Honor Thyself (15 page)

“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

O
n 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.