Where Love Has Gone (2 page)

Suddenly her eyes filled with tears. She caught at my hand and moved it down to her full, hard belly. “You’ll love our baby, won’t you, Luke? Just as much as you love Danielle?”

I bent and pressed my face against the life within her. “You know I will,” I said. “I love her now.”

“She may be a boy.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I whispered. “I love you both.”

Her hands raised my head to her breasts. She held me tight against her. “You’ve got to go out there.”

I twisted out of her arms. “Are you nuts? With you two weeks from the hospital?” “I can manage,” she said quietly.

“And what’ll we use for money? I lost my job this morning, remember?”

“We’ve got almost four hundred in the bank,” she said. “And you still have your last week’s paycheck in your pocket.”

“A hundred and sixty bucks! We’ll need that to live on. It may be weeks before I can get another

job.”

“It’s only three and a half hours by jet from Chicago to San Francisco,” she said. “And roundtrip

tourist is less than a hundred and fifty dollars.”

“I won’t do it. I can’t. We need that money for the hospital.”

“I’ve made up my mind,” she said. “You’re going. I know that’s the way I’d want it if Danielle were our baby.”

She reached up for the wall telephone. “You go upstairs and pack while I call the airport. And wear your charcoal-gray flannel. It’s the only decent suit you’ve got.”

2

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I was staring down at the open suitcase spread on the bed when Elizabeth came into the bedroom. “There’s a plane out of O’Hare at two thirty,” she said. “It makes one stop and gets you into San Francisco at four in the morning, Coast Time.”

I just stood there looking down at the small canvas bag. I felt kind of numb. The news was still sinking in.

“Grab a quick shower,” she said. “I’ll pack.”

I looked at her gratefully. Elizabeth never had to be told. Somehow she always knew. I went into the bathroom.

I looked at my face in the mirror. My eyes had deep hollows under them and seemed sunken far into their sockets. I reached for my razor. My hand was still shaking.

“There was blood all over the place.” The sergeant’s words leaped into my mind. The hell with the shave. I could do that in the morning. I went into the shower and turned on the water full force.

When I came out the bag was already packed and closed. I went to the closet.

“I packed your suit,” Elizabeth said. “Wear your slacks and sport jacket on the plane. There’s no sense wrinkling your suit.”

“Okay,” I said.

I had just finished knotting my tie when the telephone rang. Elizabeth picked it up. “It’s for you,” she said, holding the receiver out to me.

“Hello.”

I didn’t have to be told who was on the other end of the line. I’d recognize that quiet voice anywhere. My former mother-in-law. As usual she wasted no time on preliminaries. “Mr. Gordon, our attorney, thinks it would be a good idea if you came out here.”

“How is Danielle?”

“She’s all right,” the old lady said. “I’ve taken the liberty of reserving a suite for you and your wife at the Mark Hopkins. When you pick up your tickets at the airport, wire your flight number and I’ll have a limousine at the airport.”

“No, thanks.”

“This is no time to be proud,” she said testily. “I know your financial position, but it seems to me your daughter’s welfare is more important.”

“Dani’s welfare has always been more important.”

“Then why aren’t you coming?”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t coming. I merely said no to your offer. I can pay my own way.” “Still the same, aren’t you?” she asked. “Will you ever change?”

“Will you?” I retorted.

There was a moment’s silence, then her voice came back—a little cooler, a little clearer. “Mr.

Gordon wants to speak with you.”

His voice was rich and warm. It would fool you if you didn’t know him. There was a mind like a steel trap working behind that friendly sound. “How are you, Colonel Carey? It’s been a long time.”

“Yes,” I said. Like eleven years in divorce court. But I didn’t have to remind him of that. He probably knew the time down to the minute. “How’s Dani?”

“She’s fine, Colonel Carey,” he said reassuringly. “When the judge saw the state of shock the poor child was in, he remanded her into my custody. She’s upstairs, here at her grandmother’s, asleep. The doctor gave her a sedative.”

Like him or not, I was glad he was on our side.

