A Tangled Web (73 page)

“We'll order right away,” she said, “and we'll have a bottle of the Pichon-Lalande.” She looked quickly at Stephanie. “Unless you'd rather have something else.”

“No, that's fine.” The maître d' brought the wine, displayed the label to Sabrina, poured it, waited for her to taste it and nod her approval, and all the while Stephanie seemed to be gathering herself to begin, like a diver in the moment when every muscle is tensed to push off from the board and into the air. “Everything should be fine, shouldn't it?” she said at last. “We don't have to be afraid anymore that someone is after us; we're together, we're in Paris, we have people who love us . . .”

“What do you want to do?” It came out so abruptly that Sabrina repeated it more softly. “What do you want, Stephanie?”

“Everything. I want all of it.” She gave a rueful laugh. “That's what got us into this mess, isn't it? I wanted everything. To be Sabrina Longworth just for a little while and to have my own life waiting for me so that I could go back whenever I wished. As if the world would stand still for me while I lived all the fantasies I'd ever dreamed of. Like a child. Children see the world that way.”

“I wanted it, too,” Sabrina murmured.

“But your world changed and you changed with it and
made it all yours. I didn't change, not enough anyway, and now I don't know where I belong.”

“Where do you want to belong?”

“I don't know. But wherever it is, I want Léon to be part of it. I can't imagine living with Garth again. We had nothing together when I left for China, only misunderstandings and anger and frustration, and we both wanted out. I know he was relieved when I left; he probably hoped I wouldn't come back.”

“He hoped you'd come back and make your marriage work.”

Stephanie shrugged. “I didn't see any sign of that. I'm not even sure he felt that way until you came and somehow made him want it. But it doesn't matter, don't you understand? I don't care what he wanted.” She leaned forward, the words, after so long a silence, pouring out. “I did care once, but after a while it seemed that his work was more important to him than I was, much more interesting and . . .
valuable,
and that just wore me down. I suppose I wore him down, too; maybe that's what happens in marriages that fail: people grind each other down until they just don't fit together anymore. I don't know what you found in him; maybe he changed after I left, or you're better for him, so
he
was better. Maybe because you weren't Stephanie, he wasn't Garth. Wouldn't that be odd? But it doesn't matter. We can't ever live together again. I'd feel that way about him even without Léon. But I want my children.”

A long sigh escaped Sabrina; that was what had been lurking at the edges of ail their conversations in all the days they had been together.

“I think about them all the time, you know. When I saw those pictures in your album I almost couldn't stand it, I wanted to hold them and hear their voices, the way they talk so fast, both at once, sort of tumbling over each other, so excited, so in love with being alive . . . Oh, God, Sabrina, I miss them, I feel empty without them . . . Do you know, once, in London, Gabrielle was having trouble
with Brooks and she came and sat in my lap and I said without thinking, ‘Hush, dear Penny' . . . Oh, why didn't I go back then, why did I have to go on that cruise . . .”

“One last fling,” Sabrina reminded her, knowing she was being cruel.

“I know, I know, I still thought I could have it all; I thought I could push it a little further, and then still further, and nothing would change: there wouldn't be any price to pay. That was a fantasy too, but I wouldn't let myself think about it because I didn't want to go back to being myself. Because it was myself that I didn't like; I never stopped loving my children and I never forgot them when I lost my memory; they were always inside me. One day, when I was in Aix, there were some schoolchildren on an outing and a little girl got separated from them and I was taking her back to her group and I called her Penny. She asked me why and I didn't know why, but I thought—I even told Max—I thought that must be my daughter. He'd told me I wasn't married when we met—and of course that was the truth as far as he knew it, since he thought I was you—but after I met that little girl I thought he'd lied or something, and I must have been married. Another time I told Léon that Cliff had made sure I'd find a stolen radio in his room. It was so strange, I had no idea what it meant, except that it sounded as if I had a son named Cliff. I even remembered Garth's name once. It came out of nowhere.”

