The couple Victoria Lane and Cruz Castillo
	Home   Cette page en Français

There are many love stories that are characterized around an object, a jewel. Cinderella's story is often symbolized by her glass slipper. The love story of Victoria Lane and Cruz Castillo could be just as much, with a pair of earrings. Expensive gift for his income, Cruz had bought a set of silver earrings with an emerald, and he had offered it as a token of his love to Victoria. Today, the two earrings are separated, just like Victoria and Cruz : the one is in Keith Timmons' hands, and the other returned in Cruz's hands...

A shadow from the past...

At the end of the 1970s, then a flight attendant, Victoria fell in love with the young Latino Cruz Castillo. They met in college and, if Victoria had feelings for him, she could not hope to conquer his heart, the latter being in love with the fiery Jodie DeWitt. With their breakup and Jodie's quick wedding to Reese, no clouds darkened Victoria's sky. Quickly, they end up forming a couple.

Victoria abandons herself in Cruz's arms. The young man he was then was little different from the man he would become years later. Their couple flourished under the Californian sun. Although both had dreams, these latter did not seem contrary to the development of their couple : Victoria dreamed of becoming an actress (like many young girls) and Cruz dreamed of adventure and traveling the world. In the 1970s, all dreams seem accessible and achievable. And around them, very close to themselves, a young girl is also full of dreams. She dreams of swimming competitions, maybe even Olympic Games. But above all, one of her dreams, if not her main dream, is to be loved by Cruz; because she already loves him. She is already madly in love with him. Her body, her whole being has fallen in love with him and she only aspires to be with him... This girl is Katie Timmons. And Katie is lucky because her brother, Keith, is part of the acquaintances that revolve around Victoria and Cruz.

During the year 1981, Katie finally approaches the couple, trying to threaten the balance between Victoria and Cruz. Yet their couple seemed stable, because it existed for several years already. Victoria, aware of the threat that represents Katie, decides to fight to keep Cruz. The threat is all the greater as Cruz has, once and only time, given in to Katie's advances. A new hope pours into Katie's heart : a future, another future with Cruz is possible.

The balance of the couple Victoria and Cruz wavers. Is that why Cruz chooses to buy silver earrings ? To redeem his guilt ? An emerald symbol of rebirth and love. The story will not say if Victoria learned of Cruz's betrayal with Katie. Whether she knows or not, Victoria feels that Katie is a threat to her couple. So, one day, Victoria sets up a trap so that Katie understands the obvious. Victoria arranges for Katie to surprise them, in love, embraced, lovers, on a beach by the ocean.

The scene is terrible in Katie's eyes and heart. Her world collapses. It is a pain beyond all the pain she has been through. Her body tears. Her heart breaks. Pain is a tidal wave that overwhelms her. Devastated, broken, she looks at them for a moment. Time is frozen around her, extinguished. Is Victoria happy with her victory at the moment ? History does not tell... However, one can imagine that for a brief moment, the two women's gaze crosses. Katie faces Victoria. Victoria faces Katie. Devastated by the explosion of her dreams, Katie rushes to the ocean. She, who loves the water so much, plunges into the ocean, this friend, as if to find a way to relieve her ailments. She swims, swims and moves away from the beach, under the helpless looks of Victoria and Cruz who, wounded, cannot dive to rescue her. Katie dies of drowning.

On the beach, Keith, devastated by the pain, finds an earring. This earring, this emerald becomes in his eyes the irrefutable proof of their guilt. In Keith's eyes, Victoria and Cruz are responsible. They are the only ones responsible for Katie's death. And there, on the sand, facing the ocean, he promises himself, no, he promises to Katie to avenge her... One day Victoria and Cruz will have to pay. Keith makes to himself the eternal promise.

The couple Victoria and Cruz then shattered... as if broken by Katie's disappearance. Although innocent, both seem to bear some guilt. Victoria ends up returning to Cruz the second earring : their promise of love had just broken and, more than anything, Victoria could not bear the memory that she evoked. Consumed by remorse, Victoria lets her dream of cinema take more and more importance, and Cruz moves away from this woman that he no longer recognizes. They end up separating, and Cruz keeps as a souvenir the earring that he had made for Victoria. The separation takes place on an airport runway. Victoria flies to the Hollywood lights and then begins her acting career. Leaving the airport, Cruz has a motorcycle accident. Then, he incorporates the I.N.I.D. to become a secret agent. A new life opens to them. In Hollywood, Victoria leads the life she hoped for, and the memory of Cruz has faded. In her memory remains only the imprint of pain, a rest of guilt related to Katie's death. Throughout the world, Victoria's face fades in Cruz's memory. If his heart became attached to Victoria at the time, the various ties ended up breaking over time, certainly but especially because in Europe, his path crossed that of a woman who would forever mark his destiny.