“She has to be returned to Juvenile Hall tomorrow morning at ten,” he said. “I think it would be a good idea if you were here to accompany her.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Fine. Would it be possible for you to join us here for breakfast at seven o’clock? There are a number of things we ought to discuss that I’d rather not mention on the phone.”

“Okay,” I said. “At seven for breakfast.”

There was a pause, then Mrs. Hayden came back on. It seemed to me the old lady was making an effort to be friendly. “I do so look forward to meeting your wife, Luke.”

“She’s not coming.”

I could hear the surprise in her voice. “Why not?”

“Because she’s having a baby,” I said. “Like any day now.”

After that we had nothing more to say, so we said goodbye. But no sooner had I put down the phone than it rang. It was Harris Gordon again.

“Just one thing more, Mr. Carey. Please don’t talk to any reporters. It’s important that you make no statement until after we’ve talked.”

“I understand, Mr. Gordon,” I said, and hung up.

Elizabeth started toward the bathroom. “I’ll get dressed and we’ll drive out to O’Hare.” I looked at her questioningly. “Do you think you should? I can call a cab.”

“Don’t be silly.” She laughed. “No matter what you told the old lady, it’s still a good two weeks.”

I like driving at night. The world comes to a stop at the end of the beam of your headlights. You

can’t see where you’re going, so you’re safe, at least as far as you can see, which is better than average for anything in life. I watched the speedometer hit fifty, then slow down to forty. There wasn’t any rush. It wasn’t even midnight yet.

But we didn’t feel like sitting around the house waiting. Out at the airport there would be movement, people. We would feel that we were doing something, even if there was nothing to do.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the match flicker and cast a brief glow across Elizabeth’s face.

Then she reached out and put a cigarette between my lips. I dragged deep. “How’re you feeling?”

“Okay,” I said.

“Want to talk about it?”

“What’s there to talk about? Dani’s in trouble and I’m going out there.” “You say that as if you had expected it,” she said.

I glanced at her with a kind of surprise. Sometimes she was too good. She dug right inside me and came up with thoughts I wouldn’t even admit to myself.

“I didn’t expect this,” I said flatly.

Her own cigarette glowed. “What did you expect?” “I don’t know.”

But that wasn’t quite the truth either. I knew what I’d expected. That one day Danielle would call me on the phone and tell me she wanted to be with me. Not with her mother. But eleven years had worn that dream kind of thin.

“Do you think there was anything in what that policeman intimated?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. I thought for a moment. “In fact I’m pretty sure there wasn’t. If that had been the case, Nora would have killed him. Nora wouldn’t share anything she figured was hers.”

Elizabeth was silent and I went on with my thoughts. That was the way Nora was. The only thing important to her was keeping what she wanted. I remembered that last day in court.

Everything had been settled by then. She had the divorce. I was broke and beat and could hardly support myself, while she had everything in the world that she wanted. The only question left was Danielle’s custody.

We went into the judge’s chambers for that. It was supposed to be only a formality. We had already agreed that Dani would spend twelve weekends a year and half the summer with me on the boat at La Jolla.

I sat in the chair opposite the judge while my lawyer explained the agreement. The judge nodded and turned to Harris Gordon. “It seems an equitable arrangement to me, Mr. Gordon.”

I remembered that just then Danielle, who had been playing with a ball at the far end of the

office, suddenly turned and yelled, “Catch, Daddy!”

The ball rolled across the floor and, as I knelt to pick it up, I heard Harris Gordon’s reply: “It definitely is not, Your Honor.”

I stared at him in disbelief, still holding the ball in my hand. This was something we had agreed on just yesterday. I looked at Nora. Her violet-blue eyes seemed to look right through me.

I rolled the ball back to Dani.

Harris Gordon went on, “It is the contention of my client that Colonel Cary has no parental rights.”

“What do you mean?” I yelled, straightening up. “I’m her father!”

Gordon’s dark eyes were inscrutable. “Didn’t you ever think it strange that the child was born only seven months after your return from Japan?”

I fought to keep my temper. “Mrs. Carey and her doctor both assured me that Dani was premature.”

“For a grown man you were rather naïve, Colonel Carey.”

