Hidden Hearts Read online

  Table of Contents

  Other Bella Books by Ann Roberts

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  About The Author

  Hidden Hearts

  Ann Roberts

  Bella Books

  Copyright © 2012 by Ann Roberts

  Bella Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 10543

  Tallahassee, FL 32302

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

  First published 2012

  Editor: Katherine V. Forrest

  Cover Designer: Sandy Knowles

  ISBN 13: 978-1-59493-287-8

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Other Bella Books by Ann Roberts

  Paid in Full

  Furthest from the Gate

  Brilliant

  Beach Town

  White Offerings

  Root of Passion

  Beacon of Love

  Keeping Up Appearances

  Deadly Intersections

  Petra’s Canvas

  Author’s Notes

  Inspiration comes in many ways and the idea for this story stemmed from my father’s memories of Phoenix during the forties and fifties. While I’ve taken huge liberties with city history, the enclave really exists, surrounded by a wonderful post-WWII neighborhood that I call home.

  I’m grateful for my neighbors, who plan impromptu happy hours, or let me borrow a pound of pasta when dinner is twenty minutes from completion, and I finally realize what I forgot at the store. And none of them have a problem requesting the “lesbian babysitters” when they want a night out.

  One such neighbor is my friend Alexis, another writer who’ll get back to writing when her amazing little daughter doesn’t need all of her attention. She read the manuscript and provided great moral support as well. It’s wonderful to know such a person is just across the alley.

  My partner Amy is my biggest fan and my most important critic. She always makes the story better, telling me which scenes don’t work, when she’s lost, or why a character’s name needs to change.

  Finally, I’m always honored when Katherine V. Forrest edits my book. I learn so much from her. And, of course, I’m thrilled to work with Bella Books, who support my passion and love of storytelling.

  For Morgen

  Cousin by blood, friend by choice

  PhoenixConnect.com (Women Seeking Women)

  Definitely Friends First! – 27 (Central Phoenix)

  Date: 2010-06-05, 11:18PM MST

  Reply To This Post

  GF, 27, ready to try again. I am a professional career woman who recently moved to Phoenix from Indiana. I love art, politics, hiking and a good debate. Looking for friends first and then maybe more. I’m gay, not bi, and I’m not into men or threesomes. No games, drama, drugs or addictions. Who are you? Carpe Diem!

  Reply

  Chapter One

  October, 1953

  “Vivian Lucille Battle, you are a complete moron! You could’ve been killed! No one with a brain would do something as ridiculous as jump off the roof, but apparently God handed your brain to the next child in line. Whoever that boy is, he’ll probably grow up to be president seeing as he has two brains!”

  I gazed up at Mama, a screaming silhouette against the blinding sun. A familiar pain chewed through my left arm, and I was pretty sure I’d broken it, just like I’d broken my right one two summers before. I held it against my stomach, praying that it didn’t split in two. Douggie Kerns had told me he’d seen a guy whose broken hand fell into a well and he never got it back. I needed mine for drawing.

  Mama yelled some more, and I hoped she’d finish soon because I knew she wouldn’t take me to the doctor until she’d said her piece, and her pieces tended to run at least as long as a radio commercial when it came to scolding me.

  She yanked me off the ground in one motion and my left arm swung free.

  “Don’t you expect any tea and sympathy from me, young lady,” she said as she shoved me into the front seat of the Cadillac. “This is your own doing. If they have to cut off your arm, then so be it. Can’t believe a twelve-year-old is so thoughtless.”

  She slammed the door shut and went to the other side. Her lips kept moving, but I couldn’t hear most of the words. Those Caddies were well-made cars.

  “This is just like what happened to Mopey,” she added as she turned onto Missouri Avenue.

  It wasn’t anything like what I’d done to our dog Mopey a few years back, but I knew better than to argue. My brother Will had dared me to shake a leftover bottle of champagne, and poor Mopey was walking through the kitchen when the cork flew off. Blinded him in one eye, and for the rest of his days whenever he’d bang against a doorjamb or knock something over because his side vision was gone, Mama shook her finger and said, “There’s a dog with more sense than my daughter, the moron!”

  When we turned left I knew we weren’t going to the emergency room. “Why aren’t we going to St. Joseph’s?” I asked, remembering the last time. I thought broken bones automatically meant the emergency room.

  Her breath seemed to catch. “Can’t,” she said simply.

  When we stopped at an intersection a young guy in a Ford called, “Hey, beautiful! You babysitting?”

  Her face slid into a grin. “Hey, yourself. You plannin’ on stayin’ here all day?”

  “If it means talkin’ to you,” he said coolly.

  She laughed. This happened all the time, especially when she was forced to go out in her house clothes. She always wore her blonde hair in a ponytail and people thought she was seventeen, not thirty-seven. I’d noticed two tiny crow’s feet near her eyes, but I didn’t dare mention it. She prided herself on her appearance even when she was wearing pedal pushers and a simple cotton blouse, like she was now.

