The Winemaker's Wife(90)

“Tell me. Please. Whatever it is, it’s okay.”

“Is it?” Grandma Edith shook her head. “No, of course it is not. Still, bringing you to the Maison Chauveau today was the right thing, even if it was difficult. It’s something I should have done a long time ago. I should have brought your father here, too, Olivia, but I wasn’t strong enough.”

“Why? What does the Maison Chauveau have to do with us?”

It took Grandma Edith a minute to speak. “My dear, your father was the baby born there, welcomed into the world by two people very much in love. His father—your real grandfather, a man named Michel Chauveau—owned the Maison Chauveau, you see.”

“Wait, what? So my grandfather wasn’t Edouard Thierry?” Liv’s mind spun as she stared at Grandma Edith in confusion. “Did you have an affair with Michel Chauveau?”

“No, dear.” She took a deep breath. “You see, by blood, I was never your father’s mother. But I loved him as much as any mother could love a son. And I’ve loved you as much as a grandmother can love a grandchild. But I’ve always known it’s not enough. That kind of love can never replace what was taken from you.”

“I—I don’t understand. What are you telling me?”

Grandma Edith stood and put a hand on Liv’s arm. She was shaking. “I’m telling you I love you, Olivia, and I’m sorry that I’ve made all the wrong choices. Since your father was born, I’ve always tried to do my best. But it has never been enough.”

And then, before Liv could ask another question, Grandma Edith was walking away. She went into her room, the lock clicking behind her, and Liv stared at the closed door, stunned and confused, as her grandmother’s muffled sobs seeped out from underneath.





thirty


MARCH 1943





INèS


Michel was executed at Gestapo headquarters on the rue Jeanne d’Arc in Reims, just blocks from the Brasserie Moulin, on the same day he was arrested. Theo, furious at being betrayed, had ridden his bicycle into town, planning to denounce him, but, he later told Inès, he had changed his mind along the way. Regardless of what Michel and Céline had done, he knew he did not have the right to take another man’s life into his hands.

He had pulled up in time to see the soldiers drag Michel out of the building, already bloodied and bruised. They propped him against a wall, and before he could waver and fall, four Germans fired upon him simultaneously.

Theo told Inès this after he had packed up his belongings and asked her stiffly to drive him into Reims. “Where are you going?” she asked through her tears. Baby David pulled at the front of her dress with his tiny, cold hands, searching for her breast, but she had nothing to give him. How would she keep him alive?

“I am going south,” he told her. “There are wineries in Burgundy that can use someone with my experience.”

“When will you come back?” Inès asked.

“Never.” He hesitated and gestured to David. “After you take me to the train station, go see Madame Foucault. She will know what to feed the child.”

Inès nodded and wrapped another blanket around the baby to steel him against the cold. Theo held him while they rode in silence toward Reims, Inès’s eyes blurring with tears each time she imagined Michel’s lifeless body falling to the cold ground. What had she done?

“What will they do to Céline?” she asked as she wound the car through the narrow streets of Reims.

“I don’t know.” He gazed out the window in silence for a long minute. “They will probably send her east. They don’t like to execute women in the squares unless their guilt is painfully obvious.”

“And what will become of the Maison Chauveau?”

“It’s yours now, I suppose.” Theo shrugged. “But if I were you, I’d go far, far away. Not that you can run from the truth.”

She glanced at him and saw fury burning in his eyes. As enraged as he was at Michel and Céline, he was angry at Inès, too. He knew what she had done, or at least he had guessed at portions of it. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

His only reply was a grunt, and when they reached the train station, he laid David gently in the front seat, closed the door, and left without looking back, his shoulders slumped, his bag slung across his back.

Inès watched him go, lingering there long after he’d disappeared, until a German officer bent and tapped on the window of her car. “Move along, madame,” he said, his deep voice and thick accent making the words sound sepulchral.

Inès wiped away her tears and put a hand on the sleeping baby as she pulled away from the curb. She would go see Madame Foucault. She would focus all her energy on protecting David. With Michel dead and Céline gone, Inès was all David had.

? ? ?

Madame Foucault helped Inès procure a small amount of baby formula, suggesting that she needed to register David’s arrival in order to receive the appropriate ration coupons, but Inès was terrified that if the authorities had an official record of who David’s parents were, someone would come take him away, too. So she settled for dropping by Antoine’s apartment one afternoon. Leaving David sleeping in the car, she stood at Antoine’s door and refused to flinch as she threatened to invent a story for the Nazi command that he had been working for the underground as a spy unless he could arrange for regular deliveries of infant supplies.