Gordon turned back to the judge. “Mrs. Carey wishes to inform the court that the child Danielle was conceived some six to seven weeks prior to Colonel Carey’s return from service. In view of this, which she is sure that Colonel Carey has long admitted to himself, she asks for sole custody of her daughter.”

I spun toward my attorney. “Are you going to let them get away with this?”

My attorney leaned toward the judge. “I am terribly shocked by this action on the part of Mr. Gordon,” he said. “Your Honor must be aware that this is contrary to the agreement I reached with him yesterday.”

I could tell from the way the judge spoke that he too was shocked, though his language was studiedly impartial. “I am sorry, Counselor, but you must realize that the court cannot enforce any agreement that is not reached in the presence of this court.”

My temper finally blew. “The hell with the agreement then,” I shouted. “We’ll go back and fight the whole thing out again!”

My lawyer caught at my arm and looked at the judge. “May I have a moment to talk with my client, Your Honor?”

The judge nodded and we went over to the window. We stood there, our backs to the room, looking out.

“You know what that would mean?” he whispered. “You’ll be admitting publicly that your wife cuckolded you while you were still overseas!”

“So what? The whole town knows she’s screwed her way through San Francisco from Chinatown to the Presidio!”

“Stop thinking about yourself, Luke. Think about your daughter. What will this mean to her if it gets out? Her own mother labeling her a bastard?”

I stared at him. “She wouldn’t dare.” “She already has.”

His reply was irrefutable. I didn’t speak. Then a small voice came from across the room: “Catch, Daddy!”

Almost automatically, I bent down again to pick up the ball. Danielle came hurtling across the room and flung herself into my arms. I lifted her up. She was laughing, her dark eyes sparkling.

Suddenly I wanted to squeeze her tight against my chest. Nora was lying. She had to be.

Somehow I knew inside me that Dani was my daughter.

I looked across the room. At the judge, his secretary, at Harris Gordon, at Nora. They were all watching us. All except Nora. She was staring at some point over my head.

I studied the tiny smiling face opposite mine. I felt a sick, beaten feeling rise up inside me. My attorney was right. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t take the chance of hurting my own child.

“What can we do?” I whispered.

I could read the sympathy in my attorney’s eyes. “Let me talk to the judge.”

I stood there with Danielle in my arms while he went over to the desk. After a few minutes he came back.

“You can have four weekends a year. And two hours every Sunday afternoon if you come up to San Francisco. Is that agreeable to you?”

“Do I have any choice?” I asked bitterly. He shook his head almost imperceptibly.

“Okay,” I said. “God, how she must hate me.”

With the unerring instinct of children, Danielle knew what I was talking about. “Oh no, she doesn’t, Daddy,” she said quickly. “Mommy loves you. She loves both of us. She told me.”

I looked down into her little face, so earnest, so wanting to be sure. I blinked my eyes to keep back the quick, salty tears. “Of course, darling,” I said reassuringly.

Nora came toward us. “Come with Mommy, darling,” she called. “It’s time to go home.”

Danielle glanced at her, then at me. I nodded as Nora held out her arms. For the first time Nora looked at me over Danielle’s head. There was a curious kind of triumph in her eyes.

The same kind of triumph I’d seen when she had completed a piece of sculpture that she’d been laboring over. Something she had struggled to give shape to. Suddenly I realized what Danielle meant to her. She wasn’t a child, she was just something Nora had made.

She put Danielle down, and hand in hand they started toward the door. As Nora opened it, Danielle looked back at me.

“You coming home too, Daddy?” she asked.

I shook my head. Tears had come into my eyes, partly blinding me, but I managed to say, “No darling. Daddy has to stay here and talk to the nice men. I’ll see you later.”

“Okay. ’Bye, Daddy.”

The door closed behind them. I stayed only long enough to sign the necessary papers, then took the train down to La Jolla and boarded the boat and got drunk.

It was a week before I was sober enough to accept a charter.

3

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I paid for my ticket and checked my bag through, then we went to the cocktail lounge. Despite the hour, the place was busy. We got a small table and I ordered two Manhattans.

I sipped at my drink. It was a good one. Cold and not too sweet. I looked over at Elizabeth. She was beginning to look tired.