  “Well, I need to get going,” she said. “My daughter needs to go to the doctor.”

  I waved and his face fell. He tore away and she just kept laughing.

  We drove to Dr. Steele’s office. He’d been our family doctor for as long as we’d lived in Phoenix, and I’d been a regular visitor since I seemed to need stitches, splints and medications more than most kids. He enjoyed my exploits, as he called them. His most favorite story was how I busted my lip when I flew over my bike handlebars after Will convinced me that blind people could ride bicycles and I could close my eyes as I flew down the hill. Dr. Steele had laughed so hard he’d caught the hiccups. That visit had actually worked out okay because he didn’t charge Mama since he was so amused.

  I followed her inside and my eyes watered from the strong smell of rubbing alcohol. I went to my usual chair while she talked to the nurse. Soon they were both staring at me and frowning. My arm was killing me, b
ut I didn’t make a peep. That would make Mama yell more. Will had told me that she yelled to keep from crying because I scared her most of the time. I tried to stay out of trouble, but I’d get these pictures in my head and I wanted to see if I could make them come true. He said I needed to get out my sketchpad when those moments happened and draw them instead of do them. Sometimes that worked, but it didn’t help that he dared me to do some of the stuff.

  Even though there were other people ahead of us, the nurse took us right back like she always did. We never waited long, and I wasn’t sure if it was because she worried I’d set the whole place on fire before I saw Dr. Steele or if he just wanted to spend more time with Mama. Men loved spending time with her—the plumber, the milkman and even the grocery delivery boy.

  I hopped on the table while she checked her face in the mirror. She reapplied her lipstick and pulled the rubber band out of her hair. She shook and fluffed a bit and undid the second button of her shirt. When she turned around she looked different, not so much like a mother and more like a model in a magazine. By the time he walked in she’d lit a cigarette and was leaning against his instrument counter with one hand on her hip.

  He ignored me and went right to her. “Lois, it’s always good to see you.”

  “Hi, Hank,” she replied with a broad smile. “We’re back.”

  I guessed he was somewhat older than her since he had a lot of gray hair and a potbelly. He wasn’t very tall, and he always looked tired with big bags under his eyes. But when he looked at her he found a bunch of energy. And for some reason when she talked to Hank, whatever I’d done was funny or amusing because she never sounded angry.

  “What happened this time?”

  She sighed and played with her hair. “Fell and broke her other arm, I think.”

  He chuckled and gave me a sideways glance before stepping closer to her. It was their little ritual. She sniffled, and then he’d put a friendly arm around her, assuring her that she was a great mother and my stupidity wasn’t her fault.

  By the time they got to this part, my arm felt like someone was pounding it with a hammer, but it was like I wasn’t there. I opened my mouth to say something but they were giggling and whispering so I kept my mouth closed.

  “Um, Hank, there is one thing,” she said. “Chet can’t make another shipment until Friday.”

  He nodded thoughtfully, and her face tensed while she watched him think. His arm was still around her but he wasn’t stroking her shoulder anymore.

  “Hmm. I seem to remember this happening last time, Lois. Everything okay in the orange growing business?”

  I could tell he was making fun of Pops by the way he asked the question. It made me mad because I loved those trees even if Pops didn’t make a lot of money.

  “We’re fine, Hank, but money’s tight.”

  “Isn’t it always?”

  I didn’t recognize the soft voice that answered. “Uh, well, I was also hoping you could check a mole for me. It’s on my chest. It looks funny.”

  He licked his lips. “Let’s take a look.”

  He led her into the next room, and I held my broken arm for another five minutes. I thought about putting my ear against the door, but I was pretty sure that Mama would break my other arm again if she caught me.

  I saw my reflection in the mirror above his sink. From a distance I guessed I looked like her, although I had Pops’ dark hair, which I’d recently cut with her sewing shears one day. She’d been so mad that she had me wear a big hat with a sunflower on it when we went to church. She said that it looked like I’d stuck my head in a threshing machine and I deserved what I got. I said I’d rather wear Pops’ fedora and she’d scowled.

  The calendar on the wall caught my eye. Somebody had forgotten to flip the months and it was still on January and February. The picture was friendly. A boy sat in an attic room, showing a clock to his grandma, who sat on a bed. A cat curled up at the foot of the bed, right above the name of the painter—Norman Rockwell. I decided I liked Mr. Rockwell’s pictures very much and would ask my art teacher, Mrs. Curry, if she knew who he was.

  The door flew open and Mama went straight to the window. She lit a cigarette and stared into the sunlight. Her eyes were red and I looked over at Dr. Steele, who was writing on my chart. When he finally stepped to the table and took my arm in his hands, he shook his head.

  “Vivi, Vivi, what are we going to do with you?”

