Chapter 2
At home, Claire flung herself face down upon the bed, rolled over, and stared at the ceiling as tears ran in rivulets down into her ears. “Oh, David, I’ve failed at my invention. And I’ve been fired.” She pounded her fists into the mattress. “And I’m broke.”
She picked up the framed photo of him holding a rare bottle of wine at a sommelier’s dinner—glowing with pride for his ability to identify it in a blind tasting.
“I’m so desperate, I’m talking to you, and you’ve been gone for more than a year.
I know you didn’t mean to die without a will, but I may lose our house! ” She sobbed and cradled the picture.
They’d never talked about death. They’d never dreamed that it would arrive so early in David’s life.
Claire knew fabrics and design. She didn’t know anything about intestate laws, but she was learning.
Not fast enough. An image of a For Sale sign on her front lawn surrounded by cardboard boxes made her pulse race.
Where would she live? How would she live?
On what? “I can’t fix this. I need you.”
After releasing a sob, she dragged herself to the closet as images of the day he passed clouded her vision. As she reached for David’s favorite sportscoat, her fingers tingled, like she’d been stung. She shook her hand and pulled it from the hanger.
She snuggled her face into the jacket. “I miss you.” She scrunched the fabric and inhaled, searching for his woodsy, lime scent. “I wish you were here to hold me.” She slid her arms into the sleeves, wrapped the jacket around her, and fell onto the bed.
As her hands caressed the soft wool, her fingernail struck a stiff edge.
She pressed the pocket, making a crinkling sound.
She’d not touched this jacket since the day David died, when she’d been far too upset to notice anything in his pockets.
Opening the jacket, she ran her fingers along the inside breast pocket and pulled out a photo of a boy of about six or seven years, standing amidst a vineyard.
His eyes were David’s. His curly brown hair, David’s.
His dimples on either side of his smile…
David’s. Her husband’s dimples had lured her the first moment he smiled at her, just as this child’s dimples were now snagging her aching heart.
She turned the photo over. In handwritten ink were the words: Our Luca. Last year’s vendange. Merci, Sophie.
David never missed the French grape harvests; whatever vendange it had been, he must have been there. But our? Did Sophie mean she and her husband or David?
Luca had David’s eyes, hair, and dimples. Could Luca be the son of a long-lost brother of David’s? She was grasping for a lifeline with that far-fetched explanation. David was an only child, just like she was.
There had to be an explanation. David would never cheat.
She sat up. Searched the other jacket pockets. Got up and pulled every jacket, sweater, coat, shirt, pair of pants, robe, pajamas, sweatshirt from the closet and searched every single pocket and sock and shoe and pair of boxershorts. Nothing. Not a penny, business card, or matchbook.
She pulled out David’s family photo album and thumbed to the page titled, Second Grade. She compared David’s school picture with Luca’s photo. They looked like twins.
Turning on the bedside lamp, she examined Luca’s photo.
The boy stood next to an elaborately carved wooden sign with the words, Chateau Soltner.
The vineyard had to be in France. If it was in America, Sophie would have used the word, “harvest,” not “vendange.” The soil was chalky white, the grapes green, the grape leaves yellow and red.
White wines were produced there, wherever there was.
Dread slid down and sat in the pit of her stomach like wine sediment at the bottom of a bottle. She hadn’t been in David’s office since she closed the door after the paramedics removed his body. How long had he possessed the photo?
The child was now a year older. Why hadn’t Sophie called David or sent him a letter?
The image of a pile of unopened mail puddled in her mind.
She’d opened all the bills, statements, tax documents, and anything else that appeared official and trashed the rest. But nothing had arrived for David in the past six months.
The doorbell rang.
She groaned. Not now. Not tomorrow. Not ever. She would not answer. It was probably some missionaries, anyway.
A banging on the door echoed in the foyer.
She willed whoever it was to go away. But it could be Holly, the mom next door who had four children.
She hoped not, but she couldn’t ignore an emergency.
She stumbled to the hall and saw a tall, slender, dripping wet Marti peering in through the side window, and she’d spotted Claire.
Claire bumped the heel of her hand to her forehead. She’d forgotten their Tuesday lunch.
Just what she needed, her best friend since they were college roommates, from whom she kept nothing.