Dark Places In the Heart

by Jill Barnett

  Yes. The answer came so fast it was sheer instinctive reaction—all emotion, no thought. But only a fool could separate herself from that night and the deep pain it brought. What was fair to her daughter and Rudy Banning’s sons?

  Kathryn had trouble thinking in terms of fairness. She wanted to hide Laurel away from Cale Banning. So what if Jud Banning had been kind to her? She didn’t want to like either of the Banning sons. What would she have said to her daughter if she had actually found them when she ran up and down the streets so panicked? Would she have jerked Laurel away, then looked at the two of them—both innocent, both victims—and said, “Cale’s father killed your father”?

  The answer to that question became clearer hours later when Laurel knocked on Kathryn’s bedroom door. “Mom? Are you awake?”

  Kathryn ran for the bathroom and shut the door. Her face was red and blotchy from crying. She could hear Laurel come into her room and an odd sense of panic came over her when she remembered the box of newspaper clippings on her bed.

  “Mom!”

  “Just a minute!” Kathryn walked out with white cold cream on her face and a towel in her hand. “What’s wrong?” Her voice sounded surprisingly calm.

  “Nothing. I just wanted to say good night.”

  The room was dark, but light from the streetlamp limned the shoe box lying open next to her glasses and the scattering of newspaper clippings on the disheveled bed. Kathryn crossed the room and began to gather everything up before Laurel saw it. She could feel her daughter watching her. “Look at this mess. I was reading some old articles on glazes.” She shoved everything into the box, then into the closet.

  Laurel seemed to be searching for words, and when she spoke, they came out in rush. “You liked Cale, didn’t you, Mom?”

  His father was drunk and killed your father. Laurel needed Kathryn’s approval, something she could never give. “I don’t know him well enough to like him or not.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “He’s nice-looking and made you laugh, and—I don’t know . . . he’s fine.” She faced her daughter. “What do you want me to say?”

  “Now you’re getting mad.”

  “I’m not mad. I just don’t want to make any quick judgments. It’s not fair to you, to me, or that young man.”

  “Can’t you just be happy for me?”

  “Happy because you just met him?”

  “No.”

  “You met him when?”

  “Saturday.”

  “This is Wednesday. You’ve known him four days?”

  “Five. But we’re already making plans to see each other when we go back to the mainland. Loyola isn’t that far from the school or from my apartment.”

  Kathryn wanted to scream, Get away from him! But Laurel had lost that hollow look, one Kathryn knew all too well. Did it really matter who made her daughter happy? She was so damned conflicted. But instinct told her to choose her words carefully. “I’m not trying to criticize or ignore your feelings, but I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  “Why would you just assume he’s going to hurt me?” Laurel looked upset. “Why are you so sure he’s going to dump me?” Her words held all the insecurity of a girl who thought she wasn’t good enough for someone to love.

  “Oh, honey, that’s not what I meant at all. Any boy would be lucky to have you. He’s going to medical school in the fall. From everything I hear, medical students don’t have much spare time.”

  “I hadn’t thought about med school being something that could mess things up.” She looked thoughtful and Kathryn had no idea what she was thinking until Laurel asked, “How do you know when you’re in love?”

  Was Laurel already in love? Was the dewy film over her eyes, the flush of her skin, her wan manner tonight all signs of honest love? Kathryn felt her blood run hot. What the hell happened on that boat? You let her, Kay. You let her. Children are innocent of the sins of the father. Her head was filled with a kind of white noise.

  “Never mind.” Laurel turned away, her shoulders hunched as if she had been struck.

  “Wait!”

  Laurel looked back.

  “I could tell you that you’re too young to know. But you’re not.” Kathryn spoke from her heart instead of her fears. “I could tell you that you haven’t known Cale long enough. But I fell in love with your father in a week.” She said no more.

  “That’s it?”

