A Tangled Web

by Judith Michael

  “Yes.” She felt herself curl up inside, as if she had told a lie, and she knew she should not do this; she had no right to take Léon into the emptiness that was always with her, no matter how happy and content she was. But she loved him and he was her whole world, and so she kissed him and said, “Yes, I want to have our children.”

  “And Robert will marry us here, in Vézelay. My love?” His face was close to Stephanie’s; he kissed her almost chastely. “Will you marry me? Do you know, I have never asked you that.”

  “Yes,” Stephanie said once again: “Yes, yes, I want to marry you. But . . . not yet. We don’t know what I’ll remember. We could wait a few months, a year, even more; what difference does it make as long as we’re living together?”

  “I want to marry you,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to wait. I don’t want to live with you in a way that makes it impossible for us to build a family. I want everything with you, Sabrina, not just a living arrangement. I will not force you, but I feel strongly about this.”

  And that was enough. Whatever lay ahead, they would share it. “Then we should invite Robert to Vézelay,” she said.

  “We’ll call him tonight.”

  He turned off the light switches and locked the door. They walked down the narrow stairway to the dark sidewalk, faintly lit, and made their way down the middle of the deserted street to their gate. Léon pushed it open and they walked into the courtyard, where one candle still burned on the olivewood table where they had eaten their dinner. Golden light spilled from the windows of their house, turning to gold the wisteria vines climbing around them, the bougainvillaea on the stone wall, the single rose on their dinner table, their faces as they turned to each other. “I love this house,” Stephanie said. “I love you. Thank you for giving me all this.”

  He gave a small laugh. “I’m the one who is grateful. Once my only center was painting; everything else revolved on the periphery, casual, not essential. You’ve given me everything that is essential. You’ve made me complete.”

  He unlocked the heavy wooden front door and they went inside and up the stairs. “The dishes,” Stephanie murmured.

  “Terribly important,” Léon said dryly, his long thin fingers unbuttoning her white shirt. “I greatly fear they will wait for us.”

  They lay on the bed and came together with a passion that had been growing since they left Cavaillon. Nothing they had known before was as powerful as the love they shared and the response of their bodies in their own home, together in a small town where no one knew them. When, much later, they lay side by side, smiling at each other in the lamplight, Stephanie kissed him and said, “I think I could be content with this and nothing else. If I never know any more about myself than I know now, it might be enough.”

  “Not forever, I think. But it doesn’t matter. Whatever you discover, I can’t imagine it changing what we have. Something this powerful can’t be shattered easily. Or at all. Good heavens, is that the doorbell? No one in Vézelay is up this late.”

  Stephanie felt a stab of fear. “Could someone have followed us?”

  “No, no, there is no chance. You know that. Robert’s friend has been watching your house; no stranger has been near it. And we left from my house in Goult, not from Cavaillon. Perhaps it is a peddler; shall we ignore it?”

  “Yes.” But when the bell rang again and then again, Stephanie unaccountably began to tremble. “It’s something else. Something . . . something . . . oh, what’s wrong with me?”

  Léon sat up. “You’re afraid. I’ll go.”

  “No, I’m not afraid, that’s not it. It’s just . . .” She leaped out of bed. “I have to go. It’s for me.”

  His eyebrows rose. “How do you know that?”

  “I don’t know.” She pulled on a silk robe of peacock blue and green that Léon had bought for her in Avignon, and ran her fingers through her long hair. “I’ll be right back.”

  “I’m coming too. Wait for me. Where did I put my robe?”

  “I think it’s in the other closet. It’s all right, Léon; don’t bother. I’ll only be a minute.”

  She ran down the stairs. She heard Léon go into the other room and open the closet and pictured him fumbling through clothes they had not yet completely organized. At the bottom of the stairs she crossed the small foyer and opened the door. “Yes, what can I—”

  She was looking at herself.

  “Stephanie!” said the vision. “Oh, Stephanie, thank God—”

  A long scream broke from her, shattering the quiet night. And then the world went black.

  CHAPTER 18

  “Sabrina!”

