Honor Thyself

“It's okay,” Chloe said honestly. “I live in London. You come to visit me. I go home for Christmas and Thanksgiving. I don't like L.A. anymore. I like London a lot better.”

“Where did you go to college?” Carole inquired.

“Stanford.”

Carole looked blank. It didn't ring a bell.

“It's a great school,” Jason volunteered, and Carole nodded, and then smiled at her daughter.

“I wouldn't expect anything less of you.” This time Chloe smiled.

They chatted about easier subjects after that, and eventually they went back to the hotel. Carole looked tired when they left. Stevie was the last to leave the room, and whispered to her friend, as she lingered for a minute.

“You did great with Chloe.”

“You're going to have to tell me some things. I don't know anything.”

“We'll talk,” Stevie promised, and then noticed the roses on a table in a corner of the room. There were at least two dozen of them, red, long stem. “Who are those from?”

“I don't know. A French man who came to see me. I forget his name. He said we were old friends.”

“I'm surprised security let him in. They're not supposed to.” Only family members were supposed to visit her, but no French security guard was going to turn away a former minister of France. “Anyone can say they're an old friend. If they're not careful, you'll be overrun by fans.” They had stopped hundreds of bouquets downstairs. Stevie and Jason had had them distributed to all the other patients. They would have filled several rooms. “You didn't recognize him?” It was a foolish question, but she thought she'd ask anyway, just in case she did. You never knew. Sooner or later some memories from the past would surface. Stevie was expecting that to happen any day, and was hoping it would.

“Of course not,” Carole said simply. “If I don't remember my own children, why would I recognize him?”

“Just asking. I'll tell the guard to be more careful.” She had already noticed a few things she didn't like about their security, and complained about it. When the guard on duty went on a break, no one replaced him, and anyone could have walked in. Apparently someone had. They wanted better security for Carole than that. “Nice flowers anyway.”

“He was nice. He didn't stay long. He says he knew my children too.”

“Anyone can say that.” They needed to protect her, from gawkers, paparazzi, and fans, or worse. She was who she was, after all. And the hospital had never dealt with a star of her magnitude before. She and Jason had discussed hiring a private guard for her, but the hospital had insisted they could handle it. Stevie was going to remind them to tighten things up. The last thing they wanted was a photographer getting in and taking a picture of her. The now unfamiliar intrusion would have been upsetting to Carole although before she had dealt with it nearly every day. “I'll see you tomorrow. Happy Thanksgiving, Carole,” Stevie said with a warm smile.

“Fuck you,” Carole said happily, and they both laughed. She was getting better by the hour. For a minute she almost sounded like her old self.

Chapter 8

Jason, Chloe, and Anthony went to the Louvre, and then did some shopping again the next day. They came back for a late lunch at the hotel, in the bar downstairs. And then Jason and Anthony went back to their rooms to call their office and do some work. They were both falling behind on deals they were working on. But the circumstances were extraordinary, and their clients understood. Several of Jason's partners were standing in for them with various accounts. And they planned to catch up when they got back.

Chloe went for a swim and massage while her brother and father worked. She had taken a leave from her own job, and they'd been nice about it. They told her to stay in Paris with her mother as long as she needed to. She even had time, that afternoon, and was finally in the mood to call a boy she had recently met in London. They chatted for half an hour, and Chloe liked him. She told him about her mother's accident, and he was kind and sympathetic. He promised to call her soon, and said he wanted to see her when she got back to London. He'd been meaning to call her, and was delighted she'd called him. His name was Jake.

The others being busy gave Stevie a chance to spend time alone with Carole. The doctors had told her to tell Carole everything she could about her life. They were hoping that hearing the details would jog her memory and bring back the rest. Stevie was willing to do that, but didn't want to upset Carole by reminding her of unhappy things, and she'd had her fair share of them.

Stevie brought a sandwich with her, and sat down across from Carole to chat. She had nothing particular in mind, and Carole had been asking a lot of questions, like about her parents the day before. She was starting from scratch.

Stevie was halfway through her sandwich when Carole asked her about her divorce. But in that case, Stevie had to admit she didn't know much.

“I didn't work for you then. I know he was married to someone else after you, a Russian supermodel, I think. He got divorced from her about a year after you got back from France. I was with you, but I was new, and you didn't tell me much. I think he came out to see you a couple of times, and I suspected that he asked you to come back to him. It was just a feeling I had, you never told me. And you never went back to him. You were pretty mad at him in those days. It took a couple of years to settle down. Before that, you were always fighting with him on the phone, about the kids. For the last ten years, you've been good friends.” Carole could see that now, and nodded as she listened, groping back in her mind for some recollection of her marriage to Jason, and found nothing. Her memory was blank.

“Did I leave him, or did he leave me?”

“I don't know that either. You're going to have to ask him some of this stuff. I know you lived in New York while you were with him. You were married to him for ten years. And then you went to France. You made a major movie there. You were already getting divorced by then, I think. And you stayed on in Paris for two years after the movie, with your kids. You bought a house, and sold it a year after you moved to

L.A. It was a beautiful little house.”

“How do you know?” Carole looked puzzled. “Did you work for me in Paris?” She was confused again. There was so much to sort out and put in chronological order.

“No, I went over to close it for you. You came over for a couple of days, told me what you wanted to keep and send back to L.A., and I took care of the rest. The place was small, but gorgeous. Eighteenth century, I think, with boiseries and parquet floors, big French windows looking out over a garden, and fireplaces all over the place. I was kind of sorry you didn't keep it.”

“Why didn't I?” Carole asked, frowning as she listened to her. She wanted to remember all these things, but didn't.

“You said it was too far away. And you were working a lot then. You didn't have time to run off to Paris between movies. You do now, but you didn't then. And I don't think you wanted to come back here.” Stevie didn't volunteer the rest. “You were trying to spend more time with your kids between films, especially Chloe. Anthony was always more independent.” Stevie had known him since he was eleven, and even then he had been content to spend time with friends and on his own, and visiting his father in New York during his vacations. Chloe had wanted more of her mother, and there had never been enough of Carole to suit her. She had been a very needy child, in Stevie's opinion, and still was, although less so now. These days, Chloe had her own life, and was less demanding of her mother's time. But she still liked being the center of attention when she was with her mother.

“Was she right about what she said yesterday?” Carole looked genuinely worried. What she really wanted to know was if she was a good person or not. It was scary not to know.

“Not all of it,” Stevie said fairly. “Some maybe. You must have worked hard when she was small. You were twenty-eight when she was born, and at the height of your career. I didn't know you then. I came along seven years later. But she was already angry at you. I think you took the kids on location to most of your movies, when you could, with a tutor, unless they were in crazy places, like Kenya. But if it was civilized, you took them, even when I was first working for you. Eventually Anthony didn't want to go, and when they got to high school, you couldn't take them out of school. But before that they went most of the time, and their schools bitched like crazy. But so did Chloe, when you didn't.” More than that, as Chloe got older, Stevie often suspected that she wanted to be her mom, which was a bigger problem. But Stevie didn't say that to Carole. “I'm sure it's not easy to be the child of a celebrity, but I've always been impressed by how hard you tried, and how much time you spend with them, even now. You never travel anywhere without going through London and New York, to see them. I'm not sure Chloe realizes how unusual that is, or how much effort it takes on your part. She doesn't give you a lot of credit, at least not for time you spent with her during her childhood. And from all I know you were very good about it. I guess she just wanted more.”

“Why?”

“Some people are just like that,” Stevie said wisely. “She's still young, she can work it out, if she wants to. She's basically a nice kid. It just upsets me when she's hard on you. I don't think it's fair to you. She's still a baby in a lot of ways. She needs to grow up.” And then Stevie smiled at her. “And besides, you've spoiled her. You give her everything she wants. I know. I pay the bills.”

“Shame on me,” Carole said benignly. She was speaking well now. She had found the words, just not the history that went with them. “Why do you suppose I do that?”

“Guilt. Generosity. You love your kids. You've done well and want to share it with them. Chloe takes advantage of it sometimes, trying to make you feel guilty, although some of the time I think she genuinely feels she got cheated as a child. I think what she wanted was a mother who was a regular suburban housewife who picked her up and dropped her off all day, and had nothing else to do. You picked her up at school every day, when you were in town, but you did more than just make movies. You had a very busy life.”

“Like what?” Listening to Stevie was like listening to her talk about someone else. Carole had no sense that this was about her. The woman Stevie was describing was a stranger.

“You've been involved in women's rights causes for years. You've traveled to underdeveloped countries, spoken to the Senate, gone to the UN, gave speeches. You put your money where your mouth is, when you believe in something, which I think is a great thing. I've always admired you for it.”

“And Chloe? Does she admire me for it too?” Carole said sadly. It didn't sound like it from what Stevie said.

“No. I think if anything, it pisses her off, if it takes time or money away from her. Maybe she's too young to care about those things. And admittedly, you traveled a fair amount for that too, between films.”

“Maybe I should have stayed home more,” Carole said, wondering if the damage between them was reparable at this point. She hoped it was. It sounded as though she had some things to make up to her daughter, even if she was a little spoiled.

“That wouldn't have been you,” Stevie said simply. “You always have a million irons in the fire.”

“And now?”

“Not so many. You've slowed down in the last few years.” Stevie was cautious about what she said, because of Sean. She wasn't sure if Stevie was ready to hear about that, and deal with the feelings that might come with it, particularly if she remembered.

“Have I? Why? Why have I slowed down?” Carole looked troubled, trying to jog her mind.

“Tired, maybe. You're pickier about the movies you do. You haven't done one in three years. You've turned down a lot of parts. You want to do parts that have meaning to you, not just something showy and commercial. You're writing a book, or trying to.” Stevie smiled. “That's why you came to Paris. You thought it might give you deeper insight to come back here.” And instead it had damn near cost her her life. Stevie would regret forever that Carole had taken this trip. She still felt traumatized herself from nearly losing this woman she loved and admired so much. “I think you'll start doing more movies again after you finish the book. It's a novel, but I think there must be a lot of you in it. Maybe that's why you were blocked.”

“Are those the only reasons why I slowed down?” Carole looked at her with the innocent eyes of a child, and Stevie paused for a long minute, not sure what to say to her, and decided to tell the truth.

“No, they're not. There was another reason.” Stevie sighed. She hated to tell her, but someone would sooner or later, better it was her. “You were married, to a wonderful man. A really, really nice guy.”

“Don't tell me I got divorced again,” Carole said, looking unhappy. Two divorces seemed too much to her. Even one was sad.

“You didn't,” Stevie reassured her, if you could call it that. Being widowed and losing a man she loved was so much worse. “You were married for eight years. His name was Sean. Sean Clarke. You married him when you were forty and he was thirty-five. He was a very successful producer, although you never worked on a movie together. He was an incredibly kind man, and I think you were both very happy. Your kids loved him. He didn't have any kids of his own, nor with you. Anyway, he got sick three years ago. Very sick. Liver cancer. He was in treatment for a year, and he was very philosophical about it. Very peaceful. He accepted what happened to him in a very dignified way.” Stevie took a breath as she went on. “He died, Carole. In your arms. A year after he got sick. That was two years ago. It's been a big adjustment. You've done a lot of writing, some traveling, spent time with the kids. You've turned a number of parts down, although you've said you'll go back to work after you write the book. And I believe you will, write the book, and go back to movies. This trip was part of that. I think you've grown a lot since he died. I think you're stronger now.” Or at least she had been until the bomb. It was amazing she had come through it, and who knew what the fallout from that would be, when all was said and done. It was too soon to know. As Stevie looked at her, there were tears rolling down Carole's cheeks. Stevie reached over and touched her hand. “I'm sorry. I didn't want to tell you all that. He was a lovely man.”

“I'm glad you told me. It's so sad. I lost a husband I must have loved, and whom I don't even remember now. This is like losing everything you ever cared about or owned. I've lost all the people in my life, and the history we had. I don't even remember his face or his name, or my marriage to Jason. I don't even remember when my babies were born.” It felt like a tragedy to her, even more than the actual impact of the bomb. Her doctors had explained all that to her. It sounded so unreal. But so did everything else. Like someone else's life, and not hers.

“You haven't lost anyone except for Sean. Everyone else is still here. And you had wonderful times with him you'll remember again one day. The others are all here, in one form or another. Your children, Jason, your work. The history is there too, even if you can't remember it yet. The bond you have to them is still there. The people who love you aren't going anywhere.”

“I don't even know who I was to them, who I am … or who they were to me,” Carole said miserably, and blew her nose on the tissue the nurse handed her. “I feel like a ship went down with everything I owned.”

“It didn't go down. It's out there in the fog somewhere. When the fog clears, you'll find all your stuff, and everyone on the ship. Most of it is just baggage anyway. Maybe you're better off.”

“And what about you?” Carole asked, looking at her. “What am I to you? Am I a good employer? Do I treat you well? Do you like your job? And what kind of life do you have?” She wanted to know who Stevie was as a person, not just in relation to herself. She really cared. Even without her memory, Carole was still the fine woman she had always been, and whom Stevie loved.

“I love my job, and you. Maybe too much. I'd rather work for you than do anything in the world. I love your kids, the work we do together, the causes you speak out for. I like who you are as a human being, which is why I love you so much. You're really a good person, Carole. And a good mom too. Don't let Chloe try to convince you otherwise.” Stevie was upset about that. Chloe had contributed more than her fair share to any problems they had had. She was hard on her mother, and sometimes bitter about the past. Stevie thought she should let it go and that she hadn't been fair to bring it up.

“I'm not so sure Chloe got such a great deal from me,” Carole said quietly, “but I'm glad you think I'm a good person, it's awful not to know. Not to have any idea who you are, or what you've done to people. For all I know, I'm a total shit, and you're being kind to me. I hate not remembering any of it, or who meant what to me in my life. It's scary to think about.” It truly frightened her. It was like flying in the dark. She had no idea when she might hit a wall, just as she had when the bomb went off. “What about your own life?” she asked Stevie then. “Are you married?”

“No. I live with someone,” Stevie said, and paused before she added more.

“Do you love him?” Carole was curious about her. She wanted to know everything, about all of them. She needed to know who they were, and discover who she was.

“Sometimes,” Stevie said honestly. “Not always. I'm not sure what I feel for him, which is why I've never married him. Besides, I'm married to my job. His name is Alan, he's a journalist. He travels a lot, which works for me. What we have is convenient and comfortable. I'm not sure I'd call it love. And when I think about marrying him, it makes me want to run like hell. I've never thought marriage was such a great thing, particularly if I don't want kids.”

“Why don't you? Do you know?”

“I have you,” Stevie teased, and then grew serious again. “I think it's always been a missing piece in my chemistry. I've never felt a need to be a mother. I'm happy the way I am. I have a cat, a dog, a job I love, and a guy I sleep with some of the time. Maybe for me, that's enough. I like to keep things simple.”

“Is it enough for him?” Carole was curious about her, and the life she described. It sounded limited to Carole. Stevie was obviously afraid of something, and Carole couldn't figure out what.

“Probably not in the long run. He says he wants kids. But he can't have them with me,” Stevie said simply. “He's turning forty, and he thinks we should get married. That may do us in. I don't want children. I never did. I made that decision a long time ago. I had a shit childhood myself, and I promised myself I wouldn't do that to someone else. I'm happy being a grown-up, without encumbrances, or someone to bitch at me later on about everything I did wrong. Look at you with Chloe. For what it's worth, I think you've been a great mom to her, and she's pissed off anyway. I never wanted that in my life. I'd rather spend time with my dog. And if I lose Alan because of it, it wasn't meant to be anyway. I told him right from the beginning I didn't want kids, that was fine with him. Now maybe his biological clock is ticking. Mine isn't. I don't have one. I threw mine away years ago. In fact, I was so sure of it, I had my tubes tied when I was in college, and I'm not going to have that undone. I don't want to adopt. I love my life just the way it is.” She sounded absolutely certain of what she was saying, as Carole looked intently at her, trying to sort out what was fear and what was truth. There was a lot of both.

“What happens when something happens to me? I'm older than you are. What if I die? Or when I die, not if. I could have died anytime in the last three weeks. What then? If I'm the most important thing in your life, what happens to you when I go? That's a scary place for you to be in.” It was true, whether Stevie wanted to face it or not.

“It's scary for everyone. What happens when a husband dies? Or a kid? Or your husband leaves you and you wind up alone? We all have to face that sooner or later. Maybe I'll die before you do. Or maybe you'll get mad and fire me one day, if I fuck something up. There are no guarantees in life unless we all jump off a bridge together when we're ninety years old. You take your chances in life. You have to be honest and know what you want. I'm true to myself.

“I was honest with Alan. If he doesn't like that, then he can go. I never lied to him and said I wanted kids. I told him in the beginning that I didn't want to get married and my job meant everything to me. Nothing's changed for me. If he can't live with that, or doesn't like me for it, then he has to go out and find what he wants. It's all any of us can do. Sometimes the pieces only fit for a while.

“That must have happened with you and Jason, or you'd still be married to him. Most things don't last forever. I'm willing to accept that in the scheme of things, and give it my best shot. It's all I can do. And yeah, sometimes Alan plays second fiddle to you, and to my job. Sometimes I play second fiddle to his. It works for me. But maybe not for him. If not, we're history, and it was nice for a while. I'm not looking for Prince Charming or the perfect love story. I just want something practical and real that works for me. For both of us. He's not my prisoner, and I don't want to be his. Marriage feels like that to me.” It was as honest as she'd ever been. Stevie never lied to anyone, and didn't kid herself either. She was practical about everything, her life, her job, her men. It made her solid, real, and nice to be around. Carole could see that. Stevie was totally genuine in every way, and honest to her core.

“Did I feel that way?” Carole asked, looking puzzled again.

“I think you've always been true to yourself too, from what I know. I think you could have taken Jason back, when he came back to you after Paris, and for whatever reason, you didn't. I think you're more willing to compromise than I am, which is why marriage works for you. But I've never known you to sacrifice your values or your principles, or who you are, for anything or anyone. When you believe in something, you see it through till the end. I love that about you. You're willing to stand up for what you believe in, no matter how many times you get knocked down. That's a great trait in a person. Who you are as a human being is what matters most.”

“It's important to me to know I've been a good mother,” Carole said softly. Even without her memory, Carole knew that it was a big piece of who she was.

“You are,” Stevie said with a reassuring look.

“Maybe. I feel like I have a lot to make up to Chloe for. I'm willing to accept that. Maybe I couldn't see that before.” Now that she was starting over, Carole was willing to take a closer look and do things better this time. It was a great gift to have that opportunity, and she wanted to live up to that gift now. At least Anthony seemed satisfied with what he'd gotten from her, or maybe he was just more polite about it. Maybe boys didn't need as much from their moms. But Chloe obviously did, and at least Carole could try to bridge the gap between them. She was longing to try.

