The Winemaker's Wife(105)

Liv read and reread the article, her vision blurred by tears. How had she never known any of this? Her family’s history was so tragically bittersweet, perhaps Grandma Edith’s life most of all. Liv could hardly imagine the guilt and pain that had driven her into the woods of France in pursuit of redemption.

And though Liv had never wanted for anything, and though she had always understood that Grandma Edith loved her deeply, she couldn’t help but wonder how different her life would be if Céline Laurent and Michel Chauveau had survived. But Liv couldn’t imagine a life without her extraordinary grandmother, the woman who had given up everything—even her own name—to protect a little boy who wasn’t hers. After all, if Grandma Edith hadn’t brought David to America, he never would have met Liv’s mother, and Liv herself would never have existed. And if Grandma Edith hadn’t risked her life saving Samuel Cohn all those years before, there would be no Julien, either. It was incredible to think how deeply the decisions of the past had shaped the future.

That’s what Liv was thinking about on the fourth Wednesday evening in August as she made her way up Julien’s front walk. If Grandma Edith hadn’t made the sacrifices she had, Liv wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t be standing on the doorstep of the man she had fallen in love with, waiting to meet his daughter for the first time. And so she looked heavenward to where the sunset was just beginning to streak the sky, and smiled. “Thank you, Grandma Edith,” she said. “For everything.”

Then, straightening the vintage Chanel scarf Grandma Edith had given her just before boarding the train that had brought Liv to Reims for the first time, she took a deep breath and knocked on the door.





epilogue


SEPTEMBER 2019





LIV


A month later, with the harvest about to begin, Liv sat in the main building of the Maison Chauveau going over some paperwork with Julien, Jacques, and Sylvie. She was trying to understand how they sourced the grapes from so many vineyards and managed to keep all the batches separate before blending. Jacques patiently explained the difference between the limestone-rich soil in the Aube and the chalkier earth in the Marne. Liv eventually signed off on the agreements with each individual vigneron, a formality that Samuel Cohn, and then Julien, had once been responsible for on behalf of the trust.

“I promise,” Jacques said as he and Sylvie gathered their things and prepared to head out for one last meeting with the Comité Interprofessionnel du vin de Champagne before the workers descended on the vineyards. “Once this harvest is over, I’ll start taking you to meet the vignerons. The grapes are as much a product of their expertise as they are a product of the land itself. You will find that when you come to know and trust the growers, you will usually trust their fruit, too.”

After Jacques and Sylvie had gone, Julien helped Liv gather up all the papers. “You’re really getting the hang of this,” he said.

She groaned. “How is it that you understand it all so easily?”

He laughed. “Don’t forget, I have a twenty-year jump on you. Since I joined my grandfather’s firm, one of our main accounts has been the Maison Chauveau. I could probably tell you the soil composition of every single vineyard the champagne house works with.”

“Vineyard soil, huh?” Liv asked, nudging him. “I love it when you talk dirty to me.”

He stared at her for a long beat before he blinked in recognition of her joke and burst out laughing.

“I guess I’ll have to work on my French flirtation.” Liv grinned, loving the way her stomach still fluttered around him, even months after they had started dating.

“Oh, I think you’re doing just fine.” He leaned down to kiss her, and the butterflies in her belly beat faster now. She was in love with him, and she had fallen in love with his daughter, too. In a strange way, Julien and Mathilde already felt like her family, like perhaps they had been meant to be just that all along. And she knew all too well now that family was about more than just blood. She didn’t know where this would lead, but as Julien had reminded her not so long ago, the future was wide open.

He took her hand and they strolled out into the main room where tourists circulated, picking up bottles and souvenirs to take home, reading the plaques on the wall, doing guided tastings at the bar. Since the article had appeared in Le Monde, they had been packed every day. Liv smiled across the room at René, the young tour guide who had shown her and Grandma Edith into the cellars just a few months earlier, and then her eyes roamed the crowd until they settled on an old woman who had just walked through the tasting room’s front door with the help of a silver cane.

She was tall and white-haired, at least in her eighties or nineties, and she was leaning on the arm of a tall, broad-shouldered man in his sixties. There was something vaguely familiar about the man, but it was the woman Liv couldn’t look away from. It wasn’t the jagged scar running the length of her right cheek that captured Liv’s attention, though; it was something about her eyes, something Liv recognized, though she was certain she had never seen her before. The woman’s gaze locked on Liv from across the room, and it didn’t waver as she and the man slowly approached.

“May I help you?” Liv asked when they reached her.

“You are Olivia?” She spoke English with a slight accent that wasn’t entirely French.