  Léon, at the bend in the stairs, heard Stephanie’s scream and hurtled the rest of the way down and into the foyer. In the dim light he saw Stephanie on the floor and a woman bending over her, her long chestnut hair falling over her face. Just like Sabrina’s hair . . . The thought came and was gone as Léon shoved her aside. “Get away from her!” He took Stephanie into his arms and lifted her. He heard the woman say, “Léon, please, let me help,” and thought, as fleetingly as before. How the hell does she know my name? before he carried Stephanie into the living room and laid her on the couch.

  “Sabrina, my love, my love.” He sat with her, cradling her against his chest. And then he looked up at the woman, who had followed him, and felt his body go rigid with shock. “My God. My God. Who the devil—” The woman reached out to touch Stephanie’s hair. “Get away from her! Leave her alone!”

  Leave us alone, he thought, because he was filled with fear. Sabrina in his arms; Sabrina standing beside him. The room seemed to tilt; he could not think. And so he denied the other woman and bent over Stephanie, seeing only her, murmuring to her. “Wake up, Sabrina, wake up, my love; it will be all right. Whatever it is . . .” He breathed in the scent of her hair and brushed his lips across her cheek, watching her eyelids flutter. He felt he was holding his whole world in his arms, this woman who was the core of his life, and he was filled with terror because he knew her past had come into their home and could take her from him.

  How lightly he had talked of it! How easily he had told her she would remember everything and then they would deal with it together. Fool, fool, fool, to be so naive. Now, at this moment, he knew that the past could never be so casually dismissed: it could always twist and shatter the present, and only a fool would think otherwise.

  “My love, my love, it will be all right.” Like a child trying to ward off invisible dangers in the scary corners of his room, he repeated it. “You’ll be all right. We’ll be all right.” And, like a child, he added to himself, We will, we will, we will.

  “Léon, please, please let me . . .”

  The woman was standing close by, reaching toward Stephanie, yearning toward her, Léon thought, and he could deny her no longer. He looked up. “You’re her sister.”

  “Yes.”

  “She didn’t know she had one. And a twin . . .” He stared at her, his artist’s eye comparing them. “It’s uncanny. I could have mistaken you for her.”

  She nodded gravely. “Many people have.” Once again she reached out, and this time Léon did not stop her as she took Stephanie’s hand in hers and bent to kiss her. And then, suddenly, as her lips touched the warmth of Stephanie’s cheek, her legs buckled and she sank to her knees beside the couch and laid her cheek on Stephanie’s.

  Stephanie, Stephanie . . . She wept and it seemed she could not stop. She looked at Stephanie through her tears and gently brushed her hair back from her face. I did that before, in the funeral home, a year ago. I laid my head on the side of Stephanie’s coffin and wept in that awful dark room until I thought I would tear apart. How can she be here now?

  “I don’t know, I don’t know,” she murmured. She kissed Stephanie’s forehead, her cheek, her closed eyes. “So wonderful . . . magical . . .” She looked at Léon. “I thought she was dead.”

  Instinctively he had tightened his arms as if to keep Stephanie to himself, safe from even the
touch of the past. But the past was here: the past was this woman, kneeling beside the couch, her hand on her sister’s hair, her body leaning toward her as if desperate to take her from Léon into her own embrace.

  “Is she married?” he burst out. “Does she have children?”

  Sabrina froze. Her hand fell to her side; she swayed a little, away from him. Her mouth opened, then closed. The words would not come.

  Stephanie stirred and Léon bent to her. “My love, my love . . .”

  Her eyes opened. She saw only his face. “Léon? I thought Sabrina was here. I saw her and everything came back . . . it was like a flood . . . I couldn’t stand it; it hurt. Isn’t she here?”

  “Sabrina? But, my love, you’re Sabrina.”

  “Stephanie,” Sabrina said.

  Stephanie turned. A low cry broke from her. She wrenched free of Léon’s embrace, and then she and Sabrina were in each other’s arms.