They talked until dark that night, about pieces of her life that Stevie knew and remembered, her children, her two husbands, and Carole asked her if there had been a man in Paris while she lived there. Stevie said vaguely that she thought there was. “Whatever happened, it didn't end well. You didn't talk about it much. And when we closed the house, you couldn't wait to leave Paris. You looked stricken the whole time we were there. You didn't see anyone, and the minute you finished giving me instructions, you checked out of the hotel and went back to L.A. Whoever he was, I think you were scared of seeing him again. You weren't involved with anyone seriously for the first five years I worked with you, until you fell in love with Sean. I always had the feeling that you'd been badly burned before. I didn't know if it was Jason or someone else, and I didn't know you well enough to ask.” Now Carole wished she had. There was no other way for her to know.

“And now I have no way to find out,” Carole said sadly. “If there was someone in Paris, he's lost forever in my memory. Maybe it doesn't matter anymore.”

“You were pretty young. You were thirty-five when you came back. And forty when you got involved with Sean. The others I saw you with before him were just window dressing, people you went out with. You were all about your kids, work, and causes then. We spent a year in New York, while you did a play on Broadway. It was fun.”

“I wish I could remember at least some of it,” Carole said, looking frustrated. She couldn't access any of it yet.

“You will,” Stevie said confidently, and then laughed. “Believe me, there's plenty I'd love to forget about my life. My childhood, for instance. What a mess that was. Both my parents were alcoholics. My sister got pregnant at fifteen and wound up in a home for wayward girls. She gave the baby away, had two more she gave away, had a nervous breakdown, and wound up in an institution by the time she was twenty-one. She committed suicide at twenty-three. My family was a nightmare. I barely got out alive. I guess that's why marriage and families don't sound so great to me. Just a lot of heartbreak, head aches, and grief.”

“Not always,” Carole said gently. “I'm sorry. That sounds rough.”

“It was,” Stevie said with a sigh. “I've spent a fortune in therapy to get over it. I think I have, but I'd rather keep my life simple. I'm happy living vicariously through you. It's pretty thrilling working for you.”

“I can't imagine why. It doesn't sound like it to me. I guess the movie stuff must have been exciting. But divorces, dying husbands, heart breaks in Paris. That doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me. More like real life.”

“That's true. None of us escapes it. Even if you're famous, you still have to put up with the same shit we all do, or maybe more. You handle your fame amazingly well. You're incredibly discreet.”

“That's something at least. Thank God for that. Am I religious?” she asked, curious about that.

“Not very. A little bit around the time Sean was dying and just afterward. Otherwise you don't go to church much. You grew up Catholic, but I think you're spiritual more than formally religious. You live it, you're a good person. You don't have to go to church for that.” She had become the mirror for Carole, to show her who she had been and who she was.

“I think I'd like to go to church when I get out of the hospital. I have a lot to say thank you for.”

“So do I,” Stevie said, smiling at her. She said good-night to her then, and went back to the hotel, thinking about all they'd said that day. Carole was exhausted by it, and sound asleep in her room before Stevie got back to the hotel. It took an incredible amount of energy, trying to rebuild a life that had vanished into thin air.

Chapter 9

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the family came to visit Carole briefly, but she was still tired from the day before. Her long conversation with Stevie, asking her a million questions about her life, her history, herself, had left her drained. They could all see that she needed rest, and they only stayed for a short time. She was asleep again before they left the room, and Stevie felt guilty she hadn't cut it short the previous afternoon, but there was so much Carole wanted to know.

Chloe and Anthony planned to go to Deauville on Sunday for the day, and convinced Stevie to go with them. It sounded like fun to her, and Jason had mentioned to her that he wanted some time alone with Carole. She was feeling better again after resting the day before. And she was happy to have Jason to herself. There was much she wanted to know from him too, so many details of the life they had once shared.

He arrived in her room, kissed her cheek, and sat down. They talked about their children at first, and what good people they were. He said Chloe seemed excited about her first job. And that Anthony was working hard for him in New York, which was hardly surprising.

“He's always been a terrific kid,” Jason said proudly. “Responsible, kind. He was a great student. He played varsity basketball in college. He sailed right through adolescence. He was always crazy about you.” Jason smiled tenderly at her. “He thinks you walk on water. He used to go to every one of your movies about three or four times. He went to one of them ten times, and took all his friends. We showed your latest picture at his birthday party every year. That's what he wanted. I don't think he's ever had a minute of resentment in his life. He just takes things as they come, and if something bad happens, he makes the best of it. It's a fantastic trait to have. He's got a great attitude about life and always comes out on top. In a funny way, I think your being busy was good for him. It made him resourceful, and very independent. I can't say the same for Chloe. I think your career was hard for her when she was little. Chloe is always hungry, and wants more than she's got. For Chloe, the glass is never even half full. For Anthony, it's overflowing. It's funny how different children of the same parents can be.”

“Was I gone most of the time?” Carole asked, looking worried.

“No. But you were gone a lot. You took Chloe with you on location many times. More than I thought you should. You would pull her out of school and take a tutor. But even that didn't help. Chloe is just very needy. She always was.”

“Maybe she has a right to be,” Carole said fairly. “I don't see how I could make all those movies, and still be a good mother.” The thought of that appeared to genuinely upset her. Jason tried to reassure her.

“You managed. Pretty damn well, in fact. I think you're a terrific mother, not just a good one.”

“Not if my daughter, our daughter,” she corrected with a smile, “is unhappy.”

“She's not unhappy. She just needs a lot of attention. Meeting her needs is a full-time project, if you let it. No one can stop everything they're doing and focus all their attention on a child. When we were married, I'd have wanted some of that myself. Yes, you were busy when they were small, but you paid a lot of attention to both of them, especially between films. There were a couple of rough years, right around the time you won your Oscars, when you were making movies back to back. But even then you took them with you. You made an epic in France, and had them with you the whole time. Carole, if you'd been a doctor or a lawyer, it would have been worse. I know women who have normal jobs, some of them on Wall Street for instance, who never spend time with their kids. You always did. I think Chloe just wanted a full-time mom, who never worked, stayed home baking cookies with her on weekends, and did nothing else but drive car pool. And how boring would that be?”

“Maybe not so boring,” Carole said sadly, “if it was what she needed. Why didn't I give up acting when we got married?” It sounded sensible to her now, but Jason laughed and shook his head.

“I don't think you understand yet how big a star you are. Your career was skyrocketing when I met you, and it just got hotter. You're way up there, Carole. It would have been a shame for you to give up a career like that. It's an incredible accomplishment to achieve what you have, and you even manage to support causes that are important to you, and the world, and put your name to good use. And you still managed to be a good mother. I think that's why Anthony is so proud of you. We all are. I think Chloe would have felt she got short shrift no matter what. It's just the way she is. Maybe it's how she gets what she wants, or needs. Believe me, neither of your children was ever neglected or unloved. Far from it.”

“I just wish Chloe felt better about it. She looks so sad when she talks about her childhood.” It made Carole feel guilty even though she didn't know what she'd done, or hadn't.

“She goes to a therapist,” he said quietly. “She has for the past year. She'll get over all that. Maybe this accident will finally make her realize how lucky she is to have you. You're a four-star mother.” And even now, with no memory, she was worried about her children, and grateful for his reassurance. As she listened to him, she was wondering if Chloe would like it if she went to London for a few weeks, once she was better. It might show her that her mother truly cared about her, and wanted to spend time with her.

She couldn't recapture the past or rewrite history, but she could at least try to do things better in the future. It was clear that Chloe felt she had been cheated as a child. And maybe this was Carole's chance to make it up to her, and give her what she felt she'd never had. She was willing to do that. She had nothing more important on her agenda. The book she'd been trying to write, if she could ever get back to it, could wait. Her priorities were different, since the bomb. It had been one hell of a wake-up call, and a last chance to do things right. She wanted to seize that opportunity while there was still time.

They talked about a variety of subjects for a while, and then she looked at him quietly as he sat in the chair where Stevie had sat the day before, telling her about her life. She wanted to know his part too.

“What happened to us?” Carole asked, looking sad. Their story obviously hadn't had a happy ending, if they got divorced.

“Wow… that's a big question …” He wasn't sure she was ready to hear it all, but she said she was. She needed to know who they had been, what had happened to them, and why they had gotten divorced, as well as what had happened since. She knew about Sean now, from Stevie, but she knew very little about her life with Jason, except that they had been married for ten years, lived in New York, and had two kids. The rest was a mystery to her. Stevie knew none of the details, and Carole wouldn't have dared to ask her kids, who were probably too young at the time to know what had happened anyway.

“I'm not sure, to be honest with you,” he answered finally. “I tried to figure it out for years. I guess the easiest answer is that I had a midlife crisis, and you had a major career. Both of those elements collided and blew us up. But it was more complicated than that. It was great at the beginning. You were already a star when I married you. You were twenty-two and I was thirty-one. I'd been lucky on Wall Street for about five years by then, and I wanted to back a movie. There was no great financial benefit to it, it just sounded like fun. I was a kid myself, and I wanted to meet pretty girls. Nothing much deeper to it than that. I met Mike Appelsohn at a meeting in New York, he was a big producer then, and had been acting as your agent since he discovered you. He still does.” He filled her in. “He invited me to L.A., he was putting together a deal. So I went, put my name on the dotted line to finance a film, and I met you.

“You were the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen in my life, and on top of it, you were nice. You were sweet and young and innocent. And still very southern then. You had been in Hollywood for four years, and you were still this adorable, innocent kid, and already a big star. It was like all that stardom and fame hadn't touched you. You were the same decent, warm, honest person you must have been growing up on your dad's farm in Mississippi. You still had a southern accent then. I loved that too. And then Mike had you get rid of it. I always missed it. It was part of the sweetness I loved about you. You really were just a kid. I fell head over heels in love with you, and so did you, with me.

“I flew out a dozen times while you were making the movie, just to see you. We wound up all over the tabloids and the trades. Wall Street Whiz Kid Courts Hollywood's Hottest Star. You were the real deal. You were about as glamorous as it gets.” He smiled at her then. “You still are,” he said generously. “I just wasn't used to it then. I don't think I ever got used to it. I used to wake up in the morning and pinch myself, unable to believe I was married to Carole Barber. How much better could it get?

“We got married six months after we met, when you finished the film. At first you said you were too young to get married, and you probably were. I talked you into it, and you were honest. You said you weren't ready to give up your career. You wanted to make movies. You were having a ball, and so was I being with you. I've never had so much fun in my life as we did then.

“Mike flew us to Vegas one weekend in his plane, and we got married. He was our witness, along with some girlfriend of yours at the time. She was your roommate, and I can't for the life of me remember her name. She was the bridesmaid. And you were the most gorgeous bride I've ever seen. You borrowed a dress from Wardrobe from some nineteen-thirties movie. You looked like a queen.

“We went to Mexico for our honeymoon. We spent two weeks in Acapulco, and then you went back to work. You were doing about three movies a year then. That's a hell of a lot. The studios had you cranking them out one after the other, with big stars, big names, major producers, and turning down scripts as fast as they came in. You were an industry unto yourself. I've never seen anything like it. You were the hottest star in the world, and I was married to you. We were in the press constantly. That's heady stuff for two young kids, and I guess it gets old eventually. But it didn't for you. You loved every minute, and who could blame you? You were the darling of the world, the most desirable woman on the planet … and belonged to me.

“You were on location most of the time, and between pictures, we lived in New York together. We got a great apartment on Park Avenue. And whenever I could, I'd fly out to see you on location. We actually saw a lot of each other. We talked about having babies, but there was no time. There was always another film to do. And then Anthony came along. He was kind of a surprise, and we'd been married for two years by then. You took about six months off, as soon as it started to show, and went back to work when he was three weeks old. You were doing a movie in England, you took him with you, with a nanny. You were over there for five months, and I came over every couple of weeks. It was a crazy way to live, but your career was too hot to put a damper on, and you were too young to want to quit. I totally understood. You actually took a few months off when you were pregnant with Chloe. Anthony was three years old. You took him to the park, like all the other moms. I loved it. Being married to you was like playing house, with a movie star. The most beautiful woman in the world was mine.” He still had stars in his eyes when he said it, as Carole watched him from her bed, wondering why she hadn't slowed down. He didn't seem to question that as much as she did. Her career didn't seem as important now, to her anyway. But it had been then. He made that clear.

“Anyway, a year after Chloe was born, when Anthony was five, you got pregnant again. A real accident this time, and we were both upset. I was building my business and working like crazy, you were working like a dog on movie sets all over the world. Anthony and Chloe seemed enough then, but we went ahead with it. But you lost the baby. You were devastated, and I actually was too. I'd gotten used to the idea by then of a third child. You'd been on a set in Africa doing your own stunt work, which seemed crazy, and had a miscarriage. They made you go back to work four weeks later. You had a miserable contract, and two pictures backed up behind it. It was a constant merry-go-round. Two years later you won your first Oscar, and the pressure only got worse. I think something happened then, not to you, but to me.

“You were still young. You were thirty when you got the Oscar. I was turning forty, and I never admitted it to myself then, but I think I was pissed off having a wife who was more successful than I was. You were making a goddamn fortune, everyone in the world knew you. And I think I was tired of dealing with the press, the gossip, everyone looking at you every time we walked into a room. It was never about me, always about you. That gets old, or it's hard on a guy's ego. Maybe I wanted to be a star too, what do I know? I just wanted a normal life, a wife, two kids, a house in Connecticut, maybe Maine in the summer. Instead I was flying all over the world to see you, you either had our kids with you, or I had them, and you were miserable without them. We started fighting a lot. I wanted you to quit, but I didn't have the balls to tell you, so I took it out on you. I hardly saw you, and when we did, we were fighting. And then you won another Oscar two years later, and I think that did it. That was the end. I felt hopeless after that. I knew you were never going to quit, not for a long time anyway. You signed on to do a picture for eight months in Paris, and I was pissed out of my mind. I should have told you, but I didn't. I don't think you knew what was going on with me. You were too busy to think about it, and I never told you how upset I was. You were making movies, trying to keep our kids with you on the set, and flying around to see me whenever you had a couple of days off to do it. Your heart was in the right place. There just weren't enough days in the year to do everything you wanted to do, your career, our kids, and me. Maybe you'd have quit then if I'd asked you. Who knows? But I didn't ask.” He looked at her then with regret for not having asked her to quit. It had taken Jason years to acquire the insights he had now, and he was sharing them all with Carole.

He went on with a somber look as Carole watched him, intent and silent. She didn't want to interrupt him. “I started drinking and going to parties then, and I'll admit, I got out of line at times. I wound up in the tabloids more than once, and you never complained about it. You asked me what was going on a couple of times, and I said I was just playing, which was true. You tried to come home more often, but once you started the movie in Paris, you were stuck there, you were shooting six days a week. Anthony was eight, so you put him in school there, Chloe was four, she was in kindergarten part-time and the rest of the time you had her on the set with you, with the nanny. And I started acting like a bachelor at home. Like a fool actually.” He looked genuinely embarrassed as he looked at his ex-wife and she smiled at him.

“It sounds like we were both young and foolish,” she said generously. “It must have been miserable being married to someone who was gone most of the time, and worked so much.”

He nodded, grateful for what she said. “It was hard. The more I think about it, the more I know I should have asked you to quit, or at least slow down. But with two Oscars under your belt, you were zooming. I didn't feel I had the right to screw up your career, so I screwed up our marriage instead, and just so you know, I'll always regret it. I've never told you that before, but it's how I feel.”

Carole was listening quietly and nodded. She appreciated his honesty. She remembered none of it, but she was grateful for his honesty, even about himself. He seemed like a genuinely kind man. It was fascinating as their story unfolded. As always now, it sounded like someone else's life and sparked no visual memory in her head. As she listened she kept wondering why she herself hadn't had the brains to quit and save their marriage, but listening to it was like hearing about an avalanche that couldn't have been stopped. The early warning signs had been there, but apparently her career had been too powerful then. It was a force unto itself, with a life of its own. She could see now how their problems had happened, and so could he. It was a shame they hadn't done something about it then, but neither of them had. She had been oblivious, wrapped up in the excitement of her career, and he had been resentful and concealed it from her, eaten up inside, and eventually took it out on her. It had taken years for him to acknowledge that, even to himself. It was classic, and tragic to hear it. She was sorry that she hadn't been wiser then. But she'd been young, if that was an adequate excuse.

“You left for Paris with the kids. You landed a great role playing Marie Antoinette. It was one of those major epics. And a week after you left, I went to a party, given by Hugh Hefner. I've never seen such beautiful girls in my life, almost as beautiful as you.” He smiled ruefully at her, and she smiled back. It was sad to listen to. The end was predictable. No surprises here. She knew how the movie had turned out, and they didn't live happily ever after, or he wouldn't be telling her this story.

“They weren't women like you. You were always decent, kind, and sincere, and good to me. You worked constantly, and you were gone a lot, but you were a good woman, Carole. You always have been. These girls were a different breed. Cheap gold-diggers, pros some of them, wannabe starlets, models, tramps. I was married to the real thing. These girls were showy fakes, and they worked the crowd like magic. I met a Russian supermodel named Natalya. She was making a big splash in New York then. Everyone knew her. She had come out of nowhere, from Moscow, via Paris, and she was after the big bucks, in every way. Mine and everyone else's. I think she'd been the mistress of some playboy in Paris, I forget now. In any case, she's had plenty of guys like that since then. She's currently married to her fourth husband, in Hong Kong. I think he's Brazilian, and an arms dealer or something, but he has a shitload of money. He pretends to be a banker, but I think he's in much rougher trade than that. Anyway, she blew my socks off. To be honest, I drank too much, did a little coke someone handed me, and wound up in bed with her. We weren't at Hefner's place by then. We were on someone's yacht in the Hudson River. It was a racy crowd. I was forty-one, she was twenty-one. You were thirty-two, and working in Paris, trying to be a good mom, even if you were an absentee wife. I don't think you ever cheated on me. I don't think it crossed your mind, and you didn't have time. You had a lily-white reputation in Hollywood, but I can't say the same for me.

“I wound up all over the tabloids with her. I think she saw to that. We had a torrid affair, which you politely ignored, which was gracious beyond belief. And she got pregnant two weeks after I met her. She refused to have an abortion, and wanted to get married. She told me she loved me, and wanted to give up everything for me, her career, modeling, her country, her life, and stay home and raise our kids. Music to my ears. I was ready for a full-time wife by then, and you weren't ready to do that, or likely to, from what I could see. Who knew? I never asked you. I just lost my mind over her.