  “I don’t know what else to say.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “There’s only one answer.” Kathryn put her arm around Laurel’s shoulders and walked to her bedroom door, then told her what she believed to be true. “When you’re in love, you won’t have to ask me. You’ll know it.”

  14

  April mornings in Newport Beach dawned deep and buttery, as if created by Maxfield Parrish. For Jud, looking out at that golden clarity was part of home. He’d learned to appreciate the Newport house, its uncompromising geometry and minimalist style, expanded over the years into a monolith of glass on the waterfront. With straight lines and wide-openness, the house appeared simple, completely opposite from the complex man who lived inside. It was Victor who had called him back to the mainland, the phone conversation calm and unemotional, a reminder that he’d been the last one to lose his temper.

  Jud heard a door close upstairs and checked his watch: 7 A.M. Like clockwork. A few minutes later, he picked up his coffee and took a sip—a distraction when Victor walked into the room—but cold coffee was about as hard to swallow as his pride.

  “Let’s talk in the study.” His grandfather walked to the kitchen door without waiting for an answer and told Maria to bring breakfast into the other room.

  Jud dumped his coffee into a potted cactus and poured a fresh cup first, not willing to trail behind, doglike, and dig the hole deeper. His grandfather hated sycophants and yes-men.

  When he walked into the study, Victor said, “I’ve had seven phone calls from board members since Friday. You called them all.”

  “Because you told me to find out about Marvetti, and isn’t it strange that I haven’t gotten one return call? Good stonewalling.” He raised his mug in false bravado, while his grandfather’s silent presence ate up space. Some people walked into a room and faded into it, some faded before ever coming to the door, and a few, like Victor, owned a room, any room. Jud knew he was not one of the few. But he wanted to be.

  “Sit down.” Victor tossed the Los Angeles Times across the desk. “Read page two.” He added another newspaper. “Page five.” Another one. “Page three.” Another. “Page one.”

  He’d made his point. Every story broke the fresh news on the investigation of Marvetti Industries, from tax fraud to illegal ties to the mob, and as Jud read each one, his stomach felt like he’d swallowed a rock. He set down the last newspaper. “I’m an idiot.”

  “If you were an idiot, you wouldn’t be working for me.”

  Jud had no response.

  “However”—Victor leaned back in his chair—“every call to a board member showed your vulnerability. You followed up one mistake with another.”

  “When all I had to do was wait and read a newspaper?” Jud laughed without humor. He hated failing and dealt with it badly, because his life had been a series of successes—school, sports, summer work, college. After grad school, he’d come on board as if the company were a large campus. What had always worked for him before didn’t anymore, and he decided at that moment to stop trying to set the world on fire.

  “What do you want, Jud?”

  “To run this company.”

  “You don’t cut it and I can’t advance you.”

  “I never asked you to push me ahead. No one would respect me. That’s something I couldn’t stomach.” He needed to prove he was something—not Victor, but a different kind of man.

  His grandfather was watching him. It was a morning for revelations. He had come into this room—had come back home—fully expecting to se
e disappointment in the old man’s eyes, not something that looked like pride. “I intend to earn my way upward. If you give me something, I’ll deserve it.”

  “The good old Puritan work ethic?” Victor laughed. “Doesn’t work, son. The words ‘earn’ and ‘deserve’ have no place in business. If you want something”—his grandfather shrugged—“just take it.”

  Then Maria came in with breakfast and effectively silenced them. Victor had just told him what he wanted him to know.

  Cale woke up to the phone ringing. He pulled the receiver to his head, still half-buried in a pillow “This had better be important.”

  “Get your head out of the pillow, lazy ass.” It was Jud, Mr. Sunshine. “Tell me again how you make it to your classes every morning?”

  “I don’t have any classes in the morning.” Cale yawned and stretched, still fuzzy and warm with idle solitude. “I schedule them all in the afternoon and evening.”

  “Did Linda miss me last night?”

  “Screw you.” Cale sat up. “You know her name. Laurel doesn’t know you. She can’t miss you. We loved your steaks.”

