PART ONE
1
THE BATTLE FOR CHRISTIE
THE VIRGINIA COUNTRYSIDE FLEW BY AS JIMMY AND I DROVE toward Saddle Creek, a suburb of Richmond. My heart was pounding in anticipation because the road signs announced that we were drawing closer and closer to our destination. Soon I would be holding my baby in my arms. I had barely had a chance to look at Christie when I gave birth to her at The Meadows, for soon after she was born she was taken away from me. It was the last in a series of horrible things Grandmother Cutler had done to me before she had died, bitter and broken, hating me right up until the end for reasons I didn't come to understand until the reading of the wills.
"It won't be much longer now," Jimmy said, smiling at me. He was almost as excited about my retrieving Christie as I was. I was so happy that Jimmy was willing to consider Christie his own.
While Jimmy had been in the army and away in Europe I had fallen in love with Michael Sutton, my vocal teacher at the Sarah Bernhardt School of Performing Arts, But rather than being disappointed in me for not waiting for his return, Jimmy had told me he understood how I had fallen under Michael's spell. As soon as he had learned that I had become pregnant and that Michael had deserted me, Jimmy came searching for me and rescued me from the clutches of horrid Emily Booth, Grandmother Cutler's older sister. He was truly my hero, whisking me out of that strange plantation house where I had been sent to have my baby in secret. Jimmy arrived shortly after Christie had been born. And when we found out what Grandmother Cutler had arranged—the immediate giving away of my child—we both vowed that we wouldn't rest until I had her back in my arms again.
But joyful anticipation wasn't the only thing that made my heart pitter-patter so fast it made me dizzy. I couldn't help but be overwhelmed by the quick sequence of events that had literally changed my life and determined my future. Two wills had been read after Grandmother Cutler's death: hers and a secret letter and will left by the man I had once thought to be my grandfather and now knew had been my father. To repent for what he had considered the sin of my birth, he left me a majority interest in the family hotel. For all practical purposes, I was suddenly the true owner of Cutler's Cove.
But did I want to be, and perhaps even more importantly, could I be? I could still hear my half-sister Clara Sue screaming at me just before we set out to retrieve Christie. Her shock and envy had been fueled by the jealousy she had always held against me.
"You couldn't fill Grandmother's shoes!" she cried, twisting her mouth, her hands on her hips. "You'll be the laughingstock of the Virginia shore. If Grandmother was alive, she would die laughing."
Clara Sue's words taunted me. It was almost as if the stern, vicious old woman were speaking through Clara Sue and smirking skeptically. I felt the challenge, but I also feared what inheriting the hotel and all the responsibility would do to my dreams of becoming a singer. Then again, I thought, perhaps all those dreams had died the day Michael deserted me. Maybe I wasn't meant to dwell in the show business world after all. Maybe everything that had happened had happened for the best.
Jimmy seemed to think so. All during our trip today he had been making plans and promises.
"As soon as I'm discharged from the army, we'll get married," he pledged.
"And live at the hotel with my crazy family?" I asked.
"They don't bother me. Besides, you're the real boss now, Dawn. I'll become the maintenance manager. I've learned a lot about motors and electricity and engines. . . ."
"I don't know if I can do it, Jimmy. It frightens me thinking about it," I confessed.
"Nonsense. Mr. Updike, the family attorney, said he would help you, and Mr. Dorfman, the hotel's comptroller, promised to do everything he could, too. No one expects you to bear all that responsibility immediately. Cutler's Cove will become your new school," he said, laughing. "And as soon as I'm discharged be there at your side, always," he promised, and he squeezed my hand.
I believed him. He was at my side now, when I needed him the most, wasn't he? And I was tired of the lies and the deceit and the pain. I wanted my life with Jimmy and Christie to begin on a happy note, and the prospect of holding Christie in my arms promised to bring just that: music of joy, blissful, sweet, hopeful.
But promises, like rainbows, usually come only after storms, and this was to be no different.
When Grandmother Cutler had died unexpectedly, we feared we might never find Christie. However, Mr. Updike had been involved and knew of her whereabouts. Before we had left Cutler's Cove he had told us the couple who had Christie, Sanford and Patricia Compton, were expecting us and were fully aware of the situation. However, we found a different reality when we went calling on them.
Saddle Creek was a prim and proper suburb of Richmond where the homes looked like dollhouses, everything perfect—the lawns fresh and green, the magnolias, roses and petunias bright and colorful. The bright late-summer day, with its fluffy white clouds pasted here and there on the soft blue sky, made it seem as if we had entered a make-believe world. Everything was clean and freshly painted. For a moment I remember thinking that maybe Christie was better off here after all. It was certainly a happier world than the one to which I would bring her.
But then I recalled how painful it had been for me to learn about my real family. Nothing—not even wealth and high position—was worth more than the truth when it came to who you were and where you belonged. That was a lesson I had to learn at the end of a trail of pain and suffering. I was determined that my daughter would never face such a fate.
A kind policeman sitting in a patrol car on a corner gave us exact directions to the Comptons' house. Sanford Compton owned and operated the biggest business in the area, a linen factory. The Comptons' home was one of the prettiest and largest houses on the street: a two-story, red-brick colonial with a set of triple windows on each side of the first floor front.
After we parked we got out and walked in between two square white posts crowned with brass balls and then started up a slate walkway. On both sides were waist-high hedges. There were fountains with cupids in them and fountains with marble birds, the water streaming out of their beaks. Everywhere we looked we saw beds of roses: yellow, red, pink and white. I had never seen such perfect lawns and hedges.
"Is this a home or a museum?" Jimmy wondered aloud. "A home like the one I hope we will live in one day," I said wistfully.
"Home? I thought we decided we're going to live in the hotel," Jimmy reminded me.
"Yes, but someday we'll build a house like this and live off the hotel grounds," I promised. "Wouldn't you rather we did that?"
"Sure. Why not?" Jimmy said, smiling, his dark eyes twinkling with mischief. "I'll start building it myself."
We both laughed. We couldn't have been in better spirits. In moments I would have Christie again.
The door chimes seemed to go on forever and ever, playing what sounded like the Nutcracker Suite.
"That beats any old ding-dong," Jimmy said. Finally the tall, light-oak door was opened by a butler, a thin black man.