“She was having my baby. I wanted more kids, and having Chloe had been too hard on you. Besides, given your schedule, it would have been crazy for us to have more kids. It was hard enough dragging two kids all over the world, even I couldn't see you doing it with three or four, and Anthony was getting older. And I wanted my kids at home with me. Don't ask me how, but she convinced me that marriage was the best solution, for her. We were going to be a cozy little couple with a bunch of babies. I bought a house in Greenwich, and called a lawyer. I think I lost my mind. Classic midlife crisis. Wall Street financier goes nuts, and destroys his life, and fucks over his wife. I flew to Paris and told you I was divorcing you. I never saw anyone cry like that in my life. For about five minutes, I wondered what I was doing. I spent the night with you, and almost came to my senses. Our kids were adorable and I didn't want to make them or you unhappy. And then she called me. She was like a witch, weaving a spell, and it worked.

“I went back to New York, and filed the divorce. You asked for nothing except child support. You were making plenty of money on your own, and you had too much pride to take anything from me. I told you Natalya was pregnant, and I think it damn near killed you. I was the cruelest sonofabitch I've ever known. I think I was getting even for every minute of your success, or every second you didn't spend with me. Six months later I was married to her, and you were still in Paris. You wouldn't speak to me, understandably. I came over a couple of times to see the kids, and you had them delivered to me at the Ritz by the nanny. It was total blackout from you. In fact, you didn't speak to me directly for two years, only through lawyers, secretaries, and nannies. You had a lot of all three. The bad joke was that two and a half years later, when you moved to L.A., you slowed down your career to a dull roar. You were still making movies, but fewer, and spending time with the kids. I could have lived with that, a lot better than your earlier pace. I never knew you'd do that. But I didn't have the balls to wait it out or ask you.

“Natalya had the baby two days after I married her, and another one a year later. She gave up her modeling career for those two years, and then told me she was bored to death. She left me and went back to modeling. She left the kids with me for a while, and then took them. She met some fabulously rich playboy, divorced me, and married him, and took me to the cleaners in the process. Don't ask me why, but I didn't bother to get a prenup. So she cashed in her chips and moved on. I didn't even see those kids for five years. She wouldn't let me. They were out of our jurisdiction, and she was floating all over Europe and South America, collecting husbands. It was basically high-end prostitution, and she's terrific at it. And meanwhile, I had destroyed you and our marriage.

“When you moved back to L.A., I kind of waited for the dust to settle, and eventually I came out to see you, allegedly to see the kids, but I came to see you. You had calmed down, and I told you what had happened. I was honest with you, and told you the truth as I saw it. I don't think I had the insight then that I have now, that I was jealous of your career and your stardom. I asked you to give it a shot with me again. I said it was for the kids' sake, but it was for mine. I still loved you. I still do,” he said simply. “I always have.

“I went totally nuts with that Russian girl. But you no longer wanted me when I asked you. I don't blame you. It doesn't get much worse than that. You were polite, gracious, and you very nicely told me to get fucked, in so many words. You said it was over for you, and I had destroyed all the feelings you'd had for me, that you had truly loved me, and you were sorry that your career had upset me so much, and you were gone so often. You said you would have slowed down if I asked you, although I'm not entirely sure that's true, in the early years anyway. You had a good head of steam up, and it would have been hard to let that go, at that point.

“So I went back to New York, and you stayed in L.A. Eventually, we got to be friends. The kids grew up. And we did too. You married Sean about four years after I came out to see you, and I was happy for you. He really was a good guy, and great to our kids. I was sad for you when he died. You deserved a man like that, a really good one, not a shit like I'd been to you. And then he died. I felt awful for you. And now here we are, we're friends. I'll be turning sixty next year. I've been smart enough never to marry again since Natalya. She lives in Hong Kong, and I see the girls twice a year. They treat me like a stranger, which I am. She's still beautiful, after a lot of surgery. Shit, she's only thirty-nine years old. The girls are seventeen and eighteen and very exotic looking. The child support I still pay for them could finance a small nation, but they have a pretty racy lifestyle. They're both modeling now. And Chloe and Anthony have never met them, which is probably just as well.

“So here we are. I'm sort of part brother, part friend, an ex-husband who still loves you, and I think you have a good life on your own. I've never had the feeling you regretted not coming back to me and giving me another chance, particularly once you met Sean. You don't need me, Carole. You have your own money, which I invested pretty well for you a long time ago, and you still ask me for advice now. We love each other in an odd way. I'll always be there for you, if you need me. And I suspect you'd do the same for me. It'll never be more than that now, but I have some incredible memories with you. I'll never forget them. I'm sad for you that you don't have that now, because we had some wonderful times. I hope you'll remember them again one day. I cherish every moment we spent together, and I'll never stop regretting the pain I put you through. I paid in spades for it, which I deserved.”

He had made a full confession to her, and listening to him, Carole was deeply touched. “I hope you forgive me one day. I think you already had. Long ago. There's no bitterness in our friendship now, no sharp edges. It all wore smooth over time, in part because of who you are. You have an enormous heart, you were a good wife to me, and you're a terrific mother to our kids. I'm grateful to you for that.” He fell silent then, and watched her, as she looked at him with deep compassion.

“You've been through a lot,” she said kindly. “Thank you for sharing all that with me. I'm sorry I wasn't smart enough to be the wife you needed me to be. We do such stupid things in our youth.” She felt very old after listening to him. The story had taken two hours to tell. She was tired, but she had a lot to think about. Nothing he had said had jarred her memory, but she had the strong impression he had tried to be fair, to both of them. The only one who had been lambasted in the tale was the Russian supermodel, but it sounded as though she deserved it. He had picked himself a major lemon, and he knew it. She was a dangerous young woman. Carole never had been, and had always tried to be loving and honest with him. He had made that clear to her. She had little to reproach herself for except working too hard and being away too often.

“I'm grateful you're still alive, Carole,” he said gently to her before he left, and she could tell he meant it. “It would have broken my heart, and our kids', if that bomb had killed you. I hope you get your memory back. But even if you don't, we all love you.”

“I know,” she said softly. She'd had proof of that from all of them, even him, though they were no longer married. “I love you too,” she said softly. He bent to kiss her cheek and then was gone.

He added something to her life, not just memories and information about the past, but a tender friendship that had a flavor all its own.

Chapter 10

After the Thanksgiving weekend, Jason and Anthony announced that they needed to go back to New York. And Chloe felt she had to get back to her job. Jake had also called her several times. There was nothing anyone could do for Carole, and they all knew she was out of danger. The rest of her recovery process was liable to be slow, and was a matter of time.

The children were coming to Los Angeles for Christmas, and she was expected to be out of the hospital and able to fly home by then, in another month. Carole invited Jason to join them for the holidays, and he accepted gratefully. It was an odd arrangement, but they felt like a family again, in some form. He was taking the kids to St. Bart's over New Year's after all, and invited her to come along, but she couldn't travel after she got back to L.A. The doctors didn't recommend it. She was still too fragile, and it was confusing for her. She wasn't walking yet, and with no memory, everything she did was harder work. She wanted to stay home once she got there. But she didn't want to deprive her children of the trip with their father. They had all been through so much since Carole's accident. She knew the vacation would be good for them.

Jason spent an hour alone with Carole on his last night in Paris, and said he knew it was too soon to talk about it, but he wondered if, once she recovered, she would be open to trying things with him again. She hesitated, still remembering none of their history, and she knew she had feelings of deep affection for him. She was grateful for the time he had just spent in Paris, and could see the good man he was. But she felt nothing more for him, and doubted that she would in time. She didn't want to lead him on, or encourage him to hope for something she couldn't give him. She had to concentrate on getting well now, becoming whole again, and she wanted to spend time with her children. She was in no condition to think about a man. And it sounded like their history was too complicated. They had come to a good place before her accident, and she didn't want to spoil or risk that again.

There were tears in her eyes when she answered him. “I'm not even sure I know why yet, but I have the feeling that we'd both be smarter to leave things as they are. I don't know much about my life yet, but I know I love you. And I'm sure it was devastating when we broke up. But something has kept us apart since then, even if I don't remember what. I married someone else, and everyone tells me I was happy with him. You must have had other people in your life too, I'm sure we both did. And I can feel the strength we share, and the power of loving you and being loved by you as a friend. We have our children to bind us together forever. I wouldn't want to mess any of that up, or hurt you.

“I must have fallen short somehow, or disappointed you, for you to go off with someone else. I treasure the love we have now, as parents of the same children and as friends. I don't want to lose that for anything in the world, or do anything to jeopardize it. Something tells me that trying to revive our marriage would be very high-risk, and maybe disastrous for both of us. If it's okay with you”—she smiled tenderly at him—“I'd like to keep things like this. It seems like we have a winning formula now, without adding anything to it. If I manage not to get blown to bits again, I'll be here for you forever. I hope that's enough for you, Jason. To me, what we have seems like an incredible gift. I don't want to screw that up.” She just didn't have romantic feelings for him, no matter how handsome and kind he was, or how much in love with her. She didn't feel that for him in the present tense, although she was sure she had years before. But no longer. She was certain of it.

“I was afraid you'd say something like that,” he said sadly. “And maybe you're right. I asked you the same question after Natalya and I got divorced, once you moved back to L.A. You gave me pretty much the same answer, although I think you were still angry at me then. You had every right to be. I was a sonofabitch when I left you, and I deserved everything I got, in spades. The follies of youth … or in my case, middle age. I don't have any right to what I just asked you, I just had to give it another shot. And I'll be here for you too, forever. You can count on me, Carole. I hope you know that.”

“I just did,” she said, with tears brimming in her eyes. He had been incredible ever since her accident. “I love you, Jason, in the very, very best way.”

“Me too,” he said, and they kissed chastely across her bed. In the end, keeping things the way they were felt right to her. And even to him. He had seen a flicker of hope for an instant, or wished he did, and wanted to ask her. If there was a chance, he didn't want to miss it. And if not, he loved her anyway. He always had. He was sad to be leaving Paris. Despite the circumstances, he had enjoyed spending time with her. And he knew he would miss her again when he left. But they'd be spending Christmas together at least, in

L.A. with their kids.

Stevie was planning to stay in Paris with Carole until she flew back to L.A., no matter how long it took. She had spoken to Alan several times, and he was understanding about her staying in Paris. For once, it made sense to him that she was there with Carole. He was supportive of the stress she was going through, and didn't complain. Stevie loved him for it. There were times when Alan really was a good guy, no matter how different their needs and goals were, or their views about marriage.

Anthony came to see his mother at the hospital before he left for New York, spent an hour with her, and told her, as Jason had, how grateful he was that she'd survived. Chloe had said the same thing to her, when she came to say goodbye to her mother an hour before, on her way to the airport. They were all so deeply relieved that she was alive.

“Try to stay out of trouble, at least for a little while, until I get home. No more crazy trips like this on your own. At least take Stevie with you next time.” Anthony wasn't sure it would have changed anything, if she'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the thought that he had almost lost his mother in a bomb blast in Paris still made him shudder. “Thanks for inviting Dad to spend Christmas with us. That was nice of you.” He knew that otherwise his father would have been alone. There hadn't been an important woman in his life for quite some time. And it was the first holiday the four of them would be spending together in eighteen years. The last one they had shared as a foursome was a dim memory for him, and he wasn't sure it would happen again after this year, so it meant a lot to him, and to his father as well.

“I'll behave,” Carole promised, looking proudly at her son. Even though she no longer remembered the details of his childhood, it was easy to see he was a fine young man, just as his father had said. And his love for his mother shone brightly in his eyes, as did hers for him.

They both cried when they hugged for the last time, even though she knew she'd be seeing him again soon. She cried easily now, and everything seemed more emotional to her. She had so much to learn and absorb. It was truly like being reborn.

As Anthony was about to leave her room, after they hugged, a man walked in. It was the tall, erect Frenchman who had visited her before and brought her flowers. She could never remember his name, and what remained of her French eluded her completely. She could understand what the doctors and nurses said around her, but she couldn't answer them in French. It was hard enough speaking English again, and remembering all her words. She was speaking well now, but speaking French was still beyond her.

Anthony seemed to freeze where he stood, and the Frenchman looked at Anthony with a small smile and a nod. She could see that her son recognized him, as Anthony's whole body appeared to stiffen and the look in his eyes was one of ice. Clearly, he was not happy to see this man. The Frenchman had said he was a friend of the family and knew her children, so she wasn't surprised that they recognized each other. But she was upset to see that Anthony looked shocked.

“Hello, Anthony,” Matthieu said quietly. “It's been a long time.”

“What are you doing here?” Anthony said unpleasantly. He hadn't seen him since he was a child. He glanced at his mother protectively, as Carole watched them, trying to understand.

“I came to see your mother. I've been here several times.” There was a distinct chill between the two men, and Carole had no idea why.

“Does she remember you?” Anthony asked coldly.

“No, she doesn't,” Matthieu answered for her. But Anthony remembered him only too well, and how much he had made his mother cry. He had forgotten it until now. He hadn't seen him in fifteen years, but he remembered as if it had been yesterday how devastated she had been when she told him and Chloe they were leaving Paris. She had cried as though her heart would break, and he had never forgotten it.

Anthony had liked Matthieu before that, a lot in fact. He had played soccer with him, but he hated him when he watched his mother cry, and she told him why. It was Matthieu who had made her cry. And he remembered now that there had been tears before that. For many months. He had been happy to go back to the States, but not to see his mother so distraught when they left. As he recalled, she had been sad for a long time, even once they were back in L.A. He knew she had sold the house eventually and said they were never going back. It didn't matter to Anthony by then, although he had made good friends there. But he knew it mattered to his mother, and if she had had her memory, it might matter to her even now. It worried Anthony considerably to see Matthieu in her room.

Matthieu had an air about him that said he had the right to do anything he wanted. He hesitated at nothing, expected people to listen to him, and do as he wished. Anthony remembered not liking that about him when he was a child. Matthieu had sent him to his room once for being rude to his mother, and Anthony had shouted at her that he wasn't his dad. Matthieu had apologized to him later, but Anthony could still sense his air of authority as he stood in the room, as though he belonged there. He didn't, and it was obvious to her son that Carole still had no idea who he was.

“I'll only stay a few minutes,” Matthieu said politely, as Anthony came to hug his mother again and looked fiercely protective of her. He wanted Matthieu out of her room, and life, forever.

“I'll see you soon, Mom,” he promised. “Take care. I'll call you from New York.” He said the last words glancing at Matthieu, and hated to leave him in the room with her. There wasn't much he could do to her, she didn't remember him, and there was a nurse with her at all times. But Anthony didn't like it anyway. He had left her life years before, after causing her immense pain. There was no reason for him to come back, at least in her son's eyes. And she was so vulnerable now. It tore at her son's heart.

Carole looked at Matthieu, after her son left the room, with a question in her eyes. “He remembered you,” she said, watching him. There was no mistaking the fact that her son disliked this man. “Why doesn't he like you?” She had to rely on others to supply the things she should have known herself, and more important, she had to rely on them to tell the truth, as Jason had. She admired him for that, and knew it had been hard. Matthieu looked far more guarded and less inclined to expose himself to her. She had the feeling that he was being cautious when he came to visit her. She had also seen the nurses react. It was obvious they knew this man, and more than ever, she wondered who he was. She wanted to ask Anthony about him when he called.

“He was a little boy when I last saw him,” Matthieu said with a sigh as he sat down. “He saw the world with a child's eyes then. He was always very protective of you. He was a wonderful boy.” She knew that much herself. “I made you unhappy, Carole.” There was no point denying it to her. The boy would tell her, although he didn't know the whole story. Only he and Carole did, and he was not yet ready to tell her. He didn't want to love her again, and was afraid he would. “Our lives were very complicated. We met while you were making a movie in Paris, right after your husband left you. And we fell in love.” He said it with eyes filled with longing and regret. He loved her still. She could see it in his eyes. It was different from what she saw in Jason's eyes. The Frenchman was more intense, and grim in some ways. He almost frightened her, but not quite. Jason had a warmth and gentleness Matthieu didn't. He affected her strangely. She couldn't decide if she was afraid of him, trusted him, or even liked him. There was an air of mystery to him, and smoldering passion. Whatever had existed between them years before, the embers had not yet gone out for him, and it stirred something in her as well. She couldn't remember him. But she felt something for him and couldn't identify what it was, if it was fear, or love. She still had no idea who he was, and unlike the nurses, she did not recognize his name. He was just a man who said that they had been in love. And like the others, she remembered him not at all. She had no sense of who he was, neither good nor bad. All she had were the unidentifiable feelings he aroused in her, which made her feel uncomfortable, but she had no idea why. None at all. Everything she had ever known or felt for him was beyond her reach.

“What happened after we fell in love?” Carole asked him as Stevie walked into the room, and seemed surprised to see him. Carole introduced them, and then with a questioning look Stevie walked out again, to wait in the hall. She told Carole she'd be nearby. It was comforting to Carole to know that she was. Although she knew he couldn't hurt her, she felt almost naked being alone in the room with him. His eyes never lost their grip on hers.

“Many things happened. You were the love of my life. I want to talk to you about it, but not now.”

“Why not?” His secretiveness worried her. He was holding back, which seemed ominous to her.

“Because there is too much to tell in a short time. I was hoping that you'd remember once you were conscious again, but I can see that you don't. I'd like to come another day, and talk to you about it.” And then he startled her by what he said next. “We lived together for two years.”

“We did?” She was stunned. “Were we married?” He smiled and shook his head. She was finding husbands everywhere. Jason. Sean. Now this man, who said he had lived with her. Not just an admirer, but a man she had obviously been committed to. No one had told her about him. Perhaps they didn't know. But clearly, Anthony did, and his reaction was not good, which said a lot to her. This had not been a happy story, and since they were not together, obviously had not ended well.

“No, we were not. I wanted to marry you, and you wanted to marry me. We couldn't. I had family complications, and a difficult job. It wasn't the right time.” Timing was everything. It had been the case with Jason too. It was all Matthieu wanted to say for now. He stood up then, and promised to come back. She wasn't sure she wanted him to. Perhaps this was a story she would rather not know. The room seemed filled with sadness and regret as he spoke, and then he smiled. He had eyes that dug down deep into her, and she remembered something about him, but she had no idea what. She didn't want him to come back, but didn't have the courage to say it. If he did, she was going to keep Stevie with her, to protect her. She felt as though she needed someone to shield her from him. He frightened her. There was something incredibly powerful about him.

He stooped to kiss her hand as she watched. He was formal in his manner, very proper, and yet at the same time very bold. He was in the room of a woman who didn't remember him, and yet he told her that they had loved each other, lived together, and wanted to get married. And when he watched her, she could sense the desire he still felt for her.

Stevie came back into the room as soon as he left.

“Who is that man?” she asked, looking uncomfortable, and Carole said she didn't know. “Maybe he's the mysterious Frenchman who broke your heart that you never talked to me about,” Stevie said with interest, and Carole laughed.

“God, they're really coming out of the woodwork, aren't they? Husbands, boyfriends, French mystery men. He said we lived together and wanted to get married, and I don't remember him any better than anyone else. Maybe in this case, it's nice having a clean slate. He seems a little odd to me.”

“He's just French. They're all a little strange,” Stevie said unkindly, “and so damn intense. That's not my style.”

