Touch the Stars (23 page)

"You have not spoken of the accident much among yourselves," Stephen went on. "We are not here to cry over our loved ones who were lost that night, but to enlighten the living. For too long the experience of the accident has been clouded by doubt and shrouded in secrecy, with each of you thinking that you and you alone were to blame for the accident."

Julie stood and would have bolted if Stephen had not swiftly crossed the room and slid a supportive arm around her shoulders.

"Please sit down, Juliana," he said softly. She sank back onto the couch next to Eva, who reached out and took her hand.

Paul looked uncomfortable. "Stephen, I'm not convinced that we need to put ourselves through this."

Paul was the one person in the room with whom Stephen hadn't spoken about that fatal night. Stephen suddenly wished he had. Maybe Paul would be the person to start. He was older than the others, and since he wasn't planning to perform on the wire again, he had less at stake.

"Paul, the others have shared their memories of that day and night with me. Do you have any recollections about what happened—and why it happened?"

Paul reflected silently for a moment, staring down at the polished wood floor.

"Aunt Elisabeth was upset with me," he said at last.

Julie felt the onset of panic. Everything that she told Stephen last night in privacy was going to be revealed! Why, why had she told him?

"Upset with
you?"
Stephen said with a sidelong look at Julie to see how she was taking this.

"Yes, Aunt Elisabeth had seen me whispering to Julie, and she guessed correctly that I was the one who invited Julie to come with the guys and me to Bourbon Street that night. She—"

"You
knew!
" cried Julie. "You knew we argued?" She couldn't believe that the secret she had kept for so many years wasn't a secret at all.

"Only because Aunt Elisabeth told me. She was angry with me for not knowing better than to invite you. You were just a kid, she said, and I shouldn't have encouraged you to think you could go out with the guys. She was right. I knew how strict our parents and Grandfather Anton were.

"Well, before we all assembled outside the dressing room, I was in the corridor getting our capes out of the wardrobe trunk when Aunt Elisabeth marched up and really lit into me. She said that as the oldest of the cousins, I had a certain responsibility where the younger members of the troupe were concerned, and that under no circumstances was I to pull such a stunt again." Paul shook his head sorrowfully. Then he looked Julie right in the eye. "That's what happened. Aunt Elisabeth wasn't mentally prepared to go on the wire that night. And it was my fault."

"Yours!" Julie said, crying out as though someone had just slipped a knife into her heart. "No, Paul! It was my fault! I had a terrible fight with Mother and Dad and Grandfather Anton while the rest of you were resting that afternoon. It started over going out with the boys that night, but it became much more than that. I was angry because I had to work as a member of the troupe, but they never let me have adult privileges. Mother and Dad ended up yelling at each other, and Grandfather tried to smooth everything over. Then, knowing that my mother was unsettled over the argument, I said I wanted to sit out the performance. Mother took my place on the wire only because she thought I might be sick. Paul, the accident wasn't
your
fault!"

"But that's ridiculous!" Michael interrupted. "It was because the shoulder brace I wore slipped, and Aunt Elisabeth had to struggle to keep her balance! That's why the accident happened."

Everyone started to talk at once. Stephen attempted to calm them, but Albert said hotly, "I wasn't aware of any of those things! What I remember is that Tony and I defied Grandfather's orders by sneaking down to Bourbon Street where we drank two beers apiece. That was the reason—"

"Will all of you be quiet!" Eva screamed, clearly beside herself. "We fell because I was thinking about Clark Fedderman and his birthday party, and I couldn't be there because of the trip to New Orleans, and Aunt Elisabeth slipped and I didn't react in time; there wasn't anything I could do, not a thing, and, oh, I'm so sorry!" Eva burst into tears, and Julie, shocked by what had been revealed here, clasped Eva in her arms as tears streamed down her own face.

Suddenly the room was quiet except for Eva's soft, muffled sobs.

"You see?" Stephen said, his gaze circling the stunned group. "It is foolish to go on blaming yourselves. It was an accident. Maybe it was everyone's fault, or maybe it was no one's fault. It makes no difference now."

Eva stopped sobbing, and Julie reached up a trembling hand to wipe the tears from her own cheeks.

"What Stephen says is true," Albert said slowly, recovering his composure. "We have all denied our memories of the accident for much too long. And now that we're united as a family, it doesn't hurt so much to remember it. Now that we
have
remembered it, maybe we're all ready to forgive ourselves."

"I agree," said Michael, who was deeply shaken.

Paul said thoughtfully, "It is time to know that whatever happened that night, we must all stop hating ourselves. We are a family. If you hate yourself, you are hating one of us. And to hate one of us is to hate us all."

"I don't like this talk of hating," Julie said. "We must love one another. That's why we are all here on earth, isn't it? To love?"

Stephen walked slowly to her side, and she lifted her eyes to his. Her features had relaxed, and she looked more beautiful than he had ever seen her. His eyes bored into hers.

"Yes, Juliana," he said gently. "That is why we have one another. To love." And he bent down and kissed her on the cheek.

Chapter 13

The air on this late August day seemed lit with sunshine, and Julie, on her way back to the farmhouse from the mailbox at the road, stuffed the few envelopes in the back pocket of her shorts and ran through the meadow toward the brook. The Andrassy family had arrived back at the farm from the mountain house two weeks ago, and she and Nonna were leaving the next day for home. Julie wanted to bid a quick farewell to the brook where she and Stephen had first had a serious conversation. It was, more than any other, the place where they had begun to reach out to each other.

