The Winemaker's Wife(10)

“With all due respect, Grandma Edith, maybe your mother never had to deal with infertility and a husband who couldn’t stand the sight of her anymore.”

“No, dear, she only had to deal with the violent death of her brother in the First World War, terrifying nightly bombings while the Germans ransacked France, and my father returned from Verdun half blind and full of misplaced anger.”

Liv stared at her. “Grandma Edith, I’m so sorry. I had no idea your family had gone through all that.”

“Yes, well, some things are best left alone. The point is, many people lose more than they can imagine, and they still find a way to carry on.” When she lifted her martini again, her hand was trembling. She glanced at Liv, and then she looked past her, her gaze very far away. “I found a way, Olivia. And you must, too.”

? ? ?

Paris was bustling, even though it wasn’t quite eight in the morning as their chauffeured car wove through the narrow streets of the seventh arrondissement. Liv gazed out the window at the boulangeries already crowded with people, the florists just setting up for the day, the fromageries with their displays of overflowing cheeses. Liv cracked the window and breathed in deeply, inhaling the familiar mélange of yeasty bread, faint cigarette smoke, and flowers—a combination that was uniquely Parisian. She had been here so many times as a child that the scent should have triggered happy recollections of running through the Tuileries gardens with her grandmother strolling behind her, a cigarette pinched between two narrow fingers.

Instead, the memory that dug its claws into her was of a more recent trip, one she took with Eric right after he’d proposed thirteen years ago. She couldn’t marry him in good conscience without Grandma Edith’s approval. It was supposed to have been a mere formality, but Grandma Edith had disliked him from the start for reasons Liv couldn’t fathom. Eric hadn’t liked Grandma Edith much, either; he’d told Liv on their first morning there that the old woman seemed too showy.

“I think she just lives comfortably, that’s all,” Liv had protested. “Besides, you know how generous she always is with me.”

Eric had rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, it must be nice to be rolling in money she didn’t actually earn.”

“What are you talking about? We have no idea where her money comes from.”

“And you don’t think that’s weird?”

Liv shrugged. “I think it’s old-fashioned. She always says it’s vulgar to talk about finances.”

“Well, regardless, she doesn’t seem to believe I’m worthy of a cent of her fortune.”

“What?”

“You’re going to tell me that having me sign a prenup wasn’t all her idea?”

Of course, it had been Grandma Edith who had insisted on the document, which seemed pointless to Liv. But the older woman was generously paying for their wedding, and acquiescing to the request seemed a small price to pay to keep the peace. “Look, does it matter? It’s not like we’re going to get divorced. I love you.”

Later, when Eric had been in the shower, Liv had broached the subject with Grandma Edith. “You do like him, don’t you?”

It had taken Grandma Edith a long time to meet Liv’s gaze. “No, not particularly.”

“But you barely know him! How can you possibly say that?”

“A lifetime of experience, dear. When you know, you know.”

“Well, you’re wrong! And it’s not your place to be judging the person I love!”

“Someone has to be the voice of reason,” Grandma Edith replied, looking her in the eye. “And your mother is too busy gallivanting around with her boyfriends to say a thing.”

“Maybe she just respects my point of view more than you do.”

“Or maybe she hasn’t realized yet that matters of the heart can make you both blind and stupid.” Grandma Edith shrugged while Liv seethed. “But it’s your life. Marry him if you want. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Now, nearly a decade and a half later, the words still rang in Liv’s ears. “Grandma Edith?” she asked softly as the car turned right on the rue Fabert and the gold dome of Les Invalides came into view.

“Hmm?”

“How did you see through Eric so quickly when I first brought him here to meet you?”

“You are in Paris, and still you are thinking of him?” Her grandmother clucked her disapproval. “Let him go.”

“I have,” Liv said. “Honestly. I just—I don’t know how I got it so wrong when you knew exactly who he was right from the start.”

Grandma Edith shifted in her seat, her eyes watery. “It’s not your fault, Olivia, not really. When you’re young, you see only the future. When you grow older, you see the past.” She turned to stare out the window. After a long pause, she spoke again, her voice quivering in a way Liv had never heard before. “And the past has a way of showing you things clearly, whether you like it or not.”





six


SEPTEMBER 1940





INèS


The grapes themselves were the first to resist the Germans, dying on the vines or simply committing suicide in the middle of the night by falling to earth in the darkness. Grape moths and harvest worms had invaded along with the German army, destroying so much of the year’s crop that the champagne houses were already counting their losses before a single piece of fruit had been pulled from the vines.