  Two identical faces, wet with tears, pressed together as they embraced so tightly it seemed they had merged into one. They held each other for a long time, not moving, silent tears falling softly in the silence of the house, the silence of the night.

  Quietly Léon moved away, through an archway that led to a small library. He could see them sitting on the couch, but he stayed in the shadows and watched them. He could not believe it even now: two stunning women, identical in every way, even to the curve of their arms and fingers as they embraced, the lashes on their closed eyes, their voices murmuring each other’s names, saying they loved each other.

  Stephanie, he thought. Her name is Stephanie. But Max called her Sabrina, and so we all did. And they were speaking English. American English, not British. Effortlessly, without an accent, Sabrina—no, her name is Stephanie—was speaking to her sister in English. American, he thought. She’s American. I never guessed.

  “I love you,” Sabrina said. “I couldn’t bear it that you were gone; I’ve missed you so much.”

  Stephanie shuddered within her sister’s arms. “I didn’t remember anything about you. I remembered other things, other people—flashes, really, not connected to anything—but I never remembered you. I love you, I love you, but I didn’t remember you. Why didn’t I? Oh, Sabrina, so much has happened! How will we ever put it all together?”

  Sabrina gave a shaky laugh. “We’ll start at the beginning. But not yet. Let’s not talk yet; let’s just be together—”

  “No, we have to talk. We have to. I lost everything—did you know that? It was so awful: like walking through a fog, through nothing, just—”

  “—emptiness,” Sabrina said. “I thought of that when I thought about you, everything gone: an awful—”

  “Nothingness. That was it. I knew the names of things, and languages—isn’t that odd?—or maybe not. One of the doctors told me I was repressing things about myself because I’d had some kind of conflict that caused pain or guilt . . .” She and Sabrina exchanged a quick look; then Stephanie veered away from it. “So there was nothing about myself. Nothing. Except, somehow there must have been something, because it never seemed right that my name was Sabrina. And Léon painted a portrait of me, a double portrait, and when I looked at it, it made me feel so happy . . .” She shook her head. “I can’t believe it. It’s all back, as if nothing had happened. But I don’t know anything about you, what you did, what’s happened—Oh! Penny and Cliff! Have you seen them? Do you know how they are?”

  There was a pause barely the length of a heartbeat. “Yes. They’re fine. You’re right; we have to talk. Do you think we could make some tea?”

  “Oh, yes, let’s. We can’t just stay here; I want to know everything. Let’s go to the kitchen. Oh, but Léon—” Stephanie looked for him. “Léon?”

  “Yes.” He was beside her, thinking: Penny and Cliff, Penny and Cliff. She said those names once and wondered if they were her children. “What would you like? Shall I make you some tea and then”—he forced himself to say it—“then I’ll leave the two of you alone.”

  A look of confusion swept over Stephanie’s face. “No.” She stood up, and Sabrina stood with her; they clung to each other, arms around each other’s waists. “Would you mind?” she asked Sabrina. “I want Léon to know everything.”

  “If that’s what you want.”

  “I know you’d rather it’s just the two of us, after so much time . . .”

  “Yes. But we’ll do what you want.” Sabrina extended her hand. “Hello, Léon. I’m glad to meet you.”

  Through his bewilderment and cold fear, he saw the swift understanding between them, the unspoken assumptions, the powerful love, and knew he could not break that bond, nor would he even try. It was theirs alone, and it changed everything: it turned his world and Stephanie’s upside down. But he liked this woman: the love she had for her sister; her warmth and directness. She would not lie or participate in others’ lies, he thought. He took the hand Sabrina held out to him and saw the shadowed look in her eyes and wondered what part of this incredible meeting was causing her pain. “Léon Dumas,” he said. “But I don’t know your name.”

  “Sabrina . . . Longworth.” Her tongue tripped on it. “But also . . . Stephanie Andersen.”

  Stephanie frowned. “That was a long time ago . . . and it wasn’t for real.”