“I don't think it's mine either. But maybe it was then.”

“Maybe that's who you lived in the little house with, the one you sold when I first came to work.”

“Maybe so. Anthony looked furious to see him. And he admitted he made me very unhappy,” Carole said with a pensive look.

“At least he's honest about that.”

“I wish I remembered some of it,” Carole said, looking ill at ease.

“Has any of it come back?”

“No. Absolutely nothing. The stories are fascinating, but it's like listening to someone else's life. From what I can gather, I worked way too hard and was never at home with my husband. I lost him to a twenty-one-year-old supermodel who dumped him after he dumped me. Apparently, right after that, I fell in love with this Frenchman, who made me miserable and whom my son hated. And then I married a lovely man who died way too young, and now here I am.” There was a spark of humor in her eyes as she said it, and Stevie smiled.

“Sounds like an interesting life. I wonder if there was anyone else?” She sounded almost hopeful, and Carole looked horrified.

“I hope not! This is already way too much for me. I'm worn out thinking about these three. And my kids.” She was still worried about Chloe and what she felt her daughter hadn't gotten and still needed from her. That was her first priority for now. Jason was no longer an issue although she loved him, Sean was gone, and whoever the French man was, she had no interest in him, other than curiosity about what he'd meant to her. But she somehow suspected she was better off not knowing. It didn't sound good to her. She didn't want painful memories to add to the rest. The story Jason had told her of their life was enough. She could well imagine that she had been devastated at the time. And then the Frenchman had made her unhappy too. It must have been an awful time in her life, it was easy to figure that much out. Thank God for Sean. The reviews on him seemed to be unanimously good. And she'd lost him too. It didn't sound to her as though she'd been lucky with the men in her life, only her kids.

Stevie got her out of bed then, with the help of the nurse. They wanted her to practice walking.

She was amazed at how hard it was. It was as though her legs had forgotten how to do their job. She felt like a toddler as she stumbled and fell, and had to learn how to pick herself up. And then finally her motor memory seemed to kick in and she walked unsteadily down the halls with Stevie and a nurse on either side. Learning to walk again was hard work too. It all was. She was exhausted every day by nightfall and asleep before Stevie left the room.

Anthony did as he had promised and called her from New York as soon as he arrived. He was still furious about Matthieu.

“He has no business visiting you, Mom. He broke your heart. That's why we left France.”

“What did he do?” Carole asked, but Anthony's memories were those of a child.

“He was mean to you and made you cry.” It sounded so simple, she smiled.

“He can't hurt me now,” she reassured her son.

“I'll kill him if he does.” He no longer remembered the details himself, but the residual feelings were still strong. “Tell him to get lost.”

“I promise, if he's mean to me, I'll have him thrown out.” But she wanted to know more.

Two days after Jason and Anthony left, Mike Appelsohn said he was coming to Paris to see her. He had been calling every day and talking to Stevie. She told him Carole was strong enough to see him, although she was coming back to L.A. in a few weeks and he could see her there. He said he didn't want to wait, and took a plane from L.A. He was in Paris the next day, after weeks of being worried sick about her. She was like a daughter to him and had been since they met, when she was eighteen.

Mike Appelsohn was a handsome, portly man with lively eyes and a booming laugh. He had a great sense of humor, and had been producing movies for fifty years. He had found Carole in New Orleans thirty-two years before, and convinced her to come to Hollywood for a screen test. The rest was Hollywood history. The screen test had been perfect, and she shot to stardom like a rocket, thanks to him. He got her into her first movies and watched over her like a mother hen. He had been there when she met Jason, and introduced them, although he hadn't realized the impact it would have. And he was the godfather of her first child. Her children loved him and thought of him as a grandfather. And he had acted as her agent since he launched her career. She had discussed every movie she'd ever made with him, before signing the contracts, and had never done a single project without his approval and wise advice. When he heard about the accident, and the condition she'd been in, he was devastated. He wanted to see her now with his own eyes. Stevie warned him that Carole had no memory yet. She wasn't going to recognize him, or remember their history together, but once she knew how important she'd been to him, and he to her, Stevie was sure she'd be happy to see him.

“She still remembers nothing?” he asked, sounding upset on the phone. “Will her memory come back?” He had been worried sick about her since Stevie's call when she got to Paris. She had wanted to warn him before he read of Carole's accident in the press. He had cried when Stevie called.

“We hope so. Nothing's jogged it yet, but we're all trying,” and so was Carole. She tried for hours sometimes to remember the things people had told her about since she'd come out of the coma. She couldn't access any of it yet. Jason had had his secretary send photographs, and a baby album from his house. The photographs were beautiful, but Carole stared at them without even a spark of recognition for the memories they should have evoked and didn't. But the doctors were still hopeful, and the doctor in charge of her case, a neurologist, still said it could take a long time, and there were areas of her memory that might never return. Both the blow to her head, the trauma, and the coma afterward had taken a toll. How great a toll, and how long-lasting or permanent the damage, still remained to be seen. It was frustrating for Carole most of all.

But in spite of Stevie's warnings, Mike Appelsohn wasn't prepared for her complete lack of recognition when he walked into her room. He had expected something to be there at least, a memory of his face, of some part of their involvement with each other over the years. There was nothing, and she looked blank when he walked in. Fortunately, Stevie was in the room too. She saw the look of devastation on his face as Carole stared at him. Stevie told her who he was, and had warned her that he was coming. Despite every effort not to, Mike burst into tears as he gave her a hug. He was a big, warm bear of a man.

“Thank God” was all he could say at first, and then finally calmed down as he loosened his hug and released Carole from his arms.

“You're Mike?” Carole asked softly, as though they were meeting for the first time. “Stevie told me so much about you. You've been wonderful to me.” She sounded grateful, although she knew it secondhand.

“I love you, kid. I always have. You were the sweetest girl I've ever met.” He had to fight back tears as he looked at her, and she smiled at him. “You were an absolute knockout at eighteen,” he said proudly. “You still are.”

“Stevie says you discovered me. It makes me sound like a country, or a flower, or a rare bird.”

“You are a rare bird, and a flower,” he said, dropping into the room's only comfortable chair, while Stevie stood nearby. Carole had asked her assistant to stay with her. Even now, with no previous memory of what Stevie did for her, Carole had come to rely on her. She felt safe and protected by the tall, dark-haired young woman.

“I love you, Carole,” he said, even though she didn't remember him. “You're an incredible talent. We've made some great movies together over the years. And we will again, after you get all this behind you.” He was still deeply respected and active in the business, and had been for half a century, as long as Carole had been alive. “I can't wait to get you back in L.A. I've lined up the best doctors for you at Cedars-Sinai.” Her doctors in Paris were going to recommend doctors for her at home, but Mike liked to feel useful and be in control. “So where do we start?” he asked expectantly of Carole. He wanted to do whatever he could to help her. He knew much about her early life in Hollywood, and before. More than anyone else. Stevie had explained that to her before he arrived.

“How did I meet you?” Carole wanted to hear the story.

“You sold me a tube of toothpaste at a corner drugstore, in New Orleans, and you were the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen,” he said kindly. He had made no mention of the scar on her cheek. She had seen it by then, now that she was walking. She had been to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. It shocked her at first, and then she decided it didn't matter. She was alive, and it was a small price to pay for her survival. It was her memory she wanted back, not her flawless beauty.

“I invited you to come to L.A. for a screen test, and you told me later, you thought I was a pimp. Nice, huh?” He was a big jolly man, and at the memory of it, he roared with laughter. He had told the story a million times. “First time anyone ever thought I was a pimp.” Carole laughed with him. She had also recovered all of her vocabulary by then, and understood the word. “You'd come to New Orleans from Mississippi,” he went on. “From your dad's farm. He had just died a few months before, and you sold it. You were living off the money, and you wouldn't even let me pay for your ticket. You said you didn't want to be ‘beholden’ to me. You had a hell of a drawl then. I loved it. But it didn't work for movies.” Carole nodded. Jason had told her the same thing. She had still had a touch of it when he married her, her Mississippi drawl, but it was long gone now, and had been for years. “You came to L.A., and your screen test was terrific.”

“What happened to me before that?” He had known her longer than anyone, and she thought he might know something about her childhood. Jason had been sketchy about that, and didn't know all the details.

“I'm not sure,” he said honestly. “You talked a lot about your dad, when you were a kid. It sounds like he was good to you, and you loved growing up on the farm. You lived in some tiny town outside Biloxi.” When he said the word, something clicked for her. She had no idea why, but a word came to mind and she said it.

“Norton.” She stared at him in amazement, and so did Stevie, as the word fell out of her mouth.

“That was it. Norton.” He looked delighted. “You had pigs and cows and chickens, and—” She interrupted him.

“A llama.” She herself looked stunned as she said the word. It was the first thing she had remembered on her own.

Mike turned around to glance at Stevie, who was watching Carole intently, and Carole was nodding. Her eyes looked into Mike's. He was opening a door for her that no one else could.

“I had a llama. My father gave her to me for my birthday. He said I looked just like her, because I had big eyes, long eyelashes, and a long neck. He always told me I was funny-looking.” She was speaking almost as though she could hear him. “My dad's name was Conway.” Mike nodded, afraid to interrupt her. Something important was happening, and all three of them knew it. These were the first memories she'd had. She had to go back to the very beginning. “My mom died when I was little. I never knew her. There was a picture of her on the piano, with me on her lap. She was really pretty. Her name was Jane. I look like her.” As she said it, tears filled Carole's eyes. “And I had a grandma named Ruth, who made me cookies and died when I was ten.”

“I didn't know that,” Mike said softly. The memory of her was sharp in Carole's mind.

“She was pretty too. My dad died right before graduation. His truck turned over in a ditch.” She remembered everything now. “They said I had to sell the farm, and I …” She looked blank, then suddenly stared at them. “And then I don't know what happened.”

“You sold it and went to New Orleans, and I found you.” He filled in for her, but she wanted it from her own mind, not his. And she could go no further. That was all that was there right now. No matter how much she wanted to remember more, she just couldn't. But she had remembered a lot in a short time. She could still see her mother's photo and Grandma Ruth's face.

They chatted about other things then for a little while, and Mike reached over and took her hand in his. He didn't say it, but it killed him to see her so hampered. He just prayed her memory would come back, and she'd go back to being the bright, busy, intelligent, talented woman she'd once been. It was frightening to think that she might not, that she might be forever limited, with no memory of anything beyond last week. She was having some problems with short-term memory too. There was no way she could ever act again if she stayed like this. It would be the end of an important career, and a lovely woman. The others had been concerned about the same thing, and in her own way, so was Carole. She was fighting for every scrap of memory she could get. Her visit with Mike had been a major victory of sorts. It was the most she had remembered so far. Until now nothing had opened those doors, and remarkably he had. She wanted to remember more.

She and Stevie talked about her going back to Los Angeles, and her house. Carole had no memory of what it looked like. Stevie described it to her, and already had several times. She talked about her garden, and then looked at Stevie strangely and said, “I think I had a garden in Paris.”

“Yes, you did,” Stevie said softly. “Do you remember that house?”

“No.” Carole shook her head. “I remember my father's barn, where I milked the cows.” Bits and pieces were coming back, like a jigsaw puzzle. But most of it didn't fit. Stevie wondered now if Carole remembered the Paris garden, would she eventually remember Matthieu? It was hard to guess. She almost hoped not, if he had made her so unhappy. She remembered how upset Carole had been when they closed that house.

“How long are you staying in Paris?” Stevie asked Mike.

“Just till tomorrow. I wanted to see my little girl here, but I've got to get back.” It was a long way to come, for a man his age, for one night. He would have gone around the world for her in a flash, and had wanted to ever since Stevie called. Jason had asked him to wait, so he had, but he'd been desperate to come.

“I'm glad you came,” Carole said, smiling at him. “I haven't remembered anything till now.”

“You will when you get back to L.A.,” Mike said with a confidence he didn't feel. He was genuinely frightened for her. He had been told what to expect, but this was worse somehow. Looking into her eyes and knowing that she remembered nothing of her life or career, or the people who loved her, made him want to cry. “If I were stuck here, I'd have memory lapses too.” Like Sean, Mike had never liked Paris. The only thing he liked there was the food. He found the French hard to deal with in business, disorganized, and unreliable at best. What made the city bearable for him was the Ritz, which he said was the best hotel in the world. Other than that, he was happier in the States. And he wanted to get Carole back there too, to doctors he knew. He had already lined up some of the city's best. As a self-declared, devoted hypochondriac, he was on the board of two hospitals and a medical school.

He hated to leave her that night to go back to the hotel, but he could see that she was tired. He had been with her all afternoon, and he was exhausted too. He had tried to jog her memory further with stories of her early Hollywood days, but nothing more had come back. Just bits and pieces of her childhood in Mississippi. But nothing past eighteen, when she left the farm. It was a start.

Talking to people at length was still wearing for her, and trying to push her memory exhausted her. She was ready to go to sleep, as Mike got ready to leave. He stood next to her bed for a long moment before he left, and smoothed the long blond hair with his hand. “I love you, baby.” He had always called her that, ever since she was a kid. “Now you get better and come home as soon as you can. I'll be waiting for you in L.A.” He had to fight back tears again as he gave her a hug, and then left the room. He had a driver downstairs, waiting to take him to the hotel.

Stevie stayed until Carole fell asleep, and then she left too. Mike called her in her room when she got back, and he was upset. “Jesus,” he said. “She doesn't remember a damn thing.”

“The llama, her hometown, her grandmother, her mom's photo, and her father's barn were the first glimmer of hope we've had. I think you did her a lot of good.” Stevie was grateful and sincere.

“I hope we get past that soon.” Mike wanted her to be her old self, and back in her career. He didn't want it to end like this, with Carole brain-damaged and impaired.

“I hope so too,” Stevie agreed, and he told her he had given a brief interview outside the hospital. An American journalist had recognized him and asked how Carole was doing, and if he had come to see her. He said that he had, and she was doing fine. He had told the reporter that her memory was coming back, in fact she remembered almost everything. He didn't want the word staying out there that she had lost her mind. He thought it was important for her career to paint a rosy picture of her progress. Stevie wasn't sure he was right, but it couldn't do any harm. Carole wasn't talking to reporters herself, so there was no way for them to know the truth, and her doctors weren't allowed to talk to them. Mike really cared about Carole, but he always had her career in mind.

A brief report of his conversation with them turned up on the AP wires the next day, and ran in papers around the world. Movie star Carole Barber was recovering in Paris, her memory had returned, in a quote from Mike Appelsohn, producer and agent. He said she was coming back to L.A. soon, to resume her career. The article didn't mention that she hadn't done a movie in three years. It just said that her memory had returned, which was all that mattered to him. As he always had, Mike Appelsohn was looking out for her, and had her best interests in mind.

Chapter 11

For the next several days after Mike's visit, Carole was feeling awful. She had caught a terrible cold. She was still prey to ordinary human miseries, just like everyone else, in addition to the neurological damage she was trying to overcome, and learning to walk with ease again. Her doctor had two physical therapists working with her and a speech therapist who came every day. The walking was going better, but the cold had her feeling miserable. And Stevie caught the cold too. Not wanting to get Carole even sicker, she stayed in bed at the Ritz. The hotel doctor came to check her, and gave her antibiotics in case she got worse. She had a nasty sinus infection and a vicious cough. She called Carole who sounded nearly as bad.

There was a new nurse on duty who left Carole alone during lunch. Carole was lonely without Stevie to talk to, and for the first time since she'd been there she turned on the TV, and watched the news on CNN. It was something to do. She couldn't concentrate well enough yet to read a book. Reading was still hard for her. And writing was worse. Her handwriting had suffered too. Stevie had long since realized that she wouldn't be writing her book anytime soon, although she hadn't said as much to Carole. There was no way she could write it now anyway. She no longer remembered the plot, and her computer was at the hotel. She had more basic problems to deal with. But for now Carole was enjoying watching TV, as she lay alone in her room. The new nurse hadn't been much company anyway, and was pretty dour.

With the sound from the TV, Carole didn't hear the door of the room open, and was startled to see someone standing near the foot of her bed. When she turned her head, he was there, watching her. He was a young boy, in jeans, and looked about sixteen years old. He was dark skinned, and had big almond-shaped eyes. He looked malnourished and scared, as his eyes met her. She had no idea what he was doing in her room, and his eyes never left hers. She assumed the security guard outside her door had let him in. He was probably a delivery boy come to deliver flowers, but she saw no evidence of a bouquet. She tried to speak to him in halting French, but he didn't understand. She tried English then. She wasn't sure what nationality he was.

“Can I help you? Are you looking for someone?” Maybe he was lost, or a fan. They had had a few of those, looking for her, although the guard was supposed to keep them out.

“You are a movie star?” he asked, in an unfamiliar accent. He looked Spanish or Portuguese. And she couldn't remember Spanish at all. He could have been Italian too, or Sicilian. He was dark.

“Yes, I am.” She smiled at him. He seemed very young. He had a loose jacket on over a dark blue sweater. The jacket looked like it belonged to someone else, twice his size, and he was wearing running shoes with holes, like the ones Anthony wore. Her son said they were his lucky shoes, and he had brought them to Paris. This boy looked like he owned nothing better. “What are you doing here?” she asked him kindly, wondering if he wanted an autograph. She had signed a few since she'd been there, although badly. Her current signature bore no resemblance to her normal one. The bomb had done that too. Writing by hand was still hard for her.

“I am looking for you,” he said simply, as their eyes met. She knew she had never seen him before, and yet there was something about his eyes that she remembered. She could see a car in her mind's eye, and his face in the window, staring at her. And then she knew. She had seen him in the tunnel, in the car next to hers, before the bombs went off. He had jumped out and run away, and then everything exploded into fire and seconds later went black for her.

At the same time she saw the vision in her head, she saw him take a knife out of his jacket. It had a long, ugly curved blade and a bone handle, and was an evil weapon. She stared at him, as he took a single step toward her, and she leaped out of bed on the other side.

“What are you doing?” She was terrified, as she stood in her hospital gown.

“You remember me, don't you? The newspaper said your memory came back.” He looked almost as terrified as she did, as he wiped the blade on his jeans.

“I don't remember you at all,” she said in a shaking voice, praying her legs would hold her up. She was within inches of an emergency button on the back wall that was for a code blue. If she could get to it, they might save her. If not, he was going to slit her throat. That she knew as an absolute certainty. The boy had murder in his eyes. “You're an actress and a sinful woman. You're a whore,” he shouted in the silent room, as Carole backed away from him and he lunged.

