Cold Fire

Marine, proud of it, and so was I. So am I, still, though he died in Vietnam.”
    Holly was startled to realize that many of the early victims of that conflict would now have been past middle-age. The wives they left behind had now lived far more years without them than with them. How long until Vietnam seemed as ancient as the crusades of Richard the Lionheart or the Peloponnesian Wars?
    “Such a waste,” Viola said with an edge to her voice. But the edge was gone an instant later when she said, “So long ago …”
    The life Holly had imagined for this woman—a calm and peaceful journey of small pleasures, warm and cozy, with perhaps more than its share of laughter—was clearly less than half the story. The firm and loving tone Viola used when she referred to Joe as “my husband” made it clear that no amount of time elapsed could fade his memory in her mind, and that there had been no other man since him. Her life had been profoundly changed and constricted by his death. Although she was obviously an optimistic soul and outgoing by nature, there was a shadow of tragedy on her heart.
    One basic lesson that every good journalist learned early in his career was that people were seldom only what they seemed to be—and never less complex than the mystery of life itself.
    Viola sipped her lemonade. “Too sweet. I always add too much sugar. Sorry.” She put her glass down. “Now tell me about this brother you're searching for. You have me quite intrigued.”
    “As I told you when I called from Portland, I was an adopted child. The people who took me in were wonderful parents, I have no less love for them than I would for my real parents, but … well …”
    “Naturally, you have a desire to know your real parents.”
    “It's as if… there's an emptiness in me, a dark place in my heart,” Holly said, trying not to trowel it on too thick.
    She was not surprised by the ease with which she lied, but by how well she did it. Deception was a handy tool with which to elicit information from a source who might otherwise be reluctant to talk. Journalists as highly praised as Joe McGinniss, Joseph Wambaugh, Bob Woodward, and Carl Bernstein had at one time or another argued the necessity of this ingenuity in dealing with interviewees, all in the service of getting at the truth. But Holly had never been this skillful at it. At least she had the good grace to be dismayed and embarrassed by her lies—two feelings that she hid well from Viola Moreno.
    “Though the adoption agency's records were barely adequate, I've learned that my real parents, my biological parents, died twenty-five years ago, when I was only eight.” Actually, it was Jim Ironheart's parents who had died twenty-five years ago, when he was ten, a fact she had turned up in stories about his lottery win. “So I'll never have a chance to know them.”
    “What a terrible thing. Now it's my turn to be sorry for you,” Viola said with a note of genuine sympathy in her soft voice.
    Holly felt like a heel. By concocting this false personal tragedy, she seemed to be mocking Viola's very real loss. She went on anyway: “But it's not as bleak as it might've been, because I've discovered I have a brother, as I told you on the phone.”
    Leaning forward with her arms on the table, Viola was eager to hear the details and learn how she could help. “And there's something I can do to help you find your brother?”
    “Not exactly. You see, I've already found him.”
    “How wonderful!”
    “But… I'm afraid to approach him.”
    “Afraid? But why?”
    Holly looked out at the greensward and swallowed hard a couple of times, as if choking on emotion and struggling to maintain control of herself. She was good. Academy Award stuff. She loathed herself for it. When she spoke, she managed to get a subtle and convincing tremor in her voice: “As far as I know, he's the only blood relative I have in the world, and my only link to the mother and father I'll never know. He's my brother, Mrs. Moreno, and I love him. Even though I've never met him, I love him. But what if I approach him, open my heart to him … and he wishes I'd never shown up, doesn't like me or something?”
    “Good heavens, of course he'll like you! Why wouldn't he like a nice young woman like you? Why wouldn't he be delighted to have someone as sweet as you for a sister?”
    I'm going to rot in hell for this, Holly thought miserably.
    She said, “Well, it may sound silly to you, but I'm worried