The years pass, Victoria and Cruz continue their life, indifferent to their past, indifferent to extinct feelings : Victoria found the love in the arms of a tennis player, Martin Ellis, and Cruz found the great love with the tumultuous Eden Capwell, who knows nothing of this past relationship. As the anniversary of Katie Timmons' death approaches, the actress Victoria Lane returns to Santa Barbara for theatrical performances. At the same time, the health of Mrs. Timmons, Keith and Katie's grandmother, is getting worse. Keith rushes to her bedside, deeply upset by the news. It seems obvious that their grandmother played an important role in the life and education of Keith and Katie; she lives in the memory of Katie. And, while she feels death coming, loving, benevolent, she begs Keith to turn the page and let the memory of Katie leave. She wants to leave this world in peace, and her peace necessarily goes through Keith's serenity. That is why she forces him to return the earring. This is why, on several occasions, she asks him to forgive, and above all to abandon his thirst for revenge : in spite of all that Keith may think, it is an accident...

But Keith is not so easily resigned. He needs a culprit, a person in charge to make the unacceptable less terrible. Victoria and Cruz will be the culprits. Victoria and Cruz will have to be convicted. And if they cannot be by the law of men, they will be by the law according to Keith Timmons. This is what Keith believes when he takes the earring from his grandmother's hands.

Eden is not the woman to let another (an old lover) get too close to Cruz. Ready to do anything to distance Victoria from Cruz, she plays unintentionally Keith's game, trying to destabilize Victoria Lane as much as possible. As proof, she makes a copy of the earring and presents herself, adorned with this jewel, at the premiere of Victoria's play. Katie's shadow floats over, slowly, imperceptibly, Victoria's feelings for Cruz rising from their ashes. Hunted by Keith, harassed by Eden, Victoria manages to find support and comfort only with Cruz. Ready to do anything to keep Cruz (which she has just found : he is in the process of divorce from Santana Andrade), Eden agrees to cross certain lines that only jealous and distrustful women can transgress. She brings Martin Ellis, Victoria's former boyfriend, to Santa Barbara. Her plan is clear : Martin, back in Victoria's life, will remove the shadow of betrayal from the beach house. But Martin is not the hoped-for savior. Quite the contrary. His violent character forces Cruz to intervene, bringing Victoria even closer to Cruz. Soon, the past is ready to be reborn... As with Katie, a woman opposes the couple Victoria and Cruz. Like five years earlier with Katie, after an argument, Eden plunges into the ocean under the helpless gaze of Martin and Victoria. Victoria dives in turn, braves the waves and her memories to join Eden who is in difficulty. As she will tell Cruz later, she was afraid, afraid of not being able to save her, afraid of not arriving in time, this time again afraid of not joining Eden, as it had been the case five years ago.

Victoria manages to save Eden, thus preventing the story from reproducing. Entangled in her red wool sweater, Victoria manages not without difficulty to bring Eden back on the sand, while Cruz and Martin arrive while running. Cruz is afraid. He dismisses Victoria and ends up resuscitating Eden. While the help arrives, Eden regains consciousness and, when she opens her eyes, she sees Cruz and Victoria embraced in a moment of great intimacy. Her heart tears apart : Cruz worries more for Victoria than for her... The world collapses.

Cruz hugs Victoria. He puts a kiss on her forehead and thanks her for bringing back the love of his life. Victoria hugs Cruz. She whispers : I did it. She is relieved to have had the strength to defeat the past...

The past is a shadow that clings to Eden, holding her in a world dominated by doubt and fear. The past is a shadow that moves away from the world of Victoria, entrusting her with the possible hope of a new future with Cruz. One heart breaks while another awakens.

While she is taken in charge by a medical team, Eden sees Cruz leaving her bedside to join Victoria. Again, she sees them coming closer, openly, in her presence. Even if the moment is brief, for Eden it is eternity. Her eyes remain riveted on the looks, the hands... Tired, Eden prefers to run away, waiting for a new face to face with Cruz.

If the couple Eden and Cruz waver, despite the victory over the memory of the death of Katie Timmons and the departure of Martin Ellis, it is not for that reason that the couple Victoria and Cruz can be reborn. Because Eden wants to fight for the man she loves. And Cruz cannot live without the one he loves...

A shadow on the future...

As a full member in the unity of the couple, the ocean intrudes again between Victoria and Cruz. Like it, their relationship vary according to the elements. One day the surface of the water is calm and the love between Victoria and Cruz blossoms, another day the waves are unleashed and these same waves tear the love between them. These same waves, charged with foam, will for once bring them closer...