Without warning, he slid across the bed, swinging the knife at her, and in the same instant she hit the black button as hard as she could. She could hear an alarm go off in the hall, as the boy reached out and tried to grab her hair, calling her a whore again. She threw her lunch tray at him, which caught him off balance, and at the same instant four nurses and two doctors charged into the room, expecting to find a code blue, and saw the boy with the knife instead. He was swinging wildly at them, still trying to reach Carole, hoping to kill her before he could be stopped. But the two doctors grabbed his arms and pinned him down, as one of the nurses ran to get help. There was a security guard in the room within seconds, who literally tore the boy from their hands, threw the knife into a corner, pinned him down, and put handcuffs on him, as Carole slid slowly to the floor, shaking from head to foot.

She remembered all of it now, the taxi, the car next to it, the laughing men in the front seat, honking at the car up ahead, and the boy in the backseat staring at her, meeting her eyes and then running away, back out of the tunnel… the explosions… the fire… flying through the air … and then the endless blackness that had claimed her … it was all crystal clear. He had come back to kill her after he had seen Mike's quote in the paper that her memory had returned. He was going to slit her throat so she couldn't identify him. The only thing she didn't know was how he had gotten past the guard outside.

Her doctor was in the room within minutes, to examine her, and help her into bed. She was enormously relieved to find her unharmed, although traumatized, and shaking in terror. The boy with the knife had already been taken away by the police.

“Are you all right?” the doctor asked her, deeply concerned.

“I think so … I don't know…,” Carole said, still trembling. “I remembered … I remembered everything when I saw him … in the tunnel. He was in the car next to my cab. He ran away, but he saw me first.” Carole was shaking violently and her teeth were chattering, as the doctor asked a nurse for warm blankets from the heater, which arrived promptly.

“What else do you remember?” the doctor asked.

“I don't know.” Carole looked like she was in shock, as the doctor put a blanket over her, and pressed her for details.

“Do you remember your bedroom in Los Angeles? What color is it?”

“Yellow, I think.” She could almost see it in her mind, but not quite. There was still mist around it.

“Do you have a garden?”

“Yes.”

“What does it look like?”

“There's a fountain… and a pond … roses I planted … they're red.”

“Do you have a dog?”

“No. She died. A long time ago.”

“Do you remember what you did before the bombing?” The doctor was pushing her hard, taking full advantage of the doors that had opened in her mind, blown open by the boy who had come to kill her with the ugly knife.

“No,” she said in answer to the question, and then she remembered. “Yes… I went to see my old house… near the rue Jacob.” She remembered the address distinctly, walking there, and then taking a cab back to the hotel, and getting stuck in traffic in the tunnel.

“What does it look like?”

“I don't know, I can't remember,” Carole said in a small voice, as another voice in the room answered for her.

“It was a small house in a courtyard, with a garden, and beautiful windows. It had a mansard roof, and oeil de boeuf windows on the top floor.” It was Matthieu, standing near her bed, looking fierce. She looked up at him in tears, not wanting to see him, and yet relieved at the same time. She was confused, and he looked past her at the doctor on the other side of the bed.

“What happened here?” he asked in a booming voice. “Where was the guard?”

“There was a misunderstanding. He went out to lunch and so did the nurse. His relief never came.” The doctor looked distressed in the face of Matthieu's fury, which was justified.

“And he left her alone?” he snapped at her.

“I'm sorry, monsieur le Ministre, it won't happen again.” Her voice was ice-cold. As impressive as he was, Matthieu de Billancourt didn't frighten her. She was only worried about her patient, and the horror that could have happened to her at the young Arab's hands.

“That boy came to kill her. He was one of the terrorists who bombed the tunnel. He must have seen that stupid article in the paper yesterday about her memory coming back. I want two guards on her door now, day and night.” He had no authority in the hospital whatsoever, but even the doctor knew that what he was saying made sense. “And if you can't defend her properly, send her back to the hotel.”

“I'll take care of it,” the doctor reassured him, and almost before she could say the words, the head of the hospital walked in. Matthieu had summoned him immediately, as soon as he saw the boy being led out in handcuffs and the police told him what had happened. Matthieu had run up the stairs to Carole's room. He had been coming to visit her. And he had raised hell when he discovered what the boy had almost done. If she hadn't been able to reach the bell, she would have been dead.

The head of the hospital asked Carole if she was all right, in broken English, and he bustled out again a minute later to bang some heads. The last thing they needed was an American movie star being murdered in their hospital. It would make for some very bad press.

The doctor left again then, with a warm smile at Carole, and a cool glance at Matthieu. She didn't like being told what to do by laymen, whether retired ministers or not, although in this case she knew he was right. Carole had very nearly been killed. It was a miracle that the boy hadn't succeeded in his mission. If he had found her asleep, he would have. A dozen ugly scenarios came to mind.

Matthieu sat down in the chair next to her bed and patted her hand, and then he looked at her with a gentle expression that had nothing to do with the way he had spoken to the hospital personnel. He had been outraged at how badly they had protected her. She could so easily have been killed. He thanked God she hadn't.

“I was planning to come to see you today,” he said softly. “Would you like me to leave? You don't look well.”

She shook her head in answer.

“I have a cold,” she said, looking into his eyes. She felt a jolt of recognition gazing into them. They were eyes she had once loved. She didn't remember the details of what had happened between them, and she wasn't sure she wanted to, but she remembered both tenderness and pain, and a feeling of intense passion. She was still shaking from the shock of the incident that had just occurred. She had been terrified. But something about him made her feel protected and safe. He was a powerful man, in many ways.

“Would you like a cup of tea, Carole?” She nodded yes. There was a thermos of hot water in the room, and a box of the teabags she liked. Stevie had brought them from the hotel and left them for her. He made it just the way she liked it, not too strong and not too weak. He handed the mug to her, and she took it, sitting up on one elbow. They were alone in the room. The nurse had stayed outside, knowing who was in the room. If nothing else, she was in good hands, and she was in no medical danger now. The nurse was there for her comfort, not due to any dire need. “Do you mind if I have a cup too?” She shook her head, and he went to make himself a mug of the same tea. She remembered then that he was the one who had first given it to her. They had always drunk that tea together.

“I've been thinking a lot about you,” he said to her after a sip of the vanilla tea. Carole hadn't said a word. She was too frightened by what had just happened.

“I've been thinking about you too,” she admitted. “I don't know why, but I have. I've been trying to remember, but I just can't.” Some things had come back to her, but nothing about him. No details. She only remembered his eyes and that she had loved him. That was all. She still didn't know who he was, or why everyone jumped to attention when he approached. More important, she didn't remember living with him, or what their life together had been like, except for the tea, just now. She had the feeling that he had made tea for her before. Many times. At breakfast, at a kitchen table where sunlight poured into the room.

“Do you remember how we met?” She shook her head. She felt a little better after the tea. She put the empty mug on the table and lay down again. He was sitting very near her, but she didn't mind. She felt safe next to him. She didn't want to be alone. “We met while you were making the movie about Marie Antoinette. There was a reception at the Quai d'Orsay, given by the Minister of Culture. He was an old friend of mine, and he insisted that I come. I didn't want to. I had something else to do that night, but he made such a fuss about it that I went. And you were there. You looked staggeringly beautiful. You had just come off the set, and you were still in costume. I'll never forget it. Marie Antoinette never looked anything like that.” Carole smiled at the memory. She vaguely remembered it now, the costume, and a spectacular painted ceiling at the Quai d'Orsay. She didn't remember him.

“It was spring. You had to go back to the set afterward and return the costume. I took you there, and after you changed, we went for a walk along the Seine. We sat by the river, on the dock, and talked for a long time. I felt as though the sky had fallen in on me, and you said you did too.” He smiled at the memory, and their eyes met again.

“It was a coup de foudre,” she said in a whisper. They had been his words after that first night … coup de foudre… bolt of lightning… love at first sight. She remembered his words, but not what had happened next.

“We talked for many hours. We stayed awake until you had to be back at the set at five that morning. It was the most exciting night of my life. You told me about your husband leaving you for another woman. She was very young, as I recall. Russian, I think. She was having his baby. You were devastated, we talked about it for hours. I think you truly loved him.” She nodded. She had gotten the same impression from Jason. It was strange, having to rely on all these people to tell her how she had felt. She had no recollection of it herself. Not with Jason. But she was beginning to recall some things about Matthieu, not so much events as feelings. She could remember loving him, and the excitement of that first night.

She vaguely remembered going back to the set, without having slept. But she didn't know how he had looked at the time. In fact, he had changed very little, except for the white hair. It had been dark then, almost black. He had been fifty when they met, and one of the most powerful men in France. Most people had been afraid of him. She never had been. He had never frightened her. He had loved her too much for that. All he had wanted to do was protect her, as he did now. He didn't want anyone to harm her. She could feel that now, as he sat close to her, talking about the past.

“I invited you to dinner the next night, and we went to some silly place from my student days. We had a good time, and talked all night again. We never stopped. I was never able to express myself to anyone like that in my life. I told you everything, all my feelings and secrets and dreams and wishes, and some things I shouldn't have, about my work. You never broke my trust. Never. I trusted you completely, right from the beginning, and I was right.

“We saw each other every day until you finished the film five months later. You were going back to New York, or Los Angeles, you weren't sure where to go, and I asked you to stay in Paris. We were deeply in love by then, and you agreed. We found the house together. The one near the rue Jacob. We went to auctions together, we furnished it. I built a treehouse for Anthony in the garden. He loved it. He took all his meals there that summer. We went to the South of France when they went to see their father. We went everywhere together. I was with you every night. That summer, we spent two weeks on a sailboat in the South of France. I don't think I've ever been that happy in my life, before or since. They were the best days of my life.” Carole nodded as she listened. She couldn't remember the events, only the feelings. She had the sense that it was a magical time. Thinking about it made her feel warm, but there had been something else too, something that was wrong. There had been a problem of some kind. Her eyes searched his and then she remembered, and said it out loud.

“You were married,” she said sadly.

“Yes, I was. My marriage had been over for years, our children were grown. My wife and I were strangers to each other, we had led separate lives for ten years before you came along. I was going to leave her even before I met you. I promised you I would, and I meant it. I wanted to do it quietly, without embarrassment for any of us. I talked to my wife about it, and she asked me not to, not right away. She was afraid of the humiliation and scandal for her, with my leaving her for a famous movie star. It was painful for her, and it was liable to become an international cause célèbre in the press, so I agreed to wait six months. You were very understanding about it. It didn't seem to matter. We were happy, and I lived with you in our little house. I loved your children, and I think they liked me, in the beginning at least. You were so young then, Carole. You were thirty-two when we met, and I was fifty. I could have been your father, but I felt like a boy again when I was with you.”

“I remember the boat,” she said softly, “in the South of France. We went to Saint Tropez, and the old port in Antibes. I think I was very, very happy with you,” she said dreamily.

“We both were,” he added sadly, remembering all that had happened after that.

“Something happened. You had to leave.”

“Yes, I did.” He was amazed that she remembered. He had almost forgotten it himself, although it had been an enormous drama at the time. They had radioed him on the boat. He had had to leave her at the airport in Nice, and had left on a military plane himself.

“Why did you leave? Someone was shot, I think.” She was frowning, trying to remember as she stared at him. “Who was shot?” She had to know.

“The president of France. It was an assassination attempt, which failed. During the Bastille Day parade on the Champs Elysées. I should have been there, but I was with you instead.”

“You were in government… something very high up and very secret. What were you?… Was it secret police?” She was squinting at him from her bed.

“That was one of my duties. I was the Minister of the Interior,” he said quietly, and she nodded. It came back to her now. There was so much she didn't recall about her own life, but she remembered that. They had sailed the boat into the harbor, and left for the airport in a cab. He had left her minutes later, and she had watched him take off in the military plane, and gone back to Paris on her own. He had been apologetic about leaving her that way, and there had been soldiers around him with machine guns. She wasn't frightened by it, but it seemed strange.

“There was something else like that … another time… someone was hurt, and you left me somewhere, on a trip… we were skiing, and you left by helicopter.” She could still see it rising in the air, blowing snow everywhere.

“The president had a heart attack, and I left to be with him.”

“That was at the end, wasn't it?” She looked sad.

He nodded, silent at first, remembering it too. It was the incident that had brought him to his senses and reminded him that he couldn't leave his job, and he belonged to France. They owned him, no matter how much he loved her, and wanted to leave everything for her. He couldn't in the end. They had had a little more time after that, but not much. And his wife had been making a lot of trouble then too. It had been an impossible time, for both of them. “Yes, it was nearly the end. There were two years between those two events, and a lot of wonderful times.”

“That's all I remember,” she said, watching him, wondering what the two years had been like. She had a sense that they had been exciting, because he was, but hard at times, which he was too. As he had just told her, he had had a complicated life. Politics, and the drama that went with it, had been his life's blood. But for a time, so had she. She had been the heart that kept him alive.

“We spent Christmas in Gstaad together the first year, with the children. And then you started another movie in England, and I came over to see you every weekend. When you came back, I wanted to go to the lawyer to get divorced, and my wife begged me not to again. She said she couldn't face it. We'd been married for twenty-nine years, and I felt I owed her something, some respect at least, since I no longer loved her. She knew that, she knew how much I loved you, and she didn't hold it against me. She was very compassionate about it. I was planning to leave my job in the government that year, it would have been the perfect time to end it with her, and then I got named for another term. You and I had been together for a year by then, the happiest year of my life. You agreed to give it another six months. And I had every intention of getting divorced. Arlette promised not to stop it, but then there were scandals in the government involving other people, and I knew it was the wrong time. I promised that if you gave me another year, I would resign and come to the States with you.”

“You would never have done it. And you'd have been miserable in Los Angeles.”

“I felt I owed my country something … and my wife… I couldn't just walk away from either of them, without fulfilling my duty, but I had every intention of leaving and coming with you, and then…” He stopped for a moment, and Carole remembered what had happened. “Something terrible happened …”

“Your daughter died … in a car accident … I remember … it was awful …” Their eyes met and held, and she reached out and touched his hand.

“She was nineteen. It happened in the mountains. She went skiing with friends. You were wonderful to me. But I couldn't leave Arlette then. It would have been inhuman.” Carole remembered his saying that to her.

“You always told me you would leave her. Right from the beginning. You said your marriage to her was over, but it wasn't. You always felt you owed something more to her. She always wanted another six months, and you gave it to her. You always protected her, and not me. I remember it now. I was always waiting for you to divorce her. You lived with me, but you were married to her. And to France. You always had to give one more year to France, and six more months to your wife, and suddenly it was two years later.” She looked at him then, stunned at what she had just remembered. “And I was pregnant.” He nodded, with a look of anguish. “I begged you to divorce her then, didn't I?” He nodded again, looking humbled. “I had a morals clause in my contracts then, and if anyone had found out I was living with a married man, and having his baby, my career would have been over. I would have been blackballed, or out of work at least. I risked that for you,” she said sadly. They had both known the risks going in. His country would have forgiven his having a mistress and cheating on his wife, it had been perfectly acceptable in France. Her country, or her industry at least, wouldn't have forgiven her an affair with a married man, and being his mistress, involved in a public scandal with a high government official. Let alone an illegitimate baby. The morals clause in her contracts had been rigid. Over night she would have become a pariah. She had risked it because he had insisted that he would get divorced, but he had never even gone to see an attorney. His wife had begged him not to, so he never did. He just kept buying time with Carole. Always more.

“What happened to the baby?” she asked in a strangled voice, looking up at him. Some things were still lost for her, although there was so much about it that was coming back now.

“You lost it. A boy. You were almost six months pregnant. You fell off the ladder, decorating the tree at Christmas. I tried to catch you, but you fell right past me. You were in the hospital for three days, but we lost him. Chloe never knew you were pregnant, but Anthony did. We explained it to him. He asked me if we were going to get married, and I said we would. And then my daughter died and Arlette had a nervous breakdown and begged me not to. She threatened suicide, and you had lost the baby by then, so our getting married wasn't as pressing. I begged you to understand. I was going to resign in the spring, and by then I thought Arlette could survive it. I needed more time, or at least that was what I said.” He looked at Carole then with mournful eyes. “In the end, I think you did the right thing.” It killed him to say it. “I don't think I'd ever have left her. I meant to. I believed I would, but in fact I just couldn't. That, or my job. I didn't retire for another six years after you left Paris. And I'm not sure I could ever have left Arlette. There would have always been something, some reason why she wouldn't let me leave her. I don't even think she loved me, not as you did, or as I loved you. She just didn't want to lose me to another woman. If you'd been French, you would have put up with it. But you weren't. It all sounded like lies to you, and some of them were. I just didn't have the courage to tell you I couldn't do it. I lied to myself more than I did to you. When I told you I'd divorce her, I meant it. I hated you for leaving me. I thought you were being cruel to me. But you were right to do it. I would have broken your heart in the end, even more than I did. The last six months were a nightmare. Constant fights, constant crying. You were devastated after you lost the baby. So was I.”

“What finally did it? What made me leave?” Her voice was a whisper.

“Another day, another lie, another delay. You just got up one morning and started packing. You waited till the end of the school year. I'd done nothing about the divorce, and they were asking me to do another term in the ministry. I tried to explain it to you, and you wouldn't listen. You left a week later. I took you to the airport, and neither of us could stop crying. You told me to call you, if I got divorced. I called, but I never got divorced, and I stayed on in the government. They needed me. And she did too, in her own way. She didn't love me, but we were used to each other. She felt I owed it to her to stay with her.

“I called you several times when you were back in L.A., and then you stopped taking my calls. I heard you had sold the house. I went there to look at it one day. It nearly broke my heart when I remembered how happy we'd been there.”

“I went to see it that day, before the bomb exploded in the tunnel. I was on my way back to the hotel when it happened,” she said, and he nodded. It had been a place of refuge for both of them, a haven, the love nest they had shared and where they had conceived their baby. She couldn't help wondering what would have happened if she'd had his child, if he would have finally divorced his wife. Probably not. He was French. Frenchmen had mistresses and illegitimate children. They had done it for centuries, and nothing much had changed. It was still acceptable, but not to Carole. She was a farm girl from Mississippi, no matter how famous she was, and she didn't want to live with another woman's husband. She had told him that right from the beginning. “We never should have started,” she said, looking at him from where she lay with her head on the pillow.

“We had no choice,” Matthieu said simply. “We were too much in love with each other not to.”

“I don't believe that,” she said firmly. “I think people always have choices. We did. We made the wrong ones, and we paid a high price for them. I'm not sure, but I don't think I ever forgot you. I didn't get over you for a long time, until I met my last husband.” She remembered that clearly now.

“I read that you got married, about ten years ago,” he said, and she nodded. “I was happy for you”—and then he smiled ruefully—“and very jealous. He's a lucky man.”

“No, he isn't. He died two years ago of cancer. Everyone says he was a wonderful person.”

“That's why Jason was here. I wondered why.”

“He would have come anyway. He's a good man too.”

“You didn't think that eighteen years ago,” Matthieu said, looking irritated. He wasn't sure she would have said the same about him, even today, that he was a good man. In her eyes, he hadn't been. She had said so at the time. She said he had lied to her and misled her, and was a dishonest, dishonorable person. It had cut him to the quick at the time. No one had ever accused him of that in his life, but she was right.