  “Well, looks like you’ll have Lori and the food all to yourself. I’m not coming back. Victor’s leaving early next week and there’s too much to do here.”

  “How is the old shit?”

  Jud’s laughter came through the receiver. “Surprisingly human.”

  “Interesting. That’s a side I don’t see.”

  “You might if you came home more often.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll leave Victor to you. You’re the one who has to work with him, not me.”

  “If you don’t get into med school, you’ll probably find your butt working here, too, buddy, so don’t get too cocky. By the way, I’ve found a summer job for you.”

  Cale stifled an automatic groan and ran a hand through his hair. Last summer was hell. For three months he worked two offices away from his grandfather, who ran him ragged and never failed to let him know what he did wrong. Most of the time he’d felt like a monkey tied to an organ grinder. Or ball grinder.

  “You there?”

  “Yeah. I’m here. What kind of job?”

  “One far away from the offices. We’re taking delivery on a fleet of tankers. You can drive them in from the factory. A job out from under Victor, where you’ll get at least three days off a week. I figured you’d want time off to play with Lucy.”

  Cale laughed with relief. Sometimes his brother was okay. “Thanks, Jud.”

  “Sure.”

  And they hung up. Jud had run interference for him. It was a pattern: Victor-Jud-Cale, Cale-Jud-Victor. Jud stood between them like the Berlin Wall. Cale knew his relationship with his brother was complex, bound by blood and bone and mystic tissue, alike but so different, with Victor pulling them apart and pushing them back together in the oddest but most consistently inevitable ways. He loved Jud but felt deep, invisible scars because he couldn’t be like him.

  An intense sinking feeling swept over Cale. His hopes and dreams lay before him but looked so far, far away. Med school was fading, the edges of a dream disappearing in clear morning light. He hadn’t told Laurel his fears, failures, and doubts, and couldn’t. Not yet. He wasn’t sure where he stood with her and felt they were on the edge of something, but still a precarious edge. Too many things were crumbling under him. He needed to know something in his life was solid.

  The rejections filed through his head in a mantra of mistakes, exhausting him with hard reality, so he lay back down, pulled his pillow over his head, and escaped in sleep.

  Friday afternoon, Jud was checking over some figures

  for a meeting with the finance officer when Victor’s secretary called and said his grandfather wanted to see him. He stopped outside Victor’s office and sat on the corner of her desk. “How’s the weather in there?”

  “Clear and sunny, but he’s meeting with Rosen in half an hour. It might not stay that way.”

  “Do you know what he wants?”

  She shook her head. “His attorney just left.”

  Jud went inside and Victor shoved some papers toward him. The documents confused him. “What’s this?”

  “Just what it says. I’m giving you twenty-five percent of my stock.”

  So much raced through his head, but all he could say was, “Why?”

  “Still worried about earning things? You don’t think you deserve it?” Victor handed him a pen. “Sign the transfer and tax papers, and don’t ask why.”

  Jud scribbled his name on all the marked spots and gave his grandfather the papers. But his heart was racing and he couldn’t shake the feeling that this was wrong somehow. His brother’s face flashed in front of him, his expression frozen when he found out Jud got the MG.

  Shut up and take it.

  Victor glanced up. “That’s it. You can go.”

  “I need to talk to you about something.” Jud stayed in his chair.

  “What?” Victor dropped the report on his desk.

  “Cale.”

  “What about him?”

  “He can’t get into medical school.”

  “His own fault.”

  “You can fix it. A couple of phone calls will get him into USC.”

  Victor didn’t deny it, but Jud could see the wheels turning. Finally he said, “Cale hasn’t proven to me he’s cut out to be a doctor.”

  “He made a stupid mistake. You’re not going to get perfection from him.”

  “All I want to see is some amount of control.”

  “Cale wants to be a doctor. He always has. You know that.”

  “He got into this mess all by himself.”

  “He knows that.”

  “Why should I bail him out?”

