. "I was hoping you'd be my best man, Dad," he told him.
    "I hate to make promises, Jimmy. If I can, I'll be there, but if Edwina doesn't improve before, I'll have to stay by her. You understand, don'tcha, son?"
    "Yes, Dad," Jimmy said, but after he hung up and told me the conversation, I saw that Jimmy didn't understand. Neither of us understood a world in which we grew up thinking two people were our parents and we were brother and sister, only to learn it wasn't so. Neither of us understood a world in which we could both inherit new families practically overnight. And neither of us could put Momma Longchamp out of our minds and see a new wife and family for Daddy Longchamp. In this way I supposed we weren't much different from Randolph—clinging to the things we had loved and cherished and blocking out the