“I think he's a good person now,” Carole said about Jason. “We all pay for our sins in the end. The Russian girl left him by the time I left Paris.”

“Did he try to come back to you?” Matthieu was curious about it.

“Apparently, he did. He says I didn't want him. I was probably still in love with you at the time.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Yes, I do,” she said honestly. “I wasted two and a half years of my life with you, and probably another five getting over you. That's a long time to give to a man who wouldn't leave his wife.” And then she thought about it and wondered what had happened. “Where is she now?”

“She died a year ago, after a long illness. She was very sick for the last three years of her life. I'm glad I was with her. I owed her that. We were married forty-six years in the end. It wasn't the marriage I would have wanted, or the one I thought I'd get when I married her at twenty-one, but it was the one we had. We were friends. She was very elegant about you. I don't think she forgave me, but she understood. She knew how in love with you I was. I never felt that way about her. She was a very cold person. But she was a decent, honest woman.” So he had stayed, just as she'd always thought he would. And even he had said she'd done the right thing by leaving. She had the answers now, the ones she'd come to Paris for. That it had been too late for her with Jason, by the time he came back. She no longer loved him, and she couldn't have stopped him from marrying the Russian supermodel. She had no choice there, and by the time she did, she didn't want him. She didn't even want him now. It was too late. And all she would ever have been to Matthieu was his mistress. He would never have left his wife until she died. Carole felt she understood that when she left Paris, which was why she had. But it was only now that she knew it was the right decision. He had confirmed it to her, which was a gift of sorts, long after the fact.

A lot of it had come back now, some of the events, and too many of the feelings. She could almost taste her disappointment and despair when she had finally given up and left him. He had very nearly destroyed her, and her career. He had even disappointed her children. Whatever his intentions had been in the beginning, or his love for her, he hadn't been honorable with her. At least what Jason had done, no matter how awful it had been for her, had been up front and honest. He had divorced her and married the other woman. Matthieu never had.

“What are you doing now? Are you still in government?” she asked.

“I was until ten years ago, when I retired and went back to my family law firm. I practice with two of my brothers.”

“And you were the most powerful man in France. You controlled everything then, and you loved it.”

“Yes, I did.” He was honest about that at least, and he had been honest about the rest of it now too. It proved her right finally, but hearing it even now was painful. She remembered too well how much she had loved him, and how badly he had hurt her. “Power is like a drug to men. It's hard to give up. I was addicted to it. But I was even more addicted to you. It nearly killed me when you left me. But I still couldn't divorce her, or give up my job.”

“I never wanted you to give up your job. That wasn't the issue. But I did want you to divorce her.”

“I couldn't.” He hung his head as he said it, and then looked her in the eye again. “I didn't have the courage.” It was an enormous admission, and Carole didn't answer for a minute.

“That's why I left you.”

His voice was a whisper. “You were right.” She nodded.

They sat together in silence for a long time, and then as he looked at her, her eyes closed, and she drifted off to sleep. For the first time in a long time, she was at peace. He sat there, watching her, and then he finally stood up, and left the room on silent feet.

Chapter 12

Carole awoke again that night, feeling better after a long sleep. She remembered then that Matthieu had visited her, what he'd said, and she lay in bed, thinking about him for a long time. Despite her spotty memory, he had exorcised a lot of ghosts for her. She appreciated that he'd been honest with her, finally, and told her that she'd been right to leave. It was a gift of freedom to hear that from him. She had always wondered what would have happened if she'd stayed—if she should have waited longer. He had confirmed to her now that it wouldn't have made a difference.

There was a nurse in the room with her when she woke up, and two guards outside her door, thanks to the fuss Matthieu had made. She had called Jason and her children to tell them about the attack. She assured them she was fine, and had been lucky once again. Jason had offered to come back to Paris, but she assured them the police had the matter well in hand. She was still shaken, but told them she was safe. All of them were horrified that she had been the victim of a terrorist incident on the heels of the first one. And Anthony warned her about Matthieu again. He was threatening to come and protect her himself, but she told him all was well.

She lay in bed thinking about all of it in the middle of the night. The terrorist, Matthieu, and the pieces of their history he'd shared. It all left her feeling anxious and unnerved.

She called Stevie then at the hotel, feeling foolish for bothering her, but desperate for a familiar voice, despite the late hour. Stevie had been asleep.

“How's your cold?” Carole asked her. She felt better herself although she was still sick, and shaken by the events of the day. It seemed more frightening now in retrospect.

“Better, I think, but not great,” Stevie said. “What are you doing up at this hour?” Carole told her then what had happened, when the boy with the knife had gotten into her room. “What? Are you kidding? Where the fuck was the security guy?” Stevie was horrified, as Carole's family had been. It was beyond belief, and would be on the news the next day.

“Out to lunch. They said his relief never came.” Carole heaved a long sigh and lay in her bed, thinking how lucky she had been. “It scared me to death.” She still shook when she thought about it. She was glad Matthieu had arrived right afterward.

“I'm coming over there right now. They can put a cot in your room. I'm not leaving you alone again.”

“Don't be silly. You're sick. I'm okay. They won't let something like that happen again. Matthieu was here, and he raised hell. He must still have some clout. The head of the hospital was up here bowing and scraping in about five minutes. And the police were around for hours. They won't let anything happen now. It just scared me to death.”

“No wonder.” It was hard to believe she had been the victim of two incidents.

The police had said they would come to take a detailed report from her the next day. They hadn't wanted to upset her further by pressing her right after it happened. And her assailant was in custody, so she was safe.

“I remembered him from the tunnel,” Carole said, still sounding shaken, so Stevie changed the subject to distract her, and asked about Matthieu.

“Did the mystery man shed any further light on your affair?” Stevie was still curious about him.

“Yes. I remembered a lot of it myself. I remembered the boy with the knife too,” she said, going back to the attack. “He was in the cab next to me in the tunnel, and he ran away. The suicide bombers must have told him he was going to die. Apparently, he wasn't ready for the seventy-seven virgins he was going to get in Heaven.”

“No, he would rather have killed you. Christ, I can't wait till we get home.”

“Me too,” Carole said with a sigh. “This has been one hell of a trip. I think I got my answers though. If I ever get my memory back, and can learn how to use a computer again, I think I'm ready to write the book. I'll have to add something about all this. It's too good not to use.”

“You think maybe you could do a cookbook next time, or a children's book? I don't like the research you've been doing for this book.”

But the answers she'd gotten about Jason and Matthieu were what she had needed for herself. She knew that now. And better yet, she had heard it from them, instead of guessing and figuring it out on her own.

“What are you hearing from Alan?” Carole asked as they chatted and she started to unwind. It was nice to have someone to talk to late at night. She missed that with Sean. She was starting to remember now, just little bits. Stevie telling her things about him had brought some of it back.

“He says he misses me,” Stevie answered her. “He's antsy for me to come home. He says he's pining for my cooking. He must have lost his memory too. What's to miss? Chinese takeout, or deli food? I haven't cooked a decent meal for him in four years.”

“I don't blame him. I missed you today too.”

“I'll be there tomorrow. And I'm sleeping there tomorrow night.”

“No one's coming after me,” Carole said reassuringly. “All the other guys blew themselves up.” And they damn near blew her up too. “There's no one left.”

“I don't care. I'd rather be there with you.”

“I'd rather be at the Ritz,” Carole laughed, “than at the Pitié Salpêtrière. Hands down. You've got much better room service there.”

“Never mind,” Stevie said firmly. “I'm moving in. And fuck them if they don't like it. If they can't even keep a security guard on your door through lunch time, you need a watchdog over there.”

“I think Matthieu took care of that. They looked scared to death of him. And there are about a million guards in the hall tonight.”

“He scares me too,” Stevie said honestly. “He looks like a tough guy.”

“He is.” Carole remembered that about him. “But he wasn't with me. He was married. He just wouldn't leave his wife. We talked about it today. We lived together for two and a half years. He wouldn't divorce her, so I left.”

“I got into one of those once. They're hard to win. Most people don't. I never did it again. Alan may be an asshole at times, but at least he's mine.”

“Yeah, I guess it took me a while with Matthieu to figure that out. He told me he was leaving her when we met, that his marriage was over, and had been for ten years.”

“They always say bullshit like that. The only one who doesn't know about it is their wife. They never leave.”

“He stayed married to her till last year. He said I was right to go.”

“Apparently. And he divorced her now?” Stevie sounded surprised. At his age, no one got divorced. Especially in France.

“No, she died. He stayed with her till the bitter end. Forty-six years. Of a supposedly loveless marriage. What's the point in that?”

“Habit. Laziness. Chickenshit. God knows why people stay.”

“His daughter died when I was living with him. And then his wife threatened suicide. There was an endless string of excuses, some of them even valid, though most of them not, until I finally gave up. He was married to her, and to France.”

“Sounds like you didn't have a chance.”

“No, I didn't. He says that now too. He sure didn't say it then.” She didn't tell Stevie about the baby she'd lost, but she was going to talk to Anthony about it sometime, in case he remembered it. He had never said anything to her, but it had been obvious, in the hospital when they met, how much he had hated Matthieu in the end. Even her children had felt betrayed. It had left a lasting impression on her son, whatever the details.

“You looked miserable when we came back to pack up the house.”

“I was.”

“You seem to be remembering a lot of stuff,” Stevie commented. Carole had come far in the past few days. The boy with the knife had jogged her memory too.

“I am. Little by little, stuff is coming back. Feelings more than events.”

“That's a start.” Mike Appelsohn had helped her too, except for his interview with the press, which had set the boy with the knife after her. “I hope they send you back to the hotel soon.” Stevie was deeply worried about the potential risk to her from remaining terrorists. But now, so were the police.

“So do I.”

They said goodnight then and hung up, and Carole lay in bed for a long time, thinking how lucky she was, how blessed to have her children, how miraculous her survival had been, and how fortunate she was to have Stevie as a friend. She tried not to let herself think of Matthieu, or the boy who had come to kill her with the terrifying knife. She lay in bed with her eyes closed, taking deep breaths. But no matter what she did, she kept seeing the boy with the knife in her head, and then her mind would race to the safety and protection of Matthieu. It was as though all these years later, he was still a place of refuge and peace, and would keep her safe from harm. She didn't want to believe that, but somewhere locked away in the memory of her heart, she still did. She could almost feel his arms around her as she drifted off to sleep at last.

Chapter 13

The police came to take a report from Carole the next day. The boy they'd taken into custody was from Syria, and he was seventeen years old. He was a member of a fundamentalist group that had been responsible for three recent terrorist attacks, two in France and one in Spain. Other than that they knew very little about him, and Carole was the only person who could link him to the bombing in the tunnel. Although much of her memory was still fuzzy about it, as well as details of her own life, she distinctly remembered seeing him in the car next to her, as her cab had sat stuck in traffic underground. It had all come back to her when she saw his face in her room at the Pitié Salpêtrière. His eyes had riveted her as he lunged at her with the long, curved blade.

The police questioned her for nearly three hours, and showed her photographs of a dozen men. She recognized none of them, only the young man who had entered her room and tried to kill her. One of the photographs vaguely reminded her of the driver of the car next to her, but she hadn't paid as much attention to him as the boy in the backseat, and she couldn't be as sure. She had no doubt whatsoever about the boy who had attacked her, she remembered clearly his mournful face as he stared at her from the backseat. His attack had brought it all clearly into her mind again. The images were very sharp.

Other memories were returning too. Often they were out of sequence and made no sense to her. She could see her father's barn in her mind's eye, and she remembered milking the cows as though it were yesterday. She could hear her father's laughter, but no amount of concentration could help her recall his face. The meeting with Mike Appelsohn in New Orleans when he discovered her was a blank to her, but she recalled the screen test now, and working on her first movie. She had woken up thinking of it that day, but meeting Jason and her early days with him had vanished into thin air. She remembered their wedding day and the apartment in New York where they'd lived after they were married, and she had a vague memory of Anthony's birth, but nothing of Chloe's, the movies she'd made, or the Oscars she won, and she still had very little memory of Sean.

Everything was disjointed and out of sequence, like clips from a movie that had landed on the cutting-room floor. Faces would come to mind, or names, often unrelated, and then whole scenes would appear and be crystal clear. It was like a crazy patchwork quilt of her life, which she tried constantly to sort out and organize, and put into sequence again, and just as she thought she had it right and knew what she was remembering, she would remember another detail, face, name, or event, and the whole story changed again. It was like a kaleidoscope, constantly shifting, changing, the colors and shapes altered and moving. It was exhausting trying to absorb it all and make sense of it. For hours at a time now, she had total recall, and then for many more, her mind seemed to shut down, as though it had had enough of the sifting and sorting process that occupied her every waking hour. She was trying to force herself to remember it all, and asked a thousand questions as things came to mind, trying to make the focus more acute in the lens of her mind's eye. It was a full-time job, and the hardest one she'd ever done.

Stevie was well aware of how exhausting it was for her, and sat in silence in her room when she could see that Carole was trying to run things through her head. Eventually, Carole would say something, but for long hours she would lie on her bed, seemingly staring into space, thinking about it all. Some of it still made no sense, like photographs of people in an album with no labels to indicate who they had been, or why they were there. About some things she remembered too much. About others far too little. And all of it was jumbled in her head. Sometimes it took hours to identify a scene, face, or name, and it was a real victory for her when she did. She felt triumphant every time, and then would lie silent and drained of energy for a long time.

The police had been impressed by what she did remember. Initially, they had been told she had no memory at all. And many of the other victims they'd spoken to recalled even less than she did. They hadn't been paying attention when they'd been sitting in the tunnel, talking to other passengers, playing with the radio, or the shock of the event and their resulting injuries had wiped all recollection from their minds. The police and a special intelligence unit had been interviewing people for weeks. And until then they had been told that Carole would be unable to contribute anything to their search. Suddenly that had changed, and they were grateful for her help. They were providing additional security for her at the hospital. There were now two members of a SWAT team, the CRS, standing outside her door in combat boots and dark blue overalls. There was no mistaking who they were, or why they were there. The machine guns they carried said it all. The CRS was the most feared unit in Paris, brought in to break up riots, during threats, or after terrorism erupted somewhere. The fact that they had been called in confirmed the seriousness of the event that had brought her to the Pitié Salpêtrière.

There was no solid reason to believe that other members of the group would attempt an attack on her again. As far as they knew, all the perpetrators had died in the suicide bombing in the tunnel, with the exception of the one boy who had fled. Carole distinctly remembered him running backward to the entry of the tunnel just before the first bomb exploded. Her memory was more vague about the subsequent ones, because by then she herself had been blown out of the cab and was free-falling toward the tunnel floor. But the police still had a reasonable concern that she was a highly visible victim of the event. Eliminating her would be a plus for the terrorists, as well as an additional victory, in killing a well-known person to bring attention to their cause. In either case, the police and special intelligence units had no desire whatsoever to have Carole die on French turf. They wanted to do everything possible to keep her alive, at least until she left France. And since she was an American, they had contacted the FBI as well. They had promised to provide surveillance of her home in Bel-Air for the next several months, particularly once she was home. It was both frightening and reassuring at the same time.

The possibility of further danger to her was far from encouraging. She had already paid a high enough price for her presence in the tunnel during the suicide bombing. All she wanted to do now was get her memory back, leave the hospital, and get on with her life once she got home. She was still hoping to write her novel. And everything about her life, present and past, seemed more precious to her now, especially her children.

Matthieu showed up halfway through the interview with the police. He said nothing, slipped into the room quietly, and stood silently observing. He had nodded at Carole, and looked serious and concerned as he listened. He had made several phone calls to the intelligence unit that was handling it, and another to the head of the CRS. The current Minister of the Interior had received a call from him the day before. Matthieu wanted both the investigation and her protection handled without slip-up or flaw. He had left no question in anyone's mind that the matter was of the utmost importance to him. He had no need to explain why. Carole Barber was an important visitor to France, and to the Minister of the Interior he admitted that she had been a close personal friend for many years. The minister did not ask him in what guise.

Matthieu stood watching her face as they questioned her, and was surprised to hear how much she did remember, as were they. She was able to recall many details that had eluded her entirely before. This time she didn't mind Matthieu being there. It was comforting to have someone familiar close at hand, and he no longer frightened her. She thought her initial fear of him when he visited her came from the fact that she sensed that he had been important to her, but she had no idea why. Now she knew, and oddly, she remembered more details about their life together than she did about other people and events.

The high points of her time with him were sharply etched in her mind, emerging from the seas that had covered them, and she remembered a million small details as well, important moments, sunny days, torrid nights, tender moments, and the agony she had felt over his not leaving his wife, the arguments they'd had over it. His explanations and excuses stood out in her mind, even their sailboat trip in the South of France. She remembered almost every conversation they'd had while they drifted lazily near Saint Tropez, and his inconsolable sorrow when his daughter had died a year later. Their joint grief and disappointment when she miscarried. The memories of him overwhelmed her, and seemed to drown out all else. She could remember the pain he had caused her as though it were yesterday, and the day she had left France. She had given up all hope of a life with him by then. Knowing all that, it was odd being in a room with him now. Not frightening, but unsettling. He had an austere, unhappy look about him, which was what had seemed ominous to her at first, but now that she recalled their history, his somber air was familiar to her. He didn't look like a happy man, and seemed tormented by his own memories of the time they'd shared. He had wanted to apologize to her for years, and now fate had given him that chance.

Carole looked exhausted when the police and officials left her room. Matthieu sat down next to her, and without inquiring first, he handed her a mug of tea. She looked gratefully at him and smiled. She was almost too tired to lift it to her lips. He saw her hand shake and held the cup for her. The nurse was still outside the room, chatting with the two CRS guards. The protests of the hospital about their machine guns had been overridden. Carole's protection was paramount and took precedence over hospital rules. The machine guns stayed. Carole had seen them herself when she took a walk down the corridor with her nurse, before the interrogation unit arrived to debrief her. She had been shocked to see their weapons, and yet reassured at the same time. Like Matthieu's presence next to her, it seemed both a curse and a blessing.

“Are you all right?” he asked quietly, and she nodded, as she sipped the tea he held for her. She was shaking all over.

It had been an upsetting morning, but less so than the day before, when the boy with the knife entered her room. It was an event and a sensation she knew she would never forget. She had been certain she was going to die, even more than when she was flying through the tunnel. This was far more personal, and specifically meant to harm her, like a missile aimed straight at her. When she thought of it, she was still frightened. Looking at Matthieu calmed her. He seemed very gentle as he sat there. There was a kind side to him she had not forgotten. It was in full evidence as he sat beside her bed, and his love for her shone in his eyes. She wasn't sure if it was the memory of it for him, or a fire that had never gone out, and she had no desire to ask him. Some doors were best left closed forever. What lay behind that door was too painful for both of them, or at least that was what she thought. He had given her no insights into the present, only the past, which was enough for her.

