Read Online The Legacy by Howard Fast - Free Book Online Page B

But in another part of her mind, the memory of Carson intruded. It was only a few days ago, not years, only a few days past. He had said he loved her, and now she wanted desperately and with all her heart and soul to love and be loved.
    Barbara had no stomach for revenge, nor was hatred anything she could deal with. Her brother Tom had betrayed her miserably, giving aid and comfort to one of the men who had sent her to prison. When she told the story to Carson Devron, a month or so ago, her manner was so calm, indeed indifferent, that he looked at her in amazement.
    â€œYou mean to tell me,” he said indignantly, “that Tom gave money and support to this detestable sonofabitch congressman on the House Un-American Activities Committee — after he voted to send you to jail.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd you don’t resent it?”
    â€œOf course I resent it. And the worst of it was that daddy never spoke to him again, and I lost a brother.”
    â€œFrom what you tell me, you never had a brother.”
    â€œI had a brother, two brothers,” Barbara said softly. “I’m not sorry for myself. I’m sorry for Tom. I suppose he did what he had to do. How would you feel if you had to do something like that?”
    â€œWhat! What do you mean, had to? Like hell he had to!”
    Barbara remembered that conversation with Carson. Back at the house after the funeral, Tom and Lucy stood in lonely silence. The house was filled with people strange to them, people who would not meet their eyes, people who knew all the details of the Lavette family, of the relationships, of the hurts and the tragedies.
    What a terrible thing, Barbara thought, to be denied a share in grief. She awarded a silent accolade to her mother, for Jean went to Tom and put her arms around him and kissed him.
    Then he and Lucy left; it had not been easy for them. Tom said to Jean, “Mother, if there’s anything you need …”
    â€œI need your father,” Jean said gently, “and there’s no way around that, is there?”
    Barbara didn’t hear what they said to each other, but she saw Tom blinking his eyes and she felt he was at the point of tears. More than anything, at that moment, she desired to go to him and say, “It’s all right — between you and me, it will be all right.” But that would have been a lie. It would never be all right between them again, and if she couldn’t hate, she could not pretend to love. She looked at Eloise, Tom’s first wife, who had married Adam Levy after her divorce. Someone had quipped then that the Lavette fruit never fell far from the Levy tree. They were all so close and so bitterly entangled. Eloise and Adam had come to the funeral with their two sons, Joshua, who was ten, and Frederick Thomas, who was sixteen and the child of Tom’s marriage to Eloise. But Frederick Thomas hated his father, angrily, totally, with the blind, emotional hatred of an adolescent worshipping a mother wronged. Thankfully, he had hidden himself in the library with his brother and his two cousins. He was a tall, headstrong boy, almost six feet already, and the other boys and May Ling always gave in to his will. He would not face Tom or speak to him, nor had he since he was old enough to have his way.
    After Tom and Lucy left, Eloise came over to Barbara and said, unhappily, “Poor Tom. It was his father too. Why must it be like this?”
    Barbara shook her head. “I don’t know, Eloise. It got this way a long time ago, and it just is.”
    By eleven o’clock on the day of the funeral, the evening fog was rolling in and over San Francisco, and the friends and family had left the big Lavette house on Russian Hill. Only Barbara remained, her son upstairs and sleeping here for the night. Eloise had wanted to stay. In a way, she had become Jean’s second daughter. Now, at age forty, she was still very much the fragile, vulnerable woman