  “But they told us you were dead and I couldn’t—”

  “Dead?” Stephanie stared at her and suddenly all the events of the past year seemed to surround her, pieces fitting into place. “Lacoste . . . Max Lacoste. Sabrina Lacoste. But he was Max Stuyvesant, and I was Stephanie Andersen. He didn’t know that, of course; he thought I was you, so when he told me my name was Sabrina, when he said I never had children and he’d never heard of Garth, that was the truth, as far as he knew it. But he said we were married, and I never married him; how could I? He made that up, I suppose, when the yacht exploded, and he changed his name and let everyone think we’d been killed. He made us disappear. Of course you thought we were dead; what else could you think? And then”—she looked wildly at Sabrina—“then you couldn’t change back.”

  “You and Max weren’t married?” Léon asked. He could make sense of nothing but that.

  “No. Oh, Sabrina, that’s what you meant about my being gone.” She kissed Sabrina’s cheek. They were still standing together, their arms around each other, their hands moving, stroking, caressing in constant reminders that this was real. “You meant you thought I was dead. But there wasn’t a . . . body. How could you think—?”

  “I don’t know. We have to figure that out. But first I want to know about you. Everything. Robert wanted to tell me but I—”

  “You know Robert?”

  “That was how I found you. I’ll tell you the whole story when you tell me yours . . . or we can take turns, but—”

  “But not standing in the living room.” Léon felt he had to do something, say something, to restore a sense of reality. He felt he was losing Sabrina . . . no, he thought, Stephanie. I must remember, her name is Stephanie. It seemed to him she was disappearing into her sister, the two of them merging as their voices, identical voices, overlapped and they held each other as if they could not ever again be torn apart. And what they said made no sense. “Come; we’ll make tea and then you can talk. I’ll stay if you wish.”

  This time Stephanie hesitated. She glanced at Sabrina. “It might be better if we’re alone.”

  Léon’s fear rose again, but he only nodded. “I thought so.” He led the way to the kitchen, a long narrow room with tall wood cabinets, a worn wood floor, and a high window at one end above a planked table and four wooden chairs with rush seats. Léon switched on the ship’s lantern above the table and went to the stove.

  “Léon, I’ll do it.” Stephanie finally left her sister’s side and went to him, her arm around his waist, her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I love you; I don’t want to hurt you. But there’s so much . . . everything is so mixed up and I can’t tell you about it, not yet . . . or maybe I should . . . Oh, I
don’t know what I should do!”

  Léon hesitated, afraid of confusing her even more. But then he thought, the hell with it. He had his fear to deal with, and he had to try to balance the sisters’ almost mystical closeness. He took Stephanie in his arms. “I love you. And you love me. We haven’t dreamed this; we haven’t chased a fantasy or clung to each other out of desperation. We came together freely and offered to each other all that we had and all that we were, and it didn’t matter what we had been before. From the moment we loved, our past had nothing to do with the life we were building together. We knew that we would change each other, and our lives would change, and that was what we wanted. That was what made us happy. I want you to remember that.”

  “I will,” Stephanie said gravely. “I couldn’t forget it.” She reached up and touched his face. “I love you. But everything is so complicated . . . I’ll tell you about it later, I promise. I’ll tell you all of it. But Sabrina and I have to fill in our lives, and we have to do it in our own way, and I don’t see how you can be part of that.”

  She was changing as he watched her, growing stronger, more positive, more sure of herself. Because now she has a self, he thought. The recovery of her memory and her sister beside her have filled in all the empty spaces that I alone, and all the love in the world, could not fill.

  “I’ll be upstairs,” he said, and kissed her, and felt her respond with the passion she had shown earlier that night, and that was what he took with him when he left the room, a passion that could not—if there was any meaning in the world—be taken from them.

  Stephanie stood at the stove, her back to Sabrina, waiting for the water to boil. As soon as Léon left, she had begun trembling and now she could barely lift the kettle. “Let me help,” Sabrina said at her shoulder.

  Stephanie did not turn around. “I’m afraid.”

  “We both are.”

  The words they had not said, the questions they had not asked in the rush of emotions in rediscovering each other, hung in the room.