“I'm okay,” she breathed with a sigh, as she laid her head back on the pillow and met his eyes. “That was hard,” she said, referring to the investigation, and he nodded.

“You did very well.” He had been proud of her. Carole had stayed calm, clear, and made every effort to pull every detail from her shattered memory bank. She had been impressive, which did not surprise him. She had always been a remarkable woman. She had also been extraordinary to him when his daughter died, and at a million other times, and never failed him in any way, as he had her. He knew it all too well, and had played it over countless times in his mind in the years since. He had been haunted by her face, her voice, her touch, for fifteen years, and now he was sitting next to her. It was almost too strange to believe.

“Did you talk to them first?” Carole was curious. The police had been kind and respectful to her, while pressing her relentlessly for every possible detail. But the way they had handled her seemed unusually gentle and respectful, and she suspected that he was responsible for it.

“I called the Minister of the Interior last night.” Ultimately, he was in charge of the investigation, and responsible for how it was handled, and its eventual success. It was the same job Matthieu had had when they met.

“Thank you,” she said, looking at him gratefully. They could have run roughshod over her, which was more their standard style, but they hadn't. They had worn kid gloves in how they handled it, thanks to him. “Do you miss your old job?” It seemed natural to her that he would. He had had so much power, the most powerful man in France. It would be hard for anyone to give that up, particularly a man. He had thrived on it when she knew him, and was very hands-on in how he handled it, which was why he could never have left. He felt as though the well-being of his country was in his care at all times. The country that he loved. “Ma patrie,” as he had so often said to her, burning with his passion for both his homeland and its people. It was unlikely that had changed, even if he had retired.

“Sometimes,” he said honestly. “Responsibility of that kind is hard to give up. It's like love, it doesn't stop, even if it changes address. But times are different now. It's a harder job today, it's not as clean. Terrorism has changed many things, in all countries. No leader has an easy time of it now. It was simpler when I was in government. You knew who the bad guys were. Now they have no face, and you don't see them until after the damage is done, like what happened to you. It is harder to protect the country and the people. Everyone is more disillusioned, and some are very bitter. It's difficult to be a hero. People are angry at everyone, not only their enemies, but their leaders.” He said it with a sigh. “I don't envy men in government today, but yes, I miss it.” He gave her one of his rare smiles. “What man wouldn't? It was a lot of fun.”

“I remember how much you loved it,” she said with a misty smile in response. “You worked crazy hours, and got calls all night long.” It was the way he wanted it. He wanted to know every detail of what was happening at all times. It had been an obsession with him.

And that morning he had stood in the room, hovering over the investigation, as though he were still in charge. Sometimes he forgot that he no longer was. And he was still deeply respected by the public and the men who had taken over his job. He took frequent stands on political issues, and was often quoted in the papers. They had called him several days before about his views on the tunnel attack and how the matter was being handled. He had been diplomatic, which was not always the case with him. When he was upset by something, or critical of the government, he did not mince words, and never had.

“France has always been my first love,” he responded. “Until you,” he added softly. But she wasn't sure that was true, or had ever been. As she saw it, she had been third in line, after his country and his marriage.

“Why did you retire?” Carole asked him quietly, and reached over for her tea again. This time she held the mug herself. She was feeling better and calmer again. The questioning had rattled her, but she was finally settling down. He could see it too.

“I thought it was time. I served my country for a long time. I had done my job. My term was over, the government changed. I had some health problems, which were probably work related. I'm fine now. I missed it terribly at first, and I've been offered some minor posts since, as a token gesture. I don't want that. I don't want a consolation prize. I had what I wanted. I thought it was time to give it up. And I enjoy practicing law. I've been asked several times to become a magistrate, a judge, but I would find that boring. It's more fun to be a lawyer than a judge. For me anyway. Although I'm planning to retire from that this year too.”

“Why?” She looked concerned for him. He was a man who needed to work. Even at sixty-eight, he had the drive and energy of a much younger man. She had seen it again when they were questioning her. He had been positively buzzing with electricity, like a live wire. It wasn't healthy for a man like him to retire. It was enough that he'd given up the ministry, it didn't seem wise to her for him to give up law as well.

“I'm old, my dear. It's time to do other things. Write, read, travel, think, discover new worlds. I'm planning to do some travel in South east Asia.” He'd been to Africa the year before. “I want to do things more slowly now, and savor them, before I can't do that anymore.”

“You have years ahead of you to do that. You're still a vital, youthful man.”

He laughed at her choice of words. “Yes, youthful, but not young. There is a difference. I want to enjoy my life, and the freedom I never had. I answer to no one now. There is a benefit to that, and a downside. My children are grown, even my grandchildren are grown.” He laughed. It was hard to imagine, but she realized it was true. “Arlette is gone. No one cares where I am or what I do, which is sad to admit, but true. I might as well take advantage of it while I can, before my children start calling the house to ask the maid if I ate my lunch or wet my bed.” He was a long way from there, and the picture he painted of his future touched her heart. In a way, she was there now too. Her children were much younger than his. She knew his oldest son must be well into his forties, and not much younger than she. He had married young and had children early, so he wasn't tied to relatively young children, as she was. But even hers were out of college, allegedly grown-up, and lived in other cities. Without Stevie to keep her company every day, her house would have been a tomb. There was no man in her life, no children at home, no one to answer to or spend time with, or take care of, no one who cared what time she ate dinner, or if. She was nearly twenty years younger than he was, but she was unfettered now too. It was what had led her to pursue the book, and the trip roaming around Europe, to find the answers that had eluded her till then.

“What about you?” He turned to her, with the same questions in his eyes that he saw in hers. “You haven't made a movie in a long time. I think I've seen them all.” He smiled again. It had been his treat to himself, to sit in a darkened theater, watching her and listening to her. He had seen some of them three and four times, and then watched them again on TV. His wife had never commented, and left the room quietly when Carole was on the screen. She knew. Right till the end. It was a subject they no longer touched on in the last years of their life together. She accepted his love for Carole, and the fact that he had never loved her in the same way, and never would. His feelings for his wife had been very different. They were about duty, responsibility, companionship, and respect. His feelings for Carole had been born of passion, desire, dreams, and hope. He had lost the dreams, but not the hope or the love. They were his forever, and he kept them locked in his heart, like a rare, precious jewel in a safe, out of harm's way, and out of sight. Carole could feel the emotions he still had for her, as they sat in her hospital room and talked. The room was alive with all that was unsaid, and still felt, by him at least.

“I haven't liked the scripts in the past few years. I don't want to do stupid roles, unless I do something really funny, which I've thought about lately too. I've always wanted to do comedy, and I might one of these days. I don't know how funny I am, but I'd love to give it a try and play with it. At this point, why not? Otherwise, I want to do roles that are meaningful to me and make a difference to the people who see the films. I can't see the point of just keeping my face on screen, so people don't forget who I am. I want to be really careful about what parts I accept. The role has to matter to me, or it's not worth doing. There aren't a lot of parts like that around, particularly at my age. And I didn't want to work for the year my husband was sick. Since then I haven't seen a single script I liked. It's all junk. I never did junk, and I don't want to start now. I don't need to do that. I've been trying to write a book,” she confessed to him with a smile. They had always had interesting conversations, about movies, politics, their work, views about the human condition, and life. He was an extremely cultured, well-read, philosophical person, with master's degrees in literature, psychology, and art and a doctorate in political science. He had many facets and a razor-sharp mind.

“Are you writing a book about your life?” He looked intrigued.

“Yes and no.” She smiled sheepishly. “It's a novel, about a woman coming of age and examining her life after her husband dies. I've had about a dozen false starts on it. I've written several chapters, from different angles, and I always get stuck at the same place. I can't figure out what the purpose of her life is, once he's gone. She's a brilliant neurosurgeon, and she couldn't save him from a brain tumor, in spite of all her knowledge. She's a woman accustomed to power and control, and her failure to alter destiny brings her to a crossroads in her life. It's about acceptance and surrender and understanding herself and what life is really about. She's made some important decisions in her past, which still impact her. She leaves her practice and goes on a journey, trying to find the answers to her own questions, the keys to the doors that she has left locked for most of her life, while she was moving forward. Now she has to go back, before she can go forward again.” She surprised herself with the recalled memories of her book.

“It sounds interesting,” he mused, looking pensive. He understood perfectly that it was about her, and the decisions she had made, and so did she. The choices, and the forks in the road she had taken, and not least of it, the decision she had made about him, to leave France, and the relationship she had seen as a dead end for her.

“I hope so. Maybe even a movie someday, if I ever write it. That's a part I'd like to play!” They both knew she already had. “I like writing the book though. It gives me the narrative voice, which is all-knowing, all-seeing, not just dialogue between characters, and facial expressions on a screen in film. The writer knows everything, or is supposed to, I think. As it so happens, I discovered that I didn't. I couldn't find the answers to my own questions, so I came to Europe to find them, before I go on with the book. I hoped it would open some doors for me, and unblock my writing.”

“And did it?” He looked intrigued, and she smiled ruefully.

“I don't know. It might have. I went to see our old house the day I arrived in Paris, and I had some ideas. I was going back to the hotel to do some writing, and the tunnel happened between the house and the hotel. And it all blew out of my head, along with everything that's ever been in it. It's very strange not knowing who you are, or where you've been, what mattered to you. All the people and places and events you had collected disappear, and you're left standing alone in silence, with no idea what your history is, or who you've been.” It was the ultimate nightmare, and he couldn't imagine it as he looked at her. “It's coming back now, in bits and pieces. But I don't know what I've forgotten. Most of the time, I see pictures and faces and remember feelings, and I'm not sure how they fit into the scheme of things, or the jigsaw puzzle of my life.” She remembered more of him than of anyone else, which seemed odd to her. She remembered more about Matthieu than about her own children, which made her sad. And she remembered almost nothing of Sean, except what she'd been told, and a few high points of their eight years. Even the memory of his death was vague. And she was able to recall Jason least of all, although she knew she loved him in a kind, brotherly way. She had different feelings about Matthieu. Her memories of him made her uncomfortable and brought back the memory of intense joy and pain. Mostly pain.

“I think your memory will come back. Probably fully in the end. You have to be patient. Maybe it will give you greater insights than you would have had otherwise.”

“Maybe.”

The doctors had been encouraging, but they couldn't promise full recovery yet. She was doing better, and moving forward quickly, but there were still times when she came to a dead stop. There were words, places, incidents, and people that had disappeared right out of her head. She didn't know if she would ever find them again, although the therapists were helping her. She was relying on others to share their history with her, and jog her memory, as Matthieu had. And in his case, she was not yet sure if it was a blessing or not. What he had shared so far had made her sad for what they'd lost, even a child. “If my memory doesn't come back,” she said practically, “I'm going to have a hell of a time working in future. It may be all over for me now. An actress who can't remember lines isn't likely to get a lot of work, although I've worked with a lot of those,” she said, and laughed. She had been an amazingly good sport about the loss she had sustained, and was far less depressed than her doctors and family had feared. She still had hope. And so did he. She seemed remarkably alive and alert to him, given what had happened, and the impact to her brain.

“I used to love watching you film your movies. I went to England every weekend, when you were doing the one after Marie Antoinette. I can't remember the name now. Steven Archer was in it, and Sir Harland Chadwick.” He tried to jog his memory, and without even trying, Carole blurted out the name of the film.

“Epiphany. Christ, what an awful picture that was,” she said, grinning, and then looked stunned that she had remembered the name, and the movie itself. “Wow, where did that come from?”

“It's all in there somewhere,” Matthieu said gently. “You'll find it. You just have to look.”

“I think I'm afraid of what I'll find,” she said honestly. “Maybe it's easier like this. I don't remember the things that hurt me, the people I hated, or who hated me. The events and people I must have wanted to forget… I don't remember the good ones either though,” she said, looking wistful. “I wish I remembered more about my children, particularly Chloe. I think I hurt her with my career. I must have been very selfish when she and Anthony were children. He seems to have forgiven me, or he says there was nothing to forgive, but Chloe is more honest about it. She seems angry, and so hurt. I wish I'd been smarter then and spent more time with them.” With memory had come guilt.

“You did spend time with them. A lot of time. Too much, I thought sometimes,” Matthieu reassured her. “You took them everywhere with you, and with us. Chloe was never out of your sight when you weren't working, and she was on the set with you when you were. You didn't even want to put her in school. She was a very needy little girl. What ever you gave her, she wanted something different, or more. She was a hard child to please.”

“Is that true?” It was interesting seeing it through the lenses of his eyes, since her own were so cloudy, and she wondered if he was right, or biased by the gender and cultural difference between them.

“I thought so. I never spent as much time with my children as you did, and neither did their mother, and she didn't work like you. You were constantly glued to Chloe and worried about her. And Anthony too. I had an easier time with him. He was older, and more accessible for me, because he was a boy. We were great friends when you were here. And in the end, he hated me, as you did. He saw you crying all the time.” He looked guilty and uncomfortable when he said it.

“Did I hate you?” she asked, looking puzzled. What she remembered, or sensed from the memories she had retrieved, was agony not hatred, or perhaps they had been the same. Disappointment, deception, frustration, anger. Hatred seemed such a strong word. She didn't hate him as he sat next to her. And Anthony had been angry when he saw him, like a child who had been bitterly disappointed, or betrayed. In the end, Matthieu had betrayed not only them, but himself.

“I don't know,” he said, thinking about it before he answered. “Perhaps you should have hated me, if you didn't. I let you down terribly. I was wrong. I engaged in commitments to you that I couldn't fulfill. I had no right to make the promises I did to you. I believed them then, but when I've looked back, and I have a lot, I know that I was dreaming. I wanted to make it real, and couldn't. My dream became a nightmare for you. And for me, in the end.” He was trying to be honest with her, and himself. He had wanted to say these things to her for years, and it was a relief to do so, although painful for both of them. “Anthony wouldn't even say goodbye to me when you left. He felt his father had betrayed all of you, and then I added to it. It was a terrible blow for you and your children and for me as well. I think it was the first time in my life when I truly saw myself as a bad man. I was a prisoner of circumstance.” She nodded, absorbing what he had said. She couldn't confirm or deny the truth of what he said, but it made sense. And as she listened, she felt compassion for him, knowing he must have suffered too.

“It must have been a hard time for both of us.”

“It was. And for Arlette. I never thought she loved me, until you came along. Maybe she only discovered it then herself. I'm not sure it was really love. But she felt I had an obligation to her, and I suppose she was right. I've always thought of myself as a man of honor, and I wasn't honorable to any of you then. Or myself. I loved you, and stayed with her. Perhaps it would have been different if I hadn't stayed in the government. My second term changed everything, and your fame. Having a mistress wouldn't have been such a huge shock, others have done it before and since in France, but because it was you, the scandal would have been incredible, for all of us, and it would have destroyed your career, and mine, I think. Arlette benefited from that,” he said honestly.

“And took full advantage of it, as I recall,” Carole said, looking suddenly tense. “She said she was going to call the studio on me, and the press, and then threatened suicide.” The memory of it came back to her in a rush, and Matthieu looked embarrassed.

“These things happen in France. It is much more common for women to threaten suicide here than in the States, especially in matters of the heart.”

“She had you by the ass, and me too,” Carole said bluntly, and he laughed.

“You might say that, although I would say a different part of the anatomy, in my case. But she had me by my children too. I truly thought they'd never speak to me again if I left her. She had my oldest son talk to me, as a spokesman for the family. She was very clever about that. I can't blame her. I was so sure she'd agree to a divorce. We didn't love each other, and hadn't in years by then. I was naïve in believing she would readily agree to let me go. And my naïveté caused me to mislead you.” He said it with an air of sorrow, as Carole met his eyes.

“We were both in a difficult position,” she said generously.

“Yes,” he agreed, “trapped by our love for each other, and held hostage by her, and the Ministry of the Interior, and my duties there.” Carole realized as he said it that he had had choices, hard ones maybe, but choices nonetheless. He had made his, and she had made hers when she left. She remembered fearing that it was too soon to throw in the towel, she had wondered for years if she should have stayed, if things would have ended differently if she had, if she might have won him in the end. She had finally let it go when she met Sean and got married. Until then she had blamed herself for leaving Matthieu too soon, but two and a half years seemed long enough for him to do what he had promised, and she had become convinced he never would. There had always been some excuse, which wasn't believable after a while. He believed them, but Carole no longer could. She had given up. And his gift to her, when they spoke of it since her accident, was to tell her she had been right. Even with her scrambled memory, it was an enormous relief to hear him finally admit that to her. Before, in conversations on the phone the year after she left, he always blamed her for leaving too soon. It wasn't, she knew now. It was right. Even fifteen years later she was grateful to know that, just as she was for the things Jason had told her about their marriage. She was beginning to wonder if, in some odd way, the tunnel bombing had been a gift. All of these people had come to her from her past, and opened their hearts. She would never have known any of this otherwise. It was exactly what she had needed for her book, and her life.

“You should rest,” Matthieu finally said to her, as he saw her eyes grow tired. The police investigation had drained her, and talking about their past was taxing for her too. And then he asked her a question that had haunted him since he had found her again. He had drifted in to see her several times, seemingly casual and politely concerned, but his interest in seeing her was far less offhand than it seemed. And now that she was fully conscious and remembered what they had once meant to each other, he respected the fact that she had a choice. “Would you like me to come and see you again, Carole?” He held his breath as he asked, and she hesitated for a long time. At first seeing him had confused and unnerved her, but now there was something comforting about having him nearby, like a looming guardian angel who protected her with his wide wings and intensely blue eyes, the color of sky.

“Yes, I would,” she said finally, after an interminable pause. “I like talking to you.” She always had. “We don't have to talk about the past anymore.” She knew enough, she wasn't sure she wanted to know more. There was too much pain there, even now. “Maybe we can be friends. I'd like that.” He nodded, still wanting more, but he didn't want to scare her, and knew he might. She was still fragile after everything that had happened to her, and so much time had passed since their affair. It was probably too late, much as he hated to admit it to himself. He had lost the love of his life. But she had come back now, in a different guise. Perhaps, as she said, it would be enough. They could try.

“I'll come to see you tomorrow,” he promised, standing up, as he looked down at her. She looked frail as she lay beneath the covers. She barely made a ripple in the bed. He bent to kiss her forehead. She smiled peacefully as she closed her eyes and spoke in a dreamy whisper.

“ 'Bye, Matthieu … thank you …” He had never loved her more.

Chapter 14

Stevie showed up at the hospital late that afternoon with a small overnight bag, and asked the nurse to set up a cot in Carole's room. She was planning to spend the night. When she walked in, Carole was just waking up from a long nap. She had slept for hours after Matthieu left, exhausted by the morning she'd had, and then talking to him. It had taken her full concentration to manage both.