The glade beside the stream was shadowed and quiet, and she was surprised when a figure detached itself from the rocks and strode toward her, resplendent in white shorts and shirt against a deep tan. Stephen caught her in his arms and kissed her on the mouth.

She laughed up at him. "There's no telling where you'll turn up!" she teased. "How did you know I would be here?"

"I didn't, but I would have made sure you got here eventually," Stephen said. "And I will keep 'turning up,' as you so charmingly put it, the rest of your life, if you will let me."

Her expression darkened as she pulled away. "Not now, Stephen," she said. "I want to remember our last day here as a day of happiness."

He dropped a kiss on the side of her neck and led her to the flat rock where they had sat before.

"This should be a day to live in our memories, and we should have time to ourselves. That is why I have brought our lunch," he said, indicating a basket.

"Stephen!" She was touched.

"You are not to do a thing. You must sit down and let me take care of this." Julie sat, and he knelt beside her, energetically beginning to removing things from the basket and setting them on a linen tablecloth that he had spread on the rock.

Julie leaned back on her hands, let her head fall back, and gazed up at the feathery branches overhead. The air was redolent with the scent of green moss, and the creek water glittered and gurgled between flat brown rocks. When she looked at Stephen, his face was spangled with green-and-gold light.

"I hope you like strawberries," he said, setting them out in a glass bowl.

"Why, yes," she replied in surprise.

"There I was in the grocery store buying the food for this picnic, and I had to stop and think, 'Does Juliana like strawberries?' I have so many things to learn about you." He smiled at her and produced two stemmed crystal glasses from the basket. A champagne bottle followed, and Stephen secured it between two rocks in the stream.

"You've thought of everything," she marveled when she saw the curried chicken salad delectably served in hollowed brioches. "Surely you didn't do all this yourself?"

"But of course I did. You see? You have much to learn about me, too." Stephen grinned at her and dipped a strawberry in powdered sugar. "Open your mouth," he commanded, and when she did, he popped the strawberry into it.

Julie's teeth bit down until the juice ran down her chin. Stephen, his eyes suddenly soulful, bent over and kissed it away. She lifted her arms to encircle his neck.

"This is very nice," he murmured lazily in her ear. "But will you look at what is happening to our champagne?"

The bottle had dislodged from its place between the rocks and was threatening to float downstream. Stephen made a wild grab for it and slid sideways until he was half in, half out of the water. Julie instinctively reached for him, lost her balance and tumbled past him to land right side up in the shallow stream, its pebbles smooth against her legs.

She laughed up at Stephen. "Care to join me?" she asked jokingly, holding out her hand. She was completely surprised when he let go of the rock on which he had a firm grip and slid down into the water beside her.

At her startled look, he only laughed. "I was already half in anyway," he offered in explanation.

"And it's a hot day," she said, because the water felt good against her skin. Then she giggled at the idea of the two of them, sitting waist deep in clear water and carrying on a perfectly normal conversation.

"If the water were deep enough, I would like to swim," Stephen said, lounging backward.

"We could wade," Julie suggested, watching minnows dart past Stephen's legs.

"What is this 'wade'?"

"It means walking in the shallow water."

"Ah. Barely getting one's feet wet."

"Yes."

"I would not care much for wading. When I do something, I must do it all the way."

"Like walking the wire," she said.

"Yes. I must do all of it and I must be the best. And I am that way in love, Juliana. When I love, I must love you completely, and it must be the best."

"Stephen, I—"

"I know. You cannot be sure yet. But I want you to know that when you are sure, I will be waiting for you."

Did she love him enough? Was love a trembling inside when a man kissed strawberry juice off your chin? Was it the sense of pleasure she felt when she saw Stephen sitting at the Andrassy dinner table, completely at ease with her family? Was it the tender longing for him that she felt when they were apart, and was it the peaceful, exhausted sense of completion she felt after their lovemaking? Was it all of these things or none of them? Would what she felt for Stephen be strong enough to endure through everything she would have to endure if she were his wife?

"Why are we sitting here?" she asked, blinking her eyes against the sudden piercing sunbeam that managed to penetrate the leaves above.

Stephen wrapped his arms around her and kissed her lingeringly on the corner of her mouth.

"Because we fell—in the water and in love. Come on, my little water nymph," and he kept his arms around her as he pulled her to a standing position. They stood holding each other for a long time, the water eddying around their ankles.

"I almost forgot," Stephen said suddenly. He released her and reached into a shirt pocket. "I have brought you something so you won't forget me and what you're supposed to be thinking about."

"I would never—" Julie began before she spotted the tiny gold star twinkling in the palm of his hand.

"Here, let me fasten it around your neck."

"Let me see it first," she breathed, her fingers capturing it as it dangled on its chain. The star had five points, one of them tipped with a diamond. The necklace was dainty and lovely and, to Julie's mind, an utterly extravagant gesture.

"I can't accept this," she said slowly.

"Of course you can." Stephen reached around her neck and clasped the chain. The chain was so long that the star dangled in the hollow between her breasts. She looked down at it and touched the diamond experimentally.