  *****

  On the way home Mama said nothing. She kept her eyes on the road. I waited for the lecture that usually followed our return from the doctor or the hospital, but she only drove, which was a bad sign. I much preferred her yelling since I’d learned to block it out after the millionth time. Will had told me it was her way of showing she cared, and there was always plenty to yell about. My grades were too low, I continually did stupid things, and I just wasn’t as good as him, a conclusion she’d made the last time she’d retrieved me from the principal’s office.

  She often said, “I’m almost positive, Vivian Battle, that you were switched at birth. How your father and I wound up with such different children could only be explained by such a thing.”

  I didn’t think it would be wise to mention that Will could have been the switched one.

  I glanced down at the cast on my arm. It itched, and Dr. Steele said I’d need to wear it for at least six weeks before he could cut it off. He’d offered to sign it, but Mama had hurried me out of the office before he could.

  “I’m sorry,” I offered.

  She puffed her cigarette. “Sorry is a word, Vivian. Don’t be sorry.”

  “But I am sorry. I know it costs money to go to the doctor,” I said, hoping I could show her I was mature. I knew Pops was struggling with the orchard, or as she called it, his harebrained idea to get rich.

  At the mention of money, she shot me a cold look. “Yes, Vivian, that’s right. Everything has a price, a cost. You should learn that.”

  Her eyes returned to the road and I stared out the window, ashamed that I’d caused so much trouble. I vowed to do better and thought about saying so, but I remembered what she’d said about words. I’d need to prove it to her.

  I could tell she wasn’t just mad at me. I guessed she was mad at Dr. Steele for some reason, but I knew she was mad at Pops, too. She was always mad at him.

  We’d moved from Iowa to Phoenix in forty-seven when I was six. Pops had said Phoenix was “money land” because they were building so many houses. He’d heard stories of rich men pulling up in fancy cars carrying wads of cash that they showered on the folks fortunate enough to own the property.

  So when he inherited the family farm, he sold it, moved us to Phoenix, and took every penny he had and bought thirty acres of orange orchards and a farmhouse that reminded him of home. Mama hadn’t wanted to leave her family but after the first mild winter, she’d fallen in love with the dry climate.

  But no one wanted to buy the land, and he wasn’t very good at running the orchard. When they’d fight over money, she would point at the trees and scream, “There’s the gas bill, Chet, and the kids’ school clothes and the gasoline!”

  He’d shrug and say, “If I’d wanted to be a damn farmer, I’d have stayed in Iowa. This is our way out.”

  We pulled into the long driveway, and I automatically smiled at the sight of the orchard in the distance and our beautiful farmhouse. On its walls built entirely of red brick, the white wooden windows looked like enormous eyes, and the long brick path that extended from the road to the large oak front door seemed to go on forever. We had a fancy dining room with a chandelier and something called a sun porch with glass walls. It got hotter than the oven during the summer, but Pops said it was a great place to sleep in the winter after he and Mama fought.

  There were four bedrooms so Will and I didn’t have to share anymore, but the best part was the backyard—rows and rows of orange trees. I’d tried to count them once and got lost after forty-eight. Right now the blossoms were just beginning to
turn and by February there would be millions of oranges dangling from the limbs.

  “Go upstairs and do your homework,” she said wearily. “Tell Will he needs to do his chores.”

  I ran up to his room, glancing at Mama’s amazing sweet potato pie as I passed through the kitchen. I found him hunched over his desk, his pen moving effortlessly across a paper. It was always easy for him. Once I’d asked him to explain my homework since he was two grades ahead of me, and he’d tried but it was like he wasn’t saying the words in the right order. I knew he’d been speaking English, at least part of the time, but it was too confusing. I’d just nodded and never asked him again.

  “Mama says you need to do your chores.”

  He turned and grinned when he saw my arm. “Was it broken?”

  “Just my wrist.”

  He looked half like Mama and half like Pops. He had a friendly smile that Mama said would charm the ladies and Pops’ thick hair and spindly build. And I loved looking into his pretty blue eyes. They always reassured me that everything would be all right no matter what happened.

  “How’d Mama pay Dr. Steele?” he asked suspiciously.

  “He was really nice. He said she could pay him on Friday.”

  He frowned and turned back to his book. “I’ll be down in a minute. Go do your homework.”

  Instead of reaching for my schoolbooks I went to the window seat and gazed out at the orchard and the mountain. The acreage Pops bought was near the base of Squaw Peak and seemed close enough to touch. I’d wake up in the morning and stare over the treetops to the rugged switchbacks that crossed the face. Once in a while Will and I would ride our bikes to the trailhead and climb to the top. We’d look at Phoenix and he’d say something about how different it was from Iowa—so flat, no rolling hills or blue rivers. I knew he missed home a lot. He’d been eight when we moved so he remembered Cedar Rapids but Phoenix was all I’d ever known.

  If we turned the other way we saw the tall buildings of the downtown and all the fancy stores. Central Avenue sliced the city in half and houses chewed up the sorghum fields. But nobody seemed to want our orchard. Mama had said once that Pops’ price was too high.