The waiter brought their dinners, sliding them deftly onto the table, though they were leaning so close to each other there was barely room. He glanced at their identical faces, so beautiful it was difficult to believe that there could be two of them, but he did not linger; he refilled their wineglasses and left. He respected discreet conversations.

“I'm not even sure I want to live in America again. I could live in France, you know, with Léon and Penny and Cliff. That's what Léon wants. He wants us to have children—so do I—but that doesn't change anything: I want Penny and Cliff.”

The words were hammer blows, shattering the crystal of Sabrina's life. She felt numb, as if the only way to keep her life intact was to cut off all feeling. She sat back and took a sip of wine and looked at Stephanie without expression. “And what will you tell them?”

Stephanie flushed. “I thought . . . I thought you would . . .”

“Tell them for you? No. I won't do that. Or were you thinking I'd walk away and let you walk in, in my place? Why should I? They're not a set of dolls to be passed back and forth, depending on the day of the week and what suits us. We fooled them once and it took Garth a long time to be able to live with that, and I won't be a party to trying to fool him again. I love him, Stephanie, I love all of them, they shape my life, but even if that weren't true . . . good God, you can't play with people that way!”

“You said Penny and Cliff still don't know.”

“It doesn't matter. They're human beings and you can't toy with them as if they're not. Besides, they've grown up in the past year and I'm not at all sure they could be fooled again. Maybe at first, but not over time. They're still as self-absorbed as most children, but they're smarter than most, they're curious and observant and loving, they see a lot and they listen and they try to fit what they see and hear into a view of the world that makes sense. And after a while, if things don't make sense, they ask a lot of very tricky questions. Stephanie, I know them! And I won't have them hurt!”

“
You
won't have them hurt? They're my children, not yours! You were the one who said they aren't dolls to be passed back and forth . . . Who do you think you are to tell
me
you know them, as if you can just walk in and take over and be their mother—”

“I am their mother,” Sabrina said icily. “I did walk in and take over. I did it because you begged me to.”

A shudder swept over Stephanie. She pushed her un-tasted food away. Her mouth drooped. “That's what I'd
have to tell them, isn't it? That their mother wanted to be somebody else and so she . . . walked out on them.”

The pain in her sister's voice cut across Sabrina's anger and she started to reach out to comfort her. But her hand fell back to her lap. My enemy, my love, she thought, as she had before. They faced each other as if they were strangers.

“Yes,” she said bluntly. “That's what you'd have to tell them.”

“But there must be some way to say it so that it doesn't sound so awful . . .” Stephanie clasped her hands as her thoughts swung wildly from one side to the other. “There has to be a way to make them understand. Everybody has crazy ideas; they'd understand that. Kids always think about doing things that seem crazy and impossible . . . If I could make them feel what I was feeling at the time, I know they'd forgive me. It might be hard for them, but they would, I'm sure they would.”

She looked at her hands. “No, they probably wouldn't. They probably couldn't. It would destroy everything they believe in, the goodness of their mother”—she looked at Sabrina—“
both their mothers.
They'd hate us both, wouldn't they? Children believe the world is reliable and predictable, and if I told them what I'd done, what
we'd
done, the world would seem crazy. Not reliable. Not something they could count on.”

Around them was the murmur of quiet conversations, an occasional boisterous laugh, the chime of wineglasses meeting in a toast, the clatter of dishes from behind the swinging doors that led to the kitchen. But a hush enclosed Stephanie and Sabrina's table, and even as they faced each other it seemed to Sabrina that they were speeding away from each other, faster and faster, like a film gone haywire, and soon they would only be small specks, no longer, or ever again, recognizable to each other. And she did not know how to stop it; she thought perhaps there was nothing they could do but watch each other disappear.

