Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [140]
“You may well ask,” he retorted, stepping closer to her. “You’ve finally made your presence felt in San Francisco. What happened to the great death charade, little sister?”
Francie flinched, remembering how Lai Tsin used to call her that. “I think it’s better if we forget that we are brother and sister. We have managed to avoid each other all these years, and I have no wish to see you again.”
“Nor I you.” He grabbed her suddenly by the shoulders, his eyes glaring angrily in hers. “How dare you stand there and coolly say you don’t wish to see me? Me—Harry Harrison. When you have done nothing but defile our family name. First you run off with a waiter and now you’re some goddamn Chinese’s concubine—and with a bastard son, I hear. What goddamn right do you have to bear the Harrison name, I ask you?”
“I must remind you that I have a legal right to use it. It is my name.” His fingers dug deeper into her shoulders and he stared menacingly at her. “I should also remind you, Harry, that acts of violence—even by a Harrison—are not so easy to get away with these days. If you lift a hand to me I shall call the police.”
He let go abruptly and stepped back a pace. Francie wanted to rub her bruised shoulders, but she didn’t want to give him the pleasure of knowing he had hurt her, and instead she faced him calmly, trying to ignore her racing heart.
“There’s one thing I’ll never forgive you for,” Harry said at last. “You killed Father just as surely as if you’d put a gun to his head. It was you he was coming after, you and your lover. He should have been at home asleep in his own bed, not racing down Pacific Avenue after a whore and her man. And now you’ve given him an illegitimate grandchild—my God, he must be turning in his grave.”
“I hope he is. If ever a man deserved hell, he did.”
“I guess the boy is the Chinaman’s?” Harry said angrily. She made no reply and his anger boiled over again. “Is he?” he demanded, grabbing her arms again.
“If that is what you choose to think,” she said quietly.
He dropped her arms, watching her from hooded eyes. “When Father was killed I vowed that if it were the last thing I ever did I would see you dead.” He walked to the door, then turned to look at her. “This isn’t over between you and me,” he warned. “Don’t ever think it is. I meant what I said, Francesca.”
Annie leapt back from the door as he stalked out and strode angrily down the hall and out of the house. She ran quickly to Francie and threw her arms around her. “You were wonderful,” she exclaimed. “So strong and courageous. And what’s more, you were right.”
Francie sank trembling onto a chair, she felt like crying but she had told herself years ago that there would be no more tears, there had been enough in her life already.
“At least it’s over with,” Annie said encouragingly.
She glanced up at her, her eyes full of the unshed tears. “Oh, I don’t think so, Annie,” she said. “No, I don’t think it’s over. This is just the beginning.”
Lai Tsin listened gravely when Francie told him the story of her encounter with Harry and he knew she was right. It was not over. “It will never be over,” he said. “But are you going to let that color your whole life? Are you going to sit and wait for whatever Harry might decide to do? Or do you plan to put your problems aside and go on living like the rest of us? Let me remind you, Francie, it is only the young who think of life as being long. As we grow older we think back with regret to those moments we might have enjoyed and that we threw carelessly away. Such moments add up to minutes, hours … and finally, years.
“You have much to look forward to in life, Francie. I have tried to teach you what I know, little though it is, to help you become strong. And now the moment is at hand for you to use that knowledge. Your life is your own. You are your own woman. Use your life for your own happiness.”
Francie thought of Lai Tsin’s words a few weeks later when Edward telephoned from New York. The line was crackly and he sounded a million miles away, but it was his voice all right.