  “The same reason you gave me the stock.”

  “And that is?”

  “You wanted me to owe you something.”

  Victor sat back in his chair, thoughtful, then said, “I expect you to not make the same mistake again. Cale jeopardizes his future every time a girl comes sashaying into the picture. He almost didn’t get into college. The cheerleader? He has no learning curve, just a pattern of wrong choices.”

  “Yes, he screwed up, and women are his weakness. But if Cale didn’t have such a high draft number would we even be having this conversation?”

  “I don’t know.” Victor’s voice was sharp and aggravated.

  Jud knew how his grandfather felt about the war. Right now, Cale had almost no chance of being drafted, but if he’d had a low draft number, Jud was pretty certain Victor would pull strings to get Cale into med school. “He scored high on his MCAT, Victor.”

  His grandfather was silent again and Jud just let him mull it all over. He’d learned some ways to get what he wanted.

  “Why all this sudden concern for your brother?”

  Jud didn’t answer quickly, but waited before he told Victor what he wanted to hear. “Because if he doesn’t get into medical school he will have no choice but to come into the company.”

  “Worried about the competition?”

  “I just don’t need the aggravation.”

  Victor studied him for a long time, then said, “I’ll think about it.”

  Love was on Laurel’s mind as she checked her makeup and hair in the mirror. Her mother’s answer—that she would know love when it happened—answered nothing. Her mother still mourned her father. Was that true love? Or a complete inability to move on? Elusive love. Something everyone talked about, wrote about, wanted, lived for, mourned, yet no one could really define. Eskimos had hundreds of different words for snowflakes, and yet only one English word existed for love. Would true love just hit her suddenly, or creep up like some dark, liquid alien in a B movie, invade her body, and nothing would ever be the same again?

  Maybe she would never fall in love. Maybe she was in love. She gave up and turned out the bathroom light, then headed down the hall, but heard her mother on the kitchen phone and stopped shy of the door, listening.

 
; “I’m sorry. I just can’t make it after all.”

  Silence.

  “No,” her mom said in a low, firm tone. “I know, but I can’t change that. Good luck, Stephen. I’m going to hang up now.”

  Laurel heard the soft click of the receiver on the wall phone. When she walked into the kitchen, her mother was dumping a vase of half-dead daffodils in the trash. “Who’s Stephen?”

  “No one.” Her mom set the vase on the tile counter and walked past her carrying the trash can, then cast a quick glance at her and said, “What?” in an annoyed tone.

  Laurel remained silent.

  “Stephen Randall is just someone from the Chamber.” She closed the door harder than normal and a minute later Laurel heard the rattle of a metal trash-can lid in the side yard.

  Just then, the doorbell rang and she left with Cale. It was Saturday, and tomorrow they would go back to the mainland on the afternoon boat. Monday, life would begin again, and she and Cale would fit together into each other’s old lives.

  Across the street she turned back and saw her mom standing in back of the house, watching them, her face and stance unreadable. For a crazy instant she wondered if her mother was envious. Something was wrong. The sharp, monosyllabic answers. Her mother’s complete inability to just look at her and smile. Instead, she studied her through troubled eyes, like she was afraid. But Laurel wasn’t frightened or scared. She was happy. Finally.

  “You okay?” Cale took her hand and she felt that light, queasy feeling, that rush of excitement. Her body came alive.

  “I’m fine.” Laurel smiled up at him and didn’t look back. She’d had her time with her mother. Her lifetime up till then. This was time for Cale and her. This was time for happiness. This was time for love, at last. She was almost certain.

  It was late afternoon, but difficult to gauge time by the light coming through the windows of the deserted Golden State Tire building. The glass panes were foggy and ancient; it was like looking through skimmed milk. Traffic from the Santa Ana Freeway, only a few hundred feet away, sounded loud in the vast emptiness of the ground floor, where concrete was too hard to absorb noise. The old freight elevator came to a screeching halt and Victor stepped inside.