While a storm hits the Californian coast, Cruz is forced to leave by boat in search of Sophia Capwell and Gina DeMott. Mandated by C.C. Capwell himself, Cruz leaves the city, postponing the possibility of making the point of the relationship. Eden swears to him that the story is not over, that it cannot end up like this. Cruz needs time, because the jealousy he saw born in Eden disturbs him : he no longer finds in Eden the imprint of the one he loves more than anything. Her involvement in the return of Martin Ellis to Santa Barbara forces Cruz to take time.

A time he does not have, because he has to save Sophia and Gina. If Cruz forbids Eden to accompany him in his research, he does not notice that, a few minutes before the departure, Victoria manages to get on the boat. She hides, waiting to be far enough away to get out of hiding. Thus, when Cruz notices her, it is too late, the boat cannot turn around. Cruz's anger is up to that of the ocean. The storm is unleashed. Cruz struggles to keep the boat afloat. He struggles to keep his love life afloat. The waves hit the ship violently : Victoria and Cruz are roughed up in the cabin. On several occasions, waves much higher than the boat almost capsize them. Victoria is afraid. Cruz also but, in the distance, he guesses the earth, which reassures him. Suddenly, a more violent wave comes to strike the window of the cabin and the breaks it. The cabin fills with water. Victoria and Cruz are submerged.

The waves dropped Victoria and Cruz unconscious on a beach a few miles from the city. Wounded in the head, Cruz wanders in a state of semi-consciousness. Victoria notices a lighthouse in the distance and carries him until there, hoping to find equipment to treat him. Cruz's state of health is critical, he is cold, his reason leaves him : visions of Eden haunt his mind. Victoria, who found drugs in the remains of the wreck, makes an injection of painkillers to Cruz. Victoria lies near him to warm him up. Mistreated by the pain, by the medicines, Cruz dreams of Eden, he feels her hands on his body, her lips on his own... His arms, in reality, do not embrace Eden, but Victoria. Taking advantage of Cruz's weaknesses, Victoria gives in to Cruz's caresses, playing the game of being Eden, failing to be Cruz's true lover. A lover by proxy, Victoria uses the painkillers that she administers to Cruz to make love with him. Cruz's sick psyche does not allow him to know that the woman he is kissing is just a double, an illusion...

An illusion that Victoria wants to enjoy to the end. Even if she is aware that the rescuers are looking for them and that at any time they can burst into the lighthouse, Victoria takes advantage of a final injection of painkillers to Cruz to make voluntary love with him. And, while they are hugged, Hayley Benson enters the lighthouse and surprises them. Taken to Santa Barbara hospital, Cruz is taken in charge by the doctors, while Victoria is afraid that the secret, her secret, is revealed. She makes Hayley swear to remain silent. But very quickly, the clouds that fogged Cruz's mind begin to dissipate and images of the moments of intimacy lived at the lighthouse between Victoria and him rise to the surface. He forces Victoria to tell him the truth. Cruz panics; he is afraid of losing Eden. Victoria swears to him that he believed that he was with Eden, he was semi-conscious, immersed in a parallel reality. He knows that he must announce this truth to Eden. For love, he must confess his betrayal to her, even if in fact Victoria abused him.

Certain that their love can overcome this new ordeal, Cruz goes to the Capwell Villa to confess his betrayal. Eden immediately understands and runs away... She is unable for the moment to face this truth. Cruz faints. Victoria, who follows each of his movements, is present to support him. She is then certain that their past love, like the Phoenix, can rise from the ashes. Yes, the past, their past, can come back to life. In her heart, the flame of her love is not dead. This is what she tries to explain and demonstrate to Cruz. But Cruz does not agree. His heart is not of that opinion. His heart is taken. His heart beats today only for Eden. He tells Victoria. He cries out : his whole heart, today, tomorrow, forever, is for Eden... Cruz, another day, forces Victoria to tell the other part of the truth : that she drugged him, that she abused him, and that he thought he was with Eden. But Victoria keeps quiet and doesn't confess.

The year 1986 ends on a dead end : Victoria is rejected by Cruz, and her shadow still hangs over the couple Eden and Cruz, who fail to make peace. Resigned, Victoria knows that she must turn the page, there is no future for her and Cruz. She has cruelly understood that their couple died one day in 1981 with the death of Katie Timmons. And although she hopes and prays that a new chance will be given to them, this is not possible. Downcast, almost defeated, Victoria gives up and goes to the roof of the Capwell Hotel. Yet, deep down, a new hope is being born, a new possibility is being awakened... Victoria does not know it yet, but she carries in her the most wonderful memories of Cruz, the most beautiful offering that Cruz could offer her : a child. This child will be in Victoria's eyes a proof of love, his proof of love, and he will also be a shadow for Eden and Cruz.

