The Winemaker's Wife Page 30

  thirty-three

  JUNE 2019

  LIV

  When it became clear that Grandma Edith wasn’t going to reemerge from her room, Liv tried calling Julien, but when he didn’t pick up, she finally took a shower, switched her phone to silent, and went to bed. It had been a long, confusing day, and she was exhausted.

  She woke before dawn and smiled when she saw that she’d missed a call from Julien. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to talk with you last night,” he said in the message he’d left, his voice deep, his tone soft. “I didn’t check my phone until after I’d gotten Mathilde to sleep. I’m probably calling too late now, actually. I’m sorry. But I just wanted you to know that I had a lovely time today, and, um, I very much look forward to seeing you again. Call me in the morning, Liv.”

  She dressed in a fog as she thought about whether to suggest to Julien that they meet for dinner that night. Was that too forward? Maybe that wasn’t the way dating was done here. For that matter, maybe that wasn’t the way dating was done anywhere this decade. She was woefully out of practice.

  She was still smiling when she emerged from her room, but then she realized that Grandma Edith’s door was open, and the suite was empty. She looked at her watch. It wasn’t even seven in the morning yet. There was suddenly a knot in the pit of Liv’s stomach. Where had Grandma Edith gone so early?

  Then Liv’s eyes landed on the coffee table in the middle of the room. On it sat two envelopes, one addressed to her, the other addressed to Julien, both in her grandmother’s signature hand. She crossed the room quickly and tore open her note.

  Dearest Olivia,

  There are many things to say, but the truth is, I have never been as strong as I’ve wanted to be. I brought you here to tell you everything, to try to make things right in some small way, but it seems I lack the courage. Perhaps this, more than anything, is what defines my life.

  Please summon Julien, and he will tell you the things that I cannot. The other note on the table is addressed to him; it gives him permission to break my confidence.

  It is time you know who you are. I’m sorry I have failed you. But somehow, my Olivia, you summoned strength on your own, and I know now that whatever comes, you will find your happiness. Never forget how much I love you, even if I did not deserve to know you at all. Being your Grandma Edith has been one of the greatest gifts of my life.

  All my love forever. xx

  Liv reread the note, her hands shaking, and then she hurried back to her room to grab her phone. She dialed Julien.

  “Liv.” His voice was deep and warm when he answered. “Good morning.”

  “My grandmother’s gone,” she blurted out without returning his greeting. “She left a note.”

  “What? What did it say?”

  “It sounded really final, Julien. She left one for you, too.”

  He cursed under his breath. “I’ll be right over. Open my note in the meantime.”

  Liv hung up and slipped her finger under the flap of the envelope addressed to Julien. Inside, Grandma Edith had written:

  Please tell Liv everything. It is time. Thank you for guarding my secrets for so long. You’re a good man.

  By the time Julien arrived fifteen minutes later, his dark hair a mess, his linen shirt wrinkled, Liv was pacing the hotel suite. She thrust both letters at him, and he read through them quickly, his lips moving with the words. When he was done, he looked up at Liv, the concern on his face mirroring hers. “What was the last thing she said to you? Did you see her this morning?”

  Liv shook her head. “She was gone before I got up. But last night, she was saying all sorts of weird things—that my dad was actually the son of Michel Chauveau, who owned the Maison Chauveau, and that she was not actually my father’s mother. It made no sense, and when I tried to get her to explain, she shut down. I thought she was just being dramatic, but now—” Liv pointed to the letters Julien was holding. “Now I’m really worried. Julien, it almost sounds like she’s saying goodbye, doesn’t it?”

  “Okay.” He set the letters down and pulled his phone from his pocket. “I am just going to call a friend of mine with the local police department. Don’t worry, d’accord?”

  Liv waited while Julien placed a call, explaining in rapid French that Edith Thierry wasn’t exactly a missing person but that he was worried about her safety. He hung up and turned to Liv. “He will have the other officers keep an eye out. We will find her, Liv.”

