The Winemaker's Wife(89)

As the Nazis led her out of the cave, up the stairs, and out of the cellars, shoving Michel along behind her, she caught a glimpse of Theo in their doorway, staring at her in the early morning light, anger carved into his features. He didn’t move, didn’t try to help her, and she realized that he knew.

Inès and David had vanished, and she could only pray that Inès would understand, would know that the price for her betrayal was that she would be forever responsible for keeping David safe. As the Nazis shoved her into one car, and Michel into another, Céline looked out the window one last time at the rolling vineyards, the land that had held all her dreams.





twenty-nine


JUNE 2019





LIV


Grandma Edith didn’t speak again until the driver had deposited them in front of their hotel and she and Liv had made their way upstairs. In the suite, she sank into the tufted red couch. “Well,” she said at last, “I see that you made up with Julien.”

“Um, yes.” Liv sat beside her uncertainly. “Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

“What do you mean?”

“Back there, at the Maison Chauveau, you seemed very emotional.”

“What is it with young people today needing to constantly state the obvious?” She sighed. “Besides, I could ask you the same question. One second you’re moping, the next you’re practically fornicating with young Julien. Do I need to be concerned about you?”

Liv could feel her cheeks flaming. “No.”

“So you’ll be all right, then?” Grandma Edith asked, and there was something softer about her tone now. “Because I won’t be around forever to help you pick up the pieces, you realize.”

“Is that what you call showing up at my door in New York and insisting that I accompany you on a harebrained trip to France?”

Grandma Edith shrugged. “Is it so terrible that I worry about you? I love you, Olivia, and I want to know that you’re strong and happy. I want to know that Eric didn’t break you.”

“Are you just trying to change the subject so that I won’t ask you about the Maison Chauveau?”

“Perhaps. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want an answer.”

Liv stared at her grandmother before finally looking down at her lap. “Look, I think I needed to get away from Eric, miles away, to realize that I don’t really miss him at all. I miss being me. Somehow along the way, I let myself be erased, and I don’t ever want to do that again. I don’t know what my life is going to bring now. But I like to think I’m finally headed in the right direction.” She smiled as she recalled Julien’s words of advice. “Let’s just say I’m open to seeing where the tide takes me.”

“But don’t just let the tide carry you.” Grandma Edith leaned forward and grasped Liv’s hands, squeezing with surprising ferocity. “In life, my dear, you must actually go after what you want. You can’t rewrite the past, but you can choose to live with your whole heart in the here and now.”

“Grandma Edith—”

“No, let me say this. Please. I learned far too late that life is simply about being good and decent to others. It’s as plain as that. But first, you must be good and decent to yourself. Find your own road. Find your own happiness. You must, my dear. You must, or you will wind up old and alone and full of regrets.”

“Grandma Edith, why are you telling me all this?” Liv asked, her voice rising in frustration. “I appreciate all the words of wisdom, but why did you bring me here? What is it you really want to say? Or was this all just a crazy ruse to introduce me to the widowed grandson of your old friend? Because there are about a hundred other ways you could have gone about it. I mean, honestly, you could have just given me his email address and said, ‘Hey, Liv, this guy is hot and single and lives in Champagne.’ I probably would’ve bitten. I like hot guys. And champagne.”

Grandma Edith finally cracked a smile. “I admit that I hoped you and Julien would get along. But no, that isn’t why I brought you here. Nor did I expect you to be practically humping each other in public. Is that what you young people call it these days?”

Liv could feel herself blushing furiously. “Are you trying to mortify me?”

“Perhaps just a little.” The older woman’s mischievous smile was back, but it was quickly swept away by a wave of sadness. “Still, to see you with him there, at the Maison Chauveau . . . Sometimes I think God works in very strange and mysterious ways.”

“Did whatever happened there have something to do with Julien’s grandfather?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then what? What are you so afraid to tell me?”

Grandma Edith looked down at her own hands, gnarled with age, swollen with arthritis. Liv wondered if she was mentally erasing the years, taking herself back to a time when her husband, Edouard, was still alive. “I’m not afraid, Olivia. It’s just very difficult to revisit the past when you have tried so hard to forget it.”

“What happened, Grandma Edith?”

“Beautiful things,” she said softly. “And terrible things. Love between two people who were following their hearts, and betrayal by one who only cared about herself. And a baby. A beautiful baby who was born right there at the Maison Chauveau, which changed everything. These are the things I brought you here to tell you, my dear Olivia, but I am finding the truth harder than I expected.”