In the shadows... a child

A heavy secret. A child. A husband. The new life of Victoria Lane begins in early 1987 under more lenient stars. Married to Mason Capwell, who accepted the situation, Victoria continues to cross the road of Cruz very regularly. She knows that shadows continue to hang over her. And, one stormy evening, while looking for her husband, in front of Julia Wainwright's door, Victoria suffers from the first contractions. Alerted, Cruz, who is Julia's neighbor, arrives and gives birth to a little boy. Shaken by events and hormones, Victoria hesitates, Victoria wonders : should she confess her secret to Cruz ? Convinced by her entourage, Victoria is silent and, in her mind, the hope of a couple Victoria and Cruz moves away again.

After many common trials for Victoria and her little boy, Chip, a new drama strikes them in 1988. As he suffers from violent fevers, Victoria takes Chip to the hospital and the diagnosis is clear : Chip has leukemia and a bone marrow transplant is imperative for his survival. Victoria cannot be a donor because of her history as an addict. Mason cannot give, as he is not the biological father of the child. The hopes then turn to the real father of little Chip : Cruz Castillo... Victoria will have to admit the truth to him. Victoria will have to break all the hopes of a rapprochement between her and Cruz because, knowing him as she knows him, she knows that he will never forgive her silence.

Up against the wall to save her son, Victoria goes to the beach house, where precisely Cruz helped her to give birth to their little boy. In a few words, she tells him that Chip's life is in danger and that only Cruz can save him. And for that, she must tell him the truth. She tells him that Chip is his son. Of course, very quickly, the need to save Chip takes over. And, in Cruz's mind, the missing pieces of the past get positioned : the moments of intimacy at the lighthouse take another consistency. And, if Victoria promises to continue to hide the truth from Eden, Cruz refuses. In the name of his love, he will be the one who will reveal the truth to Eden.

Eden and Cruz survive this revelation. Victoria has no choice but to resign herself and let her hopes and memories dissolve. Chip is saved. Victoria finds herself alone. She clings on to Chip and the possible hopes he represents, as if he were the key to another, to other possibilities. Other possibilities that Victoria thought could be reached by sliding into another reality, that of drugs. Trapped in this white hell, Victoria loses ground. In Cruz's eyes, their common past is over, and no future between them is possible. However, Cruz, who fully assisted Chip in his life, is ready to do anything to protect him, to give him a home, to give him what Victoria is no longer able to offer him. Ready to welcome with Eden this unexpected child in their home, Cruz hires a lawyer to get custody of Chip.

In Victoria's eyes, it is the end of her life as a woman, as a mother... But it is also the end of any hope that the past, her past, will rise from the ashes. There is no future, no more possibilities for the couple Victoria and Cruz. Victoria realizes almost with horror that Cruz was right : their couple died years ago when Katie Timmons drowned and that she let her drown. The ocean has ravaged the foundations of their love, swept away in a flood of waves. So, desperate, Victoria chooses to flee to another life, a forward flight that she had already begun by leaving to Los Angeles, towards her acting career. At the time, this leak allowed her to forget, for a moment, her guilt in the death of Katie. Today, Victoria is thinking again of leaving to forget the addiction that is eating her every day. Victoria also knows that Cruz is seriously considering taking part in the life of little Chip. He has already hired a young lawyer, Thomas Randolph, to obtain custody of the little boy. The imaginary world that Victoria thought she was building for a while collapses like a house of cards. She then abducts her son and takes a train to Mexico City. Along the way, she finally changes her mind, helped by a train passenger who fully realizes Victoria's anxieties. Victoria too, when she sees herself holding Chip in one hand and drugs in the other.

Resigned, Victoria later presents herself at Eden and Cruz's house. She knows she has no choice but to leave Chip with his father and go to rehab. She is ready to let them Chip; she knows that by entrusting him to Cruz, she will not only help him to find a balance, but also to prove to him that she loves him. It is in tears that Victoria leaves Eden and Cruz's house. It is with tears for Chip, for her, for the life she could have had with Cruz, that she leaves their house. It is with tears full of regrets that she closes the door of this house. There is no doubt that Victoria is thinking of all the tragedies that accompanied her love affair with Cruz...

Maybe their love was cursed from the beginning. Maybe wanting Cruz too much, maybe hoping too much to be with him, her heart broke. Their relationship, the couple that Victoria had hoped for so much, could not fully flourish. Too many tragedies punctuated their journey, too many betrayals... Katie's death was the absolute proof of this. Victoria now knows that their relationship was not strong enough to withstand so many storms. It did not have the strength to endure everything, to resist the waves of the ocean, not to bend under the assaults of time... That their couple is a couple of the past, that the love they had shared was nothing compared to the love that unites Cruz with Eden...

It is like this that Victoria definitively leaves the city of Santa Barbara, abandoning her son, or simply leaving him to his father, without looking back on this city which will have partially got the better of her soul...

Text written for this site by Lilian