  “We should go look, too,” Liv said. She couldn’t fight the feeling that something terrible had happened.

  “We’ll take my car.”

  As they left the hotel room, Julien squeezed Liv’s hand, and he didn’t let go. “Thank you,” she said as they hurried down the stairs together.

  In the car a few minutes later, Julien drove while Liv scanned the sidewalks for her grandmother. It was early, and the streets were quiet, so the old woman should have been easy to pick out. But there was no sign of her. In silence, Julien circled the block and then pulled to a stop in front of the Brasserie Moulin, which appeared to be closed. “Do you want to make sure she’s not there?” he asked. “Just in case?”

  Liv nodded and jumped out of the car. She raced to the door, but it was locked. She put her face to the glass and peered in, but the restaurant was empty. Back in the car, she turned to Julien. “Do you think there’s any chance she called a taxi and went to the Maison Chauveau? She seemed so emotional about it yesterday.”

  “I was thinking the same thing. Yes, let’s check.” He merged back into traffic. “While you were looking in the brasserie, I called my grandfather and left a message. Maybe he’ll have an idea of where to find her.”

  “Thank you.” She was silent as she gazed out at the buildings of Reims blurring past the car. “Julien? What secrets did my grandmother want you to reveal?”

  He didn’t answer right away, but she could see his hands tighten on the steering wheel, his jaw flex. “I really do feel like it’s a story that you should hear from her, Liv.”

  “But she’s not here. And she asked you to tell me.”

  “I know.” He sighed. “All right, where shall I begin? Well, to start, she is not really Edith Thierry. That is an identity she took on after the war, a name that once belonged to someone else.”

  Liv stared at him. “The wife of the owner of the Brasserie Moulin.”

  “Oui. The real Edith Thierry was your grandmother’s best friend. As I understand it, she died helping the Resistance here in Reims. Shot by the Germans, I believe, toward the end of the Occupation.”

  Liv covered her mouth. “So who on earth is my grandmother, then?”

  Julian glanced at her, his eyes full of concern. “Your grandmother’s real name is Inès Chauveau. She was the wife of Michel Chauveau, who owned the Maison Chauveau.” Julien paused as he took a right toward the edge of town.

  Liv felt short of breath. “I—I don’t understand. She told me yesterday that Michel Chauveau was my father’s father, but she wasn’t his mother.”

  “Oui. That’s where it gets complicated. You see, Michel Chauveau had an affair with a woman named Céline Laurent, the wife of his chef de cave, his head winemaker. She was your father’s real mother. But when Madame Laurent was taken away to Auschwitz, she left her newborn son with your grandmother.”

  “Oh my God, Auschwitz? What happened to her?”

  “She never came back. Your grandmother, she always blamed herself for Madame Laurent’s death, as well as her own husband’s. But she knew she had to protect your father. There were people in Reims who believed she—Inès—had helped the Nazis.”

  “But she didn’t, did she? Oh, God, please tell me she didn’t.”

  “No, she didn’t,” Julien said quickly. “Actually, she helped save my grandfather’s life. He was a Jewish refugee, and she sheltered him in the cellars beneath the Maison Chauveau until her husband could find him a safe way out of France.” Julien turned onto Route D980, which would lead them to Ville-D
ommange. “Whatever happened at the Maison Chauveau, Liv, your grandmother is a good woman. But she has never been able to forgive herself for the terrible mistakes she made seventy-five years ago.”

  “But what mistakes? Why did she blame herself for the death of my father’s real parents?”

  Julien was silent for a few seconds. “She may have betrayed them to the Germans just after finding out about their affair.”

  “No,” Liv breathed. “How could she?”

  “I don’t believe it was intentional. But that doesn’t change the outcome, does it? My grandfather says it’s one of the greatest tragedies he has ever seen; your grandmother has lived her whole life defined by her guilt over what she did.”