“I'm moving in,” Stevie said, setting down her bag. Her eyes still looked watery, and she had a red nose and a cough. But she was taking the antibiotics and said she was no longer contagious. Carole's cold was better too. “So what mischief did you get into today?” Carole told her about the police coming to see her, and Stevie was pleased to see the two CRS guards at her door, although their machine guns looked unpleasant, as they would to any would-be assailants too.

“And Matthieu stayed after they left. He was here when I talked to the police,” Carole added, looking pensive, as Stevie looked at her with narrowed eyes.

“Should I be worried?”

“I don't think so. That was all such a long time ago. I was a kid, younger than you are now. We agreed to be friends, or try to be. I think he means well. He looks like an unhappy man.” He had the same intensity she remembered even in their days of passion, but there was a depth of sadness in his eyes that hadn't been there before, except after his daughter died. “I'll be going home soon anyway. It's kind of nice to put old ghosts to rest, and make friends with them. It takes away their power.”

“I'm not sure anything could take away that guy's power,” Stevie said sensibly. “He comes in here like a tidal wave, and everybody jumps about ten feet when they see him.”

“He was a very important man, and still is. He called the Minister of the Interior about me. That's how we got the guards at the door.”

“I don't mind that. I just don't want him upsetting you,” Stevie said protectively. She didn't want anything hurting Carole, ever again if possible. She'd been through far too much. Her recovery was hard enough. She didn't need to deal with emotional issues too, particularly Matthieu's. He'd had his chance, and blown it, as far as Stevie was concerned.

“He doesn't upset me. The things I remember about him do sometimes, but he's been very nice. He asked my permission to visit me again.” That had impressed her. He hadn't just assumed it, he had asked.

“And did you give it to him?” Stevie asked with interest. She still didn't trust the guy. He had scary eyes. But not to Carole. She knew him better than that, or had once upon a time.

“Yes. I think we can be friends now. It's worth a try. He's a very interesting man.”

“So was Hitler … and Stalin… I don't know why, but I get the feeling this guy would stop at nothing to get what he wants.”

“That's how it was before. It's different now. We're different. He's old. It's over.” Carole sounded sure of it, Stevie wasn't.

“Don't bet on that. Old loves die hard.” Theirs certainly had. She had thought about him for years, and loved him for a long time. It had kept her from loving anyone till Sean. But Carole said nothing and only nodded.

Stevie made herself comfortable on the cot they brought in, and later in the evening put on pajamas, and said they were having a slumber party. Carole felt guilty for having her assistant stay with her instead of at the Ritz. But after the boy-with-the-knife incident, Stevie no longer felt comfortable being far from Carole. She had also promised Jason she'd stay close. He had called a dozen times, shaken by the attack. Carole's children had called her too. They had guards with machine guns outside the room now, and Stevie to protect her inside. It touched Carole that Stevie cared that much about her. And they giggled and chatted like two kids late into the night, while the nurse stood outside and talked to the guards.

“This is fun,” Carole said at one point, laughing. “Thank you for staying with me.”

“I was lonely at the hotel too,” Stevie admitted. “I'm really starting to miss Alan.” She had been gone for weeks, even over Thanksgiving. “He's been calling a lot. He's actually beginning to sound like a grown-up, which is pretty goddamn good news since he turned forty last month. He's definitely a late bloomer.” Neither of them had ever been married, and lately he'd been talking about it, and long-term plans for their future. “He invited me to Christmas dinner at his parents'. Up till now, we always spent the holidays separately. Spending them together seemed like too much of a commitment, to both of us. I guess that's progress, but toward what? I like what we've got.” His talking long term made her nervous.

“What would you do if you got married?” Carole asked cautiously, from her bed, with a night-light on nearby. The room was almost dark, which lent itself to confidences and questions they might not have dared ask each other otherwise, although they were always fairly candid with each other. But some topics were taboo, even between them. This was a question Carole had never asked her before, and hesitated even now.

“Kill myself,” Stevie said simply, and then laughed. “About what? I don't know … nothing… I hate change. Our apartment is comfortable. He hates my furniture, I don't care. Maybe I'd repaint the living room, and get another dog.” Stevie couldn't see why anything would change, but it might. Marriage would give Alan a far greater claim on her life, which was why she didn't want to marry him. She liked her life just the way it was.

“I mean about your job.”

“My job? What does marriage have to do with that, unless I marry you? I guess then I'd move in.” They both laughed at that.

“You work a lot of hours, you travel with me. We're gone a lot. And anytime I get blown up in a tunnel, you could get stuck in Paris for a hell of a long time,” Carole explained with a smile.

“Oh that. Shit, I don't know. I never thought about it. I think I'd give up Alan before I'd give up my job. In fact, I know it. If my work with you is an issue to him, he can take a long hike, into oblivion. I'm not giving up this job. Ever. You'd have to kill me first.” It was comforting for Carole to hear it, although sometimes things changed unexpectedly. She worried about that. And she wanted Stevie to have a good life, not just a job.

“How does Alan feel about it? Does he ever complain?”

“Not really. He whines sometimes, if I'm gone a long time, and says he misses me. I figure it's good for him, unless he finds another roommate. But he's very much steady-eddy, and he's pretty busy himself. He actually travels more than I do, although he doesn't go as far.” Most of his trips were in California, while hers with Carole were abroad. “As far as I know, he's never cheated on me. I think he used to be fairly wild when he was younger. I'm the first woman he's ever lived with. It's worked out pretty decently so far. Which is another thing, why fix what ain't broke?”

“Has he asked you to marry him, Stevie?”

“No, thank God. I just worry that he will. He never used to talk about marriage at all. Now the subject does come up. A lot lately. He says he thinks we should get married. But he's never proposed. I'd be upset if he did. I guess he's thinking that it must be some kind of midlife crisis, which is depressing too. I hate to think we're that old.”

“You're not. It's nice that he's feeling responsible about you. I'd be more upset if he weren't. Are you going to his parents' for Christmas?” Carole was curious, and Stevie groaned from her cot across the room.

“I guess. His mother is a real pain in the ass. She thinks I'm too tall and too old for him. Nice. But his father is cute. And I like both of his sisters. They're smart, like him.” It all sounded healthy to Carole, and reminded her to call Chloe the next day. She wanted to invite her to come to California a few days before the others, so they'd have some time alone. She thought it would be good for both of them.

She lay in the dark for a few minutes, thinking about what Matthieu had said about her, and how difficult and needy Chloe had been even as a little girl. It absolved Carole a little, and relieved her, but she still wanted to try to make up to her for what Chloe felt she had missed. Neither of them had anything to lose, and both had everything to win.

She was nearly asleep when Stevie spoke to her again. It was another of those easier-in-the-dark questions. They couldn't see each other from their beds. It was like confession. The question took Carole by surprise.

“Are you still in love with Matthieu?” Stevie had been wondering for days, and was worried about it. Carole took a long time to answer, pondering it, and then said what was closest to the truth.

“I don't know.”

“Do you think you'd ever move back here?” Stevie was worried about her job, just as Carole worried about losing her. This time Carole answered quickly, with no hesitation in her voice.

“No. Not for a man anyway. I like my life in L.A.” Even with Anthony and Chloe gone, she liked the house, the city, her friends, and the weather. Gray Paris winters no longer appealed to her, no matter how beautiful the city was. She had been there, done that, years before. She had no desire to move. “I'm not going anywhere,” she reassured her assistant.

They both fell asleep shortly after, comfortable that nothing in their lives was going to change. The future was sure, as much as it ever was.

When Carole awoke the next morning, Stevie was already awake, up, dressed, and her bed had been made. A nurse was walking into the room with Carole's breakfast tray, and the neurologist was close on her heels.

The doctor came to stand beside Carole's bed, with a warm smile. She was their star patient and had made a recovery thus far that exceeded all their expectations. She said as much to Carole, while Stevie stood nearby, like a proud mother hen. They had much to be thankful for.

“There are still so many things I can't remember. My phone number, my address. What my house looks like from the outside. I know what my bedroom looks like, and the garden, and even my office. I can't visualize the rest of my house. I can't remember my house-keeper's face or name. I don't remember my children growing up… I can hear my father's voice, but I can't see him in my mind … I don't know who my friends are. I hardly remember anything about either of my marriages, particularly my last one.” It was an endless litany as her doctor smiled.

“The last item you mentioned could be a blessing. I remember far too much about both my marriages! Ah, to forget them both!” the doctor said as all three women laughed, and then grew serious again. “You must be patient, Carole. It will take months, maybe a year, even two. Some things may never come back, small things probably. You can do things to push yourself, photographs, letters, rely on friends to tell you things. Your children will fill you in. Your brain had a tremendous shock, now it's doing its job again. Give it some time to recover. It's like when a film breaks at a movie. It takes a little time to thread it back on the reel again and get it running smoothly. It jumps and skips for a while, the picture is blurry, the sound is too fast or too slow, and then the film rolls on again. You must be patient during this process. Stamping your feet or throwing popcorn at the screen won't make it go any faster. And the more impatient you get, the harder it will be for you.”

“Will I remember how to drive?” Her motor skills and coordination had already improved but weren't perfect yet. The physical therapists had been pushing her hard, with good results. Her balance was better, but every now and then the room reeled around her, or her legs felt weak.

“Perhaps not at first. It will probably come back. In each case, you have to remember what you once knew without a second thought. The dishwasher, the washing machine, your car, your computer. Everything you've ever learned has to be entered into the computer in your head again, or brought back if it was saved. I think more of it has been saved than you know. A year from now you may have no evidence of the accident at all. Or even in six months. Or there may always be some small thing that is harder for you now. You'll need a physical therapist in California, one who is familiar with brain trauma. I was going to suggest a speech therapist, but I don't think that's an issue for you.” After her initial difficulty at finding words, she seemed to have full access to her vocabulary, and had for a while. “I have the name of an excellent neurologist in Los Angeles, who can follow your case. We'll send all your records to him after you arrive in L.A. I suggest that you see him every two weeks at first, but that's for him to decide. Later, you can see him once every few months, if you're not having any problems. I want you to be aware of head aches and report them to him immediately. Don't wait for your next visit. And any problems with balance. That could be a problem for a while. We're going to do some scans today, but I'm extremely pleased with your progress. You are our miracle child here at La Pitié.”

Others who had survived the bombing hadn't done as well, and many had died, even after the first days, most of them from burns. Carole's arms had healed well, the burn on her face had been superficial, and she was getting used to the scar. The doctor had been impressed at her lack of vanity. She was a sensible woman. Carole had been far more worried about her brain than her face. She hadn't decided yet whether to have surgery, to get rid of the scar, or live with it for a while and decide how she felt about it later. She was worried about the possible effect of anesthesia on her brain and so were they. The scar could wait.

“I still don't want you to fly for a few more weeks. I know you want to be home for the holidays, but if you could wait till the twentieth or twenty-first, I'd be pleased. Providing you have no complications between now and then. That could change plans considerably. But as things stand now, I think you'll be home for Christmas.” There were tears in Carole's eyes as she listened, and Stevie's too. For a while there, it looked as if she'd never go home again, or wouldn't recognize it if she did. It was going to be a great Christmas this year, with both her children under the tree, and Jason too. He hadn't spent holidays with them in years. The kids were thrilled he was coming, and so was she.

“When can I go back to the hotel?” Carole asked. She was safe and comfortable in her hospital cocoon, and a little frightened about leaving, but she liked the idea of spending her final days in Paris at the Ritz. They had already agreed to send a nurse with her.

“Let's see how your scans look today. Perhaps you can go back to the hotel tomorrow or the next day.” Carole beamed, although she was going to miss the feeling of safety she derived from being there, with medical care close at hand. The CRS guards were going to the Ritz with her, that had already been arranged, and hotel security would be tightened once she returned. They were planning for it. “How would you feel about my sending a physician on the flight to California with you? I think it might be a good idea, and reassuring for you. The pressure might cause some changes that could alarm you, although I don't think you'll have a problem by then. It's just a precaution, and another element of comfort for you.” Carole and Stevie both liked that idea. Stevie hadn't mentioned it, but she was worried about the trip, and the pressure, as the doctor said.

“That would be great,” Carole said quickly, as Stevie nodded her approval.

“I have a young neurosurgeon who has a sister in Los Angeles, and he's dying to make the trip to spend the holidays with her. I'll let him know. He'll be thrilled.”

“Me too,” Stevie said with relief. She'd been panicking about the responsibility of being alone with Carole on the flight, in case anything went wrong when they were in the air. It was an eleven-hour flight, a long time to worry about her, and have no medical advice or support after all she'd been through. They had talked about chartering a plane, but Carole wanted to go commercial. Chartering seemed an unnecessary expense to her, and she was ambulatory after all, just frail. She wanted to go back as she had come, on Air France, with Stevie next to her, and now the young doctor with the sister in L.A. Stevie felt infinitely better now about the trip. She could even sleep, with a doctor close at hand, a neurosurgeon yet.

“I think everything's in order then,” the doctor said, smiling again. “I'll let you know how the tests look later on. I think you can start packing up soon. You'll be drinking champagne at the Ritz in no time.” She was teasing, they knew, as Carole had already been told she shouldn't drink alcohol for a while. She seldom drank anyway, so she didn't care.

She got out of bed and showered after the doctor left. Stevie helped her wash her hair, and this time Carole took a long look in the mirror at the scar on her cheek.

“Not too pretty, I must say,” she said, frowning at it.

“It looks like a dueling scar,” Stevie said blithely. “I'll bet you can cover it with makeup.”

“Maybe. Maybe it's my badge of honor. At least my mind's not completely shot,” Carole said, walking away from the mirror with a shrug, drying her hair with a towel. She mentioned to Stevie again that it was a little scary leaving the hospital. It was like leaving the womb. She was glad she was taking a nurse back to the hotel.

She called Chloe in London after her hair was dry, and told her she'd be back at the hotel soon, and on her way to Los Angeles by Christmas. She assumed, as they all did, that her scans would be fine, or at least no worse than they'd been before. There was nothing to suggest otherwise.

“I was wondering if you'd like to come out a few days early,” Carole offered her daughter, “before the others. Maybe the day after I get home myself. You can help me get ready for Christmas. We can do a little shopping together. I don't think I bought anything before I left L.A. I was thinking it might be a nice time for us to spend together, and maybe we can plan to take a trip together in the spring, someplace you'd really like to go.” Carole had thought about it for days, and liked the idea herself.

“Just us?” Chloe sounded stunned.

“Just us.” Carole smiled as she held the phone, and met Stevie's eyes, who gave her a thumbs-up. “I think we have some mother-daughter time to make up for. I'm game if you are.”

“Wow, Mom … I never thought you'd do that.” Chloe sounded awed.

“I'd love it. It would be a treat for me, if you can take the time.” She remembered what Matthieu had said, about how needy and demanding she'd been as a child. But even if she had been, if that was what she needed, why not give it to her? Everyone's needs were different, and perhaps Chloe's were greater than most, for whatever reason, whether her mother's fault or not. Carole had the time. Why not use it to bring happiness to her daughter? Wasn't that what mothers were for? Just because Anthony was more independent and self-sufficient, it didn't make Chloe's needs wrong. Just different. And Carole wanted to spend time with him too. She wanted to share the gift that had been given to her, her life. They were her children after all, even if adults with their own lives. Whatever they needed from her now, she wanted to try to give them, in honor not only of the past, but the present, and future. One day they would have lives and families of their own. Now was the time for her to spend special moments with them, before it was too late. It was the eleventh hour for her, and she was just squeaking in under the wire. “Why don't you think about where you'd like to go? Maybe this spring. Any where in the world.” It was an amazing offer, and as always, Stevie was impressed by her employer and friend. She always came through, for all of them. She was an extraordinary woman, and a pleasure to know and love.

“What about Tahiti?” Chloe said in a single breath. “I can take my vacation in March.”

“Sounds great to me. I don't think I've ever been there. At least I don't think so. And if I have, I don't remember it, so it'll be new to me.” They both laughed at what she said. “We'll figure it out. Any way, I'm hoping to get back to L.A. on the twenty-first. Maybe you want to arrive on the twenty-second. The others aren't coming till Christmas Eve. It's not a lot of time, but it's a start. I'll be in Paris till then.” But she knew Chloe had to catch up on her work at British Vogue, and even work weekends, to make up for the time she'd been away, so Carole didn't expect to see her till just before Christmas in L.A. She wasn't well enough yet to fly over to London to see her. She wanted to take it easy until her flight back to L.A., a trip that would be something of a challenge. Less so now with a neurosurgeon traveling with them.

“I'll come on the twenty-second, Mom. And thank you,” Chloe said. Carole could tell it was heartfelt. If nothing else, Chloe appreciated the effort her mother was making. Maybe she always had made the effort, Carole told herself, and maybe her daughter had never noticed it before, or been old enough to understand it and be grateful. They were both making an effort now, and aware enough to be kind to each other. That alone was an enormous gift, for both of them.

“I'll let you know when I'm back at the hotel. Tomorrow or the day after. I'll call you,” Carole said calmly.

“Thanks, Mom,” Chloe said in a loving tone, and they both hung up after saying that they loved each other.

Carole's next call was to Anthony in New York. He was at the office and sounded busy, but he was pleased to hear her. She told him about going back to the hotel, and how much she was looking forward to seeing him at Christmas. He sounded in good spirits, although he warned her about befriending Matthieu again. It was a recurring theme in every call.

“I just don't trust him, Mom. People don't change. I remember how miserable he made you before. All I remember about our last days in Paris was you crying all the time. I don't even remember what it was about. I just know how sad you were. I don't want that to happen to you again. You've been through enough hard times. I'd rather see you back with Dad.” It was the first time he had said that to her, and it startled her. She didn't want to disappoint him, any more than she wanted to hurt Jason, but she was not going back to him.

“That isn't going to happen,” she said calmly. “I think we're better as friends.”

“Well, Matthieu is no friend,” her son growled at her. “He was a real bastard to you when you lived with him. He was married, wasn't he?” His recollections were fuzzy now, only the negative impression had remained, and it was extreme. He would have done anything to protect his mother from that grief again. Even the memory of it hurt him now. She deserved so much better than that, from any man.

“Yes, he was married,” she said quietly. She didn't want to be put in the position of defending him.

“I thought so. Why did he live with us then?” He had been there most of the time.

“People make arrangements like that in France. They have mistresses as well as wives. It's not a great situation for anyone, but they seem to accept it here. It was a lot harder to get divorced in those days. So people lived that way. I wanted him to get divorced, but his daughter died, and then his wife threatened suicide. He was too high up in the government to get out of his marriage without it causing a major incident in the press. It sounds crazy, but it was considered less shocking to do what we did. He said he'd get divorced, and we were going to get married. I think he really believed we would, there was just never a good time for him to get out. So we left,” she said with a sigh. “I didn't want to go, but I didn't want all of us living that way forever. It didn't seem right. For you, or for me. I'm too American for that. I didn't want to be some-one's mistress permanently, and lead a secret life.”