Free Hollywood Beginnings (A Novella) by Kathy Dunnehoff Page B

It's my fault his mother raised him alone."
     

Take Ten: Exit, Stage Right
     
    The funeral crowd might have trickled in late, but as soon as the organist started playing Billy Joel's Only the Good Die Young , they stampeded to the doors. Maybe everybody needed to leave town as badly as I did.
    I took Mom's elbow and guided her out what I thought was a side exit but ended up being a staircase to the basement. We stopped on the landing when I realized my mistake, but before we headed back up to the sanctuary I had to ask. "Did Van break up with Brian's mother when you came along?"
    Mom let out a sigh. "I wish it had been that simple. I stole him from her. She was a nice woman, although very moody. It's really no wonder she suffered from depression later, raising Brian without support and already being, well, maybe a titch inclined to it anyway. I really had a hard time forgiving myself. My work at the church helped, raising you and your brother and sister as best I could. Helping other women in our church family. Eventually I was able to let my young mistakes go."
    Well, it was becoming pretty damn clear to me why I'd had such a hard time forgiving myself for ever marrying someone like Duane. My mom could take beating herself up to a whole new level. I put my hand on her arm. "You date an older guy who dumps someone for you. I hardly think you needed to do penance."
    "Oh, I seduced him."
    She said it with her usual chipper voice, and I had to replace the tidy woman in front of me with the Beach Blanket Babe she'd been.
    "I snatched Van right out from under her." She grimaced as if even she understood it was too much information to share with a daughter and quickly added, "So to speak."
    Like that was gonna make the picture leave my brain.
    "I knew he'd been seeing her, but I wanted him, and I got pretty much everything I went after back then. Your grandmother was either giving me what I wanted or passed out cold. I'd been the star of every high school play, prom queen, and was the county's Miss Dairy." She shrugged. "It wasn't pretty, Amy. I wasn't pretty despite what the Miss Cheddar Pageant Committee said."
    She shook her head. "When Van found me in that ice cream line, I knew I could have him right where I wanted him. Because, I'm sorry to say, Amy, that's the kind of young woman I was. It was towards the end of filming when she said she was pregnant. Van might have believed her, but I didn't want to. Van and I were the couple, and I wanted the spotlight."
    She looked hesitant to tell the rest of the story, but she went on. "I told him she was lying, and he gave her the money he had in his wallet and told her he never wanted to see her again."
    Even I could feel the pain of that, thinking of Brian's mother, alone and facing the end of what she might have hoped for her life. But I could also see the pain on my mother's face.
    Her eyes filled with tears, but she looked up to gather herself, and met my eyes again. "He never did, Amy. Van never met his son, his only child."
    I started to defend her from herself, but she waved it away. "I know Van bears responsibility as well, but even when I found out she really was expecting a baby, I didn't try to convince him. I knew he wouldn't change his mind because he wanted to be with me."
    I understood that. I'd seen the devotion my father had for her all these years. And I'd also witnessed the deep love she had for him. It wasn't hard to believe she'd been loved and loved someone else. "But it sounds like Van never did figure his life out."
    "Van had his limits. He was, after all, a movie star." She tried to laugh, but it came out a little sad. "But he had great potential too. I wish I could at least say I loved him as much as he loved me, but I needed to grow up. I needed to learn to love, and I couldn't do that in a world where everyone spoiled me as badly as Grandma Eller did. So I left. At first it was running away, garden variety running away. But really I was heading toward