  Liv let the words settle over her. Had Grandma Edith really caused the deaths of two innocent people, even if it was a mistake? “So is that what she brought me here to tell me?” she asked, her voice cracking. “That she has a terrible secret past? And that I’m not really her granddaughter?”

  “But you are. Don’t you see? Family is more than just blood. And I think she has spent a lifetime atoning for the things she did.”

  Liv looked at her hands but didn’t say anything.

  Julien pulled over on the side of the road and turned to her. “Liv, there was something else she brought you here to tell you, too.”

  She half laughed. “What else could there possibly be?”

  “That the Maison Chauveau will be yours one day, Liv.”

  Liv opened and closed her mouth. “I—I don’t understand.”

  “The house has been run by a trust administered by my family’s law firm for seventy years. Since your father’s death, it has always been meant to pass on to you. Your grandmother’s primary stipulation was that she would tell you at the time of her choosing. The house is technically hers, since Michel Chauveau left it to her upon his death.”

  “You’re telling me that I will inherit the Maison Chauveau?” Liv’s voice had risen an octave.

  “Upon your grandmother’s passing, yes.” The ringing of Julien’s phone interrupted them, and he glanced at the caller ID, his eyebrows drawing together as he answered. “Oui,” he said. “Oui. Nous serons là rapidement.”

  “Who was that?” Liv asked.

  “It was my grandfather.” Julien’s expression was grim as he pulled back onto the road and gunned the engine. “Your grandmother is at the Maison Chauveau. He is almost there. I told him we are on our way.”

  thirty-four

  JUNE 2019

  INÈS

  Could the stain of what she had done ever be erased? Inès had played a courageous role in the Resistance, had brought her son to America for a new life, had always looked out for her granddaughter. She had donated millions to charity, had saved the lives of Samuel and his sister, had tried to bring honor to the name of Edith Thierry, her dear friend who had died trying to save France.

  But it hadn’t been enough.

  David had still been robbed of his mother and father. Olivia had missed out on having a real grandmother and grandfather. And now, somehow, Inès was nearly a century old, still alive, still going, while Michel and Céline had never made it out of their twenties.

  Inès knew she could live a hundred more years, do a thousand more good deeds, maybe even a million, and the scales would never be balanced.

  She stood just outside the old entrance to the cellars at the Maison Chauveau, the one that had been boarded up in favor of the new, larger entrance inside the main château. Samuel had done well; from the time she put the business in his hands in 1946, he had made the right decisions, hired the right people, transformed the Maison Chauveau into a profitable empire. Inès had hoped, when she left this place more than seven decades earlier, that one day it might be worth enough to help pay for David’s college tuition, to help him get a start in life, perhaps buy a first house of his own. It had certainly done that—though he had never understood where the money had come from—but it had become so much more. By the time Samuel and his grandson sorted through the paperwork and passed it on to Olivia, she would be a millionaire many times over. And Olivia would have a home here forever, if she wanted it. This was what was meant to be, and it was Inès’s fault that it was all coming together far too late. Perhaps her granddaughter could have been spared the pain of a bad marriage and a painful divorce if she had been living here in Ville-Dommange instead of New York, if she had understood who she was all along. Yet one more thing for Inès to regret.

  Inès gazed out now at the rows and rows of Pinot Noir grapes that crawled toward the horizon. She wondered if the vines she could see now were descendants of the ones Michel had once cultivated so carefully. Even if they weren’t, certainly they carried a piece of him. His blood had spilled here, seeped into the soil, become part of the earth itself before the Nazis had hauled him away. He had given all he had to this land. And now it would help sustain the granddaughter he never had a chance to know.

  In the notebook she had left for Samuel to give to Olivia, Inès had written all the stories that she could remember about Michel and Céline. If Olivia took the time to read them, the words would breathe life into this place, and Olivia would understand that she was walking among the ghosts of the people she should have belonged to. Whatever happened, Inès knew now that Olivia would be okay. Inès had done all she could do, and now it was time. She was so very tired.

