The Winemaker's Wife(101)

“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-Dommange. “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 chateau. 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.