Where There's Smoke

“I’m still wrestling with it, trying to reconcile the brother I knew with the man in bed with Randall Porter. I keep thinking about one summer when we went to camp together. Naturally, we did what adolescent boys do when they sneak off into the woods. We jacked off until we were sore. We had come-comparing contests, for chrissake. If we were that close, why couldn’t he tell me?”

“Maybe he didn’t know then.”

“Maybe. But by the time he was elected senator, he did. On election night, after his opponent had conceded, and all the hoopla died down, we got stinking drunk to celebrate.” He smiled at the fond memory. “The next morning, he had to meet the press with the worst hangover in history. He threatened to kill me for doing that to him. The last time I saw him alive, we still had a laugh over it.”

Gradually his smile faded. He stared into near space. “I wish he’d had enough confidence in me to tell me.”

“Would you have accepted it?”

“I’d like to think so.” He pinched his eyes shut for a moment. “Jody’s opinion of homosexuals was no secret,” he said bitterly. “I think Hitler had more tolerance. It must have been quite a scene when Clark told her.”

“I’m sure it was devastating to them both.”

“Whatever she said to him pushed him over the edge.” He stood up and slid his hands into the rear pockets of his jeans, palms out. He looked down at his feet, rolled back on the heels of his boots, then let them fall forward to slap the pavement.

“She was good at that, you know, pushing people to the edge. Good, hell.” He scoffed at his understatement. “She wrote the book on it. She knew exactly which screw to turn, and when, and how tight to turn it. She just couldn’t leave people in peace to be what they were. Not Clark, or Janellen, or me, or my daddy.” He glanced up suddenly. “She left me a letter.”

Lara cleared her throat. “Yes, Janellen mentioned it.”

“Did she tell you what she wrote?”

“No. Only that each of you found a letter to be opened on the occasion of Jody’s death.”

“Yeah, well the date on mine indicated that she wrote it while we were in Montesangre.” His mouth turned down at the corners, and he raised his shoulders in a half-shrug. “She said that everybody was under the impression that she hated Daddy for chasing other women and leaving her for extended periods of time. But the truth of it, according to her letter, was that she loved him. To distraction, she said. Beyond reason. Those are quotes.”

He kept his head down, his eyes on his boots. “She loved him, and he hurt her. Badly. The letter said that every time he, uh, took another woman, it was like a knife in her heart because she knew she wasn’t pretty and vivacious. Not the sort of woman who could hold his interest. She knew that the only reason he married her was to get out of a scrape. But he never knew, or if he knew he didn’t care, that she truly loved him.

“To his way of thinking it was a marriage of convenience. Jody got to run Tackett Oil like she wanted; he used his marriage as a safety net if his philandering got him into a fix. Not a bad bargain except that Jody loved him, so his infidelities hurt her.”

He removed his hands from his back pockets and rubbed them together, then turned up one palm and studied it as though trying to make sense of the crisscrossing lines. “And,” he said around a deep breath, “her letter said that the reason she was always so hard on me was because I was exactly like my daddy. Looked like him, had his temperament, liked nothing better than to have a good time. Later I even raised hell and womanized like him.

“She… she, uh, said she had loved me all along, but that it hurt her to even look at me. The day I was born, he was with another woman. I was a living reminder of that, so it was impossible for her to show me any love. Mostly, in an odd sort of way, she was afraid I’d reject her love, just like my daddy did. So she didn’t chance it.”

He rolled his shoulders, a brave attempt to appear indifferent. “That’s what she wrote me. Crap like that.”

“I don’t think it’s crap and neither do you.” He raised his head and looked at her. “Jody loved both her sons, Key. She fought to the bitter end of her life to protect Clark from scandal.”

“Then why’d she struggle with her last few breaths to tell me about him?”

“Because she wanted you to know that Clark had disappointed her. He’d always been her fair-haired child and you knew it. She refused to die until she’d balanced things out. That was a tremendous personal sacrifice for her, which should prove to you how much she loved you.”

He squinted, but she couldn’t tell if it was from the sun’s glare or because he’d been struck by an enlightening thought. “This personal sacrifice stuff is a big thing with you.”

She tilted her head, looking at him with misapprehension. He launched into an explanation. “You didn’t keep Clark’s secret because you were afraid no one would believe you. You kept quiet because you loved Clark. You told me so yourself on the way to Montesangre.

“It was friendship, never a sexual thing. Even though Randall Porter was a roach on pig shit, you wouldn’t have cheated on him while you were legally married. I learned that for myself. But you respected Clark as a statesman and loved him as a friend. That’s why you didn’t squeal on him even though he’d betrayed you.

“Then you banished yourself to Montesangre with Porter for the sake of your baby. Another personal sacrifice. You have a habit of making sacrifices for the people you love, Lara.”

He leaned forward and placed his hands on the open window, bracing himself against it. “When Jody wanted to tell me that Porter, not you, was Clark’s lover, you begged her not to. You were given a chance to prove wrong all the ugly things I’d said to and about you. But you didn’t take it. Because you wanted to protect me from knowing the truth about my brother, you refused to say a word.” His eyes went straight through her. “And ever since then, I’ve wondered why that was.”

Lara’s throat ached with emotion. “Have you reached any conclusions?”

“I think I’m close to a breakthrough.” Suddenly he opened her car door. “Get out.”

“Pardon?”

“Get out.” He reached inside and pulled her out. Backing her against the car, he slid his hands under her hair and trapped her head in place for his solid, searching kiss.