  A car turned off the main road in the distance and pulled up the drive to the Maison Chauveau. Inès watched it approach, relief sweeping over her. Good, Samuel was here. It would be only a few minutes before the pills kicked in, and there were things she wanted to say.

  The car drew to a halt, and the man who climbed out of the driver’s seat did so with difficulty, slowly unfolding his long legs and then using his arms to launch himself awkwardly out of the vehicle. It was Samuel—stooped and slowing, but the same man she’d known since she was twenty-three. Her friend. The one person on earth who really knew her—knew everything she had done—and had remained by her side for all these years anyhow.

  “Inès,” he said, walking toward her with the support of a cane. “Are you all right?”

  “Samuel,” she said, smiling at him as he drew closer. They kissed on both cheeks, formally, but then he embraced her. They were both old as dirt, but being in his arms was as familiar as ever, and for a second, Inès could close her eyes and believe they were young again. She pulled away and gestured to a bench nearby.

  “What is this about, dear friend?” Samuel asked, gazing into her eyes, after they sat down.

  But he did not need an answer. She could see it written in his expression. He already knew. She looked away, over the rolling vineyards, toward the eastern horizon, where the sun was just beginning to warm the earth.

  She hoped Olivia would choose this place. She thought maybe she would, at least for a while. She had seen the way Julien looked at her granddaughter, and the way she looked at him. That hadn’t been Inès’s intention when she’d first brought Olivia here, but the moment she had seen them together for the first time, she had known—and of course she’d had to meddle, just a bit, to help Olivia move past the fears that were holding her back.

  Perhaps it was preordained, written in the stars, just like everything else. Long ago, Inès had helped save the life of Julien’s grandfather. Now the boy was falling in love with Olivia—and Inès could see Olivia’s heart opening again, too. That meant that Inès could finally go in peace, knowing that her granddaughter would be all right—even if things didn’t work out with young Julien. Olivia intuitively understood how to love in a way that Inès never had, and that meant that the girl would find her way to happiness, one way or another.

  “Remember years ago, when you told me about that French policeman who killed himself on the street in front of your house during the roundups of 1942?” Inès asked Samuel now, leaning into her friend’s shoulder for support. “I didn’t understand it at the time, how a person could take his own life out
of a sense of responsibility, but now I do.”

  Samuel’s face crumpled in sad resignation. “Oh no, Inès, what have you done?”

  She stared into the distance, watching as the edges blurred, the world began to slip away. She had run out of time. There would be no absolution.

  “Perhaps what I should have done long ago,” she said. “I never deserved all these years, Samuel. It isn’t fair. I should not have been the one to live.”

  “But you were! You survived, Inès, and you did a lot of good in this world. You have to trust that God had the right plan for you!”

  “But didn’t I turn my back on God all those years ago? What if I made a deal with the devil, whether I intended to or not?” She could feel herself growing weaker, her muscles losing their hold on her bones, and so she gratefully accepted the support when Samuel put his arm around her. She could feel him shaking, but she didn’t know whether it was from age or sadness.

  “My dear friend,” he said, “you didn’t turn your back on God. You made mistakes, but you have spent a lifetime atoning. I’m proof of that, aren’t I? I’m here because you risked your life to save me.”

  His voice sounded more distant now, though he was just beside her. She knew she was disappearing. She didn’t have the strength to tell him he was wrong, that the saving of one life didn’t counterbalance the losing of another. Nothing could.

  “Inès, are you listening to me?” he said from somewhere far away. “You need to hear this. You are a good woman, Inès. You always have been, even if you never believed it.”

  She wished he wouldn’t lie to her, not at the end, but she knew he meant well. “Please ask Julien to look out for my Olivia, whatever happens,” she managed to say, but she wasn’t sure he heard her, because she was already drifting, already rising up into the crisp Champagne sky, already watching the vineyards disappear beneath her, lines and lines of grapes and dreams running over the earth, fading into forever.