Stephanie shifted in her chair. “But I have to tell them,
don't I? Denton's solicitor will go to the police, and the whole story will come out; everyone will know I'm alive—I mean, Sabrina Longworth is alive—and Penny and Cliff will hear it from television or newspapers or other people if they don't hear it from me. Or from you.” She looked at Sabrina's face. “No, you said you wouldn't do that. And I couldn't ask you to. I couldn't ask you to tell them you're not their real mother.”

I am their real mother; I've become their real mother.

“But they'll hear it anyway; an hour, a few hours after Denton's solicitor goes to the police the news will be everywhere and that would be the worst way of all; then they really wouldn't forgive me. If I told them, at least they'd know I'd been honest . . . finally. But honesty isn't really something we can claim, is it?”

I've been honest in my year with them. Everything I've done has been done through my love for them; they know that.

“No, I'll have to tell them, that's all there is to it. They're my children, and I want them, and if they're hurt, they'll get over it. Children are resilient; they bounce right back. Anyway, I don't believe they're really completely happy; they must know, deep down, that something isn't the way it ought to be. When they—”

“They are happy,” Sabrina said sharply, unable once again to hold back the words. “They've had a wonderful year. They've been happy and loving and loved. They haven't felt anything was missing-—” Not fair, she thought. She had no right to claim her sister's children just because they had had a good year.

“I don't believe that,” Stephanie said firmly. “They must have a feeling, even if they don't understand it, that something is wrong. And when they know I'm their real mother they'll be happy because things will seem right again and they'll want to be with me and no one else.”

The waiter came with raised eyebrows, and when Sabrina nodded, he removed their full plates. “It was not good, madame?” he asked each of them.

“
C'était excellent. Malheureusement nous étions distraites.
”

“
Nous reviendrons
,” Stephanie said. She looked at Sabrina, her eyes bewildered. “It feels so natural to speak French, but it feels right to speak English, too. It's as if I'm always caught somewhere between two people, whatever I do. Whatever I decide.”

Outside, in the mild evening, they retraced their steps back to L'Hôtel. Stephanie walked past the fine antiques furnishing the sitting room of their suite, past a table with fruit and a bottle of champagne sent by the manager, to the terrace, filled with late autumn flowers. She leaned against the low wall, gazing at the steeple of the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. “It's terrible, what we're doing,” she murmured. “I hate it, I hate it, but I don't know what else to do.”

Sabrina was in the doorway behind her. “What do you hate?”

“Hurting you.” She did not turn around. “You knew that's what I meant; you always know what I mean. I hate hurting you. But wouldn't it be enough if you kept Garth and I took Penny and Cliff?” She heard Sabrina's sharp intake of breath and she swung around. “I'm sorry, oh, God, Sabrina, I'm sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me, I sound like a vendor haggling in the market. It's just that I feel so trapped . . . that there's no good way to untangle what we've done . . . and I love you and I know you love me and I need you—we've always needed each other; we've always been closer to each other than anybody, anywhere—but still . . .”

“Still we're further apart than we've ever been.”

“Yes.”

The width of the terrace stretched between them. Sabrina's arms came up and Stephanie leaned forward, as if to move into her embrace. But at the same moment, Sabrina's arms fell to her sides and Stephanie leaned back against the wall. The terrace seemed to widen between them. They looked at each other in the faint light, identical
faces, beloved faces, separated by all that they themselves had set in motion. Around them, the scent of chrysanthemums and stock seemed painfully sharp; the distant sounds of traffic suddenly rose to a clamor.

“I'm going to bed,” Stephanie said and, in a flurry of movement, crossed the terrace, passed Sabrina in the doorway, and disappeared into the bedroom. Sabrina stood where she was, watching the church steeple fade as the lights of the city went out one by one. It was very late; the hotel slumbered. On the street below, a dog barked, a man said good night to friends, a pair of motorcyclists revved their engines and roared off into the distance. In the silence that followed, as clearly as if they were beside her, she heard her children's laughter and the clatter of their feet as they dashed about the house. She closed her eyes. I won't give them up. I won't give them up. I won't give them up.