"Randolph, I'm sorry, but I really don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh, yes, that reminds me," he said, hearing different words. "I have started to look at the butcher's receipts, and I suspect you might be correct about that, too." He reached into his pocket and produced a small packet of bills so old their ends looked brown and crumbling. "The meat and poultry people have not given us the bulk discount we were promised. I don't know exactly how much we've been bilked, but I'm on it. I'll have the numbers for you by the end of the week. Then we'll have a session with them, huh? All right. I won't take up any more of your time, Mother," he said, pivoting to leave.
"Mother?"
He stopped at the door and turned back.
"I'll see you at dinner, Mother," he added, and he left.
I sat back in the chair, astounded, He wasn't simply refusing to accept Grandmother Cutler's death; he was imagining her still alive. But to look at me and think I were she! Was it simply because I was sitting in the chair in this office? It was eerie, as if Grandmother Cutler could reach out from the land of the dead and influence everything through her old possessions. I made up my mind that Mother had to understand how serious the problem with Randolph was.
I left the office and started thr
ough the lobby to go up to her suite to speak to her. Randolph was standing by the receptionist's desk talking to someone when he saw me crossing toward the old section of the hotel. He waved and started toward me. What would he do and say now? I wondered. And in front of everyone?
"Hi," he said, his voice lighter and much different from what it had been in the office. "Laura Sue tells me the wedding date has been set."
I stared at him. He saw me as I really was. But how could he make such a rapid and dramatic reversal? I looked back toward Grandmother Cutler's office. It gave me a sharp chill. Did her spirit truly still linger there?
"Aren't you excited?" Randolph asked when I didn't respond immediately to what he had said.
"Yes," I said softly, but I couldn't help but be frightened at how quickly he could change the expression in his eyes, turning off one emotion and turning on another as one would turn on and turn off a faucet.
"Good, good. Mother loves big family events. It will be a wedding like no other wedding you've seen before, that's for sure. Well, I'd better get back to work. I've made Mother promises," he said. "Promises . . ."
I watched him rush off toward his office. Then I went directly to my mother's suite and interrupted her meeting with a decorator. She wanted to do something special in our ballroom for the dance reception after the wedding ceremony.
"I must speak with you now," I said. "I'm sorry," I said to the decorator, "but this is a matter of some urgency."
"Of course." He gathered up his samples and left quickly.
"What is it, Dawn?" Mother demanded impatiently as soon as the man was gone. "I was right in the middle of something very important, and I'm on a very tight schedule today."
"I'm sure it can all wait. Mother, why haven't you done anything about Randolph and the way he behaves?" I demanded.
"Oh, that," she said with a wave of her hand. "What can I do? Anyway, why worry about it now, and especially in the middle of all this?" she said, making her eyes big.
"Because he's getting worse," I replied. I described what had just happened in Grandmother Cutler's office and told her the things he had said. She 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.